Chapter 29
…Baby, One More Time
HADES
I feel her before I see her.
When I’m in the Underworld, I feel every soul in my domain. But what makes this one unusual is that she’s not dead.
She must be teleporting, because my sense of her is tenuous at best. And she’s moving fast, but not in a way that makes any godsdamned sense.
I shove to my feet, and Charon, my ferryman for the dead, here for our daily meeting, raises his eyebrows.
He doesn’t show any alarm, but it takes a lot to alarm him.
He’s not a skeleton or a demon with fire in his eyes, like the mortals portray him—he’s very normal-looking.
Despite being born at the beginning of time, he looks to be only slightly older than me, still in his twenties.
And between his tousled sandy-brown hair and laughing green-blue eyes, many might mistake him for someone who’s never serious.
I don’t make that mistake, even while he lounges in his chair.
“What?” he asks.
“Someone is here.”
He taps a finger on the table. “I don’t know if anyone’s told you this, Phi, but there are a lot of someones here—”
“Living,” I snap. “And uninvited.”
That shuts him up.
I cock my head, trying to get a solid grasp on her. Where in my hells is she—
Then I feel her again. Closer. “You’ve got to be fucking joking.”
With a mere thought, I teleport away without bothering to tell Charon where I’m going.
I don’t need his help for one foolish soul.
But someone is teleporting right outside my home.
Whoever she is, she may as well have just declared war on the Underworld.
No one living comes here without my explicit permission.
Not even my siblings, despite their powers.
How in the name of Tartarus did she get down here in the first place?
Not that it matters. This goddess—because only the gods can teleport—is not going to live much longer.
I blink back into existence in a rocky mountain field right at the base of my castle in Erebos, the Land of Shadows, and summon my bident to my hand with a thought. I raise it, ready to skewer her, just in time for her to appear.
But the way she fades into existence is…off.
I frown, staying her immediate death.
That wasn’t teleporting, I don’t think. No damned idea what it was. Particularly because of the way she stumbles like she tripped over the void before she landed, which doesn’t happen.
“Not again,” she says.
That doesn’t sound like someone here to kill me.
I flip my bident, standing it upright at my side as she looks around, her back still to me, and take a moment to study her. She’s middling height and slender, with raven-black hair, but in the dimmer light of evening, I can’t tell if it’s short or pinned up.
She’s also dressed like she’s going to war.
Leggings with a tunic over them. Leather strapping around her chest, stomach, and thighs. Leather gauntlets around her wrists and close-toed boots with woven leather strapping covering most of her feet.
“Damn it all to Hades,” she mutters under her breath. “No water garden. This must be a while ago.”
The fuck?
With no warning, she spins away fast like she’s going to run.
But she spins right into me. With a flick of my hand, I send my bident back to the in-between where I keep it for easy access.
I catch her by the shoulders, now confident in my ability to control my powers when making contact.
I steady her, then step back to see her better.
Her head comes up sharply.
And everything inside me goes still.
I know this face.
“Lyra,” I whisper. The only thing I know about her is her name. Lyra Keres.
All I can do is…stare.
For years, I’ve dreamed of this face based on the memories of the two times I’ve seen her before this.
Dreamed night after night of the first living being I was able to touch without my power going wild and possibly killing them.
How soft her skin was. How her hand felt in mine.
A teenage obsession that followed me into adulthood.
Although now I look a little older than her.
I’m twenty-four, and my aging will essentially stop soon.
Equal footing. Not like last time.
Apparently, my memory wasn’t nearly detailed enough.
She has delicate features, with a slightly pointed, stubborn-as-hells chin and hollowed-out cheeks like she never had quite enough to eat.
I’d forgotten that part. Her green eyes went wide when I grabbed her, but I’m more distracted by the gold rimming the iris I’m close enough to see now, like the precious metal is running through her and peeking out.
She told me I wouldn’t be dangerous.
She told me I would master my powers, to stop fearing myself.
When she showed up near my family home in the Overworld, in the too-short time we had together before she was gone, she told me things no one had ever told me. She touched me like I wasn’t unworthy or unsafe.
And now she’s here, staring right back at me, her pupils slowly dilating. Like she’s reacting to me as much as I am to her.
I tighten my grip so she doesn’t disappear on me like she did last time.
Or maybe because I have no trouble reading the thoughts flitting across her face. She’s trying to decide what to do. I can see the moment she lands on running.
“Not this time.”
She blinks. “What?”
Her confusion is so transparent, I have to believe it’s real. Doesn’t she remember any of it?
I’m not exactly forgettable. The thought makes me sound like I’m a narcissistic asshole, giving a shot of irritation to the fascination overtaking me.
Does she flit into unsuspecting people’s lives, dropping bombs of wisdom and acceptance on them before flitting away again, so often that she doesn’t remember any of them? Some kind of sadistic fairy.
“You came to me on a beach when I was a child,” I say, my frustration making my voice quieter.
“Then you showed up again years later, in a clearing near my parents’ mortal home in the Overworld when I was nineteen, looking just as you had—the same as you do now, though with different clothes.
” I frown. “Now you appear here. In my home in the Underworld. A place people only come to by invitation or death.”
She swallows.
I’m not sure what reaction I was looking for, but that wasn’t it. I don’t want her fear.
Everyone else’s, sure.
But not hers.
I shake my head slowly. “I won’t let you simply disappear again. Not without answers.”
The way she drops her gaze, I think she’s too afraid to speak, but then I realize that she’s gathering herself, like she’s putting on armor. Then she cocks a hip and throws me a smirk. “Who says you get to have answers?”
Is she trying to piss me off? I take it back. Lyra might benefit from a healthy dose of fear.
She was the same way before. Irreverent. I’m the god of death and King of the Underworld. Doesn’t she know better?
Fuck me, and now I’m stating my credentials in my head. Maybe I am that asshole.
I can feel the slow scowl descend over my features.
Shock skitters through me when she reaches out and traces a finger over the ridges between my eyebrows, and my hands on her shoulders tighten convulsively, making her wince.
“You’re going to leave a mark,” she says softly and nods at where I’m touching her.
Shit. I force my fingers to loosen, stop digging into her flesh through her rough-hewn tunic, but damned if I’m going to let go. “You dare to touch a god in such a familiar way?”
Only Charon comes anywhere near me without flinching, and even he doesn’t touch.
She offers me a small, simple smile. “Sorry. I’m a toucher.”
No. She’s not any more than I am. I have no idea how I know that, but the truth is there in her eyes. “Don’t lie to me,” I snap.
I hate lies.
“You’re right.” She gives in fast with a soft sigh. “I’m not a toucher.”
Cosmos, I can’t get a hold on who this woman is.
She glances past my shoulder like she’s making sure no one is coming. She was like that last time, too. Nervously looking in a specific direction.
“Issue?” I ask.
She sighs again. “I’ll make you a deal. I can’t answer…most…of your questions, but I’ll tell you what I can if you help me go unseen by anyone else here.”
Unseen. Other than not being allowed down here in the first damn place, why does she care?
I give her another quick frown. “I’ve seen you disappear at will.”
I angle my head, studying her face, thinking through the way she arrived this time—teleporting in theory, but not—and the way she left last time—like she faded away. But if she’s nervous of being seen, that means…
“So, you’re not doing this by choice,” I muse out loud. Not a question. A verbal trap—one she falls into with the slightest widening of her eyes. I’m right, even if she doesn’t say so.
“Is someone else sending you to me?” I ask next.
“No.” She draws out the word like she’s not quite sure.
I nod. Once. “But you are a goddess.”
“Yes.”
That was unequivocal, at least. But brief. Getting answers out of Lyra is like pulling gold out of Midas’ own hand. I hold on to my patience. “Of what?”
She sighs. “Listen, can we play this game of twenty questions somewhere more private—”
“I’m not playing a game with you, Lyra.” The words are a growl, low in my throat. And who exactly does she think is going to happen across us here? It’s private enough.
“Me neither,” she says, giving me a mutinous look that gets right under my skin. “But I’m not answering any more until you hide me.”
Another growl rises in my throat. “Watch it,” I warn. “I could rend your soul from your corpse and cast it down into the Underworld with merely a thought.”
Or kiss her until she turns hazy and warm in my arms. Both have their appeal.
She snorts. “No, you can’t.”
I rear back slightly. “Now you’re challenging me?”
To which she rolls her fucking eyes. “You sound so much like your father, it’s not even funny.”
At least there’s a flash of panic after she says it, though I’m not sure why. Amusement threads through the itch of frustration. “Thank you for that, at least.”
I swear her reaction to my response is…relief. Why?
She must catch my closer look, because she tries a wheedling smile. “I react much better to coaxing than orders.”
And just like that, I’m back to frustrated. “I don’t coax.”
“Just a tip.”
Is she laughing at me? “Gods, you’re impossible.”
She can’t hold back a grin. The kind that invites me to share in her teasing. “You secretly love that about me.”
My heart gives a single painful thump that I immediately resent. All that time thinking about her, and she doesn’t even remember me. “Do I?”
She’s toying with me. She’s never going to give me answers. Not without more incentive. Time to stop playing nice.
Still holding her shoulders, I teleport us both, drawing her closer through the void. I won’t risk losing her. Not before I have answers.
When we arrive at our destination, I’m still reluctant to release her as I watch her sweep her gaze over the place, waiting for the dread to flash in her eyes. It should. I’ve taken her somewhere to put the fear of the god of death in her.
We’re standing on a narrow stone bridge, one without walls, that spans a river of fire. Not full-on lava, though. While it’s warm, it’s not uncomfortable here like it is close to the wastelands in Tartarus. The river of fire feeds into that pit.
The cavern here is carved out of stone, but everything else is built with layers upon layers of the skulls of the damned.
They form the walls, the bridge, the arched doorways into the cells.
And they are welded together by death, decay, and evil—the truly vilest souls.
The souls that I choose to punish with eternal burning damnation are sent to this part of the Underworld.
“Phlegethon? Really?” She sounds unimpressed. “If you’re trying to scare me, it won’t work.”
I smile to myself. “I guess I’ll have to try harder.”
Taking her by the arm, I drag her across the bridge to a series of dungeon cells, shove her inside one, and shut the door, which automatically locks with a satisfying clink.
Then I walk away.
“Hey!” She runs to the door, grasping the bars to press her face to them. “Don’t be an asshole.”
No fucking way am I saying for a third time that she just dared something no one else does, swearing at me like that. I don’t turn around. “I’m not the one keeping secrets. Let’s see how long solitude in this place takes to loosen your tongue.”
Then I teleport away, taking her gasp of outrage with me. Music to my fucking ears.