Page 106 of The Games Gods Play
When we reappear, I find myself standing on the shore of the River Styx, still wrapped in Hades’ arms. Before I can absorb that or the fact that Charon is here, too, Hades lets go and frames my face with his hands, leaning down so we’re eye to eye.
“It’s not going to take the Daemones long to track us.” The way he’s talking is not like the Hades I know at all. He’s…worried. I mean scared-for-me kind of worried. I can see it in the tension around his eyes and feel it in the touch of his hands. Even his speech is clipped and rushed. And I wish I had time to let myself feel what it’s like for someone to be scared for me.
I swallow hard. Charon warned me. “They’re coming for me?”
Because I used the pearl.
Hades nods.
If he looks like this… “Is it going to be bad?” I ask.
Hades searches my eyes almost frantically, then leans down and places his lips to mine in the softest, sweetest kiss that feels like heaven and an apology at once. Maybe even more powerful than our earlier kisses because it feels like he means it this time.
He stills against me, his head coming up. He looks over my head at Charon. I can’t see what passes between the friends, but I know a question was silently asked and answered, because Hades nods.
Then his gaze is back on mine, eyes black as onyx, and the look in them sends my already thundering heart to a whole new speed. “Hades—”
Anything I would have said gets trapped in my throat as he feathers his thumb over my cheek, then winces. “I shouldn’t have brought you here, my star.”
Everything about me goes dead still, even my heart, which was just on overdrive and now has stalled. What does he mean? Brought me to the Underworld or…the Crucible?
I’m so lost right now. It feels like he’s saying goodbye. Is the Daemones’ punishment going to be that bad? I can’t even make myself ask the question again.
“I should have found another way,” he says. “I shouldn’t have listened to…” He swallows hard. Then determination steals over his features. “I’m not going to let them take you.”
He shoves me toward Charon, who catches me just as the horrendous sounds of four Daemones rip through the cavern, bouncing over the walls and the ceiling.
The Daemones appear in midair before us, massive black wings sending the waters of the Styx eddying under them as four sets of fury-filled eyes land on me.
“Lyra Keres,” they say in unison. “Come with—”
Hades shoves his hands in front of him, his wrists held together. “I offer myself in Lyra’s place.”
“What? No—” Charon yanks me back when I try to run to Hades.
“I broke the rules,” Hades says without looking my way. “Take me.”
With battle cries to wake the dead, they fly at him. So fast. So violent.
“Don’t do this,” I yell. “It’s my fault—” I reach a hand out like I can get to him, stop them somehow.
They take him by the arms. When they jerk him off his feet, flying him away from me, Hades finally looks straight at me again.
“Please,” I say. Beg. “Don’t—”
“It’s already done.”
And then they’re gone.
54
Fault
Charon and Cerberus greet me at breakfast the way they have the last two mornings since Dionysus’ Labor. Zai is sitting at the other end of the table on the terrace, far away from them. Cerberus might scare him more than Hades does. That could also be the allergies speaking.
He made it out with the others. Barely. They had to use all the rest of the vodka to do it. Diego also used all of his. Which made Jackie, with her two bottles, the winner.
Hades, however, hasn’t been home since the Daemones took him.
