Chapter 11 Hades
Hades
The phone's vibration pulls me from the moment.
From her.
From roses blooming at our feet and her face tilted up toward mine, flushed and breathless and so achingly beautiful it hurts to look at her.
I step back, the loss of her warmth immediate and visceral. It's a loss I've felt for thousands of years. I've lived with it, but now that she is here, so close, it's getting harder and harder to keep my distance.
"I need to take this," I say, my voice rougher than I intend.
Ophelia nods, not meeting my eyes. Her hand goes to her face, touching where mine was moments ago.
I force myself to turn away. To walk out of the greenhouse, leaving her standing among the white roses that grew because she was pleased with me.
Because despite everything she says, despite her insistence that she's not Persephone, her power knows me, and so does she. She responds to me, recognizes me.
I make it to my office before answering. "Report."
Thanatos doesn't even hesitate. After a millennium together, he's used to my short moods.
"The two men from the car are dead." Thanatos's voice is flat, efficient. "One died on impact when you rolled them. The other passed last night when his lungs gave out."
"Did you get to their souls?"
There's a pause, and I already know the answer. "Charon is not aware we would want to question them. He is not aware..."
Fuck. "Where are they?"
"Tartarus. I'm trying to find their souls. There's some sort of block."
I close my eyes. This sometimes happens when a soul has some sort of divine intervention. It's rare, and it makes it much more difficult for me. Normally I do not care, but these men are the only connection I have to Mother Callista.
"Even when we find them, they may be useless," Thanatos says. "You know how bleak Tartarus is these days."
I snort. That's a polite way of putting things. With the state of the world, eternal damnation has needed to get creative, and Tartarus has delivered. The souls who end up there have been known to easily break, and if I need to engage in questioning, there may be nothing left.
"But I've been working other angles."
"Explain."
"I've been tracking their movements through the city using facial recognition software. Athena has helped. Took me a day, but I found them." He chuckles. "I do love modern technology. Who could have anticipated such things. Better than magic, if you ask me."
I roll my eyes. After all, the software Athena developed is partially powered by magic, and Thanatos knows this. "And?"
"They were gathering supplies. Rope, fertilizer, plants, weirdly specific species, all related to growth and cultivation. I'm sending you the list now."
My phone vibrates with the incoming data. I scan it, my jaw tightening.
"They're building something."
"A garden, maybe? Ritual space?"
"A breeding ground." The words taste bitter. "They're creating a place to keep her. To force the prophecy."
Silence on the other end. "That's—"
"Disturbing. Yes." I move to the window, looking out over the Vegas Strip. Somewhere out there, Mother Callista is planning. Preparing. "What about the men's identities?"
"Nothing. No records, no history, no digital footprint. It's like they never existed. It reminds me of Ophelia's father."
"Interesting."
"I thought so," he says. "It's making me wonder if there's a connection. Ophelia's what, twenty-five?"
"Yes," I say. Twenty-five, the prime of life for so many mortals, and a drop in the bucket for us gods. I feel something odd in my chest as I consider what this means for Ophelia. This ageing...
"You remember that power surge we felt years ago..."
"Magic," I repeat. "You think the cult already had her?"
Thanatos is silent for a moment. "I think there are a lot of coincidences here."
I grow more irate. There are too many holes in all of this, too many questions unanswered. It makes me feel vulnerable, which I do not like. "Keep pulling that string," I tell him. "I'll need to shift to the Underworld—"
"I don't think you should," Thanatos says. "We can have our men search for those souls. You need to be with Persephone."
"Ophelia," I correct. "That is her name now."
It's time we all remember that. I'm an asshole, but she's made it clear that she does not want to be called Persephone, and I can respect that.
"Mother Callista?" I ask. "Any news on that horrid bitch?"
"Gone to ground. I think she's left Vegas. Regrouping somewhere outside the city."
"No." I turn from the windows. "She's still here."
"Hades—"
"She's not going to give up." I can feel it, the way I feel all death that circles close. "I have what she wants."
Thanatos is quiet for a moment. "What do you want me to do?"
"Find me every cult member in this city. I want names, locations, patterns."
"That's a lot of manpower—"
"I don't care what it costs." My shadows flicker across the walls, responding to my tension. "Find them. Before they find us."
"Understood."
The line goes dead.
I stand there in the silence of my office, staring at the list of supplies on my phone. Rope. Fertilizer. Rare plants that only grow in specific conditions.
They're building a prison. A garden prison designed to hold a goddess of spring.
The thought of Ophelia trapped, forced, used—
My shadows explode across the room, consuming the light, and it takes me longer than it should to pull them back under control.
A knock at the door helps. I don't want to scare Ophelia, so I take a deep breath and control myself.
"Come in," I say, forcing my voice level.
Hecate enters, closing the door behind her.
"You are still here?" I ask, surprised. "I thought you would be gone."
"I'm here until you no longer need me. I figured it would be helpful if I am here with my wards."
"Thank you," I say, and I mean it. The wards will be stronger with her presence, and she knows this.
She snorts. "You won't be thanking me when you see my bill."
I roll my eyes. Hecate is nothing if not thorough. It's why she knows she can charge me an arm and a leg for her services. She's worth it.
"How did training go?" she asks.
"Poorly."
She raises an eyebrow. "Care to elaborate?"
"No."
Hecate moves further into the room, settling into the chair across from my desk like she owns it. Maybe she does. We've known each other long enough that the lines of ownership blur.
"I can help," she says. "Train her myself, if you'd prefer."
"There was progress." I ignore the offer, even though I know I should take it. I'm being selfish. It has only been twenty-four hours, but the thought of not having that time with her makes my soul ache. "She manifested. Created roses."
"Intentionally?"
"No." I think of her face, flushed and surprised, as flowers bloomed around us. "Emotionally."
Hecate's expression shifts. Understanding. Maybe amusement. "I see."
"Don't."
"Don't what? Acknowledge that you are out of your depth?" She leans forward, elbows on her knees. "Hades, she needs to learn control. Real control. And you're too afraid of pushing her away to push her appropriately. Her powers are tied to her mood, they always have been."
"I'm not—"
"You are." Her voice is firm. "You're so terrified of losing her again that you're not actually teaching her. You're coddling her. And that's going to get her killed."
The words hit like a physical blow.
"You don't know what you're talking about," I say, but even I can hear how weak it sounds.
"Don't I?" Hecate tilts her head.
"They're the same—"
"Are they?" Hecate stands. "Because from where I'm standing, Ophelia is someone entirely different. Someone you don't actually know. And until you make an effort to know her, not the memory of who she was, you're never going to reach her."
The truth of it sits heavy in my chest.
"Get out," I say quietly.
"Hades—"
"I said get out."
Hecate studies me for a long moment. Then she nods, moving toward the door. She pauses at the threshold, looking back.
"You know I am right, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner we can all move forward."
I stand alone in my office, her words echoing in the silence.
You're teaching Persephone. But Ophelia is the one standing in front of you.
Fuck.
I run a hand through my hair, trying to sort through the tangle of frustration and desire and fear that's been building since the moment I saw her in that flower shop.
She's right. Hecate's right.
I don't know Ophelia. Not really. I know what she was. Who she was. But this woman, sharp and sarcastic and guarded, she's a stranger wearing a familiar soul.
And I want her anyway because I will always want Persephone. No matter her face. No matter her personality. I know her soul, and I see it shining clearly in Ophelia, despite what everyone else wants to tell me.
And she feels it as clearly.
The greenhouse. The roses. Her face tilted up toward mine, her breath catching, her scent shifting from jasmine to roses as her body betrayed what her mind wouldn't admit.
She wanted me too.
I felt it in the way she didn't pull away. In the way her power responded. In the way she looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time and didn't know whether to run toward me or away.
I need to sleep. Need to clear my head and figure out how to actually teach her without constantly comparing her to a ghost.
I leave the office, moving through the quiet penthouse toward my bedroom. It's late, past midnight probably. Ophelia's likely asleep by now.
I push open the bedroom door and stop.
The bathroom door is open.
Steam drifts out into the bedroom, carrying the scent of jasmine and something sweeter. The shower is running, and through the frosted glass, I can see her.
Just a silhouette. But it's enough.
Enough to see the curve of her waist. The length of her hair, wet and dark down her back. The way she moves under the water, tilting her head back, completely unaware that I'm standing here.
Every muscle in my body goes tight.
I should leave. Should grab clothes from the dresser and go to one of the guest rooms. Should give her privacy, respect the boundaries she's drawn, remember that she's not mine no matter how much I want her to be.
But I don't move.
I stand there, frozen, watching the shadow of her through the steam. Watching the water cascade over her skin. Imagining what it would feel like to step into that shower, to press her against the tile, to taste the water on her neck and hear her gasp my name as she has so many times.
Stop.
I force myself to move. To cross to the dresser, to grab clothes. I don't even look at what I'm taking, just pull open drawers blindly. My hands are shaking.
When was the last time my hands shook?
When she faded?
The water shuts off.
I freeze again, halfway to the door with clothes clutched in my fists, and for one terrible, perfect moment I imagine her stepping out. Wet and bare and beautiful. Looking at me with those green eyes and asking what I'm doing here.
What would I say?
That I want her? That I've wanted her for three thousand years? That every moment since I found her again has been an exercise in restraint that's slowly killing me?
That I don't know if I want Persephone or Ophelia or if there's even a difference anymore because they're both her and I want all of it?
I hear her moving. A cabinet opening. The rustle of a towel.
I leave.
Slip out of the bedroom like a shadow, silent and quick, and don't let myself look back.
The guest room down the hall is sparse. Impersonal. Cold.
I close the door behind me and lean against it, still holding the clothes I grabbed, my heart pounding harder than it has in centuries.
This is going to kill me.
Not the cult. Not Mother Callista or the prophecy or whatever divine war is brewing.
This. Her. The wanting and the waiting and the knowing that even if I had her, she'd leave. She said it herself, this is just another stop on her train of survival. Once the cult is handled, she's going back to her real life.
The Ophelia one.
Without me.
I close my eyes, let my head fall back against the door, and for the first time in millennia, I let myself feel it. All of it.
The longing. The desperation. The fear that even if I do everything right, even if I protect her and teach her and give her the freedom she demands, it won't be enough.
She'll still leave.
And I'll lose her again.
But this time, it will hurt so much more.
Because this time, she'll choose it.