Page 165 of The Games Gods Play
“My soul. I…like it…down here.”
“Fuck,” Hades mutters darkly.
“If you’re going to do it, Phi.” Charon’s voice reaches through the shadows. “Do it now, before the effects of your blood wear off.”
Cool hands lift my shirt. The air is oddly cold against my skin, and I glance down and grunt at the sight—my wound not only hasn’t closed, it’s a pit of black flesh, like acid has eaten its way through me. Like Isabel. Only different. Black spider veins crawl out of the wound into the graying flesh all around it in every direction.
I’m no doctor, but even I know that’s bad.
“This is going to hurt—” Hades doesn’t bother to finish warning me before he pours the contents of the cup over the wound.
Agony and fire. A thousand times worse than the dragon burn. I’ve never screamed so loud in my entire life, the sound torn from my throat, my body bowing off the bed as if it’s trying to escape itself. He doesn’t stop. He’s pouring more and more. Then he rolls me to pour more on the exit wound on my back.
I scream until my voice goes hoarse, and then the darkness reaches up and yanks me down so fast it’s like that wild rush down the river from Hades’ waterfall in Olympus.
“No! Lyra!” I hear Hades shout at me.
But I’m too deep, and in the darkness, for the first time, I find total, true oblivion.
82
His Star
When I open my eyes next, my head isn’t muzzy anymore, and while I’m stiff and achy from lying here so long, I feel no other pain. Also, they’ve removed most of the tubes that were stuck in me, so that’s better, too. Charon sits at my bedside instead of Hades, reading a romance novel. I smile. I didn’t peg him as the type.
“Good book?” I croak.
He lowers it and grins at me, and I blink. Gods really are extraordinarily beautiful.
“I’ve been debating if we should call you Sleeping Beauty or Snow White.”
I guess the River Styx did its work, and Hades’ blood kept me alive. Barely, it felt like.
It took several more days, or…however long. I’m not exactly keeping track of time. I only remember patchy pieces, but at least most of them didn’t involve pain or fever or even delirium. Just exhaustion as my body mended.
“Weren’t both of those fairy tales a sleeping death?”
“Hence the debate.” He puts his book on the table beside his chair. “Given how pale you are and the raven-black hair, I’m leaning toward Snow White.”
“Hephaestus could be the huntsman.”
Charon laughs at that. “And Aphrodite the evil queen?”
I shake my head. “She didn’t mean for things to turn out so bad.” I saw how she’d cried herself puffy over Dae’s grandmother. Those emotions were real.
“Hmmm… And prince charming?” His gaze turns sharp, curious—not in an idle way. “Seems like you have a few options.”
No use denying it. “One is a ghost who doesn’t love me more than a friend. And one is a god. Doesn’t seem like either prospect has much of a future.”
“Not to mention the ally,” Charon says.
“Also just a friend.” While these games are played, at least.
What I don’t tell him is that Hades was the rock I held on to through all of it. Boone’s visit helped ease my guilt, helped give me a goal to work toward and something to live for. But Hades?
He was my peace. He was my strength. He was my haven.
Definitely didn’t see that coming. Though I probably should’ve.
