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Chapter 8
Hades
Fuck these gods and their belief they could get involved in my business. What did they think they were doing? We went from everyone practically ignoring me for centuries to almost every one of them having something to say about the way I lived my life.
No balance there. All or nothing.
And to be honest, I preferred nothing, as I dealt with it better. Having all the gods comment about my choices wasn’t only exhausting, it was a pain in my ass.
Persephone, I could kind of understand. We’d been together for a long time, and we’d been through a lot. And, bless her soul, she still cared, even though it wasn’t romantically.
But Apollo was resentful as fuck I had the choice to see Elyse when he didn’t, yet I chose not to. I was an ass, and it was better if she stayed away from me. Although Apollo made it sound like me not wanting to get involved was everything.
I sighed. Hell, we were family, but we hardly spent any time together and acted more like co-workers. My nephew was a decent guy when you got to know him, and he treated Elyse like a goddess, which actually scored him some points in my book. But he’d been on Earth for how long? Not even three centuries, and he was behaving like being on Earth was his divine right or something.
And he had the nerve to bark that I had to grow some balls. Well, fuck him.
I didn’t want to face the music.
He’d hit a sore spot, though. I was proud, yet he made me sound like a loser.
And it was true, too. Right now, I wasn’t exactly a winner. But I hadn’t been set up to be one, so I was doing what my brothers had made me do.
Right?
But say I went back. Say I went to see Elyse, actually accepted the idea that there could be more between us… The thought of love made me feel sick all over again because letting myself fall would mean losing myself completely and getting hurt. Yep, I had issues. Even though I hated admitting it, Apollo was fucking right.
Hiding out in the mountains or in the Underworld didn’t change anything. It didn’t stop X, and it sure as shit didn’t shift how I felt about Elyse. In fact, it just made it worse.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that crap the humans were right about.
Fuck.I really had to do something about this if I intended anything to change, if I planned for the rest of my forever not to suck ass day in and day out. But having to be the one to stand up and take responsibility?
I loathed that with a passion because if the whole situation blew up in my face, it was only me to blame. And taking responsibility for my actions was the last thing I felt like doing.
Life was a fucking bitch, wasn’t it? Even when you were an immortal god. Who knew we’d have so much in common with the lowly humans?
I dragged myself through the tunnels that led to the cavern where the Fates lived.
“Right on time,” Lachesis said. She was the dispenser of the thread of life, and today she possessed the eye, looking at me through it, the other socket empty and gaping. “We were expecting you.”
“Of course you were.” I sat down on a chair with rags over it without being invited. The place looked a mess, with books everywhere, spiderwebs in the corners, and fabric covering whatever was too ugly to fit in with even their disgusting décor.
“Something’s bothering you,” Atropos insisted. She stared at me with a wrinkled face, her lips curled in as if she had no teeth. Her empty eye sockets were drowning black holes that threatened to suck me in, and I shivered. Atropos was the one who cut the thread of life, the one who gave X the go-ahead when he had to go collect a soul. At least before he took matters into his own hands.
“How can you tell?” I asked with a sigh, sarcastic as fuck because I was an asshole on a good day, it seemed. And today wasn’t a good day.
“You know what you have to do,” Clotho commanded, her face just as old and wrinkled as the other two, but her voice smooth and bright, like that of a young woman. She spun the thread of life and those who still believed in the Fates often called on her in the ninth month of pregnancy.
“I don’t,” I said, but we all knew I was lying. When they didn’t answer me, I dropped my head into my hands. “Tell me how it ends.” I finally gave up and longed to know what I could prepare myself for, if I’d get through it if it went wrong again. I was immortal, but even for a god, it was possible to die inside.
“We can’t do that,” Atropos retorted swiftly. “Not even when I have the eye.”
Lachesis blinked the one eye at me when I glanced at her.
“Knowing my fate isn’t going to do anything to me,” I argued. “I’m immortal. And this is my world, remember? I’m the law around here.”
The three Fates cackled, not bothered by my show of authority. They were the Fates; nothing and no one could touch them. They had their jobs and not even I could interfere. Not even when I gave them a place to live. They’d just hole up somewhere else, if not here.
