Page 29 of Wild Hunt
Kore
“Would you stop worrying? I’m fine,” I told Dionysus for what felt like the thousandth time.
“It’s just a stupid party,” he muttered. “I don’t even have to go.”
“You’re my roommate, not my nurse,” I said, sitting up in bed. I had been out of the infirmary for a full day and while I still wasn’t feeling quite like myself, I had finally stopped coughing up water. It figured I’d have to go and get drowned on the weekend, so I wasn’t even going to get to miss class. “Go to the party, I’ll be fine. You’re supposed to be gathering intel, remember?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You mean you haven’t changed your mind about Operation Sabotage after Hades saved your life?”
“He’s not getting off the hook that easily,” I answered. “Besides the fact that he’s the reason I had to come to this stupid school in the first place, he made it clear he had ulterior motives for saving me. He wasn’t going to let me die before he was done.”
Dionysus grimaced. “Man, that guy doesn’t know when to quit.”
“You’re telling me,” I snorted.
Dionysus bit his lip like he always did when he was fretting and studied me carefully. “Are you sure you’ll be okay on your own?”
“I don’t see any sirens in the room,” I said, looking around. “I’ve got a good book and Netflix in the background. I’ll be fine. Now go. At least one of us should go out and party on the weekend.”
He gave a sigh of resignation and leaned in to kiss my cheek. “Be good.”
“Always.”
He gave me a “yeah right” look before heading out the door. I couldn’t exactly blame him for worrying. The amount of trouble I’d gotten to since coming to the Academy made my life back in New York look downright boring in comparison.
And to think I had been afraid I would lose my edge in college.
After surfing around, I found a documentary that looked entertaining but not so entertaining that I couldn’t focus on my book and settled in for a refreshingly relaxing evening.
Ever since I’d woken up, the events surrounding my drowning were a blur, with everything out of order. I remembered Hades’ mother in the strange conversation they’d had about resurrection magic, but when I tried to tell Dionysus about it, my mind went blank.
Maybe I had some form of retrograde amnesia. It was the only explanation I could come up with, but whenever I thought too hard about it, my head ached as if to guide me back to other topics. Since I wasn’t eager to approach him and he’d been equally scarce since dropping me off the infirmary, I was content with indulging my need for distraction. I could worry about the rest come Monday morning.
* * *
Monday morning came and went,and I found myself pausing in the classroom door next to Hades’ seat. It was the moment of truth, time to tell whether anything had really changed between us or not. He glanced up at me for half a second, then turned his attention back to the book in his hands without so much as a hello.
Well, okay then. I rolled my eyes and walked past, but the bastard stuck his foot out to trip me. I went down, barely managing to catch myself on the nearby desk, but it was far from graceful. When I turned around, he was smirking, as usual. The other students laughing was par for the course, too.
I stuffed down my irritation and slung my book bag over my shoulder, stalking back to my seat. As pissed as I was, there was something almost comforting about the juvenile antics of the Hunt in comparison to what I’d just been through.
I couldn’t get the siren’s voice out of my head. All my life, my mother had told me that the world of the gods was full of both beautiful and terrible things, unlike the mundane shelter of the human world.
Hades was both. So were Loki and Fenrir.
Deep down, I couldn’t get Fenrir’s question out of my head either. Was I really the same as them? If Ares really was my father, it stood to reason that there was darkness in me. Maybe even greater darkness than I’d found at the bottom of that lake.
It was even more of a struggle to pay attention in class than usual, and when something hit my head, jarring me out of my thoughts, I thought I’d been caught daydreaming. I looked around to see who’d thrown it, but the guilty culprit was good at hiding. I picked up the crumpled ball of paper to reveal a simple note.
“Meet me on break. Rooftop.”
When I glanced up at the front of the room, Hades was looking at me over his shoulder. He turned back a second later, but I knew it was him.
Irritation and curiosity mingled, and of course he was out of the classroom and gone before I had the chance to approach him. I had the rest of the morning to ponder whether I was going to take him up on his invitation or not, but the deciding factor was all the questions that had left unanswered about my rescue the other night.
By the time I made it to the rooftop, I was already having second thoughts about the meeting. For all I knew, I was walking into a trap. Hades had made it clear he didn't actually care about me. He was just making sure that I played by his rules.
It figured that the god of the Underworld wouldn't see death as an excuse.
