“A little more than friction, I’d say.”
Frumos is quiet, playing with some blades of grass.
“So two hundred years ago, you two had a thing going. How, exactly?”
“The usual way. I was out seeking some fun, to make up for a dreadful day I’d had. She was out practicing her defensive magic.” His voice lowers, almost to a whisper. “I offered to teach her. She was always so put together, and seeing her that frustrated, that vulnerable, did something to me. Neither of us were supposed to feel, but that night, perhaps because of everything we had forced ourselves not to feel, it all came out. And…it imploded my world, in a way I did not expect.” A humorless laugh escapes him. “Ileana chose to ignore it, saying she was focused on completing her training and becoming the best guardian she can be. One that legends would be written about.”
“Mm, yes, she does seem driven. And you?”
“I think there was more than a one-night stand, and I have been trying to convince her of that. Ever since.”
It’s my turn to appear surprised. “When? I haven’t heard you arguing.”
“And yet you spend so much time awake…not.”
Ah. “Point taken. So, you have all your heavy conversations once I’m out of commission.”
He shrugs.
“And what caused this particular spat?”
“You.”
“How so?”
“She knows something about you that could give me a better understanding of how to protect you. But she will not trust me enough to tell me.”
Doesn’t take a genius to figure out what the something is. A heavy sigh escapes me. “It’s because it’s not her secret to tell.”
“I realize as much, yet I need to know.”
I watch him out of the corner of my eye, observing his profile. As if sensing my gaze, he meets it with a frown. Not too long ago, I was thinking of sharing this secret with Persephone. Now, I’m debating on sharing it with him. A guard whose favor I most definitely have not earned.
The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. “I can read thoughts.”
“You… What?”
“Since I was born. All gods are born with perfect bodies and minds, yet mine got warped somehow. I can hear everyone’s thoughts, have been able to for as long as I can remember.”
Frumos takes it all in, shock all over his expression, from the wide eyes to the slack jaw. “But Olympus, they have no idea?”
“No. And I want to keep it that way.”
Frumos nods. I imagine his training kicks in, as he pulls him together rather fast. “I understand. I may not get it to that extent but… They will not find out from me. You have my word.”
Oddly, I believe him. And I also trust that he and Ileana will keep my secret safe—but would Persephone?
When I say nothing, just focus on watching the village again, he adds, “Why tell me?”
“Because it’s not necessary for you two to suffer due to my mistakes.”
“Back again?”
“I am.”
After revealing my secret to Frumos, I sent him back to Olympus. Ileana returned moments later, her expression a little less angry and a lot more grateful. So, when I told her I wanted to go talk to Persephone again, she didn’t object.
She’s waiting somewhere in the shadows now, giving me a moment, and keeping an eye out while I desperately try not to screw up again.
I take a deep breath. “You didn’t listen to me last time.”
Persephone runs a hand over her face. “I did. Something about a danger you cannot name, but that’s supposed to get me back to Olympus.”
“Walk with me.”
“No.”
“Persephone…”
“What gives you the right to start interfering here? I’ve told you off already. I’m not interested in being rescued.”
“This has nothing to do with being rescued.”
“Really?” She looks me up and down. “So you being a big, bad god isn’t related?”
No words come out of my mouth. Then a human comes over to interrupt me, and Persephone’s expression changes. At his whispered words, she throws me an annoyed glance and leaves.
Ileana steps in my path before I can follow. “Is this really worth all the trouble?”
“Yes.”
“She does not seem to think that way…”
“And she’ll end up dead.”
Ileana tilts her head, observing me a little too closely. “You like this one.”
“Maybe.”
After another deep assessment, she moves out of my way and trails behind me.
I don’t know what I expected. Persephone has made it clear she doesn’t need help, but a goddess living among humans? There must be more to this story.
When I finally find her again, it’s in a human house. She’s helping a child drink from a bowl while his parents look on. He can’t be older than four, with dark curls plastered to his head by sweat. His skin glints in the dim light, probably due to fever.
And still, in Persephone’s arms, he’s the picture of innocence. His tiny mouth opens and closes around the wooden spoon as she feeds him something—herbs? Seeing her like this only confirms everything I’ve already observed. She isn’t just a goddess, but a truly, deeply good one.
I keep out of sight in the entryway, enough that she doesn’t notice me. Then the parents’ worry assails me.
What if she can’t heal him? Since he’s been born, it’s been one thing after another. I know she has helped humans before…
I glance at the mother, her drawn expression, then at the father. His features are equally filled with concern.
Persephone has to help. They say she is immune to disease, that the earth itself protects her. And since she has arrived, our crops have never been better, our livelihood easier. Her herbal remedies are the stuff of witches, but she is not. Something, anything—she has to succeed.
I’m so engrossed in their thoughts, in the vision they paint of Persephone, that everything else falls out of focus. Persephone’s gaze collides with mine suddenly and flashes lightning. She hands the bowl of remedy to the mother, then rushes to me, dragging me out.
Within moments she has me out of the house, around a corner, and glares at me.
“Is he yours?” I blurt out. It wouldn’t be the first time a deity has given birth through humans, after all.
Persephone gapes at me, her anger morphing into outrage. “No!”
“Then why do you insist on staying behind?”
“Because these humans need me.”
“To, what? Concoct potions and make crops grow? You’re more than that, Persephone.”
She scowls at me. “What do you care?”
“I—”
“These people need me,” she repeats. “Olympus does not.”
My focus intensifies on her. On the fire in her words, in her glare, in her very being. “What am I missing here?”
“Nothing. It’s none of your concern.”
I draw closer. “And if I make it mine?”
Her gaze cools on me. “Then that will make you no better than your brother, will it?”
Stunned into silence, I have no choice but to watch her leave, presumably toward the house again. A moment later, Ileana emerges from the shadows and touches my shoulder to draw my attention.
“We should leave.”
I shake my head, still staring at the spot Persephone last stood on. I’ve been called many things, but never actually compared to Zeus. Even when it comes to humiliation and derision, Olympians deem me in a whole, lesser league.
Kicking at the ground, I take a step forward, wanting to explain, then stop. It’s useless at this point. And will only result in more ugly words.
No, I’m definitely not liking Persephone’s concluding remarks. At all. But I’ll have to live with them for now.
As I let Ileana drag me away, something else dawns on me. “You said in immortal school, they teach you things. Abo
ut us, and so on.”
“Hmm.”
“What were you taught about Persephone?”
Ileana glances at me, then looks away again. It prompts me to stop, forcing her to face me.
“Tell me.”
She sighs, taps her foot, avoiding my gaze still. I wait as patiently as I can, until she finally relents. “Your Fates are involved.”
I frown. “I would have guessed as much, given we keep running into each other and I can’t stop dreaming of her.”
Ileana lets out an exasperated breath. “No, not those fates. Your Fates, Hades. As in, the three sorceresses of Olympus who intertwine the webs of life.”
“The what?” What the hell is she going on about?
She stares me, then her expression changes from exasperation to shock and finally to fear. “How do you not know about the Fates?” How is it… We were not… I need to ask Făt. What is this? What else has been hidden from him?
“Ileana.” I take a step closer. “Tell me. Everything.”
Eyes wide, she speaks. And they are words I cannot unhear.
After Ileana’s little revelation, I find myself unable to move. My mind is in a whirlwind, trying to determine what, if anything, of her words is truth. But what reason would she have to lie?
I seek my immortal guard out. Her glow radiates not that far off from where I’m sitting on a boulder, ruminating over what I’ve learned.
And as if by perfect coincidence, Persephone choses that moment to walk past, presumably being done with the little boy now. One look at me, and she rolls her eyes, then starts walking away.
“I’m not here for you,” I say without moving.
She stops in her tracks, then whirls on me, hand on her hip. Yet another flare of indignation crosses her expression, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll see anything else from her anytime soon.
“And you expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
The shortness of my answer seems to draw her in, almost despite herself. At first, it’s one step, then another, and soon enough she’s within arm’s reach. It’s what I’ve been wanting, what I’ve been trying to get her to do for the last few days. Yet now that it’s here, my mind is anywhere but on what could be.
Instead, it’s something completely at odds that blurts past my lips. “Do you know of the Fates?”
She frowns, tilting her head to the side. And yet she says nothing.
“Do you?” I press.
“What, exactly, do you mean by the Fates? As in, the fate of humans, our fate, or…”
“I mean the three sorceresses who run us like pieces on a chess game and fuck with our lives. And the mortals. But most especially, ours.” My voice rises, and I stand off the boulder, unable to sit still as Ileana’s words echo in my mind. “Those Fates.”
We stare at each other for a long moment until she finally concedes with a small nod. “Yes, I know exactly who you mean.”
“How?”
Annoyance flares on her features again. “What do you mean, how? It’s knowledge we all have, no?”
“Not me! I’ve only just learned of their existence through my immortal guard.”
A flicker of confusion replaces her annoyance. “But…”
“Do you actually know someone who possesses this knowledge, too? That there are creatures out there more powerful than us?”
“Yes, I mean I assume everyone in the conclave would know…”
Which means Zeus. He knows, he’s known all along that they exist. Worse, he’s also known I had a mate out there, a person whose fate was intertwined with mine, and he hid it from me.
“How did you find out, Persephone? Please. I need to know.”
“When my powers didn’t work the way they were supposed to, my mother took me to see the Fates. As part of the conclave, she had full access to, well, everything. She swore me to secrecy. I thought it was conclave business.” She pauses, searching my features for an answer that eludes me. “You really didn’t know of their existence? Your brother never said anything?”
“No, he didn’t.”
It’s my turn to walk away for once, unable to see her and also try to process this information. Unexpectedly, Persephone follows me. I can’t say how I know it, other than I feel her presence trailing me.
“What, exactly, did your immortal guard tell you about them? And why did she?”
“Because I was asking her about you, trying to learn the small tidbits you refuse to give me.”
A heavy sigh behind me has me turning around.
“Hades, you have to stop this obsession.”
“I would. If you were able to look me in the eye, right now, and tell me Ileana was wrong.”
“Wrong about what?”
“Telling me our fates are intertwined. That it was decided by the Fates themselves.”
Her lips part as she stares at me in shock, but no words escape her. Not of denial, nor of acceptance.
“I thought as much.”
Ileana moves out of the shadows then and dutifully opens a portal, without me even having to ask her to. But even as I follow her, back to Olympus and to my lonely chambers, I know this is far from over.
I wish I could say the next thing I do is storm through Olympus until I run into Demeter, Zeus, and the lot of them and demand some answers. But there’s no point for such a confrontation, when the answer to why they hid this from me is staring me in the face. I’m the black sheep of Olympus, the disgrace of this pantheon, and the last thing they’d want is my happiness.
So instead of seeking them out, I go back to old habits and a decanter of ambrosia until I pass out.
When Ileana wakes me up, much later, my anger has abated. It’s not Persephone’s fault, but it is the conclave’s. What else have they kept from us? And how many deities are affected by the Fates’ games? Could Hera and Zeus’ match also be part of that?
“It is a mess,” Frumos says, staring at me as if expecting me to grow three heads. “But sometimes, things are kept from us for our own good.”
I jab my finger vaguely in the direction of his voice, since my vision is still blurry. “No one asked you. Either of you. I could’ve happily gone on not knowing any of this shit.”
Somewhere in the room, Ileana sighs.
“Why did you wake me, exactly?” I ask.
“You said to watch over your girl,” Frumos says.
“Not my girl.” Yet.
He clears his throat. “Regardless, you may want to head into the mortal realm once more.”
“And, why?”
“Because a young boy—the one she’d been with—is about to die.”
I rub at my face and get up unsteadily, running a hand over my body to cleanse myself. Then I glance into the mirror he’s angling toward me. It shows me a boy, the one Persephone had been feeding a remedy to, now in the midst of the woods, heading toward a pit of snakes.
“What the—?”
I materialize there before either of them can stop me. The woods are quiet, meaning that little boy is without his family. How the hell would he have landed here?
I save the questions for later and rush into the bushes, trying to find a trace of his beige tunic. By the time I reach him, he’s got barely a foot between him and a snake, talking in gibberish and reaching out for the dangerous predator.
“Erm, kid?”
The boy doesn’t react, instead inching closer.
I tiptoe behind him, my attention on the snake, getting ready to blast it away. The boy gets distracted with a twig, and in that moment the reptile lunges. I snatch the human up and incinerate the thing with my free hand.
It’s been a while since I’ve used my deity powers to defend someone. But not so long that I’ve forgotten they leave a trace in the world of humans. And despite the snake being nothing more than ashes now, there’s an odd smoke around it. A very divine type of smoke.
Doesn’t Hera love using reptiles to do her bidding?
I shake the thought
away and place the kid back on the grass, far away from the incident spot. “That was dangerous.”
“Lizard, lizard!” the boy cries.
I hold back from rolling my eyes and instead crouch at his level. “It’s not a lizard, kid. That was a snake. They—” How do I even mention these things kill?
“—are extremely dangerous,” someone finishes behind me.
Persephone. And here we go again.
I glance over my shoulder, watching her approach. Whether because I’m with a kid or have saved his life, her features are less wary than normal.
She holds out her hand when she’s close enough. “Come here, Heracles. Your parents were looking for you.”
The boy stands on wobbly feet and heads to her, then turns to me and holds out his free hand. I wait for Persephone’s reaction. When all I get is a small, encouraging smile, I stand and grab his hand, then follow them back into the village.
After we’ve handed the kid back to his parents, Persephone walks with me some more. She hasn’t yet yelled at me to leave, so I’m planning to stick around. At least, as much as she’ll allow me to.
She comes to a stop, an odd expression on her features.
“Are you trying to figure out how to politely tell me to fuck off again?”
She sighs, rubs her nape. “Why do you take such interest in me? Is it because you feel you owe me?”
“I… No, it isn’t that.”
“Then why? Answer me this question, and I’ll be honest with you in return.”
It’s the truth or nothing, Hades. So she didn’t really leave me alone, my watcher, she’s just out of sight but still within hearing.
Ileana’s right, though. If I ever want Persephone to trust me, to really trust me, this is the time.
“Because I dream of you, all right? I’ve been dreaming of you. I didn’t know it was you, only these last few weeks, but I’ve heard your laughter and felt your scent, and— Why are you looking at me this way?”
“Those dreams? You’re not alone in having them.”
A faint blush colors her cheeks. It takes me a moment longer to realize the meaning of her words. “You mean you’ve been…about me, too?”
Secret Shadows: A Greek God Paranormal Romance (Immortal Rogues Book 1) Page 9
