Page 75 of Curse the Flame

He’s saying they aren’t dangerous to me.

“The Underworld is protected,” he continues. “Nobody gets in unless Hades lets them. Nobody reaches you. Teddy… Kronos found a cheat. I won’t let that happen again. You’ll be safe, Blossom. I vow it.”

Another vow, I notice. “What about everyone else?”

His expression hardens almost imperceptibly. “Everyone else ain’t my wife.”

That’s true. And, nine months after I watched Aiden order the Roman soldier to lower his sword before he lit the guy’s funny little leather skirt flaps on fire, I know that Aiden would watch every village and palace and person in the Other burn so long as the flames stopped at the border of the Underworld. I know that about him. I have always known it, even before I accepted the crown or remembered enough of Persephone to understand how completely and obsessively Hades has loved her.

How completely and obsessively Aiden loves me.

He brushes one hand over my hair, fanning his hand through the fire of my crown. “You’re safe, Blossom,” he says again right as the dark shadows around us seem to surge in response to the golden light that suddenly floods one end of the megaron.

Aiden moves before I have time to react. He spins, shoving me behind him as wild flames erupt over both of his hands.

A moment later, he extinguishes them. I understand why he’s so protective of me, just like I understand why he reluctantly pulls his fire back.

Because the source of the golden light? It’s my cousin and her sun god husband.

Daphne’s red hair is pulled out of her face, done in a messy thick braid over her shoulder. Alex is wearing his usual outfit, only he has a golden quiver over one shoulder and a large bow in his hand. Daphne has a small golden dagger in hers, her lips thinned in a small line.

“Will,” Daphne calls out to me.

I slip around Aiden before he can stop me, hands outstretched as I rush toward her. “A knife, Daph? Why do you have a knife? What’s going on? I didn’t know you were coming today.”

She catches my right hand with her left, looking me over as though she’s the one who should be checking for injuries. “We had no choice. We’re at war.”

What?

“What? No. No, we’re not. Let me tell you… Aiden has Kronos. He’s in Tartarus⁠—”

“It was a distraction.”

Okay. Again… what?

It’s Alex’s turn to talk. “I spoke to Cassandra.”

“She was just here⁠—”

Alex shakes his blond head, cutting me off. “She was. She came to find me after she saw Kronos was in the Underworld. She knew Hades could handle the titan if he targeted his wife.”

Aiden’s stare hardens. “The prophetess was right. I did, and he’s in the pit.”

“I know.”

“Then whatever he planned, he failed.”

Alex’s expression turns unusually grim. “I wish it was so, but no. Whatever happened down here, he planned that. Kronos sacrificed himself for the sake of chaos.”

Silence falls over the cavernous megaron.

I don’t understand. “He wanted us to capture him?”

“He knew every powerful god who opposed him would focus on keeping him from targeting the Other,” Daphne says. “He made himself the obvious threat.”

“Because he is the obvious threat.”

“He’s chaos,” Alex says. “He doesn’t care whether he rules what remains. He only cares that the balance is broken. So while he was distracting you down here, knowing you’d open Tartarus to imprison him, he had already found a way to⁠—”