Page 34 of Dark Gods
She dropped her hand and turned away. Her words shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but whether I had hope that she could be reasoned with or simply didn’t imagine the daughter of Demeter would be foolish enough to write the check of her ruin so boldly, they did.
“You’re making a mistake, Persephone,” I warned her, feeling strangely calm as I turned to face her. “One you’re not going to be able to take back.”
“You’re the one who’s making a mistake,” she said in a voice like a dagger, looking me up and down from the doorway. “You might as well go all the way. So far, your attempts have been just as pathetic as you are.”
With that, she left and for the first time in forever, Ismiled.
Let the games begin indeed.
17
Loki
Iwoke in the middle of the night to a cold sweat. Something was wrong. Something had changed.
I looked around the room I'd shared with Hades and Fenrir since Freshman year. The latter was sleeping soundly, the covers half-strewn off his naked torso from all his usual tossing and turning. Nothing amiss there. Hades' bed was still perfectly made as it had been when I'd passed out.
Something was wrong. He was nothing if not predictable, and he rarely deviated from his evening routine let alone made it home before I did. He was the dealer, but I was the party animal of the trio, and something told me the exception had something to do with the resident goddess of spring.
I threw off the tangled sheets and left the room. I'd fallen into bed in my clothes, so that was no problem. The lobby was empty, save for a junior who'd passed out drunk on the couch with his girlfriend. They were both snoring soundly, so I slipped past without notice and went off in search of my friend.
Half the time I wasn't sure that's what he was, but there wasn't a term for someone who was equal parts brother, enemy and confidant. Our destinies might have brought us to the Academy, but our three souls had been entwined long before in ways even I couldn't fully wrap my head around, even if I was closer than the other two. Every time one of them got the idea to drift apart, I pulled them back and corrected course before it happened because as much as we fought and as much as we hated each other at times, I knew the truth of what was out there for each of us alone: destruction.
It was a sixth sense, or so my mother had always said. The kind of knowing without words or evidence that could only be acted upon, never questioned. It wasn't my gift, wasn’t nearly strong enough for that, and I had no more control over it than I did my tongue half the time, but it had never led me astray and I'd learned to listen to it.
The same sense that told me Kore's arrival would either be the thing that sent us all spiraling into the hell we'd been running for all our lives, or bring us together enough to fight destiny itself.
The others couldn't see it yet, but I'd called her number--and ours--from the very first day she'd arrived. From the moment I'd spotted her eyeing the painting of my father in the downstairs lobby, only to have Dionysus make his move first.
We always did have similar tastes, him and I.
The greatest challenge of the moment was managing Hades before his misdirected interest pushed her too far for redemption. He'd never been good at feelings. Couldn't tell the difference between love and hatred, spite and jealousy. Fenrir was a whole different matter. Just keeping up with the both of them was a full-time job, and now thatshewas here, I'd been working overtime.
"Going somewhere, brother?"
I froze as Thor's unwelcome voice greeted me from the small library in the central wing lobby. I turned to find him well into his cups, a half-empty scotch glass on the table next to him.
"Isn't it a bit late for you?"
"Isn't it a bit early for you?" he challenged, pushing up from the armchair that was barely structured to contain him. He'd gotten all the muscle and little of the brain in the family pool, which made him easy enough to thwart, but now that he was a fixture at the Academy, my life was more complicated than before.
"Teaching doesn't agree with you, brother," I remarked. "Maybe you'd better go back to Asgard."
He gave a lopsided smirk that had always gotten under my skin. "You'd love that, wouldn't you? And yet, if your performance was suitable enough to handle this on your own, the old man wouldn't have sent me here."
My face fell as the mask of his pleasantry was stripped away. I'd wondered how long it would take. Three weeks into his second semester here was longer than I'd expected.
If only everyone else could see him as clearly as I always had.
"And what are you doing, exactly?" I challenged. "Getting drunk, missing classes? That'll keep Cronus on his toes."
"You had one job, Loki. Befriend his brat, get him distracted, keep him in line," Thor said, his gaze darkening as he leaned in. "Given the state of affairs lately, and the fact that Poseidon's goddamn daughter ended up in the infirmary, you're not doing it very well."
"If I recall correctly, that happened duringyourclass, didn't it? And she doesn't know she's Poseidon's daughter."
"No thanks to your friend," he growled, shoving a finger in my face. "You keep him in line, Loki, or your time here isn't gonna last for much longer."
He shoved me into the wall on his way past, and I glowered at his back, uttering a Norse curse under my breath.
