Page 128 of Hell On Earth
My mother held me as I shook with my rage.
“Hades has not yet known real suffering,” I said. “But I vow he will.”
I left my mother and spent several days slowly wooing Thanatos. The reclusive god did not seem interested in the pleasures of the flesh initially, but I showed him the joy he could find in my arms. With him, I felt little pain but no joy. I hadn’t taken him as a lover for that. He was a means to an end I was due.
Within months, I gained Thanatos’ love. When I returned to Hell, I hid my relationship with him from Hades. He visited me often, finding solace in my arms while my bitterness and desperation to escape grew. Almost a year after I’d taken him to my bed, he confessed what Zeus wanted him to do and said he was working on a way to spare me.
I embraced my moment of victory and wept pitifully, begging Thanatos to allow my death so I could be free of Hell but asking for his help to ensure Hades’ suffering. I endured Thanatos’ tender affections and promises to find me in each of my mortal lives. Keeping my hopes that I would never be found again to myself, I agreed with false passion and started planning Hades’ end.
We couldn’t end the god of Hell’s existence, but we could link his life to mine. He would feel every moment of my anguish as I slowly died in his presence. And once my essence left my body, his would bleed away, bringing him to the cusp of non-existence.
On the snow-covered shore, I came back to myself and laughed wildly. Everything had gone beautifully. I’d died with a smile on my face, listening to Hades’ pitiful pleas for forgiveness.
“Accept my kiss, my love,” Thanatos yelled. “When you are reborn, I vow I will find you. You will not spend another lifetime alone.”
Turning my disdainful gaze toward him, I laughed.
“Love? I have no love.”
The ground shook violently, and my insides churned with the hint of something forgotten.
CHAPTERNINETEEN
My laughter caughtin my throat as a ball of white pain exploded in my head, knocking me backward. I rolled to my side and vomited at the rush of memories that came with the pain.
The mortal pool. My soul reborn again and again.
So many lifetimes.
I wasn’t Persephone or Ashlyn but a battered leaf caught up in a hurricane of infinite mortal lives.
I was the infant abandoned in the gutter, unwanted and unloved. The child beaten by its harsh mother. The young woman abused by her father. I was the neglected wife. The forgotten spinster. The stoned, unwed mother. I was the relieved widow and the neglected grandmother.
Life after horrible life filled my head, and with each one, Megan’s begging cries for Eliana to stop her grew quieter.
A sob caught in my throat at each painful existence I’d endured.
In every life I had lived, I had suffered every mortal tragedy and very little joy. Any hint of love I’d found had been quickly and brutally removed. Betrayed. Unwanted. Abused. Over and over.
An all-consuming loneliness dissolved the hate that had filled me only moments ago, and I cried pitifully.
Why did no one love me? Why was I so unworthy?
My head throbbed painfully in time with my pulse as I tried to make sense of everything.
Persephone’s mother’s words filled my mind again.
We will be reborn to atone for the offenses of our immortal lives.
Thoughts from all my past lives collided in my head. All the times I’d wondered why I was miserable…. Why I was so unloved... Why I suffered so much while others led happy lives…
All that I’d suffered was due to the grave offenses I committed against a god who had tried so hard to love me but who had been so unloved himself that he didn’t know how.
I’d abused him. Hated him. Hurt him in every way imaginable, but he’d never once given up on me. He’d loved me unconditionally, even at my worst.
His familiar face rose in my mind. The face that Persephone knew—twisted with his desperation for love. The face that I knew—smiling with laughter as I tickled his feet.
My heart broke with new understanding of what I’d done, and my head dropped forward as I sobbed.
