“Isn’t it? I have offered an Aegis, and you insisted you do not need a guard, yet you are regularly accosted on your way to work. You barely accept rides from Antoni, and you only do now because you don’t want to hurt his feelings. Then, when I offer comfort, when I try to understand your hurt over Lexa’s pain, it isn’t enough.”

“Your comfort?” she exploded. “What comfort? When I came to you, begging you to save Lexa, you offered to let me grieve. What was I supposed to do? Stand back and watch her die when I knew I could prevent it?”

“Yes,” Hades hissed. “That’s exactly what you were supposed to do. You are not above the law of my realm, Persephone!”

Clearly not. The Fates had come after her.

“I don’t see why her death matters. You come to the Underworld every day. You would have seen Lexa again!”

“Because it’s not the same,” she snapped.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

She glared at him; arms crossed tight over her chest. How was she supposed to explain this? Lexa was her first friend, her closest friend, and just when she thought she had her life in order, she met Hades who threw it all out of orbit. Lexa was the only anchor to her old life and now Hades wanted to take her, too?

Which led to the real problem and it hurt to say, because she was admitting her greatest fear.

“What happens if you and I,” she paused, unable to say the words. “If the Fates decide to unravel our future? I don’t want to be so lost in you, so anchored in the Underworld, that I don’t know how to exist after.”

Hades eyes narrowed, but when he spoke, his voice was desolate. “I’m beginning to think that maybe you don’t want to be in this relationship.”

Those words made her chest feel as if it were caving in. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Then what are you saying?”

She shrugged, and for the first time, she felt tears building behind her eyes. “I don’t know. Just that...right when I was really starting to figure out who I was, you came along and fucked it all up. I don’t know who I’m supposed to be. I don’t know—”

“What you want,” he said.

“That’s not true,” she said. “I want you. I love—”

“Don’t say you love me,” he interrupted her again. “I can’t...hear that right now.”

The silence that followed made her feel even more hopeless. Her face felt wet, and she touched her cheek, wiping away the tears.

“I thought you loved me,” she whispered.

“I do,” he said, staring at the floor. “But I think I may have misunderstood.”

“Misunderstood what?”