Furious

Chapter Forty

Everything hurt exponentially with each minute movement; since my left leg was useless and I couldn't very well hop back out onto the battlefield, I spread my wings and pushed off of the ground.

I stopped at the mirror portal, unsure if it would allow me passage. Hades urged the others on, his hand brushing mine. "You and I have one last thing to attend to."

For a fleeting moment I thought he was going to send me home, our bargain now complete. But he wouldn't send me away bleeding and injured as I was, would he?

"The Fates were right when they said you were going to play a crucial part in this war. Not only did you rally the army, near single-handedly defeat the Olympians, discover the Nectar and the real reason behind its disappearance, but you held onto the mantle of Hades without ever trying to take it on for yourself." He smiled down at me, never mind that I hadn't done any of those things without help—and I hadn't exactly solved the puzzle behind why the Nectar was stolen in the first place.

I just wanted to let him smile at me for a while. Forget war, forget the pain in my body, forget that whatever this tenuous friendship was it was probably unhealthy for both of us. "If you, or anyone else, had tried to wear the helm and it didn't immediately kill you, I would have had to.

"Please show me where it is," he asked gently.

First things first... "How did you know I had it? I never told anyone that the Fates had given it to me."

Hades took my hand in his and brought it to his lips. "They told me that the Fury was going to hold something precious to me and would only return whatever it was when I figured it out. At first I thought it was a metaphor, a trick, even. Now I feel incomplete without the helm, and equally foolish for not realizing it sooner.

"I would garner that the Fates were not counting on your strength over Alecto, nor that we would ally with Poseidon in the eleventh hour, or that we would ever find them out. They never planned for me to regain the mantle. Which is why I need it now more than ever."

I sighed my acquiescence. It would be wrong the keep the most important piece of Hades from him. "You always get what you want from me, don't you?" Reaching into my breastplate, I retrieved the charm from the safe place Alecto had stashed it—pressed against my rip cage on my right side. She only mildly protested. I held my hand palm-up to the Lord of the Underworld. A puzzled look graced his warm face.

"Not everything. Had I had a choice, it would have been you on the battlefield with me, not Lindsay. Not Alecto."As soon as Hades touched the helmet it began to glow. The once-tiny charm swelled up to the size of his head: an ornate helm adorned with the symbol on my leather chest plate. The sigil of Hades.

A breeze, hot and wild, blew into the dungeon, surrounding us in a dangerous blanket of heat and power. Hades breathed it in deeply, eyes closed, completely relaxed.

When his eyes snapped open I knew that the man I had come to more than tolerate was gone—this time gone for good. Where once his irises were deep and brown, now they were liquid gold, molten and fluid. In his place stood Hades. He, in a giddy euphoric state, reached out to me. Not unlike the first time we met, he wrapped his arms around me. I had never been more frightened for my life that day on the street where we met—that much I remembered; this time I welcomed his embrace.

Hades smiled as he caught my mouth with his. He kissed me with good-byes on his lips—was that regret I tasted? I kissed him back knowing I would probably never get the chance again.

In his kisses were promises, were answers, were all of the things I'd ever asked him for; I had once wanted nothing from this man save for a ride home and over the time I spent in his realm I began to want the world from him. His attention, his words, his smile, the answers he promised me but never knew enough to give. I wanted to consume him as I was consumed.