Hades shifted his head back an inch, the barest hint that her words were hitting their mark, making an impact.
“Did you know they were stealing his emotions?” she barked.
He straightened and his power slammed into her again, the weight of it so heavy on her shoulders that she shook as she fought to remain standing.
“You dare speak to me in such an insolent manner?” he boomed and her knees weakened under the onslaught of his power.
The scent of lilies swept through the room.
Hades stilled.
Might have even blanched a little.
“This discussion seems… heated,” Persephone whispered softly, her voice like a breeze as it swirled around Enyo.
The queen of the Underworld drifted into the room, her bare feet pale against the black flagstones, peeking out from the layers of her onyx robe with each step she took.
Her scarlet hair bounced against her bare shoulders, rippled in waves that framed her face and seemed to bring out the green in her eyes as she looked from Enyo to Hades.
The delicate lines of her face remained soft as she gazed at her husband. “What are we discussing that has you so upset?”
For the first time in Enyo’s life, she saw fear crossing Hades’s face.
Persephone noticed it too.
Took a step towards her husband that had the flowers blooming around her feet turning to black thorny brambles.
“My love?” she said, her gentle tone still as warm and bright as the first light of spring.
Enyo had a choice.
Leave Hades to answer and no doubt cover up what they had been discussing.
Or put the truth out there and get him into trouble.
She was no match for the god-king of the Underworld, couldn’t make him pay as she wanted, not without him destroying her.
Persephone, however.
She had witnessed the goddess of nature bring him to his knees with only a look.
“I came to ask Hades why he gave pills to Keras that suppress both his power and his emotions,” she spat, refusing to regret landing him in trouble when he turned a vicious look on her, pressing her advantage as Persephone’s green eyes slowly widened and filled with emotion. Enyo gripped the hilt of her blade. “I came to ask him if he knew Keras was addicted to those pills now, and uses them to numb himself.”
Hades snarled through sharp fangs. “Ultimately it had been Keras’s decision. I gave him the choice. The moment we discovered what the pills did to him, I offered to make him another way of containing his power. He refused.”
“Why?” Persephone’s voice darkened, turning as black as the Styx as she faced her husband. “Why would you do such a thing? Why did you not tell me? Why did he not wish for another way—”
“He wanted an end to his pain and suffering,” Hades interjected, a light entering his scarlet eyes as he stared at Enyo, a flash of victory because he meant to turn this against Enyo, to pass the blame to her and move Persephone’s anger to her with it. “It was the only way he could bear to be in the mortal world when he hated it there. He despises it still. He despises them still.”
“The mortals?” Persephone whispered.
Hades looked at her. “His feelings.”
Shock swept through Enyo, emptying her mind and draining her anger. She hadn’t known that. Keras had told her that she was the reason he took the pills, but she hadn’t realised it was that bad. She had only thought he had been trying to escape his emotions, his feelings for her, not that he couldn’t bear them.
Did he want them gone?
Erased?
Any hope for her and Keras that had been building inside her died in that moment as cold swept through her, a numbing chill caused by the dawning of a realisation she wanted to pretend hadn’t happened.
Keras didn’t want to feel anything for her.
She battled that feeling as she stared at Hades, clawing together the fragments of her hope, even when it felt like a futile endeavour.
“I gave him the choice,” Hades said. “He chose to end his feelings in the only way open to him.”
She shook her head, not wanting to believe that, even when her heart said it was true. She had driven him to this.
“You should have stopped him.” She clenched her fingers into a tight fist. “You knew he was addicted to them and you did nothing. You should have done something.”
Hades narrowed his eyes on her, his face a black mask. “You should have done something. Two centuries he has been in that world… a world you could enter… and you chose not to see him.”
Persephone threw her hands up, had Enyo’s and Hades’s gaze leaping to her. “I am done with this. I am done with both of you.”
The ground trembled beneath Enyo’s boots and Hades reached for Persephone, but thick brambles snaked across the air between them, forming a wall, and she disappeared.
Hades turned a vicious snarl on Enyo.
She braced herself.
He sighed, gazed at the wall of brambles as they slowly died and crumbled, the crimson fading from his eyes.
“It is because of you that he started taking the pills.” His low voice swept around her, had her tensing again in case he did attack her, but when he continued, his tone softened in time with his expression. His pale blue eyes held a shadow of vulnerability as he reached a gauntleted hand out to the dead brambles and they turned to dust that coated his claws. “It is because of you that he will stop taking them.”
His gaze slid to meet hers.
“You need to guide him now and give him strength, take care of him in his troubled times. I need you to bring my son back to me.” The vulnerable edge his eyes held grew as his tone softened further, reached into her and tugged at her heart. “Can you do that? I ask you as an equal, not a god, or anyone above you. I ask you as a father. Bring Keras back to me. I tried. I truly tried. It has not been easy on me knowing what has been happening to him and being powerless to stop it.”
Enyo nodded, willingly accepted the burden he placed on her shoulders because of the faith he showed in her and the love that beat in her heart for his son. She wouldn’t fail him.
She took one last look into his eyes, seeing the pain there, the unguarded emotions that touched her, that told her he truly regretted what had happened to Keras and how deeply he needed her to make things right, to free his son of his addiction. She had wanted Hades to pay for what he had done, had wanted him to suffer as Keras had.
And he had.
He was.
He had been suffering along with Keras for two centuries.
She could see that now.
She teleported, returning to the gate that would take her to Mount Olympus, and ascended the invisible steps that led her up onto the horizontal shimmering rings that rotated lazily a few feet above the black ground. She focused on her mission as she reached the central violet disc and sank into the gate, as she passed through the link between the two realms, and teleported again the moment she emerged.
Transporting herself back to Tokyo.
Straight to Keras’s room.
Persephone kneeled in the spot where she had been beside Keras, her green gaze locked on his peaceful face.
Outside the room, the seasons were in disarray, time racing to accommodate the goddess’s presence in this world. Late autumn and early spring warred, blooms attempting to open and buds sprouting even as the red leaves of the maples dropped from the trees to spin down through the air to rest on mossy boulders and the surface of the pond.
“I cannot remain long,” Persephone whispered, a pained look on her face as she stroked Keras’s brow, clearing his black hair from it. “Why did he not tell me?”
Tears tracked down her ashen cheeks.
“Why did you not tell me?”
Persephone’s pain became a palpable thing as she murmured those words to her son, stirring the guilt inside Enyo again. She hadn’t meant to hurt the god-queen, had only thought to hurt Hades and make him pay fo
r what he had done. Now, she had caused a rift between Hades and Persephone, and had deeply hurt the goddess.
Enyo moved to Keras’s other side as he shuddered, as he arched off the bedding and his face contorted, sweat dotting his brow and causing a sheen across his bare chest as he writhed.
She pressed her palm to the centre of his chest, keeping him in place. He growled and snapped fangs, and she looked across at Persephone, seeking her help.
Persephone smoothed her fingers down his cheek, a slow caress that she repeated. Her emerald eyes glittered with unshed tears as she leaned over him, as she brushed her palms from his face to his neck, and over his chest. Wherever she touched, the bruises and cuts from Enyo’s rooftop fight against him healed.
Enyo could feel the love Persephone held for her son as she quietly, calmly worked to heal him. It flowed through the room, embracing her too, making her long to have known such love for herself.
When all the cuts were gone, leaving perfect unmarked skin behind, Persephone feathered her fingers down to his wrist. They stopped on the bracelet and she looked across at Enyo.
“Did you do this?”
Enyo nodded, her gaze drifting to Keras as sorrow and guilt hollowed out her insides, had her heart growing heavy as she wondered whether she could save him as Hades had asked.
As if she knew her thoughts, Persephone whispered, “What did Hades say after I left? Did he ask something of you?”
Enyo dipped her head again.
“And will you do it?”
She glanced at Persephone, feeling the weight of what she was asking just as she had when Hades had made his request. “I will do all I can for him… because I love him and I should have told him that many centuries ago.”
Tears burned the backs of her eyes.
Persephone shifted her left hand and placed it over hers where it rested on Keras’s chest, above his heart. She slipped her fingers around Enyo’s hand and lightly squeezed it.
“I ask the same thing of you, Enyo. It is only you who can help him now. Do all you can to ease his pain and see him through this. The mortal world needs him. The Underworld needs him.”
Enyo swallowed thickly and managed a small nod.
“It was the right thing to do,” Persephone murmured. “You were here with him at last and he was still taking the pills.”
It was a small comfort to Enyo. Enough to lift her spirits and give her strength.
Keras stirred, groaning low in his throat.
Persephone lifted his hand and kissed it as she slipped a new limiter around his wrist, her lips pausing there, and then she disappeared.
Outside, the seasons settled, flowers dying as late autumn finally took hold again.
Keras’s eyelids fluttered and for a painful heartbeat, Enyo thought he would wake, but he remained asleep.
She leaned over, cleared his hair from his forehead and kissed it. “Sleep. Rest.”
He moaned softly and rolled his head towards her. She stroked his cheek.
Time trickled past, the hours blurring as she tended to him, as she watched over him and bathed his forehead, keeping him cool as he began to burn up. Megan and Marinda brought her a fresh bowl of water and more cloths and towels, taking the old ones with them. The sun dipped below the horizon again and the world fell quiet.
Peaceful.
Keras suddenly jacked up off the bedding and twisted to his left, and she teleported in a heartbeat, lifted the only thing she had available as he retched. He emptied his stomach in the bowl of water, thankfully nothing more than a mouthful coming up.
Esher appeared behind her. “He’s sick. You didn’t tell me he was sick.”
“He was only just sick,” she snapped and then issued him an apologetic look as he glared at her. “It is to be expected.”
Keras had held her hair from her face when she had vomited for three days straight.
He slumped back onto the bedding, still out cold.
She wished she had been unaware of vomiting everywhere like he was. She still thought about it at times, shame sweeping through her together with embarrassment whenever she did.
Esher disappeared and when he came back, he had an armful of buckets. He set them down by Keras’s head and gave her a pointed look, and she had to wonder.
Was he bringing buckets because he was concerned about Keras’s welfare, or because he was concerned about his brother being sick all over the tatami mats?
Aiko appeared behind him, took one look at Keras as he writhed on the bedding, and said, “I will get some water.”
Enyo nodded her thanks.
Cassandra brought a fresh bowl of water together with a bundle of herbs and a dish. Enyo mopped the sweat from Keras’s chest and face as the sorceress lit the herbs, as their scent filled the room.
“They should help bring down his fever,” Cassandra said with an understanding smile. “I will look for something that might help with the other effects.”
Enyo’s throat felt too tight to speak and thank her for her help as Keras launched towards the nearest pail. She grabbed it for him and held it, guilt tangling tightly around her heart as he retched. His shoulders shook as he clutched the bucket, as he lingered over it, breathing hard and muttering things.
She did her best not to listen to his jumbled words.
Because she feared what she might hear.
Cass left them.
Enyo sat with Keras, stroking his back, pouring her love onto him and not holding any back. She tended to him through another long night, into the pale hours of morning.
A familiar deep voice came from the other room.
Ares was awake.
She was glad to hear it, that the brothers would have some good news to tide them over while she tended to Keras. She listened to Megan insisting that he rest, fussing over him with warm words filled with love.
Enyo was also glad that Megan didn’t tell him about what she had done to Keras. If there was a brother who would really confront her about it, it was Ares. He was fiercely protective of all his brothers, especially Keras.
The mansion fell quiet again.
Keras fell quiet too.
She stroked his brow, frowned as she noticed something. His colour was returning. He was looking brighter.
She tensed as a sensation shot through her, like someone yanking on her insides.
Her brother was summoning her.
She cursed him. She didn’t want to leave Keras, not when he was starting to look better. She wanted to be here when he woke, so he could see that she had stayed with him, that she had been the one to look after him and help him through this initial phase of his withdrawal.
The summons came again, practically tugging her forwards. She braced her hands against her knees to stop herself from moving and sighed as she realised something.
She had to go.
If she didn’t go to Olympus and see what he wanted, he would be furious, would probably come here and take her home by force, and punish her when she got there. She didn’t need to find herself shut in the lightless cell beneath her home, kept there for weeks until she was ready to beg to be let out, willing to do anything to achieve freedom. She needed to be here with Keras, so she would go now so she could return as quickly as possible.
She dropped another kiss on his forehead.
Lingered a moment.
And disappeared in a swirl of white-blue smoke.
Deeply aware her brother knew she had disobeyed his orders not to come to the mortal world, and not only that but she had entered the Underworld without his permission and confronted Hades.
The basement cell beckoned.
She knew it in her heart.
Only this time he would keep her locked up forever.
Chapter 12
Fire.
It consumed him, ate the flesh from his aching bones, made them burn too.
Keras shifted restlessly, trying to escape the flames, seeking the comforting cool touch that had been with him, had been keepin
g the inferno at bay. Liquid fire scoured his throat and his insides, dried his mouth out and had him fumbling, desperate for water.
For something to quench the fire.
But the cooling presence that had been with him was gone.
A shudder wracked him. Sweat slicked his skin and he shoved at the covers, pushing them down his body. Chilly air washed over his overheating flesh, bliss that he savoured as pain devoured him. He tried to lift his hand to his throat. It trembled and shook, every bone and tendon in it aching as it fell back to his stomach.
Keras lay there, trapped by weakness, too tired to even open his eyes. He drifted on a dark, turbulent ocean, rocked by each wave that crashed over him, in danger of falling back into the endless abyss beneath him.
He mustered his strength, refusing to let the weakness win, to allow that black abyss to swallow him again.
Acid burned his throat and he swallowed it back down, regretted it when it only made it worse, spreading the hot sharp feeling to his stomach. He blindly reached around him, his entire body quaking as he struggled to move his arm, to convince his body to follow his orders.
His wrist knocked against something.
It tumbled and fell with a soft clunk, and cool liquid washed over his skin.
Keras muttered a vicious curse.
Gathered his strength again.
Battled the weakness, determined to win.
He was done with this.
He was strong, a god, the firstborn of Hades.
And he had shamefully allowed himself to be vanquished.
By nothing more than a pill.
Keras grimaced as he managed to open his eyes, as his lids scraped like gravel over them. His blurry vision painted the world in sombre hues of black and grey. He blinked to clear it, grateful when the action made his eyes water, washing away the gritty feeling. His gaze fell to his wrist and the spilled glass.
He frowned.
Struggled to focus.
When his vision cleared, his frown deepened.
A bracelet he didn’t recognise encircled his wrist, a delicate weave of black, silver and gold, knotted together to form a band no more than a few millimetres wide.
It was beautiful.
Keras: Guardians of Hades Series Book 7 Page 13
