Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
Bloom
Threads Hidden
As soon as the leyline spat us out, Nero and the hellhound abandoned Sebastian. His curses followed us through the air, but I didn’t insist on bringing him to the academy. We were out of danger. No monsters in sight—only open sky.
Sebastian was a big boy. A god. He could find his own way back.
His true self, Apollo, remained Hades’s enemy, rescuer or not. And I wouldn’t let anyone—not even a god who’d saved me—come between my mate and me. The only one allowed between us was me.
Hours later, we returned to Ravencrux Tower. Dante patrolled the perimeter, refusing to rest. Cerberus perched on the tower’s peak, three sets of eyes scanning the horizon like burning coals—vigilant, protective.
I could feel them both. Their power signatures pulsed in my awareness like heartbeats. Now, after the Fates, I could track every immortal, every magical creature, every ward and spell for miles. The world thrummed with energy I had only just learned to see.
While Nero ran my bath in the black marble tub, I flexed my fingers and wove in secret.
The threads came easily, responding like an old friend. It felt damn good to weave again.
I did not fumble in the dark anymore. My ability had leaped from beginner to near its peak. Potential hummed beneath my skin, vast and waiting.
No longer a mortal, not yet a full goddess either, I was suspended between states, caught in transition. The power within me strained toward completion, urging me to take that final step—to become who I really was.
I couldn’t. Not yet.
Nero would know. Other gods would sense the shift. They’d know Persephone had returned.
So I held myself in limbo, weaving a web of lies and disguises around my scent and power. It was uncomfortable—clothes that didn’t fit, a breath held too long underwater. But I would endure it. Until I no longer needed to hide.
This small torment was nothing compared to what I’d suffered through ninety-nine lifetimes.
My fingers moved with muscle memory. A pocket realm shimmered into being before me, invisible to any but my own sight. As it stabilized, I sent my fate threads into it—all one hundred of them, from every life, braided into a single cord of power.
Now, no one could touch them, steal them, or cut them. No one was allowed to violate what was mine again.
As soon as my threads was secured in the pocket realm. I sealed it with blood—a final lock only I could open.
During the flight, Nero had held me so tightly I could barely breathe.
His terror of losing me was tangible, but he hadn’t noticed the shrunken threads hidden between my breasts.
I’d been worried he might see through the disguise—he was the God of Death, my mate.
But his focus had been singular: getting me to safety.
Nero appeared in the doorway of the bath chamber. His heated gaze found me immediately, roaming over my naked body with a cocktail of possession, relief, and hunger.
As soon as we’d entered his penthouse, he’d rushed to bring me tea. Made me sit in the plush chair by the fireplace while he drew the bath himself. His hands had trembled slightly as he handed me the cup—that small tremor broke something inside my chest.
After hiding my threads, I’d stripped off the wet, filthy travel clothes. The fabric was stiff with dried blood and dirt and the stench of monsters. I let the ruined garments fall to the floor and stepped away, leaving the horror behind.
Now I sipped the steaming tea he’d prepared—chamomile and honey, my favorite—and let him care for me.
During our life together as Hades and Persephone, he had never failed to tend to me. To anticipate my needs before I spoke them. To shower me with devotion so intense it once felt suffocating.
I doubted I could find another like him in any realm. In any lifetime.
I might have told him, in the beginning, that he was stifling me. That his constant attention was too much, too overwhelming. That I needed space to breathe.
Then I’d been separated from him. I’d gotten my wish—to return to the golden city of the gods, to its endless glittering parties, to the shallow life I thought I wanted.
New suitors arrived constantly, bearing gifts and honeyed words. Though I remained Hades’s wife, bound by sacred vows, they pursued me regardless. I was young, beautiful, Demeter’s daughter, and my youth made me foolish.
Too late, I realized my old life held no allure. I had already changed in ways I could not undo. The existence I once craved felt hollow, meaningless.
I missed him. Missed the depth of the dark realm. Missed the way he looked at me as though I was his entire world.
So I found a way to send word, slipping a message past my mother’s tight security. A whisper through the barriers she had raised.
And Hades came for me immediately. Within hours, he stood at the gates of Olympus, Death himself demanding his queen.
I held my ground against Mother’s fury. Against Zeus’s threats. Against the assembled gods who insisted I was making a terrible mistake.
I declared that I wanted my life with the King of the Underworld. That I chose his darkness.
That I was going home.
There was no going back after that, and I burned the bridge with no regrets.
But then, Mother and Zeus had plotted their revenge. They recruited the Fates, bribing them to curse us both, binding me to an endless cycle of death and rebirth.
They tore me from Hades for an eon.
Some memories stayed blurred, scarred by the blood curse.
But I was no longer running that same cruel circle. This time, I had broken free. I had stolen my fate threads back and hidden them away.
I wondered if Nero could feel it—the new lightness in him, the absence of that ancient weight that had dragged at both our souls.
He watched from the doorway, his adoration so naked it ached. Beneath it, unbridled lust scorched. His passion for me had never faded, not through an eon of suffering.
Men were fickle. Their love did not survive. But my man was the steadiest force in my existence. The one constant across every lifetime. Despite his brutal reputation, despite the fear his name invoked, he had never wavered.
I smiled and held out my arms in invitation.
He pushed off the doorframe and crossed to me in three strides, sweeping me into his arms. His mouth found mine, kissing me with a searing hunger as he carried me toward the bath.
The kiss tasted of primal male need, of barely restrained emotions. I could feel the fine tremor in his hands, the fear of losing me still coursing beneath his skin.
He set me down gently at the edge of the massive tub. Steam rose, carrying the scent of healing herbs.
Now I understood why he had taken so long. This was no simple bath. It was a ritual.
Moonflower petals floated on the surface, their silver edges catching the candlelight. Essence of nightshade darkened the water to deep violet. Crushed pearl dust made it shimmer. Silver willow bark had been steeped to draw out poison and soothe battered muscles.
I knew every ingredient. Their properties were as familiar as my own heartbeat.
I could grow plants in the Underworld. Make flowers bloom in darkness. Coax life from death itself. That had been my gift to his realm—beauty forged in a place of endings.
Hades was Death—my opposite in every way. Plants withered at his touch, crumbling to ash and dirt.
Yet he had watched me work. Studied how I tended my gardens. Learned which herbs I used for healing, which flowers made me smile, which scents soothed my nightmares.
He had remembered it all. Every ingredient here was exact.
He had kept them stocked through my absence. Through the ages of waiting, searching, grieving. He’d maintained stores of my favorite herbs, just in case I returned.
Just in case this time, I lived.
Warmth swelled in my chest, sharp enough to bring tears. He might be the villain to every other realm, but to me, he was the tenderest love, devoted beyond reason.
Even when I’d raged in our early years, hurling accusations of kidnapping and imprisonment, he’d never answered with anger. He’d only kissed my tears away. Then loved me until the pleasure was so consuming, I forgot what had upset me in the first place.
I sank into the heated water with a sigh that seemed to rise from my tired bones. The herbs began their work at once, seeping into sore muscles, drawing out the fatigue.
The temperature was perfect, just as I liked it.
Because he knew. He had always paid attention.
Nero knelt beside the tub, not caring that water splashed and darkened the expensive silk of his shirt.
“Your shirt is ruined,” I said.
“I don’t give a damn about the shirt.” His winter-green eyes held mine, and the intensity there stole my breath. “Only you.”
He began washing my hair, his fingers working soap into my scalp with slow, circling pressure. My eyes drifted shut. Pleasure tingled down my spine, and my body softened into his touch, tension I hadn’t even recognized finally letting go.
“You’re good at this,” I said.
“I was afraid,” he said quietly. “When I realized you were in danger and I couldn’t reach you.” His hands stilled in my hair. “When I tracked you to the abandoned Fae realm and didn’t see you at first.”
I turned in the water, rose petals swirling around me. I reached up and cupped his face, feeling the rasp of stubble against my palms.
“I’m not going anywhere, Nero.”
“You better not.” He tried for lightness, but fear bled into his eyes. “I can’t lose you. I won’t survive it.” His hands came up to cover mine, pressing my palms harder against his face to anchor himself. His eyes closed. “There’s not much left to break, love. If you’re gone, nothing will remain.”
My heart clenched. I wanted to tell him. Wanted to end the fear eating him alive.
But I couldn’t. Not yet.
Instead, I leaned forward and pressed my forehead to his.
“I’m here,” I repeated. “Right here.”