“It sounds like you have thought about this a lot.”
She smiled. She was taking Hecate and Lexa’s advice. She was crafting her own life, taking control.
“I have.”
He placed his fingers beneath her chin. “What do you need from me?”
“Your support,” she said.
“You have it.”
“And I’d like to hire Leuce as an assistant.”
“I’m sure she’d be pleased.”
“And...I need your permission,” she added sheepishly.
“Oh?”
“I want the first story to be our story. I want to tell the world how I fell in love with you. I want to be the first to announce our engagement.”
Kal and Demetri had tried to take that away from her, but now she saw it as a path toward empowerment.
“Hmm,” Hades feigned considering this. She could tell because of the look in his eyes. He was part amused, part admiring. “I will agree under one condition.”
“And that is?”
“I, too, wish to tell the world how I fell in love with you.”
He kissed her slowly at first, his tongue sweeping sweetly over hers, and then deepened the kiss.
They spiraled and lost themselves in the heat of one another again.
***
Lexa’s funeral was scheduled three days after her death.
Persephone hadn’t been able to visit Lexa in Elysium since the day she arrived in the Underworld, so seeing her body, anointed and pale, adorned with a wreath and coins, brought her to tears.
Hades attended and kept a protective arm around her.
She could feel the emotions in the room—curiosity and anger and sadness. These mortals obviously wondered why Hades had let Lexa die, wondered how Persephone could stand beside him. Once, she had wondered the same thing, and now that thought brought her immense pain.
Hades looked down at her, touching her cheek.
“You could never make them understand,” he said, guessing her thoughts.
She frowned. “I do not want them to think poorly of you.”
He offered her a small, sad smile. “I hate that it bothers you. Does it help if I tell you the only opinion I value is yours?”
“No.”
After Lexa’s funeral, they spent the next few days cleaning out her room and packing items into boxes for her parents to store. It was a strange day, and left Sybil, Zofie, and Persephone feeling unsettled in their own apartment.
“I think we should move,” Sybil said.
“Yes,” Zofie said. “This home it...smells of death.”