Hades fixed his sleeves, secured his cuff links, and pulled on his jacket, but as he adjusted the collar and straightened the lapels, he felt the distinct roar of Persephone’s untamable power. He felt dread and tasted her distress. It was both cloying and bitter, a conflict of her magic.
He started for the doors when they burst open.
“Persephone.”
There was something devastating in the way she looked at him, an emotion within her eyes that communicated something unspeakable, but Hades knew this pain. His soul recognized it and called to it, familiar with the ache it would inspire within his chest.
“Hades! You have to help! Please—”
Her words dissolved into a choked cry, and all Hades could do was take her into his arms and hold her against him as she shook. He felt helpless, and he hated it because he only ever felt helpless with her. As quick as it had begun, she composed herself and lifted her head from his chest.
“Hades—” she started, and it was then he realized she had noticed his prisoner, though it was hard not to because he had begun to scream, albeit muffled.
“Ignore him,” he said, preparing to teleport the man to a holding cell when Persephone’s hand clamped down on his own.
“Is that—is that the mortal who threw the bottle at me today?”
When he didn’t respond, she turned her gaze on the man. Whatever she saw was answer enough. He was prepared to hear her demand to release him, but instead, she asked, “Why are you torturing him in your office and not in Tartarus?”
The mortal must have expected more of a compassionate response, because his cries grew louder.
“Because he’s not dead,” Hades said. He could only take souls to Tartarus if their thread had been cut. He gave the man a withering look as he added, “Yet.”
“Hades, you cannot kill him.”
“I won’t kill him.” It wasn’t his time to die, and he wasn’t willing to sacrifice another soul for this man. Besides, it was far more gratifying to have him live so that he could tell the tale of his torture at the hands of the God of the Dead. “But I will make him wish he were dead.”
“Hades. Let. Him. Go.”
And there it was. He had expected it sooner, but perhaps he should consider it a victory that she waited this long.
“Fine,” he said and sent the man to the holding rooms a level below, and blessedly, she did not demand to know where he’d gone. He led her to the couch with a hand on the small of her back, guiding her to sit on his lap. “What happened?”
She started to breathe heavier, and as he tilted her head back, her mouth quivered so badly, she couldn’t speak. Hades manifested a glass of wine and held it to her lips as she drank. When she was finished, he nodded.
“Start again,” Hades said. “What happened?”
“Lexa was hit by a car,” she said, and it was as if her breath had been knocked from her lungs.
Her words shocked him because he had not expected them. Despite many humans believing otherwise, Hades did not have a hand in orchestrating life-threatening injuries. Those were designed by the Fates, and while all were tragic, they often served a greater purpose, if not for the victim, for those in their lives.
“She’s in critical condition at Asclepius Community Hospital. She’s on a ventilator. She’s…broken.”
She spoke through tears and stumbled across words laced with pain and disbelief, and while he despaired over Lexa, he hated to see Persephone suffer. Though there was a dark part of him that rose, clawing at the fringes of his mind, bringing on a familiar dread that caused him to fear the direction this conversation might go.
“She doesn’t look like Lexa anymore, Hades.”
She wept harder, and she covered her mouth to contain her cries.
“I’m so sorry, my darling.”
They were the only words he had for her, because there was nothing he could do. Even now, he could feel along Lexa’s thread, which was not cut but rather bent—she was in a state of limbo.
In other words, her soul was undecided.
Persephone twisted to face him as much as she could.
“Hades, please.”
She didn’t need to explain; he knew what she asked. Her eyes were desperate, and because he could not see her like that, he averted his gaze, frustration making his jaw tight.
“Persephone, I can’t.”
He had had this conversation so many times, with mortals he had no personal connection with and gods he held in contempt. He had never faced it with a lover. Even if Hades could save Lexa, the consequences of such actions were dire, especially when the decision to live or die rested with the soul.
She scrambled off his lap, standing a few steps away. He did not try to reach for her.
“I won’t lose her.”
“You haven’t. Lexa still lives.” She was so afraid, it was like she already considered her dead. “You must give her soul time to decide.”
“Decide? What do you mean?”
He sighed, unable to contain the dread he felt at this oncoming conversation.
He answered as he pinched the bridge of his nose, an ache forming at the front of his head for the second time today. “Lexa’s in limbo.”
“Then you can bring her back,” she reasoned.
That was not how limbo worked.
“I can’t.”
“You did it before. You said when a soul is in limbo, you can bargain with the Fates to bring it back.”
“In exchange for the life of another. A soul for a soul, Persephone.”
“You can’t say you won’t save her, Hades.”
He was saying that, as hard as it was to admit. This was a situation of choice on Lexa’s behalf. To interfere, to bring her back when she was not ready, or worse, did not want to come, would mean a harrowing return to the world of the living. The consequences were endless.
“I’m not saying I don’t want to, Persephone. It is best that I do not interfere with this. Trust me. If you care for Lexa at all—if you care for me at all—you will drop this.”
“I’m doing this because I care!”
“That’s what all mortals think—but who are you really trying to save? Lexa or yourself?”
She wanted to escape the loss and the grief. She didn’t want to think of a life without Lexa, and while he could not blame her, it was never for the living to decide, though they tried often.
“I don’t need a philosophy lesson, Hades,” she sneered.