“I was your game,” I called out, my icy voice echoing across the silent colosseum. “Your bloody sport. But that ends today.No more!”
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
Hades
The Rejection
My queen shattered the curse. Chains that had bound me for an eon fell apart like ancient ash.
My full power surged through my veins, filling voids that had been hollow so long I’d forgotten what it was to be whole. Death magic answered, my connection to the realm snapping into place. I tore down the ward that had kept me from my mate.
I reached her in a heartbeat, cradling her face between my hands. Her skin was warm, her power a vibrant hum beneath my palms.
Pride swelled. A relief so profound it threatened my knees. A joy so fierce it ached.
She was back. After an eon of waiting, of loss, of finding her only to watch her die—she was finally, completelyback.
I hung on her every word. Just as the entire stadium held its breath. This was the moment we’d fought for—eternity together, with no one and nothing between us.
But then my mate, my greatest love, began reciting a history woven with half-truths and lies, as though some false memories had been stitched into her mind upon awakening.
Accusations spilled from lips that had always tasted like honey and nectar beneath mine.
“I wronged you.” The confession, hoarded for eons, tore free. “I’m sorry. I’ve been sorry for millennia.” I swallowed, the words scraping my throat raw. “Give me a second chance. Please. Let me make it right. Come home with me, and I’ll spend eternity making amends.”
I didn’t care about dignity. Not with her. I would beg her on my knees before everyone—before my enemies, before the stars.
“Home?” She laughed bitterly. “Where is it, husband? The Underworld? That prison I tried to flee? That sunless pit where I was nothing but your possession? Yourplaything?”
I looked at her and saw not just rejection but pure contempt.
“I once asked you,” she continued, her gray eyes like unforgiving stone. “Do you remember? If you ever regretted meeting me. If we had never met, we would never have fallen so far.” She leaned closer, her voice a vicious whisper. “So. If you could take it back, would you?”
I caught her hand before she could withdraw and pressed it against my chest, over the frantic rhythm of my heart. Let her feel it beat—for her, only ever for her.
“Never,” I said fiercely. “I would choose you. Always you. Every time. Living without you in my arms, beside me, laughing with me…that isn’t life. It’s a long, hollow sentence. And I have endured enough of that to last a thousand eternities.”
She hesitated. Something flickered in her eyes. Something soft. Something that resembled the love I knew. Then she wrenched her hand back, and the wall slammed down again.
“I know I do not deserve you.” My admission was a raw wound. “I never have. I caused you pain that spanned eons. Pain I can never undo. But I will be a better man for you. I swear it.”
For one fragile breath, I thought I had reached her. Then her expression iced over again.
“You can’t seduce me again, Hades. I know better now.”
“Not seduction,” I vowed. “Devotion. No matter what you choose, I will follow you. I will win you back.” I let her see the truth, the desperation, the endless dark waiting for me. “Because I can’t let you go, my love. You are my light. My everything. I’ll never let you go. No matter what.”
“You see, daughter?” Demeter spat. “See how dark and twisted he is? His sickness—his obsession—is what doomed you.”
“You’re pathetic, brother,” Zeus boomed. He had descended to stand at Demeter’s side. “Groveling like a beaten mortal.”
Demeter pulled Persephone back, a step away from me. “We tried to cure his sickness. We offered him, so many times, to choose another. To break the bond and spare you. But he spat in our faces. He chose to let you suffer. He refused to free you from the life he forced upon you.”
“I will never take that deal,” I snarled. “I would never do that to her. Breaking the bond would hollow her out. Leave her a shell. It would destroy the very core of who she is.”
“Better empty than trapped with you, you monster!” Demeter screamed.
