He imagined he looked a lot like a monster, because he felt like one.
“Did I not instruct that you were never to contact me again?” Hades seethed.
Despite her fear, Leuce rocked onto the tips of her toes and glared angrily.
“I wouldn’t have had to contact you if the people you pawned me off on had listened to my requests!”
“Your requests? What requests could you possibly imagine you are entitled to?”
“An agreeable apartment for one.”
“Are you saying I was not charitable?” Hades asked, his words heavy with barely contained anger.
“Charitable? ” Leuce asked. “I spent years as a tree, and the best you can do is a shitty apartment and a serving job?”
He had no idea what sort of lodging Ilias had secured for the nymph, but he doubted it was shitty. Likely it was just nothing compared to the finery of his palace.
“If your accommodations and work are not to your liking, then perhaps you do not need them at all.”
“You would leave me without a home?”
“I have done much worse, would you not agree?”
He knew his words were hateful, but his anger and fear had manifested as an ache in his throat that made him feel like he couldn’t breathe.
Leuce moved to slap him, but Hades caught her hand.
“Looks like I am not the only one who hasn’t changed,” he shot back, and she jerked free.
“This is about her, isn’t it? That woman you’re seeing?”
Seeing? It was such a minor word to describe the love of his life—a love that she had disrupted with her careless words. Now Hades had to hope he could rebuild trust between him and Persephone.
“Is that why you claimed to be my lover?” Hades asked. “Jealousy?”
“Hardly,” she scoffed. “I was over you long before I slept with Apollo.”
If she thought that would injure him, she was wrong. It did, however, make him feel particularly vengeful.
“What a timely admission,” he replied. “It makes this next part much easier.”
Leuce’s eyes widened, and Hades gathered his magic. “I couldn’t care less about your life and what you make it, but if it wasn’t for that woman, you’d be a tree once more. She is your salvation.”
And with that, Hades deposited her in a park, far from Nevernight, and cursed her to never set foot in his territory again.
*
Days passed, and Persephone had not returned to Nevernight.
It was strange to feel so uncomfortable in his own realm, but all he could think about was her absence. It was like his magic searched for her, and when it could not find her, it pulsed beneath his skin, a constant reminder that she had put distance between them.
Not just her.
Him. He was responsible too, as Hecate had so eloquently reminded him last night when she’d found him wandering the palace halls.
“What did you do?” she’d asked, already looking dour.
“That’s very presumptuous of you,” he replied mildly.
She arched her brow and pointed out, “You only get this angry with yourself.”
He scrubbed his face, frustrated. “I fucked up. Persephone found out about Leuce. Of course the nymph would introduce herself as my lover.
Current, not former.”
“You say that as if one is better than the other.”
“To Persephone, it might have been.”
“Neither is better when they’re both secret, Hades,” Hecate replied.
He scowled at her. “I realize that now.”
“I think you need to consider why you did not wish to tell her, and if the answer is because you were afraid…maybe you do not trust her as much as you think.”
Now, her words tumbled through his head.
Did he trust Persephone?
He supposed he did not trust that her love for him meant she could overlook his past, and admitting that was both painful and embarrassing. In the end, he hadn’t given her a chance.
He should never have kept Leuce a secret—which was what he wanted to tell Persephone. He had debated going to her, but he wasn’t certain she was ready to hear his explanation, and when he’d finally decided to go to her, he was diverted by Ilias, who informed him that Acacius’s shop had blown up with the relic dealer and his men inside.
Before he could even speculate about that information, Hermes arrived at Nevernight with a message from Dionysus.
“Well?” Hades prompted impatiently.
“I just really need you to understand, I’m only the messenger.”