Page 228 of The Games Gods Play
The dimples flash again. “That too.”
“Goddess of what?”
He huffs a laugh. “Probably curiosity and trouble,” I think he mutters. Then, louder, he says, “It takes time to manifest.”
Vaguely, I realize I’m in Hades’ arms—surrounded by the other gods and goddesses and their champions. I glance at my friends, tears on their faces as they smile at me.
I turn back to Hades and shake my head. “I can’t believe you did that—”
He cups the back of my neck with his palm, holding me closer.
I curl my hands into his shirt, burying my face in his chest, breathing in bitter chocolate. “Why? Why would you give that up for me?”
“Do you know what I see in Elysium?” He’s smoothing his thumb over my cheekbone in rhythmic circles.
“What?”
“The two of us there. And you as my queen. I’ve seen it for a long, long time.” He swallows hard. “I just thought it was only something I’d get in the afterlife someday. But now that I’ve had you there with me, I won’t wait that long. Being King of the Underworld without you at my side is an eternity of my own personal hell.”
He shudders against me, holding nothing back now.
He lifts his head, hands threading into my hair so he can stare down into my face. “Be the queen there. Keep me at your side.”
Even though I can’t turn back from being what he made me now, he’s still giving me a choice.
This is what it feels like. To be loved. To be wanted.
To have a someone.
I always wondered. I always dreamed about how some day… But I never really believed it. Not even the night we shared ourselves.
I can’t contain the smile that wants to burst from me. “No more games?”
I know Hades understands what I’m asking when his mercurial eyes spark with silver. “Only the fun ones.”
111
The Making Of Sovereigns & Gods
I’ve been called many names in my twenty-three years in this world—criminal, cheat, bitch, unloved, cursed, champion—but those are just what happened to me. Not who I am. Especially now.
I have new names.
Better names—friend, goddess, survivor, lover…
Turns out being made a goddess knocked the curse right off me, although Hades claims that he broke it just with his charm alone.
“This is ridiculous,” I mutter out of the side of my mouth at him.
“I agree, my star.” He raises our clasped hands and presses a kiss to my knuckles, lifting his head with a smile.
And I melt a little.
He’s been sweet like this these days following the Crucible while we’ve hidden out in the Underworld, reveling in the new world that we’ve started building together. Even Charon and Cerberus—the Styx healed our dog just fine—have hardly been allowed to visit us, and only on order of not telling us what’s happening elsewhere. We’ll deal with reality soon enough. In between…other things…Hades has been teaching me how to rule the Underworld. It’s not easy.
But it feels worthwhile.
“Put up with the ceremony,” he tells me as we walk down a long hallway in a building in Olympus I haven’t been in before. “They’ll gloat that we lost. But I don’t think we have, and I’ll show you why when we get home again.”
