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She thought she knew what she was asking, just as she had the night they’d met in his club.
“I haven’t taught you how to play,” he’d said.
“Then teach me,” she’d replied.
Those words had sealed their fate.
They were responsible for every high and every low he had experienced in his life.
But not even Hades could have guessed that it would lead to this very moment, when he stood opposite his lover, his future wife and queen, with the intention of becoming her enemy.
He hated it, how it made him feel wrong and lent a darkness to his magic he might not use otherwise, but that was what Persephone needed to experience.
Whatever Persephone saw in his expression made her frown.
“You love me,” she said, though he could not tell if she was asking or reminding herself.
“I do,” he said, his guilt as heavy as his magic, which blanketed the air, silencing the Underworld.
Persephone looked around warily, her anxiety spiking her own power. Yet it was not enough, and he mourned that she had not put up enough of a barrier to withstand the wraiths he had summoned.
They formed from shadow, starved for souls, and hunted anything with one—even goddesses. They barreled toward Persephone, nearly imperceptible until they hit, jolting her. It was hard to watch her take the blow, her body moving unnaturally asthe wraiths passed through. She fell to the ground, gasping for air.
“Shadow-wraiths are death and shadow magic,” he said. “They are attempting to reap your soul.”
Persephone met his gaze. “Are you…trying to kill me?”
He gave a hollow laugh. There was a part of him that could not believe he was doing this and that she was asking him to.
“Shadow-wraiths cannot claim your soul unless your thread has been cut, but they can make you violently ill.”
Slowly, she rose to her feet.
“If you were fighting any other Olympian—any enemy—they would have never let you up.”
“How do I fight when I do not know what power you will use against me?”
“You will never know,” he said.
It was how they would have to fight the demigods—blindly.
The point was to be prepared for anything.
The hand of a corpse burst from the ground beneath her. Persephone screamed as it took hold of her ankle, yanking her to the ground, dragging her down into its pit, intent on burying her alive.
“Hades!”
He hated how she screamed, hated more how she cried for him, how he had to watch her fingers dig into the dirt as she tried to escape his magic.
He was also frustrated.
She relied on him because he was present when she needed to rely on herself. She was intelligent and capable; she had power raging inside her, power that hadturned his own magic against him, and yet she acted like a mortal caught in a spiderweb.
Finally she did something.
She twisted onto her back and tried to claw at the hand, but Hades’s magic was defensive, and as soon as she touched it, spikes shot from the shadowy skin. A cry tore from her mouth, but she swallowed it, and he felt her anger rising.
Yes, darling. That’s it.
