Chapter 10 - Ophelia
Ophelia
Hades changed since this morning, black t-shirt and jeans instead of the suit. Somehow, he is more intimidating in casual clothes. He still looks like he could kill someone without breaking a sweat, but less corporate about it.
And that pull, that stupid, impossible pull, gets stronger the longer I look at him.
"How was your day?" he asks.
I laugh at the absurdly normal question. "Are we doing small talk now? Really?"
"I'm asking a question."
"Right. Okay." I stay where I am, arms crossed defensively.
"Let's see. I woke up in a mansion after being kidnapped, had a lovely chat with an alleged goddess who cooked me lunch and read my tarot, learned that gods are basically capitalistic assholes, and found out I might be incredibly powerful.
" I smile, sharp. "Pretty standard Monday. How was yours?"
His jaw tightens. "Complicated."
"I bet." I don't ask for more details, even though I want them.
What does the God of Death do all day? Paperwork? Seems boring.
"Hecate said you had questions," he says, interrupting my thoughts. "About Persephone."
"Sheesh," I say, wrapping my arms around my chest. I shiver, not because of the cold, but because something about Hades makes me feel incredibly vulnerable. Instinctually, I know he would never harm me, but his very presence puts me on edge. "I guess there's no such thing as girl code."
"We saw one another when I was returning. I asked how you were, and she mentioned you wanted to know more about your past. That is all."
I sink slightly. There's this invisible weight on top of me. Expectations. That's the rub, isn't it? If I admit that this all exists, and it's getting harder not to, I have to reconcile with the idea that I'm not me.
I shake my head, trying to clear those particular thoughts away. "What was she like?"
Hades is quiet for a long moment. Then he moves into the kitchen, but he doesn't sit. Just stands across from me, hands in his pockets, shoulders rigid.
"She was kind," he says finally, and his voice has gone distant and soft.
"Impossibly kind. She saw goodness in everything.
In me, especially, when no one else did.
" He pauses. "She loved growing things. Would spend hours in gardens, talking to plants like they could hear her.
And maybe they could. Her power was—" He stops, searching for words.
"It was life itself. Pure and bright and endless. "
I watch him talk, watch the way his face changes, the hard edges soften, the shadows in his eyes lighten, and that lump in my throat grows larger.
He's not talking to me. He's talking to a ghost.
"She was full of life," he continues. "Laughed easily. Loved fiercely. Forgave too quickly." A faint smile crosses his lips. "She made the Underworld bearable. Made it beautiful, even. Before her, it was just darkness and death and silence. She brought spring to a place where nothing should grow."
He's waxing poetic now, lost in memory, and I feel ill.
"She sounds amazing," I say, and I don't mean for it to come out bitter, but it does.
Hades's eyes refocus on me. "She was," he says, tipping his head slightly.
"And very different than I am."
He closes his eyes. "It's more complex—"
"No, it's not." I step closer, needing him to hear this. My voice is harder than I intend, but he needs to hear this before he gets disappointed. "I'm not kind. I'm not soft. I don't forgive easily. And I sure as hell don't see goodness in everything."
He's very still, watching me, as though I am a bomb exploding all over his perfect kitchen, which I suppose, in some ways, I am.
"My life hasn't been easy, and while I resent it sometimes, I can't hate it. It's made me sharp."
Hades is so still I worry he's expired.
So I take some pity on him, worried I was too hard in my denial. Persephone and Hades were star-crossed, epic, and I can't imagine what seeing me feels like for him.
I'm not that cruel. So I throw Hades a bone. A small one, but one nonetheless.
"I believe what you are telling me," I say finally.
His eyes light up slightly, and he opens his mouth to speak, but I stop him.
I might feel for the guy, but I'm not going to let this go off the rails.
"I'll learn to control whatever this is.
" I gesture vaguely at myself. "But I need you to understand that I am Ophelia, not Persephone.
You seem like a good man, and I want you to understand that this is just another stop on my train of survival.
Once the cult is taken care of, I'm going back to my life. My real one. The Ophelia one."
Something crosses his face. Pain, sharp and quick. Because to him, I am her. I can see it in his eyes. She's standing right in front of him, telling him to fuck off, and he's hurt.
"You are her," he says quietly.
I press my hand against my chest, feeling my heartbeat, feeling the scar. "That woman you're describing. I can't even picture her. Can't imagine being her."
"Ophelia—"
"I'm going insane," I blurt out, and the admission costs me. "That's what this feels like. Like I'm losing my mind, just like—" I stop myself, but it's too late.
"Like who?"
I don't want to tell him. Don't want to make myself more vulnerable than I already am. But something about the way he's looking at me, like he actually wants to understand, makes the words spill out.
"My mother." I wrap my arms around myself.
"My memories before I was five are hazy.
Fragmented. My father didn't talk about the past much, and I always assumed I'd been too young to remember much, and honestly, what I do remember isn't great.
" I look up at Hades. "But I've been having dreams for months.
Missing time. Gaps I can't explain. When I was a kid, I thought I just had a shitty memory. Now I'm not so sure."
Hades takes a step closer, concern on his features. "The gaps. The dreams. What do you see?"
"Death. Screaming. Pain." I touch the scar through my shirt.
"And sometimes... sometimes I dream about gardens.
About being happy in ways I've never been happy in real life.
" I swallow hard. "This, all of this, it explains things.
Gaps in my life. Things my father wouldn't talk about.
Why we moved so much." I meet his eyes. "It doesn't make it less terrifying, but it explains it, and that is the only reason I am allowing myself to think it's true. "
"That's the only reason?" he asks, brow quirked.
I snort. "The vines and shadows helped."
He smiles.
"So what now?" I ask, tracing a vein in the marble of the countertop. I can't look at Hades for too long. If I do, I get that odd feeling in my gut, the feeling that he sees me better than I see myself.
Hades is quiet for a moment, and I am not sure what he is going to say. When he speaks, it's the last thing I expect. "Train with me."
"What?"
"Train with me," he repeats. "Learn to control your power." His voice is measured, careful. "If you can prove you can defend yourself, if you can use your abilities, I'll give you more freedom."
I want to tell him to fuck off. I want to refuse on principle, because who the fuck does he think he is, bartering my freedom like he owns me. But the truth is, sitting here feeling helpless is killing me, and if training means I'm doing something, anything—
"Fine." I throw up my hands in irritation. It's not that I mind training, it's the high-handedness that is pissing me off. "Let's train. Considering I nearly kicked your ass without even trying, I don't imagine it'll be that hard."
Something like relief crosses his face. "Come."
He leads me through the penthouse, up a set of stairs I hadn't noticed before. We climb two flights, and then he's pushing open a door, and—
The rooftop greenhouse takes my breath away.
I don't want it to. I don't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me impressed. But I can't help it.
It's massive, glass walls and ceiling, steel framework that catches the sunset and turns everything golden.
The space is filled with plants I don't recognize, exotic things that shouldn't survive in the Nevada desert but thrive here under precise climate control.
There are flowering vines climbing trellises, fruit trees in massive planters, herbs arranged in neat rows.
Water features trickle somewhere in the distance.
The air smells like earth and jasmine and something sweeter.
It's beautiful, and it's heartbreaking.
Because this wasn't built for practicality. This was built for someone who loved growing things. Someone who's been dead for millennia.
"You built this for her," I say quietly. It's a statement, not a question, and I don't really need an answer.
I move deeper into the space, my anger cooling slightly in the face of all this beauty. All this longing made tangible.
I'll hand it to the guy, he's romantic as fuck.
"How do I do this?" I ask when we reach the clearing. The sunset streams through the glass, painting everything in gold and orange. "How do I use it?"
"You summon your power. Tap into it. Direct it."
I close my eyes and try to do just that. Nothing happens. I don't feel any different.
When I open my eyes, Hades is staring at me.
"Put out your hand toward the dying vines and funnel your power into them."
I do as he directs and wait for something to happen.
"Push your powers out."
"How?" I snap. "Give me more than just vague instructions."
He narrows his eyes. "It's energy. Feel it and direct it."
I roll my eyes. "Great. Super helpful. Thanks."
His jaw tightens. "Persephone used to—"
"I don't care what Persephone used to do." I growl.
"The power is the same."
"And yet it's not. I'm not sunshine and roses, so maybe you need a different approach. How do you use your power?"
Silence crashes between us, and he's staring at me with a dark expression.
"How do I summon death?"
"Sure," I say, trying to be nonchalant. The idea of summoning death freaks me out. "How? Do you wave your hands? Do you blink? Click your heels three times?"
He glares at me. "No, it's instinctual. I am the darkness. It lives inside of me."
I groan, glancing up at the sky. "That helps me zero percent."
I expect him to snap at me. Instead, he winces, runs a hand through his hair, and sighs.
"Honestly, I don't know how to teach you. My power is different. Death doesn't work the same way as life. I remember how Persephone looked when she called her power, but I can't—" He stops, frustrated, with me or himself, I'm not sure. "I'm trying."
The admission hangs between us. He's trying. It's just not enough.
I take a breath, forcing myself to calm down as he talks.
"Focus on one of the potted plants. Feel the life in it—"
"'Feel the life in it'?" I stare at him. "That's your instruction?"
"Persephone used to—"
I throw my hand up and turn to walk away. I can't do this. Can't stand here and be compared to a dead woman over and over, can't listen to him describe how perfect she was at everything I'm failing at—
His hand closes around my wrist.
Not hard. Not bruising. But firm enough to stop me.
"Don't," he orders.
I try to pull away, but he doesn't let go. Instead, he tugs me back, closer, until I'm standing right in front of him. Close enough to feel the heat radiating off his body. Close enough to see the gold flecks in his dark eyes and the slight stubble along his jaw.
Jesus, he's insanely handsome.
Fucker. That makes it worse. It's hard to hate someone this good-looking who is mourning his dead love.
"I'm sorry," he says quietly. "You're right—"
He stops, and something shifts in his expression. His free hand comes up, and I think he's going to touch my face, but instead he leans closer, inhaling.
"You smell like jasmine," he says, and there's something in his voice I can't identify. Something soft. Almost fond.
"It's just the expensive body wash in your bathroom," I say, but my voice comes out breathless. He smells like cypress and ash.
"You always smelled like jasmine when you were irritated with me." A small smile crosses his lips. "Which was often."
I close my eyes, trying not to snap.
His hand moves to my face, fingertips brushing my cheek so lightly I almost think I imagined it. Then he's tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, his touch lingering against my skin.
And something happens.
I feel it first, a warmth spreading through my chest, down my arms, into my fingertips. Then I smell it. Roses. Sweet and heady and impossible.
Hades goes very still.
I follow his gaze.
Roses are blooming. Right there in the cleared space around us. White roses, dozens of them, growing from nothing. Petals unfurling, stems reaching up from ground that shouldn't support them.
"Oh my god," I whisper.
"You always smell like roses," Hades says softly, his hand still against my face, "when you're pleased with me."
I should step back. Should put distance between us. Should do anything except stand here with his hand on my face and roses blooming at our feet.
But I don't move.
Neither does he.
We're frozen there, surrounded by impossible flowers, the sunset painting everything gold, and the pull between us is so strong I can barely breathe—
His phone rings.
The sound shatters the moment. Hades drops his hand, stepping back, and the roses stop growing. They don't disappear, but they stop.
He pulls out his phone, looks at the screen, and his expression hardens.
"I have to take this," he says.
I nod, not trusting my voice.
He steps away, lifting the phone to his ear. "What."
Not a question. A demand.
I stand there among the roses I created without meaning to, touching my face where his hand was, trying to understand what just happened.
Trying to understand why part of me wishes the phone hadn't rung at all.