Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
Bloom
The Mole
My gaze swept over the men as they emerged from the trees. It was an obvious ambush.
Only three people besides me had ever seen my French home, had known about this forest: Dante, Orren, and Morrigan. And only two knew the details of this trip—Morrigan and me.
Sindy’s theory pinged in my mind—the one she’d shared after I told her how Kingsley’s men broke through Nero’s wards and caught us in bed. Someone on the inside helped them.
I’d tried to ignore how Morrigan looked at Nero when she thought no one saw. The possessiveness in her eyes as if he were hers. Not mine.
Now, the truth was cold and clear. She was the mole. The traitor.
Nero didn’t know. I wondered what he would do if he knew. It’d hurt him like hell to learn that someone he’d trusted for so long had been betraying him all along.
I could fight my way out. My new power thrummed beneath my skin, a lethal song begging to be unleashed. But to use it would mean revealing every card I held. Showing them exactly what I was capable of. And I wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.
I shifted strategy. Home wasn’t an option.
I needed Morrigan to get the cure to Nero. So when the net fell, I fought not for my own escape but to clear a path for hers.
She rushed away with the Mortis Bloom, her tears a final, glittering deceit.
She believed I was already a dead woman walking.
And still, she played the role, just as she had across all my reincarnations—a master of shadows, letting others wield the knife.
She had even saved me a few times, always in front of Nero, or Dante, or Orren.
Each rescue was a brick in her fortress of credibility, ensuring Hades’s unwavering trust.
But this time was different. Our enemies sensed a shift in me, and they wanted to take me out at any opportunity.
I’d made contingencies before we left Reaper Academy. My companions didn’t know that I already knew their true selves now. Orren was Cerberus, my faithful hellhound. Dante was the infamous archdemon of terror.
I bet on Morrigan to betray me, so I’d picked her to go on this trip with me. She’d leapt at the plan as soon as I proposed it, eager for the opening to take me out.
My gamble was that my enemies wouldn’t kill me outright. I’d seen the net in their grasp—not blades but a capture device. They wanted me alive, at least for now.
I’d revealed my blood magic when I defended Nero. I’d watched the shock on Stardust’s face, the disbelief in Kingsley’s eyes.
Because I’d showcased Persephone’s legacy, my enemies would want to study me, to question, to leverage, before they murdered me.
This time, awakening, I’d learned to think like a strategist, a skill my former selves never lived long enough to master.
So I would let them take me and arrive as an offered prize, a captive on a platter.
And I would bring doom to their door.
The risk was great. My body was still mortal, fragile, even with a goddess stirring inside it. But this was the only way to unspool the deep, dirty truth and to pull it, thread by bloody thread, into the light.
The week I stayed with Nero, I ran every scenario. Lying beside him at night, watching him sleep, I turned each angle over in the dark. I couldn’t consult him, and as much as I trusted him, I believed he was blind to something crucial.
Everyone knew about his feud with Zeus. The King of Gods always wanted to clip Hades’s wings in order to keep the God of Death from growing more powerful. Targeting me was the easiest way to wound him, but there was something else.
I felt it in my blood. I needed to find the missing piece to truly break this curse imposed on Hades and me.
So here I was, letting enemy hands take me. Allowing them to drag me from the net like a mermaid caught in a fisherman’s trap.
No one knew I had fully awakened. Not even my mate. And that would be my lethal weapon: a surprise no one saw coming.
It didn’t mean I wasn’t afraid. My heart hammered against my ribs as rough hands grabbed me, as the net drew tight. Fear was rational. Fear kept you sharp.
But my wrath was so much deeper.
So I let them underestimate me. Let them see weakness, fright, and helplessness in me. Let them believe I was just another failed reincarnation, waiting to die.
They’d always underestimated Persephone. Saw her as a victim, a prize, a pawn.
But I knew her now. She was me. And I remembered the truth they had forgotten.
Persephone, the once na?ve maiden Goddess of Spring, had always been a masterful actress.
And the final act was mine.