The Iron Queen (Daughters of Zeus) (8 page)

“Do you trust me?” His voice was subdued, as if he weren’t sure how I would answer.

I looked up at him. “Of course.” I trusted Hades absolutely.

“If you swear fealty to me, then you can’t swear to him. It’s not a perfect plan… But…”

I frowned. “Will that work? Thanatos swore fealty to me after he swore fealty to Zeus.”

Hades’ thumb moved back and forth on mine. “That’s different. You and Zeus are in the same bloodline.”

I stared at our hands, a feeling of unease creeping through me. “Why can’t I hear you?”

“What?”

“In my head, you said once we hit equilibrium—”

“Persephone, this is really important.”

I pulled my hand out of his grip. Annoyance flickered over Hades’ face, so I moved away from him, unnerved. “Why can’t I hear you?”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Maybe it was the lightning?”

“Is it permanent?” Voice quavering, I fiddled with my necklace. “I couldn’t even hear you when we kissed. That…I mean…We’ve always— Did it sever everything? I mean, are we even still married?”

Hades drew back, looking surprised. “I’ve never heard of anything breaking a marriage like that.”

At least the idea seemed to worry him, too. I was painfully aware of the fact that Hades only married me to save my life. It was supposed to be permanent, but if it wasn’t…Would he
want
to marry me again? Even if he did, would he insist on waiting until I was older or some other nonsense? We’d
just
gotten over the age debate. If it started again…

“Persephone.” His voice was gentle. “This is really important. If the marriage still holds, then Zeus can use you to get into the Underworld. I
need
to protect my realm. We can figure everything else out later.” He gripped my hand again. “Please?”

His grip felt wrong. It was like our hands didn’t know each other. Most of the time, when Hades and I held hands, it felt natural, like he was an extension of me. I looked up and met his eyes. “You want me to swear fealty to you?”

He nodded.

“So…What do I do, just say your name and—”

“Nothing formal. Just telling me you swear fealty is enough.”

I pursed my lips. “If we’re not married anymore, I’m pretty much useless to Zeus, right?”

He seemed to consider. “Zeus is still after your mother’s realm.”

“Is he?” I stood and put some distance between us.

“You seem remarkably unconcerned about this.” Hades’ voice was tight with anger.

“And you seem remarkably unconcerned about me. Not even going to ask if I’m okay, Hades?”

Surprise flashed in his eyes, but not regret. “Are you okay?”

I shook my head. “No.”

He sighed. “Persephone, I’m sorry. I know this is a lot, but I really need you to—”

I walked farther away. “I’m not swearing fealty to you. Not now, not ever. You’re not Hades.”

He sneered. “You’re pathetic. You should have been left to Boreas. You’ve been nothing but trouble. Do you honestly think you’re worth it?”

I glared at Zeus. He knew that I knew, but he was trying to make it hurt more. If everything went his way, I’d never see Hades again. I refused to let this be the last thing I remembered of him.

“You’re a novelty. A goddess who acts human. But you’ll outgrow that and then what will you be? Do you really think you can compare to Hera? I’ve been with nymphs who have more depth than you. You…”

Adios,
I thought. Nothing happened.

I frowned. That should have booted him out of my head and closed it to visitors.

Maybe it didn’t work if you were knocked out? I did my best to ignore him. But that didn’t stop him from talking.

And talking.

And talking.

I ignored him, or tried to. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to force myself into a deeper dreamless sleep by sheer force of will. I failed. And he kept on talking. Threatening.

Over the next few days, we fell into a routine of sorts. I’d wake up, and he’d torture me until I hit my breaking point. Then he’d knock me out before I could close my mind, and he’d wear different faces, mostly Hades, sometimes my mom. And he’d talk.

Constantly.

Saying terrible things. Things Hades would never say to me.

The words cut me like knives, but they also brought me a twisted sense of joy. As long as he was spending every spare moment trying to break me, he wasn’t watching them.

Chapter XVI

Aphrodite

Demeter’s house was full of Muses, minor deities, and priestesses when Melissa, Adonis, and I got back. Her house wasn’t small, but it wasn’t built to be a conference hall either. Blinking, I tried to take them all in. Deities crowded on and around the sectional sofa, perched on the hearth of the fireplace, and sat on the wooden stairs leading up to the bedrooms. My head spun trying to match all the faces with names. I didn’t realize there were so many gods left. A priestess on her way out of the kitchen with a tray of finger foods tripped over a god—Thalia, I thought—lounging on the bottom step.

“Oh good!” Melissa’s mother, Minthe, hurried out of the kitchen, dodging the off-balance priestess with aplomb. She wore a white apron with red flowers on it. If I never saw floral patterns again, it would be too soon. Good gods, the thing had ruffles. “I was just about to go looking for you.”

Beside me, Melissa attempted a contrite expression but didn’t quite pull it off. She still looked entirely too happy about getting into trouble.

But come to think of it, Mrs. Minthe didn’t seem nearly upset enough. She looked relieved. And not, “yay, my daughter’s alive. I don’t have to file a missing persons report” relieved. Just “ooh, an extra set of hands” relieved.

“Can you grab the nice plates? You know, the ones in the box downstairs?”

Melissa tilted her head in confusion. “Don’t you want to know where I’ve been? What I’ve been doing?”

Now it was Minthe’s turn to look puzzled. “Did you leave?” An oven beeped in the kitchen, pulling the already distracted priestess’ attention off her errant daughter. “Oh! I’ll just—” She moved toward the oven, looking more frazzled than concerned. “Uh, the nice plates, okay? You know the ones?”

Melissa nodded, looking shell-shocked. “Excuse me,” she murmured, stomping off toward the basement door. She threw it open with so much force it crashed into the horn Pan kept strapped to his back. “Sorry.”

I heard her foot hit every single step down to the basement.

“Would you like one?” Laurel, one of Demeter’s priestesses, asked.

“What?” I looked at the woman and then noticed the platter she carried of assorted vegetables interspersed with pineapples cut into the shape of flowers. The platter was white with delicate paintings of even more fricken flowers. “Sure,” I replied, grabbing a piece of celery and dipping it in ranch sauce.

“What’s with Melissa?” Adonis asked around a mouthful of a pig in a blanket.

I leaned against the front door—it was the only patch of unoccupied wall left—and took a bite of my celery, enjoying the crunch almost as much as making Adonis wait for an answer. “We’ve been gone for over twenty-four hours, and her mom didn’t notice.”

“Oh.” Adonis’ voice went solemn in understanding.

I wished I understood. Big deal if Melissa’s mom didn’t notice she was gone. Wasn’t
not
getting into trouble a good thing? But Melissa had sounded happy at the prospect of getting “killed” by her mother. Like doing something as extreme as flying to another city, stealing a car, and vanishing with no word of where she’d gone would force Minthe to notice her.

Weird, I didn’t think humans needed worship to survive like we did. But maybe teenagers were different.

“Who are you?” A gray-eyed goddess asked.

I blinked, jolted from my reverie. “Aphrodite.”

“You’re new,” she observed. She didn’t introduce herself. “I’ll let you guess.”

I nodded, taking in her studious look. Charisma radiated off her in waves, subtle, but powerful and well controlled. I ticked off the short mental list of Zeus’ known daughters. “Athena?”

The name clicked into place, sending an onslaught of images and information through my head. Goddess of wisdom, liked horses, tended toward neutrality but never quite managed it. Thousands of details flickered to life in an instant. Knowing everything kind of hurt sometimes.

Still, it was better than a cold introduction. By allowing me to guess, she’d given me the chance to pull up most of the information on my own, so recovering from the knowledge dump wasn’t as brutal as it could have been.

“Good guess.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said with a grimace.

Athena gave me an understanding smile. “And you are?” She motioned to Adonis.

A flare of jealousy flashed through me, but I dismissed it. Adonis’ opinion of me came across crystal clear on the trip home. Rejection didn’t come easy for me, but I wasn’t about to get worked up over some lowly demigod.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Adonis said with a grin.

Irritation flickered across Athena’s face, and I smiled, happy to know I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like him. Melissa had hung on his every word all afternoon. It was annoying.

Athena saw my look and gave me a warm smile in return. My grin broadened. I felt a sense of kinship with her because she didn’t seem to wish I’d never been born. That pretty much made her the nicest person I’d ever met.

The doorbell rang, and since no one else moved to get it, I turned and pulled the door open. A man wearing a black leather jacket stood on the porch.

Not just any man. Tall. Dark. Handsome. And a god. Nice. I stood speechless, captivated by his fiery eyes. He seemed equally stunned and let out a low whistle.

“Got to say,” he murmured in a voice almost too low to hear. “I’m liking the newer models.”

“And just who the hell are you?”

He shot me a rakish grin. “Ares.”

God of war. Bloodshed, screams, battle cries. People dying by the thousands. A wooden horse. Fire. Blackened bodies. Sick and wounded soldiers with melting faces. The images came too fast. Too overwhelming. I tore my gaze away from him and stepped back, stumbling in my haste. He stepped forward and grabbed my arm, steadying me.

“That was stupid of me, I’m sorry.” He sounded like he meant it. “It’s been a long time since I’ve met a new deity. I should have let you guess.”

“Everything all right here?” Adonis’ voice came from somewhere over my left shoulder.

“And if it wasn’t? What would you do about it, halfbreed?” When Adonis didn’t reply, Ares smirked. “Yeah, I thought so.”

He moved past me and stalked into the room. Everyone fell silent. I stood, staring at the open door, too stunned to turn and investigate the silence behind me. All those dying people…

Adonis moved between me and the door, breaking my gaze. He studied my face. “Hey, what happened?”

Behind me, Ares and Athena started arguing. I couldn’t focus on the words. I just kept seeing the bodies, the blood, the death.

“Aphrodite?”

I shook my head to clear it. What was I doing standing here in shock over the death of a few…million…humans? Humans died, it happened. War was great for gods. There’s no beating wartime worship. Fear and desperation gave it a potency that was hard to replicate in the day to day goings on of the typical human life.

But their faces…

“Aphrodite?” Adonis touched my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

I pulled away from him, temper flaring. “What do you care?”

Spinning on my heel, I stalked off. Stupid humans and their stupid wars and their stupid lies and fake concern. And stupid me, for giving a damn about any of them.

Chapter XVII

Hades

“Are you sure this is the right place?” I stared at the… I could only describe it as a church, half hoping Demeter had the wrong address. Only half. It had taken Demeter weeks to track down Apollo. We’d found almost everyone else.

Persephone hadn’t turned up in the Underworld, which meant she was still alive. Zeus had to be hurting her so badly that it took all the power she had to heal, so her excess power didn’t kill her.

That was sort of good news. Gods, I hated Zeus. Only he could turn the world upside down enough for me to see a bright side to my wife being tortured.

Demeter motioned to the sign on the church. “Unfortunately.”

It
looked
like a church, which was odd in itself in this industrial area, but instead of crosses and such on the stained glass windows, there were suns everywhere.

Staring at the billboard that proclaimed “WE WORSHIP THE SUN” in disbelief, I couldn’t decide if I was horrified or impressed. Silhouettes of bikini-clad girls in sunglasses lined either side of the sign. Unbelievable. Apollo had started a cult in the center of L.A, a large city by human standards, while the rest of the gods were hidden in the shadows struggling to find enough worship to survive. And no one noticed.

Apollo had always been a bit eccentric, but this?

“Wazzup!” A group of kids in board shorts approached a gaggle of girls in daisy dukes and bikini tops.

Wazzup,” they replied in solemn voices.

The two groups bowed to each other, and I thought I might have an apoplexy.

Demeter took a deep breath and walked in the door. I followed, pushing aside the beaded curtains to find myself in a stripped-down sanctuary that smelled sickly sweet.

“Wazzup!” a group of very tan people called to us.

I looked to Demeter, letting her take the lead. This was still her realm.

“Quite a bit,” Demeter replied. “We were wondering if we could speak with…” She hesitated like she couldn’t bring herself to say it. “…Mr. Sunshine, please.”

Really?
I thought, unable to suppress a groan. Oh, Apollo was
never
going to live this down.

The group of kids exchanged a glance. “He doesn’t usually talk to old folks, man. Sorry.”

Demeter’s mouth dropped open. “Old…people. Uh…I see.”