Beneath

Chapter Fifteen:

The Underworld, four months later...

"You did well today," Hades said as I climbed into bed, reaching for my Kindle. He placed a bookmark between the pages of a thickly-bound book, setting it on his nightstand.

"Well enough to go to Portland?"

"No."

"That's what I thought."

He reached out, grabbing my chin as he turned my face towards his. "I'm sorry that you even have to ask anymore, Emma."

"Just admit it, Hades, you're glad that I'm here, and faking sincerity about it won't earn you brownie points with me right now."

I tore my face from his grip, flipping through my library to find the book I wanted and after a minute he turned away, too, though I could still feel his gaze on me.

"Milord - oh." A man skid to a halt just inside the bedroom door, out of breath, eyes bright - excited.

"Yes, what is it?" Hades asked, absentmindedly slipping a finger under the strap of my tank top.

"It's Persephone, milord. She...returned."

"Are you sure?" He tossed the covers off, reaching for his pants and shirt as I carefully slid out as well, reaching for my luggage.

I knew this day would come sooner or later, but damn if it didn't hurt, just a little bit.

"Sure that the woman entering with Nicholas just now bears a striking resemblance to your wife? Yes, I am."

Hades beamed from ear to ear, striding purposefully towards the door. He stopped abruptly when he noticed me, leaning against the bedpost, gaze canvassing the room for anything I might've forgotten.

"Aren't you coming to see her?"

"I think this is probably a reunion you should make alone."

"Emma-" He reached out for me, expression fierce, determined, and joyous and I smiled, shaking my head as I stepped past him into the hallway, Bailey in tow.

"I get it, Hades. Please have Magda prepare my room for me on your way down."

"See you-" He licked his lips, seeming uncharacteristically out of sorts. "See you for breakfast?"

The way I saw it, I had two options.

I could tell him to get dead and spend all of the next day and day afterward wallowing in my room with a bottle of wine, or I could suck it up and stop pretending like I had any rights to him whatsoever. I wasn't his, and the sooner I remembered that, the better.

"Yeah, I'll be there. Don't eat all the waffles this time, okay?"

He nodded once and left as I made my way to my room, retracing the familiar steps I'd taken a few months earlier, thinking back to all the fireside dinners and late-night cuddles as night flickered back to dawn. He's not mine, even as I stilled, flinching when laughter reached my ears. I felt a weird sort of pulse vibrate its way through me, and knew immediately what it was. The curse breaking. Which meant...

"Oh, hell no." I pushed my door open and sighed, setting my things down as the souls in there snapped to attention. "I thought I was done for today."

"We couldn't find the death goddess, so we came to you," a man closest to me said and I nodded, standing in front of the line.

"And you won't, because she's not a death goddess anymore. Well, let's get this over with, because I really need sleep."