Page 75 of Reaper's Reward

Persephone wanted me to create my own domain like a god. Of all the people, I thought that she understood. She’d helped me write my own fate in the first place. This request was out of place for her.

As badly as I wanted to throw my trust in her out the window because I was learning that all gods sucked ass, I knew that there was something different about Persephone. She would never ask this of me. The goddess wouldn’t have posed as my crazy cat lady neighbor for years just to lead me into something like this.

It felt…off.

And I was pretty sure I knew exactly who was at work here. The smell of strawberries had been oddly artificial. It’d reminded me of candy, which is exactly what someone might prescribe to a goddess of spring if they looked down on them.

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. Anger mounted inside me until there was so much pressure that I thought I might burst from it all. “Hel took a big hit when Fenrir attacked her. The old hag wants me to reignite her domain again.”

Beside me, Maddox stiffened. I knew exactly what was going through his mind. As a detective, he blamed himself for not seeing through Hel’s disguise. We were in her domain, though. Persephone and Maddox hadn’t crossed paths more than a few times before this. Pretending to be her was a simple feat while I’d been delirious.

“Show your face, old woman!” Maddox shouted into the halls.

Hel’s disembodied groan echoed from nowhere.

That bitch had tried to trick me. I simmered with cold rage. If she fell from her divine throne, I wouldn’t cry one damn tear for her. She’d done enough. I wasn’t going to let her keep getting away with this shit.

The old Addie would have meekly submitted. I would have given Hel’s domain everything I had if only to exhaust the power constantly seeping out of my control. I wasn’t that person anymore. This new version of me had crawled out of graves. I’d ripped apart the souls of the damned and suffering.

I was not someone to toy with anymore.

To prove my point, I reached out with my arcana and pulled in everything that I’d previously sent out. The pale blue lights sputtered and died, washing us all in darkness. Hel’s lights came to life, but they were a barely flickering facsimile of my own power.

She’d fallen so far in such a short amount of time.

“Why do you want me to become a god?” I asked.

Hel materialized before me with her chin lifted high. Maddox moved to stand between us. A knot of tension in my shoulders relaxed with him nearby. I sucked in a fresh breath and prepared myself for the conversation to come.

However, Hel wasn’t in a very talkative mood. Especially when an explosion of pink and gold light burst out of nowhere. I threw my hands over my face to shield myself from the light. When I lowered them, Persephone stood between Hel and me. She had her hands on her hips and a curl in her upper lip as she stared Hel down.

“I saw what you did!” Persephone waved her hand.

The illusion of a dream realm vanished. Textures came into sharp relief to reveal that I’d been in Hel’s domain all along. This had never been a dream.

Which begged the question how I was able to hold my form together here. I’d assumed that dream Addie could do whatever she wanted because she wasn’t real. Did this have something to do with the fact that this wasn’t the world of the living? The afterlife allowed me to function a little differently.

“You pretended to be me in the gaudiest get up I have ever seen!” Persephone clicked her tongue. “I mean, the outfit was on point. But that smell? And the wash you put in Addie’s hair? I felt like I was at a cheap salon with strawberry shampoo. You really hate me. Don’t you?”

Hel refused to answer anything tossed her way. She silently turned and trudged into the darkness.

Persephone turned and flashed us a bright smile, though it was tight at the corners. I couldn’t trust her, either. I had a faint memory from right after the fight. I’d pulled Persephone towards us. This was just as much my fault as it was Hel’s.

“Can I go home now? I was eaten alive today, and I feel the need to wash that off my skin.” I squeezed Maddox’s hand and surreptitiously poured arcana into him so that he could open a portal to take us out of here.

Persephone held up a single finger. “Just a moment.”

I nearly let out a groan like a dramatic teenager rolling her eyes.

“You’re weak,” Persephone said upon approaching me.

Maddox snarled in warning. We’d been betrayed once today. It was fair to expect it a second time. We were both exhausted and at our limits. We needed help, but there was none for us. There was no one that we could ask to risk their lives, and the gods had proven their inability to be trusted.

I suddenly wanted nothing more than to go home and cry in my bathtub. It was all too much. I’d been holding myself together with grit and spite, but it was all going to fall apart soon. It was only a matter of minutes before I crumbled completely.

Maddox must have noticed. His hand left mine and found its way to the back of my neck where the warmth of his skin sank into my body. I waited for it to ease my growing anxiety, but his touch did nothing to push it back. I bit my lip and felt the first twinge of hot tears reach my eyes.

Persephone offered an outstretched hand. “When you leave here, your body will be a little…wobbly still. Let me help you with that.”

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