A Touch of Chaos (19 page)

“Oh my gods,” said Ariadne.

“What?” Persephone said, pulse quickening as she whirled to see what she was staring at. She'd feared another monster.

“Galanthis,” said Hades, a note of surprise in his voice.

“You know Galanthis?” Persephone asked.

“Yes,” he said, and then he frowned, starting toward her. “She is hurt.”

Hecate's creature limped along, blood spotting the ground as she walked. She had not reverted to her cat form, still sporting her large wings and horned head.

“She was injured by the bull,” Persephone said, following.

“What…is she?” Ariadne asked.

“She is a eudaimon,” said Hades. “A guiding spirit. They used to only be deified heroes, but then Hecate felt that pets would make better guardians. She was, of course, correct.”

“Oh, Galanthis,” Persephone said when they reached her, threading her fingers through her soft fur. The creature purred despite her obvious pain. “I have never had a better protector.”

Hades raised a brow.

She rolled her eyes.

“We have to go,” Ariadne said.

Galanthis made a sound that was something between a meow and a growl, then she knelt.

“Galanthis?” Persephone asked.

“She is offering to let us ride,” said Hades.

“But…she is hurt!” Persephone argued and then looked at Galanthis. “
You
are hurt!”

Galanthis meowed, and Hades placed his hand on the small of Persephone's back.

“Come,” he said, guiding her to the side of the eudaimon. Ariadne was already climbing up when a terrible screech filled the air.

Persephone turned to see what looked like a flock of giant metal birds soaring through the air straight for them.

“Oh
fuck
,” Hades said. “Not again.”

“What do you mean
not again
?” Persephone demanded.

“Up!” Hades commanded.

“I'm trying!” she snapped, gripping tufts of Galanthis's fur, but she was already moving, jarring them as she leapt
across the center of the labyrinth toward the mouth of the maze at a speed Persephone hadn't known she was capable of.

“Grab my hand!” Ariadne shouted. Persephone climbed a little farther and then reached for the detective, but her finger slipped, and she fell. She started to scream but was caught by Hades, who was not far behind.

“I've got you,” he said, his voice resonating deep inside her chest, even as her heart raced.

A series of shrill cries chilled her to her core. The birds were gaining on them, the sound of their wings beating, metal against metal, growing louder and louder. It set Persephone's teeth on edge and was just as terrible as their pursuit.

“What are they?” Persephone yelled over the grind of their wings.

“The Stymphalian birds,” said Hades. “Watch out!”

Suddenly he shoved her into Galanthis's side as a strange feather-type spear whizzed past them, followed by another. Galanthis dodged them, but each movement rocked Persephone, challenging the hold she had on her fur.

Finally, she was able to climb again, and when she looked up, she found that Ariadne was facing the opposite direction, gun in hand, but she was holding it wrong—and then she threw it, aiming for the bird closest to them. When it hit the bird, it seemed stunned, and then it crashed to the ground, sending up a plume of dust.

When she was within reach, Ariadne offered her hand, and this time, Persephone did not slip as she made the final ascent to Galanthis's back. Hades followed,
and once they were astride, they were consumed by the darkness of the labyrinth.

Ariadne's thread glistened, a thin rivulet Galanthis followed while the Stymphalian birds shrieked overhead, raining deadly metal on them. Galanthis did her best to evade the feathers, though at times, the arrows passed so close, she could barely react and instead slammed into the labyrinth walls, which seemed to shatter beneath her strength.

“Down!” Hades ordered as his body folded over Persephone's as he covered her head. A spray of rocks rained down on them. It was followed by the whir of several more arrows and the snap of bronzed beaks as the birds gained on them.

Galanthis covered far more ground than Ariadne and Persephone ever could on their own. Soon they were passing the corpse of the lion and the boar she'd slain, and Persephone felt her heart rise into her throat.

The only thing left was the thicket of thorns, and they would be free. Then Galanthis roared and stumbled, and they were thrown from her back.

Persephone hit the ground and rolled. When she came to a stop, she looked back to see Galanthis trying to rise, but she collapsed. Their eyes held, and then her head arched unnaturally as she was pierced through by another spear-like arrow.

“Galanthis!” Persephone screamed. She got to her feet and started to run to her, but a bronze beak closed around the eudaimon.

“Don't!” Hades jerked her around in time to see Ariadne's horrified expression. “We have to go,” he said, ushering her forward.

A sob burst from Persephone's mouth. She knew he was right, but all she could think was that they'd all been
so close
.

Together, they plunged into the thicket of ruined thorns as spears rained down on them, each one hitting in an explosion of dirt and rock. They did not stop running, even when they made it to the cover of the stairs. Persephone took two at a time, her chest aching. All the while, she reached desperately for her magic. She knew they were surfacing from the adamant prison when she could feel her power on the fringes of her awareness.

“Take us home!” she screamed. Her voice grated against her throat, but instead of teleporting, the ground began to shake violently, filling the corridor with a rumble that grew into a loud roar. It made Persephone's ears ring, and she swayed, unable to stay on her feet with the ground rolling beneath them. Hades caught her around the middle and pulled her back against his chest.

“What is happening?” she asked.

“Theseus,” Hades said just as a deafening crack sounded and the steps split. Overhead, pieces of stone started to fall away. The roof was about to collapse.

“Fuck. Go!”

Hades shoved Persephone, and she stumbled forward as the ceiling gave way. She whirled as the stones came crashing down, finding that a chasm had opened between her and Hades and Ariadne.

“Hades!” she screamed as he caught a large piece of falling rock and tossed it aside. Despite his efforts, Persephone knew they would soon be buried beneath the rubble.

His eyes met hers in the near dark, burning like embers.

“Go!” he commanded.

She glared at him, horrified and angry, but she knew at least one of them had to make it out. One of them needed magic to rescue the other.

“Just hold on…for me,” she said.

Hades offered her a small smile before she turned and hurried up the remaining stairs even as they shook beneath her feet and the ceiling continued to crumble around her. She stumbled and fell, her shins hitting the stone hard. The pain was biting but she kept going, bruising her fingers and breaking her nails as she clawed her way higher and higher, knowing that she had no choice, until finally, when she reached for her magic, it was
there
.

She could have cried.

She teleported and landed on her hands and knees at the top of the labyrinth stairs where she and Ariadne had started their descent as the opening collapsed.

She rose to her feet on shaky legs. She knew she was bleeding from her fall, but she ignored the pain and summoned her magic, intending to lift the rocks, when a sudden heaviness flooded the air. It was electric and raised the hair on her arms.

She turned to see a demigod with glowing eyes and a stream of white-blue lightning surging toward her, the heat of which singed her skin even as she teleported, appearing behind her attacker, but he was already a step ahead and had turned in her direction, casting another bolt. It hit her hard in the chest, throwing her back while boiling her blood.

She landed amid the ruins of Knossos and only had time to register the pain before the demigod appeared in the sky above her and struck her again, this time with a continuous stream of lightning. Her body convulsed beneath the heat, and her senses filled with the smell of burning flesh and the sharp sizzle of electricity.

Beneath the onslaught of his magic, all she could think of was everything she had been through. But it was not just her. It was her friends too. Those she had loved most in the world. Sybil and Harmonia had been tortured, and Zofie had been murdered. The prisoners of the Underworld had torn her realm apart and retraumatized the souls. Zeus had stripped Hermes, Apollo, and Aphrodite of their powers and put a bounty on her head.

And she bore the guilt of murdering her mother.

Through all of it, she had looked forward to one thing, and that was Hades.

He was her light in the window—the glow of hope in the distance despite the deep darkness around her—and just when she had felt his familiar warmth and the safety of his embrace, he had been taken from her again.

Her fury bloomed. She could feel it in her chest, a darkness that unfurled into thorns. She screamed as they burst from her body, cutting through the white-blue light. The lightning ceased as the demigod attempted to flee, but Persephone's thorns twined around him and through him. As his blood rained down, she yanked him from the sky, and he plummeted to the earth, hitting it in an explosion of dirt and rock.

For a brief moment, Persephone lay there, expecting to feel the pain that inevitably followed her explosive
magic, but she felt nothing save the hard ground at her back. It was then she realized the thorns were gone and she had healed.

She sat up and then rose to her feet, approaching the crater, finding the demigod lying at the bottom. As she looked, he opened his eyes, no longer lit with white light. She extended her hand, and vines grew around him. He struggled as they tightened, and when he began to scream, another clapped down over his mouth.

Persephone turned toward the collapsed entrance of the labyrinth and called to the stones. They were easy to find because they were made from adamant but harder to move because their energy was heavy. It made her body shake from the inside out, but she managed to shift them over the pit, locking eyes with the demigod as she dropped them on him all at once.

She caught movement from the corner of her eye and burst into tears when she saw Hades emerge from the ruins of the stairs. Ariadne was not far behind.

“Hades!”

She ran to him and threw herself into his arms, once more surrounded by his warmth and his scent. She buried her face in the crook of his neck.

“Let's go,” she said, and Hades's magic erupted.

They were finally free, and Hades was home.

“And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it, neither brave man nor coward.”

—H
OMER
,
T
HE
I
LIAD

Hades could not describe how it felt to be free of the labyrinth's hold.

The only thing he had to compare it to was when he'd been thrown up by his father and released from the dark prison of his belly.

But not even this compared, because then, he'd been reborn into battle, and now, he'd been reunited with his queen, and she was all he wanted.

As they teleported, he healed what could be mended, highly aware that the wound at his side was impervious to his magic. He was already imagining what Hecate would say—how Persephone would react.

When they arrived in the Underworld, he kept Persephone close, holding her gaze as he swept a strand of hair behind her ear before tipping her head back for a better look at her face—and access to her mouth.

“Are you well?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said in a hushed whisper meant only for
the dim glow of their bedroom. His hand tightened at the base of her head, desire igniting in the pit of his stomach.

“I dreamed only of you in the dark of that labyrinth,” he said, resting his forehead against hers. He wanted nothing between them save this sweet tension, but Ariadne cleared her throat, and Persephone responded, breaking this hypnotic hold.

A sliver of frustration shot up his spine. It did not help that he was not particularly pleased with the mortal detective and her previous refusal to help him, especially given the horror in the labyrinth, though he had to admit, he'd like to know what finally convinced her.

“Where is Dionysus?”

“Wherever you left him,” Hades replied.

“
Hades
,” Persephone chided.

She pulled away, and he was frustrated by the distance.

“I answered the question to the best of my ability,” he said. He did not know where the God of Wine was, and frankly, he did not care. The only thing he wanted to know was how long until he could be alone with Persephone.

“If that was your best, I feel sorry for you, Persephone,” Ariadne said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“I am just giving you the same energy you gave me,” Hades replied.

“What is wrong with you two?” Persephone demanded, looking from him to the detective.

“He's pissed because I refused to give him information on Theseus,” Ariadne said, then she looked at him, eyes narrowed. “I risked Phaedra's safety once to tell you Theseus's plans, and you did nothing to help her. What makes you think I would do it again?”

Persephone met his gaze. He didn't like the way she was looking at him, like she was ready to be disappointed.

“Is that true?”

Hades crossed his arms over his chest. This was not at all how he imagined this reunion.

“I said I would help,” he countered. “I never specified when.”

There was a time and a place for everything, and rescuing Phaedra had, unfortunately, fallen further down the list as more and more pressing things came up—like the murder of Adonis, the attacks on Harmonia and Tyche, and the hunting and slaying of the ophiotaurus.

Not to mention, as far as Hades knew, Ariadne's sister wasn't interested in being rescued.

“Perhaps you haven't realized since Phaedra is the center of your world, but there are people who have died by Theseus's hands while she sits pretty at his side unharmed, so forgive me if she is not my priority.”

Hades did not like the silence that followed or the way Persephone was looking at him, like she was stunned by his harshness, but he did not regret his words even as Ariadne's eyes reddened.

Fuck
.

Maybe he did regret them.

“It's all right,” Ariadne said. “Dionysus has done what you could not.”

And he would pay for it too.

He bit back his reply, though he was not surprised. The God of Wine was in love with the detective and would do anything for her, consequences be damned, and while Hades could relate to that, he did not trust that Ariadne was as invested.

Hades turned away from the two. If he lingered, he was going to say something else he regretted. He crossed to the bar and poured himself a drink, surprised by how strong the amber liquid smelled. It was warm and sweet, and it burned his nose. He placed the glass to his dry lips, his mouth salivating at the thought of taking a single sip, but then he heard Persephone speak.

“I'll have Hermes—” She paused. “Never mind. I'll take you to Dionysus.”

“No,” said Hades. He set the glass down and turned to face them. “Hermes is more than capable of seeing her home.”

Persephone's gaze was hard.

“Zeus stripped him of his powers—him, Apollo, and Aphrodite—for fighting alongside
us
,” she said. “So no, he isn't.”

Hades clenched his jaw. He had suspected Zeus would retaliate for what had happened outside Thebes. His rule had been challenged, and the other gods had watched as Persephone turned his magic against him and shot him from the sky.

Now Zeus had to remind everyone of his power and strength, but he could only strip his offspring of powers, not Hades or Persephone.

He wondered what the King of the Skies had planned for them.

Fuck.

He looked at Ariadne, who was covered in blood. She had scratches on every exposed part of her body and a large gash on her chest.

“I'll take her,” he said. “But she must be healed first. I don't want to hear Dionysus
fret
.”

“You mean the same way you fret over me?” Persephone asked, arching a brow.

He could feel her disapproval. He was definitely going to hear about this when he returned. Except that he didn't really care so long as they were alone.

Persephone turned away from him and placed her hands on Ariadne's shoulders. She was new to healing, and he wasn't aware that she had ever healed anyone but herself, so he was curious to watch her now.

When her magic ignited, it felt like the warm rays of the spring sun, and beneath it, he let go of the anger and tension that had tightened his muscles and fueled his frustration. Ariadne too seemed to relax as Persephone's power took effect, healing the gash on her chest, the scratches on her arms, and whatever unseen injuries she'd sustained while in the labyrinth.

When Persephone was finished, she dropped her hands and held the detective's gaze.

“Thank you for leading me through the labyrinth,” she said. “I couldn't have done that on my own.”

Ariadne offered her a small smile. “Yeah, you could have,” she said, glancing darkly at Hades even as she added, “Sometimes our love forces us to do extraordinary things.”

That was the first time he'd ever agreed with anything the mortal said.

Hades approached Persephone, and he was glad when she turned to him. He framed her face with his hands, threading his fingers into her hair.

“I will not be long,” he said and kissed her hard and deep. His heart raced as she responded beneath him, her fingers digging into his skin. It felt dramatic to say, but
he did not wish to let her go even if it was only for a few minutes.

When he released her, he was warm and aroused.

He considered teleporting Ariadne away without escort, but he knew Persephone would not approve. Besides, it was likely not the safest thing, especially in the aftermath of their escape from the labyrinth.

Or, apparently, Phaedra's rescue.

“Wait here,” he said.

He did not want to have to go looking for her when he returned. He stepped away, holding her gaze as he turned toward Ariadne and reached for her with his magic. Simultaneously, he sought Dionysus and found him in his suite at Bakkheia.

Hades wasn't sure what he expected when they arrived, but it certainly wasn't Dionysus passed out in a chair wearing the skin of some old white man dressed like a doctor—except that was exactly what they found.

Ariadne's brows lowered.

“Are you sure you brought us to the right place?” she asked, looking around, but it was definitely the right place, and this was definitely the right god.

He kicked Dionysus's foot, and the god startled awake.

“What?” he snapped as he sat up in the chair, glaring at Hades, but his anger quickly melted into a strange mix of anticipation and fear. He gripped the arms of his chair and stood, pulling off the net covering his hair. He didn't seem to realize he wasn't his usual self. “Where is Ariadne?”

“She's here,” Hades said, stepping aside so that the God of the Vine had a clear view of his beloved mortal.

“Ari,” Dionysus breathed as he took a step toward her, but her eyes widened and she took one back.

“What's going on here?” Ariadne asked, looking from Dionysus to Hades.

For a moment, Dionysus looked confused, and then he glanced down at himself.

“Oh fuck,” he said as he shifted into his true form.

Ariadne's mouth fell open.

“You didn't know?” Hades asked. “Your boyfriend here is a shape-shifter.”

“Sorry,” said Dionysus, rubbing the back of his neck. He seemed embarrassed. “It's been a long day.”

“Where is my sister?” Ariadne asked.

Dionysus's mouth tightened. Hades guessed that this was not how Dionysus hoped their reunion would go.

“I took her to my home,” Dionysus said. “I thought that would be best for her and the baby.”

“
Baby
?” Ariadne said.

“
Baby
?” Hades asked.

“What baby?” Ariadne demanded.

“Your sister is pregnant,” said Dionysus. “Was pregnant. She gave birth today.”

Ariadne just stared at him with her mouth ajar.

Dionysus must have hated the silence because he continued, “Congratulations. Today, you became an aunt.”

“You took Theseus's wife
and
his child?” Hades asked.

Fuck, this wasn't good.

“I didn't know there was a child until it was too late,” said Dionysus.

“Did she give birth at your
house
?” he said.

“No—”

“Then it wasn't too late!” Hades roared.

“Don't yell at him!” Ariadne said, stepping between him and Dionysus. “He did it for me!”

Hades's eyes fell to her, and whatever she saw made her take a step back.

“You think I don't know that?” Hades seethed. “You think I don't know that everything you've ever done has been for your own selfish gain?”

“Careful, Hades,” Dionysus warned.

“Theseus will come for his wife, his child, and for you, and while you
will
suffer, it will be nothing compared to those who sheltered you.” Hades felt his darkness crowding the room as he spoke, but his gaze did not waver from Ariadne's stricken face. “You thought you knew pain? You thought you knew guilt? You are about to know the agony of living with the blood of innocent people on your hands.” Hades straightened and looked at Dionysus, whose eyes were dark with rage. “You had better hope I am wrong,” he said before he vanished.