Hades: God of Longing (Gods of Obsidian #1)

Chapter 1

Ophelia

"We're closed," I say without looking up, it's midnight, I've been on my feet since five, and I don't have one more bouquet in me, but when I do look up, expecting a drunk couple who should not be getting married, I'm surprised to find an older woman in the doorway instead.

Tall and stately, gray-haired, wearing some sort of wheat-colored robes. I rack my brain trying to remember if there's a Con this weekend. Who knows. It's Vegas. There's always something.

Still, I'm tired. "I'm so sorry, ma'am, but I'm closed for the evening."

She smiles at me, but there's something predatory in it that doesn't quite match the look of her, which is giving more grandmother than coyote.

"Are you Ophelia?"

"I am." I grit my teeth, still trying to be polite. My feet are killing me, as is my back, and I still need to make it across town to my apartment. "And I'd be happy to help you..." I move out from behind the counter. "Tomorrow."

"You don't remember me, do you?"

I curse myself internally. Did I make an appointment with this woman and forget? It seems like something I'd do these days. Between the exhaustion of keeping the store afloat and the grief I haven't figured out how to put down, I've barely been sleeping.

Most of my clients are elopers, but I've scrounged up a few regulars over the years — mostly rich ladies who like to throw elaborate galas but hate spending money on one of the more well-known florists in the city.

Sometimes they send their friends my way, and I'm grateful, but tonight is not the night.

"I'm so sorry." I smile, hoping she'll get the hint. "Did we meet at Mrs. Morgan's fundraiser? I know I gave several of her friends my card." I reach behind the counter for my clipboard and intake forms. "I have a terrible memory."

Her eyes narrow slightly, but that creepy smile doesn't break. "Clearly."

I bite my tongue. "I'm closed for the evening, and I'm sure you'd like to get home, so why don't you take these and come back tomorrow? I open at nine on Sundays."

She makes no move to take the forms.

"...Or I can schedule a time. Mrs. Morgan likes for me to come to her home..."

She picks up a narcissus from the nearest arrangement, fingering the petals lightly. I wince. Those flowers took me weeks to procure, and they are not cheap.

"I'm not surprised that you're a florist." Her eyes, a startling blue, glance up at me. "Though it is a bit on the nose."

What. The. Fuck.

"Ummm. Sure." I'm still holding the forms out like a moron.

She plucks a petal from the flower, and I feel it like a shot. "I suppose I should be grateful, considering your father's influence."

My heart stutters at the mention of my father. I feel suddenly, violently ill. I don't remember the last time someone said his name to me — and this woman says it like she's referring to a man she knew. Past tense. Known and gone.

"You knew my father?" The words stick in my mouth.

Her lips purse as she continues to handle the flower. "He really never told you, did he?"

I try to place her. I search her face for something familiar — a funeral, a moving truck, one of the thirty apartments — and find nothing. Which means either she's lying, or my father kept a secret large enough to fill the gap where this woman should be. Neither option sits right.

"I'm not shocked," she says, before I can respond. "He always was good at keeping secrets."

That's enough. I'm not going to discuss my father with a stranger who plucks petals from my stock and smirks like she owns the room. Our relationship was difficult at the best of times, but we loved each other fiercely, and his death rocked my world in ways I still haven't found the bottom of.

"Look," I snap, "if you aren't here for florals, I'm going to need you to leave. It's late."

It's rude and not remotely customer-service-oriented, but politeness isn't working.

And apparently, neither is yelling. The woman simply smirks. Her teeth are no longer on display, but something about her stillness is deeply threatening, and I find my hands sliding into my apron pocket, fingers closing around my pruning shears.

"I'm afraid I can't leave, Ophelia. Not until I get what I came for."

"How do you know my name?"

There's a loud bang behind me — the emergency entrance — and I feel the presence of someone at my back before I even turn around. When I do, my stomach drops. Two men. Tall, burly, nondescript, wearing the same wheat-colored robes as the woman in front of me.

I take a slow breath and center myself.

This is a robbery. I can handle this. This is Vegas.

"Look," I say, keeping my voice steady. "I don't have much cash, but you can take what's in the register." I wince thinking about my rent, but I'm not dying over it. There's not enough in there to cover this month anyway. "Just take it and go, and we can forget about all of this."

The men start to flank me. The woman gives a slight nod. "Take her."

I move as fast as I can, which is not very fast. I am not athletic. My saving grace is that I know this store better than they do, and I manage to squeeze under the worktable before either of them can grab me.

I crawl hard, ignoring the bite of thorns and dropped leaves into my palms. I don't know who these people are or what they want, but I know I need to get out.

I'm close. The landlord split this space off from the dry cleaner next door, and there's a secondary exit I can reach if I get to the back wall. If I make it through, I can get out onto the road.

I'm almost there when a large hand clamps around my ankle and wrenches me backward so hard I feel like my leg is going to disconnect from my hip.

"Let me go, asshole!" I scream, kicking out. I swing the shears behind me and connect — the man makes a sound — but the other one grabs my wrist, and together they flip me onto my back. My head slams into the concrete. Stars. Everything rings.

"Drop it," the first one hisses. Blood streams down his face where I caught him. I cry out as pressure builds on my wrist, something close to popping.

"Don't harm her!" the woman snaps from across the room. "We need her intact."

Intact. The word sends a cold spike through the center of my chest that has nothing to do with the hand pressing into my sternum.

"She just tried to take my head off!" The bleeding man is furious. He has every right to be — I opened a slice down his brow, and while I missed the eye, I did real damage.

"You are twice her size, and she's powerless."

That spurs me. "Who the fuck are you calling powerless, you old bitch!"

Something changes in the air, I don't know what, I don't have time to figure it out, and then a black canvas bag comes down over my head.

The woman's face is the last thing I see.

The men zip-tie my hands and throw me into the trunk of a car. The woman isn't with them. I can tell because the orders have stopped, and so has whatever small restraint they were showing.

The car is a piece of shit. Every pothole drives me into the metal walls. It smells like patchouli and stale fast food, and the canvas bag left on my head makes the air thick and close.

Deep breath, I tell myself. Think.

We're still in the city — I can feel the rhythm of the streets, the stop-and-go of traffic. If I have any hope of escape, it has to be before we hit the desert. Once we're out there, I'm done. I'll either freeze or bake. Neither is particularly appealing.

Lucky for me, these are terrible kidnappers.

I work my wrists until the zip tie slides free. "Thanks, Dad," I mutter. His paranoia and his drills are the only reason I know how to do that, and right now I am not complaining about a single one of them.

I rip the canvas off my head. It's still dark in the trunk, but I can breathe, which means I can think.

I feel around the walls. No release latch. Which means I'm either kicking out the back seats or trying to disable a taillight and hoping someone notices a girl waving from a trunk on the Vegas Strip, which — honestly — might not even rate.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I mutter, maneuvering into position to kick.

I never get the chance.

"Watch out!" someone shouts outside the car, and then we're freefalling.

The world becomes chaos — metal screaming, glass shattering, my body slamming against every surface as we roll. My shoulder hits something sharp. My knee cracks against the wheel well. The air is punched out of me again and again. I taste copper and dust and terror.

My head smashes against something hard, and stars detonate behind my eyes. The spinning slows. Stops. For a moment I can't tell which way is up.

Everything hurts. Everything is still ringing.

Eventually I understand that the trunk has flipped, and the impact has popped it open. I don't waste time thinking about it. I crawl out through the gap and onto the ground, hands scraping against asphalt and sand. The night air is cold and sharp in my lungs.

When I look up, my heart sinks.

We're further out than I thought. Nothing in any direction except darkness, empty road, and the distant glow of the city behind us like a mirage.

"Shit," I breathe, pushing hair out of my face.

I'm shaking, but I do a quick inventory. Nothing seems broken. Bruised, bleeding from the palms, probably concussed, but functional.

There's a groan from the front of the car. I pick my way around to the driver's side and stop.

My two captors look like they lost badly. One is held in place by the steering wheel driven through his chest. The other's neck is bent at an angle that makes my stomach heave. His eyes are open and fixed on nothing.

He's dead. Very dead.

"Patrick!" I startle, spinning. The voice is coming from inside the car — the radio, I realize. An old police cruiser. The woman's voice spoke, clipped and controlled. "Patrick, do you read me?"

The driver, Patrick, apparently, looks at me. Alive. Barely. There's blood at the corner of his mouth, and I can hear the wet, labored sound of his breathing.

"We've picked up an energy disturbance." A pause. Static. "Has the girl used her powers?"

Powers.

I push the word aside and crouch near the window. "Do you have a phone? I can call for help."

He rasps something I can't make out.

"I think you've punctured a lung," I tell him, as steadily as I can. "I'm not a doctor, and you're trapped, so there's not much I can do about that. But if you tell me where your phone is, I can get someone here."

He tries to speak again. Nothing comes out right.

"This is an access road," I say. "It could be hours before anyone comes down it. You don't have that kind of time. If you want to live, let me call for help."

His eyes are wider now. One pupil is blown.

He reaches through the broken window and grabs my wrist with more strength than he should have left. His grip is desperate and shaking.

"Behind you," he gurgles.

Those are the last words he says.

Shadows swallow me whole.