Morrigan turned to meet Bloom’s gaze across the chaos, offering the girl exactly what she needed to see: understanding, gratitude, a loyalty to Nero that overrode all else.
“I’ll come back for you!” Morrigan shouted, her voice breaking on cue. “I promise!”
The last thing Morrigan saw was the dark net falling on Bloom in the water.
Morrigan didn’t look back.
She ran. Her remaining throwing stars cut through any hunter who lunged too close. They wanted Bloom, yes, but theyalso wanted the cure to never reach Nero. That part didn’t align with Morrigan’s plans at all.
She needed Hades healed. Needed him grateful.
Persephone was done. As it was meant to be. As the Fates had woven.
Nero could finally move on. He could shed this broken, pining version of himself and become what he was always meant to be: the most fearsome God of Death, King of the Underworld. Not a lovesick ghost waiting on a shore.
Morrigan would be there when he needed comfort in his grief. As she had always been.
His eons of obsession would finally end. His eyes would clear. And for the first time, he would trulyseeher without Persephone.
An eon of loyalty. Of loving him from the shadows.
Now, at last, Morrigan would get what she’d always wanted.
Hades.
Chapter
Thirteen
Bloom
The Mole
My gaze swept over the men as they emerged from the trees. It was an obvious ambush.
Only three people besides me had ever seen my French home, had known about this forest: Dante, Orren, and Morrigan. And only two knew the details of this trip—Morrigan and me.
Sindy’s theory pinged in my mind—the one she’d shared after I told her how Kingsley’s men broke through Nero’s wards and caught us in bed.Someone on the inside helped them.
I’d tried to ignore how Morrigan looked at Nero when she thought no one saw. The possessiveness in her eyes as if he were hers. Not mine.
Now, the truth was cold and clear. She was the mole. The traitor.
Nero didn’t know. I wondered what he would do if he knew. It’d hurt him like hell to learn that someone he’d trusted for so long had been betraying him all along.
I could fight my way out. My new power thrummed beneath my skin, a lethal song begging to be unleashed. But to use it would mean revealing every card I held. Showing them exactly what I was capable of. And I wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.
I shifted strategy. Home wasn’t an option.
I needed Morrigan to get the cure to Nero. So when the net fell, I fought not for my own escape but to clear a path for hers.
She rushed away with the Mortis Bloom, her tears a final, glittering deceit. She believed I was already a dead woman walking. And still, she played the role, just as she had across all my reincarnations—a master of shadows, letting others wield the knife. She had even saved me a few times, always in front of Nero, or Dante, or Orren. Each rescue was a brick in her fortress of credibility, ensuring Hades’s unwavering trust.
But this time was different. Our enemies sensed a shift in me, and they wanted to take me out at any opportunity.
I’d made contingencies before we left Reaper Academy. My companions didn’t know that I already knew their true selves now. Orren was Cerberus, my faithful hellhound. Dante was the infamous archdemon of terror.
I bet on Morrigan to betray me, so I’d picked her to go on this trip with me. She’d leapt at the plan as soon as I proposed it, eager for the opening to take me out.
