Page 12 of Dark Gods
“Watch yourself, Persephone,” he said, his voice lowering as a shadow fell over him. It seemed to pull from the darkness in every corner of the room, growing and shifting until I could feel it in the air I took into my lungs with each breath. “It’s a dangerous game you’re playing, and not one anybody has ever won.”
“First time for everything,” I said, standing toe to toe with him. Even though I had to look up to glare at him properly, I kept my shoulders squared in challenge. We were getting a few odd looks and I could tell he was weighing the benefits of backing down versus risking his precious reputation. “Unless you’re scared.”
His lips twitched slightly in a snarl and that glare could’ve cut diamond. “I’d be careful whose parentage you speak of, considering the rumors surroundingyourbirth.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
He studied me for a moment, cocking his head. Curiosity lit his gaze, and it was far more menacing than the spite. “You don’t know, do you?” he finally asked, adding to my confusion.
“Know what?” I asked defensively.
He laughed and it was a dry, bitter thing, like a poison apple fallen right off the tree. “Your mother and Poseidon. Or are you really that sheltered?”
Poseidon?My heart raced even faster at his mention of the name, an innate reaction I didn’t fully understand. He was fucking with me. I knew responding would only be taking the bate, but something about the way he’d said it had sown the seed of doubt in my mind.
Maybe it was just the fact that my mother herself had always been secretive when I’d asked her to tell me stories about my father. Zeus had never really been a part of my life, and he was slain while I was still too young to remember him, but Mom had never liked talking about him much. I told myself it was probably the fact that he’d fathered half the children in Olympus, and his manwhore ways were legendary. He was her opposite in every way, from what I had gathered over the years, and I was nothing more to him than any of the others. His absence had made that clear, but who cared? We didn’t need him. We had each other, and even if we were like oil and water, our lives didn’t need to blend to coexist. They didn’t need anything else thrown into the recipe, either.
I loved my mother, and I was the one person who was allowed to say shit about her.
“My, my,” he said with a smug little inhale, rubbing his smooth chin as he looked down at me with all the triumph of a cat who had a mouse under his paw. “I guess it’s true what they say about the quiet ones. Demeter must be better at keeping secrets than she was at keeping your father in her bed.”
It happened without me even realizing it. Something just snapped inside of me and I heard the sound of my hand connecting with his cheek before I actually realized I’d struck him. Time seemed to slow down like Cronus himself was in the room and while it took Hades a moment to react, everyone else had turned to stare at us.
At me.
The feeling of dread welled up within me like a great black cloud, but even though I knew my life at Olympus Academy was effectively over, it was Hades’ words that felt like they’d be my undoing.
He didn’t say a word for a long while, but when he finally muttered, “You’re going to regret that,” his voice was surprisingly calm. Pleasant, even.
Without waiting for him to make good on his promise, I turned and headed straight for the exit.
“Kory,” Dionysus whispered, pushing through the crowd. I cast him a distracted glance, but I knew getting him mixed up in all this was the only way it could be worse. Instead, I shook my head and did the one thing I promised myself I’d never do:
I ran.
5
By the time I made it back to my room the night before, I was a mess. I’d stolen a bottle of champagne from the kitchen while everyone was distracted by my freakout and locked myself in my dorm room. Dionysus had come knocking on my door, but I wasn’t in any condition to answer. I felt guilty for pretending like I wasn’t home and I knew he’d probably seen through it immediately, but crying wasn’t something I did often and it definitely wasn’t something I did in front of other people.
Even if they were tears of rage. My tear ducts had never really gotten the memo that crying was something you did when you were sad.
I hadn't gotten more than an hour of sleep, tops, and that was after wavering between calling Mom or not for most of the night. It wasn't the first time the name Poseidon had come up surrounding her, but Hades was right, much to my chagrin. Iwassheltered, at least when it came to the world of the gods.
Despite Mom's insistence on me one day taking my place on the Council of Olympus at Hades' side, she had always been reluctant to talk about her cohorts and exploits. We kept limited company and my aunt Athena wasn't any more informative.
What pissed me off more than anything was that this was exactly what Hades had wanted. Even if he was entirely full of shit, he'd known the thread to pull to make me unravel and I had taken the bait hook, line and sinker.
In front of everyone.
God, class today was going to suck. As torturous as the idea of going out to face the world I'd made such a lovely first impression on was, the idea of turning tail and running again was even worse.
Kore Ademone was no quitter, and Hades was about to learn that the hard way.
If I was going to face the music, at least I was going to do it in style. I showered and dried my hair, tying it back into a more manageable braid that fell over my shoulder. I put on a fresh school uniform and reached for the floral pin I'd last left on my dresser, only to find a white rose thatdefinitelyhadn't been there the night before.
"What the hell?" I murmured, looking around the room. Someone had come into my room? At first, I thought maybe Dionysus had snuck in before I'd come back, but he'd been at the party after me and unless he had the gift of teleportation on top of Ecstasy, it seemed impossible. I always locked my door before I left. Besides, the wholePhantom of the Operathing didn't really seem like his schtick.
I picked up the rose and winced as a thorn that hadn't been visible before pricked my finger, drawing a droplet of blue blood to the surface. The stem turned black in my grasp, a shadowy hue spreading up to the milky white petals and turning them dark as coal.
