Page 100 of Hades

I wanted to tell her I could handle myself. That I’d been handling myself just fine for years while she sat in that recliner and did nothing. That the only danger I’d ever faced had come from people I was supposed to trust.

Instead, I said, “I’m going to make you lunch. I’ll bring it to you in a few minutes.”

I turned to leave before she could say anything else. Before I said something I’d regret. My hands shook as I walked back down the hallway toward the kitchen. Toward Hades. Toward the man who’d just claimed me in front of his entire club and was now standing in my kitchen like he belonged there.

I wanted nothing more than for him to belong there.

And that was the truly terrifying part.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Hades

I leaned against the counter and watched the hallway where she’d disappeared. Muffled voices carried down the hall—her mother’s sharp edge, Lettie’s careful control.

My queen was handling her mother.

But fuck if I didn’t want to walk down that hallway and handle the bitch myself.

Apollo’s words circled in my head like vultures over roadkill. “I think Lettie is my sister, Colette.” The certainty mixed with desperation. The raw fucking hope that had cracked his voice when he’d explained about the nickname. About how she’d apologized for making everyone call her Lettie because she knew it must tear him apart.

And if Apollo was right. If this woman I’d claimed as mine was actually his kidnapped sister. If someone had ripped her away and raised her in whatever hell this was, only for her to end up two miles from the family she belonged to.

Then everything changed.

Everything.

Footsteps sounded moments before Lettie emerged from the hallway, her hands still trembling. Jaw tight. That careful mask she wore slipping just enough that I could see the anger underneath. The hurt.

The darkness.

She moved past me to the stove and pulled out a pan with more force than necessary. Metal on metal echoed through the kitchen.

“How’s your mom?” I asked, keeping my voice low. Careful.

“Same.” She didn’t look at me. Just started pulling vegetables from the fridge. Peppers. Mushrooms. Onions. Her movements sharp. Precise.

“Tell me about her,” I said.

She shrugged and pulled plates from the cabinet. “Not much to tell. She doesn’t leave the house. Doesn’t do much of anything except sit in her chair and yell for me.” She paused. “Except during Harvest Week. That’s the one time she actually gets up and does something. Goes into town, helps with the festival setup. It’s the only week she’s halfway normal.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” She set the plates down harder than necessary. “That’s what fucks with my head. During Harvest Week, she’s different. Actually present. Actually kind. She helps people. She smiles. She acts like that’s who she really is.”

She gripped the edge of the counter, knuckles going white.

“But then the week ends and she goes right back to being a miserable bitch in a recliner. And I’m left wondering if I imagined the other version. If maybe I’m the crazy one for thinking she was ever anything but what she is the other fifty-one weeks of the year.”

Her voice dropped, raw and confused.

“Sometimes I catch myself doubting my own memory. Like maybe she’s not as bad as I remember. Maybe I’m exaggerating how much she yells, how much she demands, how little she gives a fuck about anything but herself. Because I’ve seen her be different. I’ve seen her be good. And if she can be that person for one week, then why can’t she be that person all the time? What’s wrong with me that I can’t make her want to be that version more often?”

She looked at me then, and I saw it. The fracture in her certainty. The doubt creeping in at the edges.

“It’s like she’s two different people. And I don’t know which one is real.”

I pulled her into my arms, wrapping them tightly around her shoulders. She melted into my embrace, her head resting against my chest. The warmth of her body pressed against mine, and I felt the gentle rise and fall of her breathing as she relaxed.