Page 114 of Raising Hell
None of this was making sense.
Persephone loved making Hades miserable. That was painfully obvious, not only from the stories Hades and Zotera had shared with me but from what I’d witnessed when I’d first stumbled into that torture room and saw Hades chained to that wall.
I remembered how weird it was that the room had been locked from the inside. How there’d been so much dust on the floor, but the torches had still been lit. But what if there were other clues that I had missed?
“Do you remember where it is?” I asked. “The room.”
Zotera paled even further.
“Yes,” she said weakly.
I stood. “Good. Take us there.”
“No.” Hades slammed his hand on the table. “We will continue to play this game as we have. Youwill notchange!”
I plopped back onto his lap and cupped his face. As much as I knew I needed to soothe his anger, I also knew that I couldn’t let him back away from what we needed to do.
“This isn’t a game, Hades. Someone is trying to kill me. If we don’t want that to happen, we need to understand why, don’t we?”
Doubt shadowed his features. I latched onto the hope that he was listening and pressed on.
“There are too many questions and not enough answers. We need answers. Why can’t you remember who Thanatos is? Are there other gods you don’t remember? What happened to the gods so long ago that even the furies don’t have a history of seeing them? What did Persephone do to you in that room? And why does Thanatos want to kill me? Or her, depending on who he thinks I am.”
“No,” he said, lifting me off his lap and setting me on the cushion beside him. “Sit. Eat. You are hungry.”
He picked up his trident-looking fork, materialized a knife, and cut himself a piece of his somehow still steaming steak.
I wanted to yell at him to stop living in his self-deluded world. That he needed to open his damn eyes. But then I realized that was exactly what he was trying not to do. What had he said to me about reality? That it was just a state of mind?
Hades, the King of Hell, was afraid. And not because he might have to face off with another god. He was afraid of seeing the truth and losing what he’d desperately and obsessively wanted his whole life—a loving version of his wife.
I knelt beside him and gently turned his face toward me.
“When I first arrived, I was terrified of what I’d find behind each door and around each corner. And then I found you. With you at my side, things weren’t as scary.
“I promise you don’t have to face this truth alone. I’ll be right next to you every step of the way.” I threaded my fingers through his with one hand and caressed his cheek with the other. “Together, okay?”
“Don’t ask this of me,” he said, his voice raw. “Ask for anything else. Do you want to command the furies? They are yours.”
That he had so willingly offered up the one thing he’d once tried so hard to keep away from me spoke volumes. My heart hurt for him and the desperation I saw in his warm brown gaze.
Hades might not remember, but some part of him knew things would irrevocably change once we entered that room.
“I don’t want the furies,” I said gently. “Only answers.”
I stood, keeping his hand in mine, and guided him to his feet.
“Walk to the entrance with me, and I’ll kiss you with every ounce of passion I feel for you.”
He looked at my lips.
“To the entrance?”
I nodded.
He portaled us there and gave me a searing kiss that threatened to scatter my thoughts. Steeling myself against his temptation, I kissed him back, stroking my tongue against his before quickly pulling away.
“More,” he demanded.
