I turned my back on her venom. My world narrowed to Persephone alone.
“You are mine, baby,” I said gently. “You have always been mine. Even if you walk away, I will never abandon you. I vowedto love you and only you. That was my promise when I first saw you in that garden. You took my breath away. You still do.”
Persephone’s expression remained stone, but I saw the subtle movement in her throat as she swallowed.
“You’ve said your piece,husband,” she drawled, and ice coursed through my bloodstream. “So what will I choose? Mother or husband? A hard life in a sunless realm? Or parties among the entitled?”
I held my breath and let her choose. Even as I fought with every shred of will not to lunge forward, throw her over my shoulder, and carry her back to the Underworld to lock her away forever.
“He’s so toxic,” Demeter called. “Come home with me, daughter. Where you belong.”
“I wouldn’t be Persephone if I didn’t claim what’s mine.” She locked eyes with me, and for the first time, I couldn’t read her. “I can’t forget what loving you cost me. So I’m denying you, Hades. I’ll return with my mother to Olympus.Thatis my home.”
It was as if she had reached into my chest and crushed my heart in her bare hand.
Zeus laughed, the sound booming across the blood-stained arena. Other gods took up the chorus, their derision a crown of thorns hammering into my skull.
Demeter beamed, radiating triumph as she pulled her daughter into an embrace. “I always knew you would be on my side. Welcome home, my precious girl.”
I stood devastated. Hollowed out. An eon of fighting, of searching, of agonizing hope—fucking gone in a breath.
Behind me, Dante drew a sharp breath at the betrayal. The hellhound let out a wounded, confused growl. No one had foreseen this. It was like they couldn’t reconcile the queen who had endured an eon of suffering, who had shattered the curse, with the one now turning her back on us.
“And that,” Poseidon declared, cruel satisfaction in his silver eyes, “is what I call poetic justice.”
Stardust—Hecate—shot me a glance of pure pity before she schooled her features to stone.
Persephone stepped away from Demeter and Zeus. She moved toward me, closing the distance while I still knelt in the arena’s center—I knelt for no one but my queen, even as she rejected me and shattered my heart.
Her hands rose, cupping my face. Her touch was tender, devastating, her power a faint hum against my skin.
She leaned in, her lips brushing my ear. “By the way, husband,” she breathed. “The Fates lied. Remembering the past didn’t break the curse. You were never the threat.” Her voice dropped, final and cold. “Iam.”
I stared at my mate as if she were a stranger. In all my eons, I had never seen this version of her—cold, calculated, and utterly dangerous.
“Let’s return to our home,” Demeter urged, seizing Persephone’s arm. Her grip was frantic. “We’ve lingered in this mortal filth long enough.”
“I will find you, little pale flower,” I said, my voice now a low, taunting purr. It was not a threat but a law of existence. “No matter where they hide you, I will come for you. Always.”
“Threatening me again, husband?” Persephone purred back, a ghost of a sardonic smile on her lips.
“Do not engage him,” Demeter cut in, pulling her backward. “He only seeks to poison your mind again. But take heart: Olympus is warded against him. It is the one place in all the realms he cannot breach. You will be safe there, my precious daughter.”
Persephone held my gaze a moment longer—a silent, chilling farewell—before allowing herself to be led away, leaving me standing amidst the ruins of her cold victory.
Just like that, she was gone.
And I lost her all over again.
My power strummed within me, unbound and complete, yet it felt hollow. What use was a restored ocean if it could not hold the one ship that mattered?
“It is better than losing her the other way forever, my king,” Dante said quietly beside me.
He was right. She lived. She was not erased from existence. Her hundredth life had not ended in a final, silent grave. That alone was the victory.
Even if she had chosen a gilded lie over our scarred truth. Even if she had walked away.
But I would stand by my vow.
