Hades snapped his fingers and suddenly, he was dressed in the same clothes from last night. He rose to his full height, and as he approached, Demeter released Persephone.
She put distance between her and her mother.
“Your daughter and I have a contract, Demeter,” Hades explained. “She will stay until she fulfills it.”
“No.” Demeter’s gaze focused on Persephone’s wrist, and she got the sense her mother would do just about anything to take her from this place, including cutting her hand off. “You will remove your mark. Remove it, Hades!”
The god wasn’t fazed by Demeter’s growing anger. “The contract must be fulfilled, Demeter. The Fates command it.”
The Goddess of Harvest paled and when she looked at Persephone, she asked, “How could you?”
“How could I?” Persephone echoed, angrily. “It's not like I wanted this to happen, mother!”
From the corner of her eye, she noted that Hades flinched.
“Didn’t you? I warned you about him!” She pointed to Hades. “I warned you to stay away from the Gods!”
“And in doing so you left me to this fate.”
Demeter lifted her chin. “So, you blame me? When all I did was try to protect you? Well, you will see the truth very soon, daughter.”
The goddess extended her hand and stripped Persephone of her magic. It felt like a thousand tiny needles were pricking her skin at once as the glamour she had crafted to hide her Divine appearance was stripped away. The pain knocked the breath out of her, and she fell to the floor, gasping.
“When the contract is fulfilled, you will come home with me,” Demeter said, and Persephone glared up at her. “You will never return to this mortal life and you will never see Hades again.”
Then Demeter was gone.
Hades approached and picked her up from the floor. He held her close, and she burst into tears. All she could manage to say was, “I don’t regret you. I didn’t mean that I regretted you.”
“I know.” Hades kissed her tears away.
There was a knock on the door and they both looked up to find Lexa standing just inside the room, eyes wide.
“What the fuck?”
Persephone pulled away from Hades.
“Lexa,” she said. “I have something to tell you.”
CHAPTER XXIV – A TOUCH OF TRICKERY
Lexa took the news that she’d been living with a goddess the last four years in strides. Her emotions ranged from feelings of betrayal to disbelief. Persephone understood. Lexa valued truth, and she had just discovered that the person she called her best friend the last four years had been lying about a huge chunk of her identity.
Persephone explained why—and Lexa started to understand more.
“Man, your mother is a bitch,” she said, and then hunkered down as if she expected lightening to strike her. “Will she kill me for saying that?”
“She’s too angry with me and full of hatred for Hades to even think about you,” Persephone replied.
Lexa shook her head and just stared at her best friend. She’d called up a human glamour with the help of Hades’ magic and they now sat in the living room together.
“I can’t believe you’re the Goddess of Spring. What can you do?”
Persephone flushed. “Well, that’s the thing. I’m just now learning my powers.”
She explained that up until recently, she hadn’t even been able to feel her magic and that she was working on learning how to harness it.
“I used to want to be like the other gods,” she said. “But when my powers never developed, I just wanted to be somewhere where I was good at something.”