He answered with a deep, rumbling purr.
“Good boy,” I praised him. “I shall call you Cerberus when you’re in your beast form and Orren when you appear human.”
Cerberus threw back his heads, his gleeful howl echoing over the burning city. Then he dipped into a rolling dive.
A moment later, another presence cut through the air beside us.
Hades drew alongside us on Belladonna. The Pegasus’s midnight coat drank the light, her wings wide, feathers edged with faint starlight.
My mate wore the same black armor as I, twin sets forged for the King and Queen of the Underworld. His cape streamed behind him, shadows and hellfire clinging to the fabric like living things.
The God of Death looked magnificent.
Our eyes met across the gap between our mounts. His emerald gaze held me, brimming with pride and desire so intense my breath caught. Every trial I’d endured was worth it.
For him.
For this.
Forus.
Far below, the army of the Underworld, a seething mass, poured onto the golden bridge. A dark tide against the gleaming surface.
From the churning waters beneath the bridge, phantoms emerged, clawing their way onto the shores and falling upon the remaining soldiers of the gods who tried to defend the shattered walls.
“They’re inside!” the Olympians shrieked from every corner, their voices cracking with fear. “Enemies breached the wards!”
The dead streamed through the glittering streets like a rising plague, scaling buildings, toppling statues, dragging cowering Olympians from their hiding places.
Banners of the Underworld—skull, pomegranate, and hellfire—were planted on rooftops as our forces advanced.
“My love,” Hades called, gazing at me like I was his sun and moon, his everything. I was, just as I knew he was mine.
“You brought the dark storm,” I said, drinking him in. Joy longing, and a fierce protectiveness coiled in me.
“For you, my queen,” he said, his voice strained with emotions. “Anything for you. Always.”
I smiled at him. “Anything for you, too, my king.”
A deep, resonant horn blast rolled through the city.
“To Queen Persephone!” Dante’s bellow echoed beneath. “Protect our queen!”
“I’m not Bloom anymore,” I said, the words for him as much as for myself. “I’m no longer mortal. I do not require protection.” I gestured toward the fallen tower behind us. “Have I not made that clear enough?”
“As no one else ever could, love,” Hades said, pride shining in his eyes. “You shattered Infinite Crown. Should you wish it, that throne is yours.”
“I don’t want it,” I replied, disgust coloring my voice. “I don’t want this shining city that is rotten beneath all its elegance,either. Every being here is petty, cruel, and power-hungry.” I paused, the weight of memory settling cold in my chest. “Immortality can be a curse. And I say that as one who has endured mortality.”
“Ninety-nine times I watched you die,” he said, rage and grief twisting through his words. His hands tightened on the reins. “Ninety-nine times I failed you.”
“You never failed me,” I said fiercely. “I learned from each and every one of those lives. Now that I remember them all, I understand things I could not have otherwise.” My tone softened. “And my heart longs for our home, our beautiful dark realm.”
He swallowed, the movement stark in his throat. A riot of emotions swept across his handsome face—hope, relief, raw longing, and profound pain.
He’d once been bitter over his exile to the Underworld, but he’d grown to love it, to nurture it, and to make it a true kingdom for his people.
I’d rejected his realm when I was a young goddess, naive and spoiled. And when I finally came to see its beauty, our enemies cursed us and stole me from my home and my husband.
