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“So? I need you now.”

“For what?” Persephone countered.

Hades watched the exchange, looking between the two. He felt like he was moderating an argument between two siblings.

“Does it matter?” Apollo asked. “We have a—”

“Don’t.” Hades said. “She asked you a question, Apollo. Answer it.”

Apollo’s mouth tightened, and he crossed his arms as if he were pouting. “I fucked up. I need your help,” he said, glaring at Hades as if to ask if he was happy now.

The answer was no.

“You needed help and yet you wish to command it from her?” Hades said.

“Hades—” Persephone tried, but he wasn’t interested in her defense.

“He demands your attention, Persephone, has your friendship only because of a bargain, and when you needed him before all those Olympians, he was silent.”

It was probably that last thing that frustrated him the most. The one person who had defended them the most was Hermes, and that was even in the aftermath of his broken oath. Where had Apollo been?

“That’s enough, Hades,” Persephone said. “Apollo is my friend, bargain or not. I will speak to him about what bothers me.”

He stared at her, wishing she would do it right now, because he’d really like to witness her reprimanding Apollo, but he knew she wouldn’t.

He swallowed his frustration and then kissed her, his tongue pushing past her lips and into her mouth. He gripped her face, her jaw widening to accommodate thedeep thrusts of his tongue, and when he pulled away, her face was flushed.

She swallowed, holding his gaze, and he hoped that all she thought about while she was with Apollo was what he’d interrupted.

“I will join you at the games later.” Then he vanished.

CHAPTER XXXV

DIONYSUS

Dionysus sat in his usual place in his darkened suite at Bakkheia. It was crowded with people who were drinking and dancing and fucking. He usually watched the revelry or at least was far more present for it—it was essentially how he received worship—but today, he was distracted.

He could not think of anything beyond what had happened over the last few days—his confrontation with Poseidon and everything that had occurred on that island, from fucking Ariadne to the death of the ophiotaurus. He was also very much aware that he had left the cyclops he’d promised to murder alive, albeit with a severe hangover.

He wondered what consequences would come from not fulfilling that debt.

“Are you ever going to tell me what happened on that island?” Silenus asked.

“There’s nothing to tell,” Dionysus replied.

Nothing hewantedto tell.

“It changed you,” his foster father said. “You’re different, and I’m not sure how.”

“I’m not sure how either,” Dionysus said, which was true.

He had never wanted to face off with Poseidon, but doing so had left him feeling incapable of protecting Ariadne and very aware of the inferiority of his powers.

“Dionysus,” said a sensual voice, and his attention was brought to the present as a woman with dark hair and eyes knelt before him, hands on his knees. “You seem on edge. Can I not ease you?”

Normally, he would indulge her, but as her palms slid up his thighs, he stopped her and leaned forward. Just as he did, the door to his suite opened, and Ariadne stepped inside. Her eyes went right to him and the woman at his feet.

His throat tightened. He could just imagine how this looked.