Page 81 of For the Love of the Gods

“You broke his nose and collarbone, Dominic.”

“He deserved it.” I clamped down on the ring in my hand a little tighter.

“Oh, he sure did,” Raiden said, running his hand over his freshly buzzed hair. “But I’m more concerned about your reasoning for believing that.”

“Why?” The reasons were obvious and simple to me.

Raiden pushed on. “I figured you’d view him as an ally.”

I clenched my jaw. We’d never spoken about this so plainly. Not when he could run back to Rose with the information. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Raiden."

“I’m not stupid, Dominic,” Raiden said in a voice that sounded like he was working at the end of his rope of patience. “I know that this was convenient for you. You don’t piss off the Fates and get her in a position where you could enact revenge.”

I stayed silent, letting the absence of sound confirm what he’d said.

“I’m in no position to override your authority, Dominic,” Raiden continued, and I had to restrain myself from pushing back. I didn’t assert my power like that. “But she is my goddess and my friend. Be careful how you choose to hurt her.”

And he turned and walked back through my office door. Another person I’d thought would agree with this vendetta, but scolded me for the mere threat of harming a hair on Rose’s head.

Chapter 22

Rose

It looked like a bookshelf threw up all over the floor. I’d pulled out at least fifty books trying to confirm a theory. Odell had been so angry that the Hades house had combined with Pluto and it reminded me of the fervor of religious zealots.

Those who were so wrapped up in their own belief it colored everything that happened to them. Surely there had been an organized group in our history. My father focused our education on physical defense, the majority of our history taught by our mother. I didn’t remember her saying there was anything Hades-specific, but I wanted to double check.

Odell had been released a day ago, with Raiden walking him all the way to his doorstep after Dominic had gone down to place a banning mark on his ankle. One step back into the Underworld before he died and he’d burst into flames. I kind of hoped he’d try to test it out.

I’d offered to walk Odell out, but Dominic shut the idea down faster than I could blink.

Not that I minded.

Odell reminded me of my father and of my own mistakes. I was shaken up, but somehow less so than I would have been a year ago.

I’d been thinking about my father a lot lately. I normally avoided any reminder of him like it was a plague. Hell, I’d tossed away my family’s home and last name forDominicof all people. But this threat, still hanging over our heads, made me think of my father.

No one liked him. He was all the worst things of the Underworld. I felt like my role as goddess tasked me with making sure souls transitioned smoothly into death, making sure they were at peace after a tiring, hard life. Or, yes, even letting my life source sustain the Field of Punishment and Tartarus, making sure that those who had spent their time in the Upperworld harming others paid for their sins.

My father viewed his role more like an accountant, sitting on the gold and treasures that souls brought with them to pay their passage or gaining a sick satisfaction from torture. Most of all, he loved that he was a god, period.

He loved the power, the fame, the status. So much so that the thought of losing it to Dominic terrified him enough to shove Pine and I into training to make sure we were strong. I resented it so much, the pressure he put on us.

The pressure that I broke under.

My father loved his power more than us, that was clear. Even the Thanatos Society, the ages old cult dedicated to the Underworld got more positive attention out of him than he ever gave to us.

While the Thanatos Society loved death on an obsessive level, it was always neutral. Death in general, not Hades or Pluto specifically.

Maybe they could help then, in making sure that merging our houses was going over well with the humans. Adrian’s words from the Council meeting were still haunting me. Even though there was a clear, seemingly contained explanation for the breach and Odell’s involvement, there was still so much unclear.

There was still the dress incident. In the wake of the breach, I’d finally caved and gave Max and Marcus permission to start snooping around the other guards and staff’s things, trying to find evidence. They hadn't found anything on the cameras in the hallways, meaning it had been somewhere inside the staff wing, which was a blind spot.

And tomorrow Max was going to the marketplace to look through the receipts from every store that sold herbs, pastes, dyes, anything that could have made the dress burn me like that.

Max was far more diplomatic than Marcus, who would likely tear through the shop without any regard for polite, political maneuvering. As if summoned by my thoughts, Marcus appeared in the doorway a second later, taking in the disaster on the floor.

“Oh, good, you’ve officially lost it,” he drawled. I commanded a Shadowwalker to reach an arm out of the fold of darkness by the door and smack him in the back of the head.

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