Then she noticed a red spot on one of the white-lined bassinets. She frowned, brows lowering, and bent to inspect the stain when she felt something wet in her hair. It was thick and sticky, and when she pulled her fingers away, she saw it was blood.
Her skin began to tingle and her heart beat in every part of her body.
Another drop hit her forehead and trickled into her eye, sight tinted red.
She tilted her head upward and saw a large crimson stain on the ceiling and it was spreading.
The room was bleeding.
The babies began to cry, and when Persephone looked, they were covered in drops of bright blood.
She gathered them into her arms, hoping to escape this nightmare, but found she could no longer see the door.
They were trapped.
That was when she’d startled awake.
Persephone blew out a breath. “Why can’t I give birth like other gods?”
“Would you want your children to be born from semen and sea foam?”
Persephone scrunched her nose at the thought, feeling a little guilty knowing that was how Aphrodite had manifested.
“I think it is beautiful that you are carrying these children,” said Aphrodite. “You will have a deeper connection with them. You clearly already do. And they will be half of you and half of Hades, though let us hope they do not inherit your husband’s furrowed brow.”
Persephone laughed, and this time, Aphrodite yawned.
“Let me guess,” said Persephone. “You had better things to do than sleep last night?”
Aphrodite’s lips curled, her cheeks pleasantly flushed.
“I was supposed to help Hephaestus build the traps for the Kallikantzaroi, but when I found him in his shop, he’d destroyed it searching for his hammer.”
Persephone felt the color drain from her face.
“He didn’t build the trap?”
Aphrodite shook her head. “He had to reforge his hammer. Harmonia said she, Sybil, and Leuce received a flood of emails from readers complaining about items going missing overnight. The Kallikantzaroi were busy.”
It wasn’t unusual for mortals to email The Advocate to express their grievances with the gods. They knew it was a direct line to Persephone, which was a direct line to Hades and the Olympian Council.
Persephone’s stomach turned. She would need to message Sybil later to check in. The oracle had texted her shortly after Hades’s press conference to say it had gone about as well as she’d expected which was not saying much. Hades hated the media.
“Don’t worry, Persephone,” said Aphrodite. “It was inevitable that some would suffer the impact of this, including us. And when I left, Hephaestus had begun the first trap so we will have something better for tonight, just not as many as we hoped.”
“If we are to have fewer traps, do we need all these sweets?” Ares asked with a note of optimism in his voice Persephone had never heard before.
The two turned to look at the God of War, who stood beside the kitchen island, one hand planted firmly on the countertop, the other on his hip.
Lexa snorted. “What kind of question is that? Of course we need all these sweets.”
“What we don’t use for the trap can be donated to Halcyon’s shelters,” said Persephone.
After the war, the Halcyon Project had established several sanctuaries around New Greece. At first, they housed mortals who had lost their homes during the war. Once neighborhoods had been rebuilt, they provided shelter and resources to those who continued to experience homelessness.
“You’re not getting out of baking that easily,” said Aphrodite.
Ares’s crossed his arms over his chest, grumbling just as the timer went off.
