Hades and I spend a blissful hour in the greenhouse, and then we make a few stops as we head back toward the house so he can see and be seen. He doesn’t explicitly say that’s why we’re wandering the aisles of a hardware shop after we did the same in a little market store, but I see the way people watch him. The careful way he notes empty shelves, I have no doubt that he’s creating a mental list of gaps in the supply chain and looking for ways to plug those holes so his people don’t suffer.
He’s brusque and straightforward to the point of rudeness, but it couldn’t be clearer that his people worship the ground he walks on. I lose count of how many times shop owners thank him for taking care of them while things are tight.
More, people are working together to ensure everyone is taken care of. It’s a mentality that I vaguely remember from a time before moving to Olympus, but years in the upper city have made it feel new and novel. It’s not that everyone in the upper city is selfish or evil. Hardly. It’s more that they take their cues from the rest of the Thirteen and are very, very aware that they are never truly safe.
Yet another difference in the legion that separate Hades from Zeus.
We leave the hardware shop and walk down the street. It feels the most natural thing in the world to slip my hand into Hades’s just like I always seem to when we take these walks. He laces his fingers through mine and it feels so right, I can’t breathe for a few steps. I open my mouth to say… I’m not even sure.
I see the sign before I get a chance to. I stop short. “What’s that?”
Hades follows my gaze. “It’s a pet store. Family-owned, have been for three or four generations, if I’m remembering right. Not counting the three who currently run it.” He rattles the history off just like he did about the family who runs the gyro stall in the winter market, without having any awareness of how novel it is that he has this information readily available from memory.
“Can we go in?” I don’t bother to keep the excitement from my voice. When he raises a single brow, I can’t help trying to explain. “When I was very young, we had two dogs. They were working dogs, of course—nothing goes to waste on a farm, industrial or not—but I loved them. Having pets in the high-rise is strictly forbidden, of course.” I have to fight down the urge to bounce on my toes like a child. “Please, Hades. I just want to look.”
If anything, his brow rises higher. “Somehow, I don’t believe you.” But he gives one of his slow smiles. “Of course we can go in, Persephone. Lead the way.”
A bell dings above our heads as we walk through the door. I inhale the mixed scent of animals and wood shavings, and a feeling wells up inside me that’s part nostalgia and part something I can’t identify. I don’t spend much time thinking about my life before my mother became Demeter and we moved to the city. There’s no way she’d leave us behind, and pining for a life that was no longer mine seemed a study in madness. Better, easier, to focus on the future and my path to freedom.
I’m not even sure why a pet store brings it all back, but my heart is in my throat as I wander the first aisle, looking at guinea pigs and brightly colored birds. We reach the end near a counter and see two pretty Black women standing there, heads bent over a computer. They look up and catch sight of us. One of them, the woman wearing a faded pair of jeans and an orange knit sweater, grins in recognition. “Finally decided to take my advice?”
“Hello, Gayle.” He moves past me and she pulls him into a hug. “We’re just doing the rounds.”
“Oh, that.” She waves it away. “We’re fine. You’ve more than made sure of that.” She grips his shoulders and looks up at him. “We support you. No matter what.”
There it is again, the sheer loyalty Hades commands. He does it without threats or making lavish promises. His people will follow him to the end of the earth simply because he respects them and does his best to see they’re taken care of. It’s a powerful thing to witness.
He nods. “Appreciate it.”
She drops her hands and grins again. “Don’t suppose today is finally the day I convince you to get a dog or two so you aren’t haunting that giant house by yourself?”
I perk up. “Dogs?”
She finally looks at me, and her attitude cools a little. “We don’t normally keep any dogs but Old Man Joe in the shop.” She motions behind her at a dog bed that I thought contained a bunch of towels. A head lifts and I realize it’s not towels at all. It’s a Komondor dog. He shakes his hair out of his eyes and gives a big yawn.
“Oh my gods,” I whisper. “Hades, look at that magnificent creature.”
“I see,” he says drily.
Gayle shrugs. “Like I was saying, we don’t normally keep dogs here, but Jessie found a box of them by Cypress Bridge. I don’t know if someone from the upper city decided to dump them there or if it was one of ours, but…” She sighs. “People can be real assholes sometimes.”
I manage to drag my attention away from the dog at that. “They just dumped them there?” I have absolutely no business feeling a kinship for these puppies I’ve never seen, but I can’t deny that it feels like a strange twist of fate. “Can we see them?”
“Yeah.” She jerks her thumb over her shoulder. “We have them back here. They look like they were old enough to be weaned, so that’s a silver lining.”
I’m already moving, slipping past Hades and Gayle in the direction she indicated. Sure enough, there is a large box set up near the back of the shop. I lean over and look in and gasp. “Oh my gods.”
There are three of them, all perfectly black. I’m not quite sure of the breed—I suspect they’re mutts—but they’re cute as they sleep in a puppy pile against one corner. I reach out, then stop to look at Gayle. “May I?”
“By all means.” Most of the frostiness is gone from her when she looks at me, and I’m certain I see amusement lingering in her dark eyes. “I take it you’re a dog person.”
“I’m an equal-opportunity pet person.” I go to my knees next to the box and reach down to run a gentle hand over the back of the puppy on top of the pile. “I like cats, too. Fish, I can take or leave.”
“Noted.” Now Gayle is definitely fighting back laughter, but that’s okay. I don’t mind her finding me amusing.
“Hades, look.”
He sinks to his knees next to me. “I’m looking.” There’s something strange in his tone, and it’s enough to get me to drag my attention from the puppies. Oh my gods, they’re so soft.
I study his face. He looks almost pained. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Your words are saying ‘nothing’ but your expression is saying something else altogether.”
He sighs, but not like he’s irritated. More like he’s giving in. “They’re very cute.” He reaches down and lifts one carefully into his arms. Now he really looks pained. “They shouldn’t have been left like that.”
I’m aware of Gayle moving back to the computer with the woman who must be her mother, giving us space and at least the illusion of privacy. “It happens a lot, especially if they aren’t purebred. They’re essentially worthless to breeders and just more mouths to feed. It’s crappy.”
“Crappy,” Hades echoes. The puppy nuzzles his chest and settles into his arms with a sigh. He strokes its head with a single finger like he’s afraid of hurting it. “It’s a terrible thing not to be wanted.”
My heart gives a painful twist. I speak before giving myself a chance to think. “You should adopt one. She’s right about that big, empty house, and no one loves like a dog. He or she will win you over before you know it.”
He contemplates the puppy, still petting it methodically. “It’s not a good idea.”
“Why?”
“It’s easier not to care.”
I might laugh if there was any air left in the room. Hades might pretend he doesn’t care, but this man cares more than any other I’ve ever met. He tries too hard to hold people at a distance, but he obviously hasn’t noticed how epically he’s failed. I’m not sure I should be the one to tell him, that it’s my place to pull back the curtain and show him the truth of his circumstances. I’m not a permanent fixture in his life. The thought leaves me feeling hollow.
Suddenly, I’m determined to convince him to buy this puppy. The thought of Hades wandering the halls of his house alone after I leave, a lord of emptiness and sorrow… I can’t stand it. I can’t let it happen. “Hades, you should adopt the puppy.”
He finally looks at me. “This is important to you.”
“Yes.” When he just waits, I give him a sliver of the truth. “Everyone should have a pet at least once in their lives. It’s such a blessing, and I think it would make you happy. I like the thought of you happy, Hades.” The last comes out almost like a confession. Like a secret, just between us.
He stares at me a long time, and I’m at a loss to guess what’s going on behind his dark eyes. Is he thinking about the deadline looming over us, too? Impossible to say. He finally nods slowly. “Maybe a dog wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
I can’t help holding my breath. “Really?”
“Yeah.” His attention tracks down to the remaining two pups. “He’ll be awfully lonely without his littermates.”
“Um.” I’m pretty sure my eyes are in danger of popping out of my head. “What?”
Instead of answering directly, he raises his voice. “Gayle?” When she reappears, he nods at the puppies. “We’ll take them all.”
She presses her lips together. “I’m not one to tell you how to do your business.”
He arches a brow. “When has that ever stopped you?”
“Three dogs is a lot, Hades. Three puppies? You’re biting off more than you can chew.” She points at the puppies. “And they will chew the shit out of your expensive shoes.”
He’s undeterred. He’s put himself on this path and he won’t be dissuaded. “I’ll give the staff hazard pay. It will be fine.”
For a moment, I think she’ll keep arguing, but she finally shrugs. “Don’t come crying to me in a week or two when teething really sets in.”
“I won’t.”
One final look and she shakes her head. “Better call some of your people to come help fetch and carry. You’re not set up for puppies, so we’ll need to load you up.”
“Consider it done. We’ll get whatever you think is best.”
She walks away, still shaking her head and muttering about stubborn men. I turn back to Hades and can’t stop from grinning widely. “You’re buying three dogs.”
“We’re buying three dogs.” He pushes easily to his feet, the pup still cradled in his arms. “You should know by now that I can’t say no to you, Persephone. You turn those big hazel eyes on me, and I’m putty in your hands.”
I snort. I can’t help it. “You’re so full of shit.”
“Language,” he murmurs, mirth lighting up his eyes.
I burst out laughing. The giddiness soaring through me is pure, undiluted happiness. A feeling I have no right to, not with everything hanging over our heads, but somehow that makes it more precious. I want to cling to this moment, to shove reality away and let us have this time uninterrupted.
Because no matter what he says, these dogs aren’t really mine. They’re his, the way it should be. I’ll get them for the rest of the winter, but that’s it. Then I’ll leave and they’ll be Hades’s little pack. Companionship that he’ll hopefully allow even if he holds the humans around him at a distance.
My little bubble of happiness deflates instantly. He deserves so much more than the hand life has dealt him. He deserves to be happy. He deserves to be surrounded by friends and loved ones who will fill his giant house with laughter and experiences. He’s such a good person, even if he’s a villain as far as Olympus is concerned—at least the parts of Olympus that even believe in him.
It takes a solid thirty minutes to get everything we need and for Hades’s man Charon to show up with two guys to help haul it all back home. It’s not until I walk through the front door that I realize I was thinking of this place as home before just today. That it feels more like a home than the high-rise penthouse my mother owns ever did, my sisters’ presence or no.
A sliver of panic spears through me. No matter how much I’m enjoying my time with Hades, this can’t be home. I’ve sacrificed too much, asked my sisters to sacrifice too much, to not follow through now. I have to leave after I turn twenty-five, have to take my trust fund and power my way out of Olympus. If I don’t… What was even the point?
I’ll have traded one beautiful cage for another.
And that’s one thing I can’t allow.
