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Chapter 6
Elyse
Since Catina had disappeared, I’d worked hard so I’d be ready to face X. But I hadn’t slept well since she was taken. I prayed every second that she’d be safe, and that Ares was right about X not killing her.
By Friday morning, my muscles ached. I’d pushed as far as my body would allow. Since I’d died the second time, my powers had ramped up to a whole new level, and I was more comfortable in my body now than I had been since Heracles started training me.
But there was still a limit. And I’d reached it today.
I rolled out of bed with a groan and decided to take the day off from training. Working sore muscles was usually the best remedy, but I’d pushed myself so hard lately, a day off wouldn’t kill me.
X just hadn’t returned. I’d half-expected him to lure me out and fight me, if that was what he’d been trying to do with Catina. If he was taunting me.
At least, that was what everyone else was saying. I wasn’t so sure. What if, after everything, Catina turned up dead anyway? My stomach hurt each time I thought about her being tortured, picturing her fear as she faced Death. She didn’t deserve this and he’d targeted her only to get to me. X wasn’t exactly a merciful guy and sparing her life didn’t suit his personality.
A sickness rose through me, but I kept moving, anything to avoid letting myself focus on those horrible thoughts of Catina’s captured. I’d begged the gods to tell me where they thought X was hiding, but they had no clue and searched the whole world on my behalf. They reminded me I needed to get ready because X had something planned and would return. They hunted for Catina. So I did my best, tried to hone my skills, but I felt deflated and so lost, unable to concentrate.
But I couldn’t think like that. I repeated Apollo’s words in my head about not letting X win. But imagining Catina dead was so painful, it left me physically crippled. The last thing I’d ever wanted was for my problems to somehow affect her.
Maybe I was a fool to believe I could continue a human existence while everything else in my world changed.
In the shower, I sat on the tiles warmed by the hot spray and let the water cascade over my body. I remained in the middle of the cubicle, and the water ran over my face, my nose, my lips. The onslaught on my senses was enough that my mind couldn’t overwork. Anything to numb the fear ripping me apart, the grief of what was coming, the guilt of what my connection to Catina had done to her.
I stayed in the shower until the water ran cold. When I climbed out, I toweled off my hair as the sound of the television slowly penetrated my thoughts. At first, I thought nothing of it.
But I hadn’t watched television after getting out of bed. It should have been off.
I dressed and crept to the lounge. I expected to find one of my men on my couch. Lately, my apartment had been a halfway house for the gods. I didn’t mind—I loved it when I found one of them, or all of them, spread out watching television. Their company brought me a comfort I hadn’t experienced since I’d lost my dad. They made my apartment full and cheery and enjoyable.
But this time, when I walked into the living room, the person on my couch was a woman. And I couldn’t for the life of me work out who she was or how she’d gotten into my apartment.
She turned her head. She was the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen. Her pale skin contrasted with her dark hair and deep red lips. Curls cascaded over her shoulders and halfway down her chest. She wore a small crown of intertwined white flowers and green vines. Her eyes were almost black, and her face seemed regal—the face of a deity.
“Elyse,” she said with a voice that would give any guy an orgasm. Maybe even a woman because she was stunning. “You’re awake.”
“What are you doing in my house?” I asked, studying the closed door and shut windows.
She pointed at the television. “We have nothing like this in the Underworld. The best I get is touching one of the souls and watching the life they had.”
I frowned. The Underworld?
“Persephone?” In Greek mythology, the only other women in the Underworld were the Fates, and they’d been far from beautiful when Heracles took me into the Underworld to meet with them.
She smiled at me, and her radiating beauty was exquisite. “In the flesh. I’ve wanted to meet you, you know. Ever since Hades came to Earth, the whole Underworld shivers at the sound of your name.”
I sank into the armchair closest to me, unsure why anyone would talk about me in the Underworld. My hair hung in wet strands over my shoulders, soaking the T-shirt I’d pulled on. Was Persephone really in my home?
“You’re much prettier than I thought you’d be. You look like your mother,” she continued.
I froze on the spot, confused by her reference to my mother, but then again, she was the goddess from the Underworld. “How do you know my mother?” I glanced over at the photo of Mom on the TV stand, figuring Persephone might have seen the picture of us.
“Everyone knows your family, honey, even your mother—married in. The Lowes have a reputation. For fighting evil. For sticking it out and doing your job when everyone else gives up. That’s a big deal.”
This was crazy. Persephone, Hades’s ex, was sitting on my couch having girl chat with me as if it were the most normal thing in the world. I supposed, seeing I was already dating Apollo and Poseidon, and I had a thing for Hades, it shouldn’t have been so weird. But hell, it was freaking bizarre.
“Aren’t you supposed to be down there?” I asked. “I mean, I don’t know how it works now you and Hades are over… Six months, that was the agreement, right?”
She laughed—a gorgeous sound—like chimes in the wind. Mesmerizing, hypnotizing. IfIgushed so much over a goddess, what impact would she have over humans? Would they fall so deeply in love with her, they’d do anything she requested?
