All the components that are coalesced by that vicious crucible…and materialize into him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kara
As the fire of his formation turns into morbid smoke, my vital systems flee the other way. My veins are ice. My breaths have a below-forty windchill. Clear thoughts are more impossible than breaking ice with a toothpick. As Hades approaches, stepping across the water and then up over the lip of the pool, I can’t see or smell or hear anything but the pitiful moans and desolate tundra he’s here to take me back to.
After flicking droplets of water off the shiny leather of his shoes, he rolls his polished onyx gaze back up to us. Maximus hauls me hard to his side. His hold is protective to the point of punishing, but I don’t care. A handful of bruises are better than being a captive of hell again. If Hades succeeds this time, it’ll be forever. An eternity in that place, serving at my grandmother’s will in her desolate district. Unless everything that’s happened has nullified Hades’s offer…
No. No!
But I have to confront the possibility. I can’t stand here and watch entire cities topple in the name of my selfish needs.
“You here to give us a talent show or talk about how we can resolve this without harming more innocent people?”
Maximus’s challenge, and the keen mind that’s sparked it, make me burrow tighter to him. Savoring his warmth and strength for every minute I can.
Hades takes the moment to smooth his crimson tie and prepare his urbane comeback. “Well, that’s up to you, Professor.” And then he cocks a black brow. “I can call you that now, yes? Professor? Considering we’re…here?”
He sweeps a hand toward the LA metropolis, with the flickering lights and scattered fires of this widespread catastrophe. I already feel Maximus’s inner conflict. He’s ready to blow up, verbally or physically. Maybe both, neither good.
“Your lordship.” Gramps intones it like a practiced courtier, managing to convey respect but disdain at once.
Under other conditions, I’d be flowing a thousand percent gratitude toward him for saving Maximus from himself, but at what cost? If Hades hauls him back to hell with me, I don’t know if I could survive the misery.
“If I may respectfully ask—” he goes on.
“You can’t,” Hades barks. “And be grateful I didn’t set all the captains on you when I could have, vagrant.” He doesn’t stop to even afford Gramps a glance, instead funneling more of his black focus on me. “I only made certain to keep special eyes on this place, anticipating you just might have visitors. Thanks in no small part to my loyal staff.” He flicks a pair of fingers at the main house’s entrance.
Shock flares my eyes.
Arden isn’t the one standing there to absorb the intensity of my betrayal and hatred.
It’s our butler, Dalton. The steward who feels like he’s been with us forever, always watchful and diligent, never seeming to tire of his duties or us…
Well, now I know why.
For the first time, I notice the similarity between his uniform and those worn by Hades’s captains. My jaw falls and my heart aches to think that our rapport over the years amounted to this—his brutal betrayal.
I grip Maximus harder. My mind flips frantically through hazy memories, demanding to know why I couldn’t sense Dalton’s deceit earlier.
He dips his head in a polite salute to his master. “My pleasure, my lord. As always.”
Though Dalton’s refined accent is still in place, it’s wrapped in smoky layers that revert my mind back to the prison of hell. At once, it’s almost like I’m back there. I shiver, so cold and degraded, wondering if I actually am.
Hades could make that happen fast. He did before. But I fight that awful surrender, clinging to the long, strong fingers that still bind my shoulders. I reach and cling to the mighty muscles of the man still by my side. He keeps me from giving up, no matter how hard Hades starts to stretch for my mind and soul. But he can’t get in. Not without the third factor. Not without being right here next to me, sealing the deal with his touch.
“Now, Kara.” The glass of his composure is still rough with frustrated edges. “Let’s not make this another silly dust-up. You’ll surrender with a smile and save your city, your family, and your friends, or you’ll watch them all burn while you’re kicking and screaming.”
“Enough.”
I stare hard at Gramps. His tone is also like glass, but without a rough edge in sight. In contrast, my mind is cracking in a hundred directions. The fissures split wider as he pulls in a long but calm breath.
“The deal is a soul for a soul, correct? In one way or another, you’ve been robbed, and a soul is due to settle the debt.” He squares his shoulders and lifts his chin boldly. “So take me back instead.”
“Gramps!” I scream it now. “No!”
Hades cuts us both off with a ruthless chuckle. “Now why would I make that choice, old man?”
“I’m the one who escaped the underworld, even knowing I belonged there. I was heartbroken and alone, and I used my magical gifts to open passages that I never should’ve had access to. And yes, you punished me for that, but was that ever really fair to anyone? My own daughter? All three of her children?”
I want to yell at him again but can’t. I even want to hit him, but my muscles are heavy to the point of uselessness. Every bone, ligament, and tendon is weighed down by a dread I’ve never known before. A sadness that has no bottom.
Scenes start to play in my mind. I don’t want them, but they keep coming. Gramps with a fuller beard and not so many wrinkles, cheering as I take my first steps. Then Gramps sitting on my pink comforter, making up a story about a princess warrior to chase my nightmares away. Seamlessly, that becomes Gramps in the underworld library, arriving to rescue me from a worse nightmare.
“I’ve been living on borrowed time, and I think we all know it.” Gramps offers a humble shrug. “Besides…I’ve now realized that I have some unfinished business in your neck of the cosmos.”
He’s pulling something out of the pocket of his khakis, but my gaze is blurred by a teary fog. I blink angrily, clearing up the view in time to see the object: the elegant ring he’s always kept locked away in his office cabinet. Protected there…but not neglected. It’s a family piece. I know that much because the diamonds and rubies are cut so similarly to the ones in my earrings. Yet once, when I asked why he always maintained it though never wore it, he gave me an answer that felt cryptic at the time.
Not anymore.
Through my tears, I force myself to speak the words that he gave me.
“You said you were saving this for a special princess,” I whisper. “In a faraway land.”
Gramps sucks in another breath, clearly battling the many layers of his own conflicted feelings. “And now I’ve got to go and give it to her.”
The rasp in his voice and the sheen in his eyes makes me feel small and huge at the same time. Connected but hating it. Happy for him but miserable for me. I hate my selfish grief but can’t do a thing to hold back its awful flood.
“No.”
As soon as Hades intones it, my every emotion hits a strange hold button. My throat closes. My chest pinches. On Gramps’s and Maximus’s faces, I view the same tension.