“So, I’m an amusing toy—”
“You know better.” Charon leans his elbow on his knee, earnest. “He just needs time to be able to figure out what he really feels. If he could have gotten Persephone out, that would have helped—”
Out? Of what? “What are you talking about?”
Charon stutters to a halt to stare at me, confusion drawing his brows down over his eyes. “You said Hades told you about Persephone.”
Trepidation tightens the muscles in my shoulders, and my hand stills on Cerberus’ tail. “Pretend he didn’t tell me everything.”
Charon shoots an agitated hand through his sandy-brown hair, blue eyes turning squinty. “Fucking hell, Phi,” he mutters to himself.
I sit up straighter. “Now you really need to tell me.”
He grunts, looking at Cerberus, clearly debating what to do.
The hound shifts restlessly against me. “Tell her,” he says—all three heads.
I watch Charon expectantly, watch the battle of indecision cross his features. He’s already told me one of Hades’ secrets about Persephone, but I’m guessing this is bigger.
“Fuck,” he mutters again, then looks me in the eyes. “She’s not dead. She got trapped in Tartarus.”
A laugh, like the shot of a gun, bursts from me.
Not a normal reaction, I know.
I’m vaguely aware that Charon and Cerberus exchange a glance, but I’m still so much in my head that I can’t deal with them.
Then Cerberus growls at my back, all three heads coming up in snarls of warning, eyes trained on a single person standing at the top of the path that leads to where I sit.
Hades.
96
Don’t
The god of death, the King of the Underworld. How is it that I didn’t see him coming? How did I not keep him out, like Boone says I do with everyone?
He stands at the top of the stairs leading up to the observatory, dull, gunmetal-gray gaze pinned to my face.
“You called Athena a monster?” His voice is so quiet with wrath, I actually shiver.
For a second.
Maybe self-preservation kicks in, because that shiver fades away and all I feel is cold acceptance.
Persephone isn’t dead. She’s in Tartarus. I’m guessing the other gods don’t know that, somehow. And if that’s true, then that’s got to be the reason why he joined the Crucible. He thinks he needs something that only the King of the Gods has access to in order to get her out.
It all makes such obvious sense now.
He picked me to win for him. That’s all. Everything else was a lie, a show in order to get my cooperation.
Did he call Persephone his star?
Oh my gods, I’m jealous.
A harsh, disbelieving laugh escapes me. That’s what this burn is. It’s also everything else I’ve already cataloged. But right now, right this moment…this is romantic jealousy.
I cross my arms, head tipped and eyes unseeing as I examine this foreign sensation. I’ve had twinges of it before. Normal mortal moments. But not like this.
It feels…oily. Like a thick tar that I’ll never be able to scrape off me, no matter how hard I try. A smelly substance that will taint everything I touch.
What a slimy, unhelpful, crappy emotion to have to deal with.
I don’t like it. I won’t do it.
Whatever I thought he and I were or could be in my most secret of hearts is over. Any love I could have felt for him is a corpse at the bottom of a frozen lake.
I get to my feet, and both Charon and Cerberus follow suit, standing slightly behind me as I face Hades.
“Was I wrong?” I ask calmly.
“What?” Hades’ voice is a growl of warning.
I could get used to this kind of frostiness. Like nothing can penetrate my heart now. Not love, not anger, not hurt…definitely not him.
“She put their heads on spikes,” I say. “She put Boone’s head on a spike. And she smiled as her champion killed Meike after she’d already won. She did something to Dex to make him like that. She is a monster.”
