I’m exhausted enough I can almost pretend I get a flash of sympathy before irritation writes itself across his features. “Look at you. Of course Zeus wants to add you to his long list of Heras.”
He would think that. The Thirteen see something they want, and they take it. “It’s my fault that they made that decision without even talking to me because of what I look like?” Is it possible for the top of a person’s head to literally explode? I have a feeling I might find out if we continue this conversation.
“It’s Olympus. You play power games, you pay the consequences.” He finishes wrapping my second foot and pushes slowly to his feet. “Sometimes you pay the consequences even if it’s your parents playing the games. You can cry and sob about how unfair the world is, or you can do something about it.”
“I did do something about it.”
He snorts. “You ran like a frightened deer and thought he wouldn’t chase you down? Sweetheart, that’s practically foreplay for Zeus. He’ll find you and drag you back to that palace of his. You’ll marry him just like the obedient daughter you are, and within a year, you’ll be popping out his asshole children.”
I slap him.
I don’t mean to. I don’t think I’ve ever raised my hand to a person in my entire life. Not even my irritating younger sisters when we were children. I stare in horror at the red mark blooming on his cheekbone. I should apologize. Should…something. But when I open my mouth, that’s not what comes out. “I’ll die first.”
Hades looks at me a long time. I’m usually pretty good at reading people, but I have no idea what’s going on behind those deep, dark eyes of his. Finally, he grinds out, “You’ll stay here tonight. We’ll talk in the morning.”
“But—”
He picks me up again, scooping me into his arms like I’m the princess he named me, and gives me such a cold look, I swallow my protest. I have nowhere to go tonight, no purse, no money, no phone. I can’t afford to look this gift horse in the mouth, even if he’s growly and goes by the name parents have threatened their children with for generations. Well, maybe not this Hades. He looks like he’s somewhere in his early to midthirties. But the role of Hades. Always in the shadows. Always catering to dark deeds best done out of the sight of our normal, safe world.
Is it really that safe? My mother just effectively sold me in marriage to Zeus. A man who empirical facts paint not as the golden king, beloved by all, but as a bully who’s left a string of dead wives in his wake. And those are just his wives. Who knows how many women he’s victimized over the years? Thinking about it is enough to make me sick to my stomach. No matter which way you spin it, Zeus is dangerous and that’s a fact.
By contrast, everything surrounding Hades is pure myth. No one I know even believes he exists. They all agree that at one point, a Hades did exist but that the family line that held the title has long since died out. That means I have next to no information to pull from about this Hades. I’m not sure he’s the better bet, but at this point, I’d take a man in a bloody trench coat with a hook for a hand over Zeus.
Hades takes me up a winding staircase that looks straight out of a gothic movie. Honestly, the bits of this house I’ve seen are the same. Bold, dark hardwood floors, crown molding that should be overwhelming but somehow just creates the illusion of leaving both time and reality behind. The hallway of the second floor is covered in a thick deep-red carpet.
The better to hide the blood.
I give a hysterical giggle and clamp my hands to my mouth. This is not funny. I should not be laughing. I’m obviously thirty seconds away from losing it completely.
Hades, of course, ignores me.
The second door on the left is our destination, and it’s not until he’s walking through it that my missing self-preservation kicks in. I’m alone with a dangerous stranger in a bedroom. “Put me down.”
“Don’t be dramatic.” He doesn’t drop me on the bed like I expect. He sets me down carefully and takes an equally careful step back. “If you bleed all over my floors trying to escape, I’ll be forced to track you down and haul you back here to clean them.”
I blink. It’s so close to what I was thinking that it’s almost eerie. “You are the strangest man I’ve ever met.”
Now it’s his turn to give me a wary look. “What?”
“Exactly. What? What kind of threat is that? You’re worried about your floors?”
“They’re nice floors.”
Is he joking? I might believe it of anyone else, but Hades looks just as serious as he has since I saw him standing there on the street like some kind of grim reaper. I frown up at him. “I don’t understand you.”
“You don’t have to understand me. Just stay here until morning and try to resist the urge to do anything to injure yourself further.” He nods at the door tucked back in the corner. “Bathroom is through there. Stay off those feet as much as possible.” And then he’s gone, sweeping out the door and shutting it softly behind him.
I count to ten slowly and then do it three more times. When no one rushes in to check on me, I inch up the bed to the phone sitting innocently on the nightstand. Too innocently? Surely there’s no way to make a call without being overheard. With those secret tunnels, Hades doesn’t seem the type to leave anything resembling a security breach just sitting here. It’s probably a trap, something designed to have me spilling secrets or something.
It doesn’t matter.
I’m afraid of Zeus. Angry with my mother. But I can’t leave my sisters frantic for my whereabouts any longer. Psyche will have called Callisto by now, and if there’s anyone in my family who will rampage through Olympus, stepping on toes and making threats until I’m found, it’s my eldest sister. My disappearance will already have set fire to the hornet’s nest. I can’t let my sisters do anything to aggravate a situation that’s already an unmitigated mess.
Taking a deep breath that does nothing to brace me, I pick up the phone and dial Eurydice’s number. She’s the only one of my sisters who will answer an unfamiliar number on the first try. Sure enough, three rings later, her breathless voice comes across the line. “Hello?”
“It’s me.”
“Oh, thank the gods.” Her voice gets a little distant. “It’s Persephone. Yes, yes, I’ll put it on speaker.” A second later, the line gets a little fuzzy as she does exactly that. “I have Callisto and Psyche here, too. Where are you?”
I look around the room. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try.” This from Callisto, a flat statement that says she’s half a second from trying to figure out how to crawl through the telephone line to throttle me.