Chapter 96 For The Love Of Hades
For The Love Of Hades
LYRA
Make him hear me? How?
“Hades,” I call out. “It’s Lyra.” The smoke ripples again. “I escaped from Tartarus—”
The tip of the smoke tentacle rears up over us like the mouth of a giant snake trying to swallow us whole. But it isn’t able to move us or eat us…or even touch us. As if an invisible wall won’t let it near. After a second, it settles back to being a barrier.
I get the message. Don’t talk about Tartarus or Titans, Lyra.
“I’m safe,” I call out instead. “I’m here.”
More ripples, but it doesn’t move.
My frustration echoes its movement, rippling through me, tightening my muscles until my hands fist. “So damned stubborn, as always,” I mutter.
This time when the smoke ripples, it also turns clearer. Just for a second. “Did you see that?” I whisper at Aphrodite.
“Yes. Keep talking.”
But that reaction has me wondering…
I eye the smoke, which is still keeping pace with us, remaining between us and my fury-locked god of death. And I picture Hades—the clench of his jaw, his eyes cutting metallic silver and narrowed in rage, his bident in his hand.
I picture every beloved detail, because that’s who I’m talking to. Not this extension of him. “You’ve spent a fucking lifetime listening to me, and now, when you need to the most, you’re going to ignore me?”
Even as the smoke ripples and turns clearer again, Aphrodite’s inhale is sharp in my ear. “What are you doing?”
I pat her hand, telling her silently to trust me. I know that this is the way. Keep talking. But not only to make him stop. This is me and him. That’s all it comes down to.
Our communication is built on sharp honesty.
“I’ve been fighting to get out,” I call, my voice steady now. Sure. “I told you I could get myself out of anything, and I made it. I got myself the hells out of that hole, and the only face I want to see is yours.”
The tentacle rears again, not to attack but to writhe, as if it’s in pain, the fire pulsing under the smoke in flashes of blue that become more and more white. Hotter.
I pray to every god and goddess of love and hope that he’s hearing me. I just have to push a little harder.
“Now. Move this fucking thing out of my way, Hades. I need to hold you.”
The tentacle goes so still, even the smoke does not move.
“Please,” I whisper. “Please hear me. I need you.”
The fire and smoke blow away, splitting into feathery tufts on either side of a single, narrow path, until I can see the temple up ahead.
Aphrodite lets me go. “It’s all you now, darling. Go.”
I’m already gone, stumbling and tripping as I run. To get to Hades. I might as well be wearing Hermes’ winged sandals I fly so fast up the mountain, past the crumbling, blackened outer columns of the temple and toward the inner sanctum, where my steps slow to a halt.
Because it’s pitch-black in here.
Not just from the smoke blocking out the light, but the walls of the temple itself are midnight black.
No longer brilliant white marble but, instead, obsidian.
The flicker of what I think is firelight coming from farther down reflects off the glassy black walls, and I make my careful way toward the source of light.
The smaller temple in the center of the building is also columned, like the larger outer shell. Also turned obsidian. I step inside, and a thousand impressions bombard me all at once.
The only thing in the room is the throne at the other end with Hades seated on it.
Owning it, even as his posture is…indolent.
Like he doesn’t give a shit who he has to kill or what he has to destroy.
Death is child’s play to this god.
It shouldn’t be this way, but a stark shiver of fascination slithers through my fear for him.
I can’t pull my gaze away from him, but I somehow still absorb the rest of the details.
The blocky, deep-seated throne, like the temple itself, is now made of obsidian, the seat padded with black leather, and instead of carvings of all the gods of the Greek pantheon, there is only the symbol of the bident and scepter carved into the ends of the arms. It is repeated again in the tops of the posts on either side of the seat back.
And at the crest of the seat above his head, a curved bident is carved out of the obsidian, honed to fine points at the top of the circle, looking like devil’s horns and a halo at the same time.
All around the throne, coming out of it like wings of darkness, is the source of the fire and smoke.
And the way the flames move and thrash and flow, they seem to be living things, forming into nightmarish images in the darkness behind him—creatures, burned husks of trees, wings, screaming faces.
Above the throne, the tentacles disappear upward, obscuring the hole where a ceiling used to be.
The fire comes from a single source—lava so hot it is a bluish-purple shade, cooling to reds and yellows at the edges.
The lava sparks and flows in a ceaseless waterfall from behind Hades’ throne, only to rise into the pillars of flame and smoke.
None of that matters.
Because the most terrifying part is Hades.
Hades as I’ve never seen him before.
He’s dressed not in his modern liquid metal armor.
Instead, he’s in something that’s a cross between a medieval outlaw and a video game assassin.
Thick steel-toed leather boots come up to just below his knees, and it’s hard to make out what he’s wearing underneath a cloak that shrouds him, the hood pulled up over his head and low over his face so that all I can see is shadows instead of his features.
The top of his hood looks to be embroidered with metallic thread in an intricate depiction of the same bident and scepter, like he’s wearing a crown.
His hands are fisted on the flat arms of his throne, and he’s wearing gauntlets of leather and metal that go all the way up his forearms. Thick chains drip across his chest—holding the cloak in place, maybe.
Except… I peer closer… Maybe not.
Because, even in the dimness of the room, I’m pretty sure I see thinner chains attached to his gauntlets and boots, bolted into the floor between his feet and into the arms of his throne—tying him down.
My heart aches as I take in this tortured man who has chained himself to his throne in an effort to believe in me and not unleash himself completely on the world.
The energy that is coming off him is…palpable.
It fills the room with power and wrath.
But I feel no fear. Not for me. Just for him.
I wish to Elysium that I could still sense his emotions like I did after he gave me some of his blood to save my life during the Crucible, but that effect is gone now.
He seems so distant, so far away, separated by all available darkness that cloaks his very soul.
But even through that terror, I still feel my body react.
Like Hades is my true north, magnetic, imposing, furious, and…fucking hot.
My erratic heart settles, warmth floods my cheeks, and a familiar pulse of pleasure takes up an elemental beat in my core.
“Your hair is long.” His voice seems to come not from him but from all around me, deep and echoing.
And cold.
What I want to do is throw myself into his arms and sob. That, or straddle his lap and kiss him until he wakes up. Such polar opposite reactions, and I can’t do either one.
He’s not himself. Too self-contained. Too unpredictable. And…I know what that question means. I was given my clothes and weapons and tattoos back when I escaped Tartarus, but my hair is still long, hanging around my shoulders and to my waist.
Hair he associates with the Lyra who abandons him.
I take a slow step toward him, then another, the way one might approach a feral animal caught in a trap, needing to be rescued.
“My hair grew when I was in Hestia’s Lock in Tartarus.” I finger a strand that shook out over my shoulders at some point in the fight with the other gods of death and the Underworld.
“Long hair.” His echoey voice is more a murmur now, but it still rings around me. “So you won’t be staying long.”
I shake my head. “I won’t be leaving ever again. This is me. This is current-day me.”
“I don’t believe you.” His voice goes quieter. Deadlier. But he must also tense somewhat, because the chains around his wrists rattle and sparks peek out from under his boots. “You’ve lied to me before.”
“Bullshit.” I keep walking.
“What?” he snarls.
“Name one lie.”
“Stop,” he demands.
I don’t listen. I continue to take my slow steps toward Hades. Only about ten more, and I’ll be at his knees.
“Stop.”
I shiver hard at the command in his voice—how am I so turned on in this moment—but take another step. Nine more.
“I said stop.”
The final word reverberates around us as thin ropes of smoke shoot out from the mass behind him and snake around my wrists and ankles like shackles holding me in place.
My heart stutters as hope flickers to pathetic sparks inside me. Only eight more steps. So close. I can’t let him stop me here.
His next words come out even colder, quieter. Brutally so. “You are the reason Lyra is trapped down there.”
“I didn’t lie to you to make that happen.” I lean against my bonds, trying to get closer to him, my gaze on what I hope is his, trying to let him see all of me. “Think about it. Did I ever lie?”
The smoke bonds loosen enough for me to take one more step. Seven to go. Just a few more. Please the cosmos.
I try to take another, but the bonds clamp down on me again.
“You told me to trust you,” he says.
“You were right to trust me.” I offer him a patient smile.
One I know will irritate him, but that’s how we are.
We get under each other’s skin. “You kept trusting me even when I ended up in that prison because you listened to what I told you in your past. You didn’t burn down the world.
You just protected me until I could figure it out… I figured it out.”
He jerks forward, the chains at his feet clanking through the metal loops as he widens his stance, elbows on his knees. Okay. Probably shouldn’t have mentioned that last bit, because it could have been a lie. That was something I did not know for certain.
“No one would willingly enter that place.”
Forget patience.
“I did. For a reason.” I strain against the bindings around me, using all the strength he gave me as a goddess to take one more jaw-clenching, muscle-shaking step. “How do you think I’ve come to you in the past?” I grind out one more step. If I can just touch him.
What he says next comes out as a menacing growl so dark it rattles the teeth in my head. “Cronos sent you. That’s how.”
He can’t handle the entire story now. All the reasons. What will get through to him?
“Cronos…” I choke as I continue to strain against his bonds. “Is dead.” The sound of the Titan’s name on my lips so soon is like a dagger to my heart “…I am the goddess of time, now.”
Hades’ entire being goes rigid. “More lies.”
“It’s the truth. He died as we…as I was escaping Tartarus, and his power passed to me.”
“Prove it.”
Prove it? Shit. It took me forever just to get the teleporting and glamouring stuff. Even then, it’s more like I had to wait for those to settle in versus learning by practice. Can I prove it? “Release me and I will.”
The smoke suddenly lets go, fading away in a puff of nonexistent wind.
“Go ahead,” Hades says.
I was planning to run to him the instant I gained the ability, but he let me go so fast I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready and…I realize now that just touching me won’t help. He’s touched future me in his past as well. That didn’t make her stay. That didn’t make her words true.
So instead, I take a deep breath and close my eyes. I call on the part inside me that isn’t mine, that incandescent light that belongs only to the King of the Titans.
To my shock, the light rushes to my bidding, illuminating the backs of my eyelids, and my lips part in a silent gasp. And then, like I’ve learned to do with teleporting and glamours, I simply whisper my will to the light.
In an instant, everything goes dead still. I open my eyes to find all things frozen—even sound ceases, and the smoke stops moving, as does the lava flow at his back—because time itself has stopped.
I stopped time.
And it was so…easy.
I take the final few steps and drop to my knees at Hades’ feet. I briefly consider ripping the veil of glamour from his eyes now, but no. Too much too soon. He needs to calm down first before I break that to him.
So I simply release time.
Sound and movement resume, and Hades slams back in the throne at my sudden appearance.
The tears that came unbidden at the mere sound of Cronos’ name on my lips continue to fall as I lay my chin on his knee, on top of my hands.
“It’s me. I got myself out of that place.
I’m here with you. You have always been able to feel the truth of us.
Let go of your fury and fear and look at me, Hades. Really look at me.”
I know I’m begging. Pleading with him.
Even as the words come out of my mouth, I’m also praying to him. Please don’t send me away. I’m not lying. Please see me. I’m here. I love you, and I’m really here. I’m never going away—
A shudder rips through Hades from head to toe so violently, it shakes me loose from his knee, and I sit back, watching him warily.
Waiting for the death strike.
Except he bolts forward, his hands coming up to cup my cheeks, and his hood falls away to reveal his face, his mercurial eyes a true silver searching my gaze, my features, my body like he still isn’t sure I’m real.
“Lyra?” he asks unevenly. “It’s you?” He frowns, silver eyes turning slightly stormy. “Not you from your future or my past or whatever the bloody hell you’ve been doing to torment me my entire life. But from now. The one I made into my queen.”
I cover his hands with mine. The tears are slipping down my cheeks faster, but I blink them away because I don’t want them to blur his face. I want to see everything.
“I’ll never leave you again,” I whisper.
“Thank the heavens.” His voice breaks, and Hades crumples around me, holding me so tight I can’t breathe, and I don’t care.