“Sorry, Sebastian!” I shouted into the rushing air. “I wasn’t laughing at you. I laughed because we survived.”
Chapter
Twenty-One
Bloom
Threads Hidden
As soon as the leyline spat us out, Nero and the hellhound abandoned Sebastian. His curses followed us through the air, but I didn’t insist on bringing him to the academy. We were out of danger. No monsters in sight—only open sky.
Sebastian was a big boy. A god. He could find his own way back.
His true self, Apollo, remained Hades’s enemy, rescuer or not. And I wouldn’t let anyone—not even a god who’d saved me—come between my mate and me. The only one allowed between us was me.
Hours later, we returned to Ravencrux Tower. Dante patrolled the perimeter, refusing to rest. Cerberus perched onthe tower’s peak, three sets of eyes scanning the horizon like burning coals—vigilant, protective.
I could feel them both. Their power signatures pulsed in my awareness like heartbeats. Now, after the Fates, I could track every immortal, every magical creature, every ward and spell for miles. The world thrummed with energy I had only just learned to see.
While Nero ran my bath in the black marble tub, I flexed my fingers and wove in secret.
The threads came easily, responding like an old friend. It felt damn good to weave again.
I did not fumble in the dark anymore. My ability had leaped from beginner to near its peak. Potential hummed beneath my skin, vast and waiting.
No longer a mortal, not yet a full goddess either, I was suspended between states, caught in transition. The power within me strained toward completion, urging me to take that final step—to become who I really was.
I couldn’t. Not yet.
Nero would know. Other gods would sense the shift. They’d know Persephone had returned.
So I held myself in limbo, weaving a web of lies and disguises around my scent and power. It was uncomfortable—clothes that didn’t fit, a breath held too long underwater. But I would endure it. Until I no longer needed to hide.
This small torment was nothing compared to what I’d suffered through ninety-nine lifetimes.
My fingers moved with muscle memory. A pocket realm shimmered into being before me, invisible to any but my own sight. As it stabilized, I sent my fate threads into it—all one hundred of them, from every life, braided into a single cord of power.
Now, no one could touch them, steal them, or cut them. No one was allowed to violate what was mine again.
As soon as my threads was secured in the pocket realm. I sealed it with blood—a final lock only I could open.
During the flight, Nero had held me so tightly I could barely breathe. His terror of losing me was tangible, but he hadn’t noticed the shrunken threads hidden between my breasts. I’d been worried he might see through the disguise—he was the God of Death, my mate. But his focus had been singular: getting me to safety.
Nero appeared in the doorway of the bath chamber. His heated gaze found me immediately, roaming over my naked body with a cocktail of possession, relief, and hunger.
As soon as we’d entered his penthouse, he’d rushed to bring me tea. Made me sit in the plush chair by the fireplace while he drew the bath himself. His hands had trembled slightly as he handed me the cup—that small tremor broke something inside my chest.
After hiding my threads, I’d stripped off the wet, filthy travel clothes. The fabric was stiff with dried blood and dirt and the stench of monsters. I let the ruined garments fall to the floor and stepped away, leaving the horror behind.
Now I sipped the steaming tea he’d prepared—chamomile and honey, my favorite—and let him care for me.
During our life together as Hades and Persephone, he had never failed to tend to me. To anticipate my needs before I spoke them. To shower me with devotion so intense it once felt suffocating.
I doubted I could find another like him in any realm. In any lifetime.
I might have told him, in the beginning, that he was stifling me. That his constant attention was too much, too overwhelming. That I needed space to breathe.
Then I’d been separated from him. I’d gotten my wish—to return to the golden city of the gods, to its endless glittering parties, to the shallow life I thought I wanted.
