SWNOVELS Neon Gods: Chapter 25
I don’t sleep. Even after showering and crawling into bed with Persephone, holding her in my arms as her breathing evens out, sleep won’t come for me. I can’t shed the dread that’s risen with every minute from the moment when I pulled out of her, my harsh words still ringing in my ears. I crossed a line, and her being right there with me doesn’t change the fact that it’s done.
I don’t want to let her go.
An impossible scenario. I might as well try to lasso the moon as try to keep Persephone with me. Even if she was willing, the price is too high. Her mother will never acknowledge that her darling daughter might prefer the lower city—might prefer me—to the sparkling poison Zeus’s court has to offer. She’ll continue to punish my people to try to force my hand. We can last a few years on our own, as long as we don’t pull too hard on the supply lines I’ve set up with Triton, but the second Poseidon or Demeter realizes what’s happening, that avenue will be closed to us. People who depend on me for safety will suffer.
And Zeus?
He’ll never rest as long as Persephone’s by my side. I’d thought he’d make his play by now, but that old bastard is craftier than I expected. He’ll move against me, but he’s going to do it in a way that can’t be tracked back to him. If I can’t prove it…
No, there are a thousand reasons to honor my agreement with Persephone and pave the way for her to gain her freedom. There’s only one to ask her to stay—I love her. Not enough. It will never be enough with the odds stacked against us.
I’m so deep in my head, it takes a few moments to register the sound of a phone ringing. I lift my head, but it’s not my ringtone. “Persephone.”
She stirs and blinks those big hazel eyes at me. “Hades?”
“Someone’s calling you.” When she keeps trying to shake off sleep, I slip out of bed and snag her phone from the dresser. A quick glance at the screen shows Eurydice’s name scrolling across. “It’s your youngest sister.”
That gets her moving. She sits up and shoves her hair back with one hand while reaching for the phone with the other. I expect her to take the call into the bathroom or the sitting room for some privacy, but she puts it on speaker. “Eurydice?”
“Persephone? Oh thank the gods. No one else is answering.” The panic in the woman’s voice makes the small hairs on the back of my neck rise.
“What’s going on?”
“There’s someone following me. I was supposed to meet Orpheus at this bar, but he never showed and this guy got really pushy, so I left but…” Her breath sobs out. “He’s following me. There are no cabs. I don’t know what to do. There were people around, but we’re too close to the river now and all the streets are empty. I tried to call Orpheus, but he’s not answering. What do I do, Persephone?”
The more scared her sister sounds, the more Persephone shuts down her own emotions, her voice going brisk. “Where are you? Your exact location.”
“Uh…” The sound of the wind in the speaker. “Juniper and Fifty-Sixth.”
I meet Persephone’s gaze. Her sister is close to the River Styx but not close enough. If she tries to cross over, Zeus’s people will attempt to take her. If I do, I’m violating the treaty. “She has to get to the river,” I murmur.
Persephone nods. “You need to cross the River Styx, Eurydice. Do you understand me? If you go down Juniper, you’ll see the bridge. I will meet you there.”
It’s a token of Eurydice’s fear that she doesn’t even question it. “I’m scared, Persephone.”
“We’re coming.”
I’m already moving, hurrying into the closet and pulling on the first items I get my hands on and then shoving a gun into the back of my waistband. I hope we won’t need it tonight, but I want to be prepared. I grab jeans and a top for Persephone. She’s hanging up as I walk into the room. I text Charon to meet us at the door with a team. We have to play this carefully, but one look at the tightness in Persephone’s expression and I know I’m going to throw caution to the wind and do whatever it takes to ensure her little sister is safe.
“This is my fault.”
I’m already shaking my head before she finishes. “No, don’t take this on.”
“How can you say that? Doesn’t this sound familiar? A strange man herding a scared woman to the river? It has Zeus written all over it.”
She’s right, but that changes nothing. We have to get to the bridge. “We’ll know more once we get her safe. Focus on that right now.”
I half expect her to argue, but she squares her shoulders and takes a slow breath. “Okay.”
“Let’s go.”
We rush downstairs to find Charon and the others waiting. The Juniper Bridge is too far to get to on foot with any degree of urgency, so we all pile into two cars. I keep ahold of Persephone’s hand the entire drive. There’s no point in trying to dispel her tension, not when someone she cares about is on the line. The only thing I can do is offer what little comfort I have available. She keeps calling numbers and finally curses. “That motherfucker is sending me straight to voicemail. His phone wasn’t shut off before, and now it is.”
It’s not a jump to know who she’s talking about. “Orpheus isn’t the most reliable.” A neutral statement, since I’m not sure what she needs right now.
“I will never forgive him for this.” Her eyes go cold. “I’ll kill him myself if something happens to Eurydice.”
There’s nothing to say to that that’s remotely helpful. I’ll kill him for you is hardly the kind of romantic statement a person wants to hear, no matter how worried and furious she is right now. I’m saved from having to come up with a better response by our arrival at the bridge.
We screech to a halt and pile out of the car. It feels like a night for people to do bad things, the air cold and close, a low fog drifting up from the river and over the ground. It gives the atmosphere an eerie edge and obscures our vision.
It reminds me of the night Persephone crossed the River Styx.
I follow Persephone to the large columns that the Juniper Bridge has on either side, a clear indication of the boundary on our side of the river. It’s one of the better lit bridges, and I know she’s searching the other side for signs of her sister, just like I am. We were quick, but even on foot, she should be here by now.
“Hades.” The fear in Persephone’s voice is a call I can’t help but answer. She should never, ever be afraid. Not while she’s with me.
“She’ll be here.” I have no business offering this assurance. I don’t know the circumstances, other than Eurydice being pursued.
As if my words summon her, the fog on the other side of the bridge shifts and a woman’s form emerges. She’s not running. She’s stumbling. I can’t make out the details at this distance, but she’s holding her arm close to her body as if it’s injured.
Fuck.
Persephone grabs my arm and utters a wordless cry. She makes it a single step before I catch her around the waist. “We can’t cross the bridge.”
“We—” She doesn’t get a chance to get the rest out. A man moves out of the fog behind Eurydice, a hunting hawk to her injured dove. Persephone goes still, and when she speaks, her voice is freakishly calm. “Let me go.”
If I let her go, she will run to her sister, likely playing into Zeus’s hands. Whether that means snatching her up off the street tonight or a longer game is irrelevant. It will happen.
If I hold her back while something happens to her sister, I’ll lose her long before the end of the winter. More, I won’t be able to live with myself if I stand idly by while this woman is harmed. “Persephone—”
The man hunting Eurydice reaches her and grabs her shoulder, spinning her around. She screams, the sound sharp and terrified. I’m moving before I register that I’ve made a decision. I turn and thrust Persephone into Charon’s arms. “Do not let her cross the bridge.” I’ll be the only one to pay the price for tonight’s transgressions. I won’t allow her to.
She curses and fights him, but Charon wraps her up in a tight hug, pinning her arms to her sides and keeping her immobile without hurting her. It’s enough. I sprint across the bridge toward her sister, running faster than I have in a very long time. Not fast enough. I know that as I reach the halfway point.
Eurydice’s attacker throws her to the ground. She hits with a thump that makes me sick to my stomach, but she doesn’t lie still. She doesn’t even look back at him. She just sets her eyes on her sister and starts crawling toward the bridge.
“Eurydice!”
Persephone’s agonized cry gives me wings. That and the man looming over her little sister. His face is twisted into a fierce scowl. He doesn’t yell, but his words carry over the distance despite it. “Call for your sister, Eurydice. Scream for her.”
I suspected that Zeus is behind this; the man’s words confirm it. I don’t remember pulling my gun, but its cold weight is in my hands as I reach the pillars on the upper city side of the bridge. “Get away from her!”
He finally, finally looks at me. “Or what?” A flash of metal in his hand as he leans down and grabs Eurydice by the hair. “You’re on the wrong side of the river, Hades. Touch me and there will be consequences.”
“I know.” I pull the trigger. The bullet hits him in the wrist of the hand holding the knife, sending him spinning away from her.
One look at Persephone’s sister, and it’s clear Eurydice won’t be able to cross the distance between us. There’s a scarily vacant look in her eyes that I recognize too well. I used to see it in the mirror when I was a child. She’s gone somewhere internal, driven there by fear and violence.
The street seems deserted, but I know better. Zeus has his people watching his side of the river, same as I have my people watching mine. If I step off this bridge, it’s all over. War will come to Olympus.
The man sits up, clutching his wrist to his chest, his expression ugly. Eurydice gives a broken kind of sob. Just like before, I don’t remember making a decision to do this. One blink and I’m shoving him to the ground and hitting him in the face. Fuck, I’m not thinking at all. The only thing that matters is removing the threat. Each punch feeds something dark in me, as if I can hit this asshole hard enough that the monster in Dodona Tower will feel it. Another, and another, and another.
“Hades. Hades, stop.” Persephone’s scream stops me cold. My hands ache. There’s blood everywhere. He’s long since stopped moving, though his chest rises and falls. Alive. I twist to look across the bridge. Charon still has Persephone pinned to his chest, but they both look shocked.
They both look horrified.
What the fuck am I doing?
I leverage myself off the man and crouch next to the sobbing woman. “Eurydice.”
She flinches away from me. “Don’t touch me.”
“Eurydice, your sister is waiting for you.” I don’t have time to be subtle. I grab her chin and move out of the way so she can see Persephone on the other side of the bridge. My bloody knuckles hardly give a reassuring image, but it’s too late to take it back now. “Can you walk?”
She blinks big dark eyes, her fear so large, it threatens to swallow us both whole. “I don’t know.”
“I’m going to carry you. Don’t fight me.” I don’t give her a chance to brace for it, simply hauling her into my arms and hurrying back across the bridge. I was on Zeus’s territory a grand total of two minutes, but I’m not naive enough to think it won’t count. Even if he didn’t orchestrate this—and all evidence suggests he did—he will take advantage of the opening I just gave him.
I brace for Persephone’s fear. She just saw me lose my shit and violently beat a man. She stares up at my face, looking at me as if she’s never seen me before. “Hades…”
“We’ll talk when we get back home.” I maintain my hold on Eurydice and start for the car. “Get in. Now.”
For once, Persephone doesn’t argue. She slips into the back seat ahead of me and takes her sister’s hand as I set Eurydice carefully beside her. Her hazel eyes are shining. “Thank you, Hades,” she says quietly. “I know the cost.”
“Take care of your sister. I’ll meet you back at the house.” I shut the door before she can argue and motion to Minthe. “Take them back. Lock the whole house down. No one in. No one out. And so fucking help you if Hermes slips past our perimeter tonight.”
Minthe nods and hurries to the driver’s side. I keep an eye on the car until it’s out of sight and then turn to Charon. “Trouble’s coming.”
Charon’s skin has taken on a waxen tone. “You crossed the river.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
He opens his mouth like he wants to argue but finally shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter, I guess. It’s done. What do we do now?”
I try to stop reacting and think. Will Zeus go for a frontal strike, or will he try to twist my arm to get something he wants to avoid an all-out war? I don’t know. I can’t fucking think. All I can hear are the echoes of Persephone’s cry. All I can see is the helpless look in her sister’s eyes. And all I can feel is the pain across my knuckles from beating a man half to death.
I press my fingers to my temples. What would Andreas say? I snort as soon as the thought crosses my mind. Andreas is going to kick my ass for being so impulsive. “We can’t assume they’ll come in across the bridges. Pull as many people back from the edges of the territory as we can. If they don’t want to go, don’t force them, but get word out. War is coming.”
Charon hesitates and then nods. “Do you want me to pull in all our people to the main house?”
The temptation almost overwhelms me. I want Persephone safe, and I already know she’ll be a target. The urge to bolster our defenses until nothing can get past is a strong one.
But Persephone is not the only person in the lower city who needs protection from what’s coming.
I force myself to shake my head. “No, keep the doubled patrols on the river. Dredge up anyone you need to help those who want to get out of the potential conflict zone.”
“Hades.” Charon has to stop and wrestle the fear out of his tone. “The entire lower city will be a conflict zone if they come for us.”
“I know.” I clasp his shoulder. “I’ll get us through, Charon. Have no doubt about that.”
I just don’t know how yet. I can’t act until Zeus does. I’m torn between the hope that he won’t strike immediately and the fear that he’ll draw this out until we’re all going out of our minds.
The entire ride back to the house, I can’t quite shake the fear that I’ll arrive and Persephone will be gone. That Zeus will have somehow slipped past all my defenses and taken her back. That she’ll have realized I can’t truly protect her like I promised and decided to take her chances on her own. That she’ll recognize me for the monster the rest of Olympus thinks I am and flee. A thousand scenarios, each fed by the knowledge of how ugly things are going to get. I had planned on multiple scenarios when we started this, but nowhere in those were what happened tonight.
Some things you can’t take back.
When I find her and her sister sitting in the living room with the three pups playing around them, it feels like being sucker punched. They’re here. They’re safe. For now.
I sink onto one of the chairs and catch Persephone’s gaze. She piles two of the puppies into her sister’s lap and sits back. I approve. Pushing Eurydice right now is the wrong call. She’s just experienced… Well, we won’t know exactly what she’s experienced until she rouses enough to tell us. Which takes time.
So I sit there and watch silently as Eurydice slowly comes back to herself. It starts with her petting the puppies and ends with a shuddering sigh that comes out more like a sob. “I was so scared, Persephone.”
“I know, honey.” Persephone lets Eurydice lay her head in her lap and carefully strokes her black hair, a soothing touch.
There’s nothing soothing in her hazel eyes. She looks at me, and I’ve never seen her so fearsome. A true dark goddess, bent on retribution. She banks the expression almost as soon as it crosses her face, and I hate that she hides this part of herself from me. A trembling smile pulls at her lips and she mouths, Thank you.
In that moment, I’d do it again a hundred times. No matter the cost. It’s all worth it for her.
Fucking anything for her.