Several months later

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“Don’t lie to me. Not me. Not after all we’ve been through.” Aphrodite, with heavy purple bags under her eyes, her golden hair pinned up high on her head and looking unwashed for days, gave me a frosty glare.

It was obvious to me that my one-time friend wasn’t faring well either. She appeared to suffer as surely and as keenly as I did.

I’d tried to keep the truth of Calypso’s condition from her as best I could, not wanting to crush the goddess’s fragile spirit. Aphrodite had suffered so keenly in the last few months from the loss of Hephaestus and Calypso’s continued refusal to entertain her one-time best friend. Caly had tried to drown Dite the last time she’d dared to visit my bride’s home.

I barely had the energy to deal with my own crisis, let alone hers, so I’d done the one thing I knew I shouldn’t have. I’d pretended not to know Aphrodite either. Pretended the key hadn’t unlocked my memories at all. I had hoped, in my own convoluted way, to spare her all the pain. But my keeping Aphrodite at arm’s length didn’t appear to be working at all. In fact, she seemed worse than ever.

Knowing I’d placed myself between a rock and a hard place, I didn’t know what to do—continue on with this farce I’d concocted or finally open up to her and tell her the truth that I was sure would shatter the fragile goddess’s last bits of hope completely.

“Hades!” she screamed, stomping her foot and causing the sealed flower buds imbedded in the cave wall behind me up to burst in bloom, belching a thick screen of black pollen before withering and dying on the vine, crumbling to dust all around me.

Aphrodite wasn’t well, not at all, and in my fear, I lashed out at her as I seemed wont to do to everyone around me lately.

“Damn it to all the unholy waters of the River Styx, will you leave be, Goddess of Love!” I thundered and crashed my fist on the armrest of my skull-and-crossbones throne. The chamber rumbled beneath our feet, and a sharp, cold wind howled through the massive anteroom.

She jumped, looking startled as she clutched at her throat, blue eyes going wide in her extraordinarily pale, heart-shaped face.

Aphrodite was still the beauty of legend, with curves that would make a saint weep for just one taste of her. But she wasn’t the same female as before. She had sharper edges and was more prone to bouts of irritation and sustained rage that no doubt stemmed from anxiety and desperation.

Blue eyes more brilliantly colored than a polished sapphire thinned to narrowed slits. the fear that’d temporarily made her look like a frightened doe transformed into something colder. Planting her hands on her curvy hips, she began to roil with powers of her own.

The blood-red gown she wore, which showed off the shape and curves of her body, began to billow like a haze of smoke around her trim ankles. The bun she’d placed her hair unraveled and began to undulate in an invisible breeze like charmed serpents. Her skin, which had been so pale a second ago, burned like golden fire.

Against my will, I felt my body stir, felt myself grow hard and thick as lust sliced through me violently, like a heated blade. I hissed, sucking air sharply between my teeth and curling my fingers deep into the emptied sockets of the long deceased. Around me, my own powers gathered and curled into a tight ball of bitter, arctic air.

Aphrodite eyed me with barely concealed fury. “I know you remember. You say that you don’t, but you do. I’ve seen you watch her. Seen your face. How you act. You remember, damn you!” she spat. “At least stop lying to me about it. Just tell me the bloody truth for once!”

My upper lip curled back, and I shook my head furiously, damming myself ten ways a fool because I shouldn’t tell her, shouldn’t feed her impossible hope. I leaned forward in my chair, bristling and barely checking my power. “And what if I do? What I do or do not feel is no concern of your—”

“Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare say that to me, you hateful, spiteful man!” She stomped her foot, and though her body still burned like red smoke and gold flame, beneath her dainty foot, a bed of sharply pointed diamonds and rubies began to burst forth like saplings from the rocky soil. As beautiful as they were, not even they could hold a candle to the devastating and wrecking beauty that was Aphrodite in a passionate rage of temper. “I gave up everything for you both! Everything!”

“We never asked you to!” I stood, thundering so loudly that the rafters trembled. My servants cried out as they scattered from the falling projectiles above us.

I glared openly at her, knowing that it wasn’t her at whom I was angry. It was myself. I was mad at myself, and she was just the unfortunate who got to bear the brunt of my wrath.

I glanced down at my feet, grinding my molars from side to side, expecting her to roar back at me. Aphrodite might be beautiful, but she was as hot-tempered as the rest of us when provoked. I should apologize, but I wasn’t sure how to do that either.

So instead, I waited for her to rightly rip me a new one. Except that as the seconds turned to a minute and still nothing was said, I finally found my nerve to look up. When I did, I saw the last thing I expected.

She was standing just as she’d been, but fat crystalline tears were coursing down her cheeks. And it wasn’t misery that I read scrawled on her face, but joy. Fierce joy. Through her tears and large smile, she whispered one word. “We?”

My nostrils flared, and my stomach quivered, realizing my error. “I… umm, erm.” I sighed. “Bloody hell, goddess.”

And with those words, I felt completely depleted of my energies. I all but collapsed back onto my throne, weary to my very core.

“How long?” she asked softly, approaching my dais with slow, measured steps, as one would approach a dangerous creature that had been cornered.

I might have chuckled to see it except that I couldn’t find a shred of humor in me. I was exhausted and had been for many months.

I shook my head. “Dite, don’t.”

She covered her hands with her mouth, gasping and trembling prettily. “You said my name. My real name. Our name.” She smiled tremulously at me, and against my will, I found myself returning one back to her.

It had always been impossible to hate her. She’d been one of the few gods I’d actually tolerated in the other time, and in this one, too, if I was being honest. My brothers and sisters were still giant pricks, and their mates were no better.

Resting my chin heavily on my fist, I shook my head at her again, wishing she’d just leave off and leave me be.

“Hades.” Her voice was as enchanting as her form. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been called that by either you or Caly? In this place, all I’ve been called is Aphrodite, and each time, it’s been said with such hate and loathing I’d begun to hate the very sound of it, and I feared I’d never again know the kindness of one of my peers.” Her long, golden-feathered lashes flicked shut, and a serene smile wreathed her face. “Thank you.”

She looked at me with her deep-blue eyes, and I blew out a heavy breath, pricked by guilt for all I’d done since she’d given me the key. Maybe I should have reached out to her, now and then, just to let her know it had worked. But I’d been so consumed by my crushing feelings of loss that I’d not had the energy to care about the concerns of others. Not even my own petitioners.

“Why have you come?” I asked, but there was no sharpness of anger in my words.

She crossed her hands in front of her. “It’s been months, Hades. And though she does not wish to see me still, or anyone for that matter, she is in female form again. Surely, that’s a good sign.”

I shrugged. “I feel as though you want me to give you some measure of hope. To tell you that yes, she’s improving, and that soon, all will be well again. But you were her best and truest friend before, so you must know, Aphrodite. You must know about a primordial’s limitations. She cannot access her memories and restore her emotions as you and I can. She is unmolded clay now.”

Biting the corner of her lip, she sat, and as she did, her fire-red skirts swished prettily around her. There was nothing she did that wasn’t pretty. It was simply in her nature to always be attractive and alluring. I suspected she’d be pretty even if she were digging in her nose. A ghost of a grin tugged at my lips at my own silliness.

She frowned. “What?”

Clearing my throat, I sat up in my seat and deflected her question. "Nothing of any importance. But again, why have you come, Dite?”

She shivered, tipping her head delicately to the side as though taking delight in my words, causing my consciousness to prick at me once more. I really was the worst of friends. No wonder the rest of the pantheon avoided me at all costs. Gods, I was a downright bastard when I wanted to be.

She spread her arms wide, a gesture of helpless frustration. “I came because I literally have nothing left right now. You’re it. You and Caly and… and I can’t just stop because you growl and grump and tell me to. That’s not the kind of friend I am, Hades. I guess I just care too much.”

Closing my eyes, I rubbed small circles on my now throbbing temple. “I have nothing left to give, Aphrodite. So if you’ve come looking for a shoulder to cry on, I am sorry, but I would be a dishonest twat if I told you that I had it in me. You say you’ve got nothing left. Well, Love, neither do I.”

Instead of misery filling her eyes, she smiled. It wasn’t a put-on gesture but as real as the deadly rivers that ran through my domain. I frowned.

“Then it's a good thing you don't need to.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, wondering if she was off her rocker. “I tell you that I’ve got nothing left in me, and you say, ‘Good’?”

Her answer was to grin wider. “Precisely.” She tapped her breast with her hand. “I’ve had a lot of time on my hands and not much to occupy my mind other than to think through this riddle. If you would allow me to, I think that together, we can work out a plan.”

I’d long since given up hope that I would ever recover my Calypso, but I had to admit that Aphrodite’s excitement was contagious. I was leaning forward on my throne, holding my breath, even as I grappled with my emotions. I reminded myself that, unlike many of the other couples who’d miraculously managed to find their way back to each other, Caly and I were in a very different situation. Even if she remembered our past, those memories clearly meant nothing to her. They no longer mattered because she was fundamentally altered at her very core.

In fact, I’d witnessed her kill one of her own water nymphs a few days ago because the nymph had nearly drowned a child, and though that bit of information had been reminiscent of the emotions and character of Calypso from the other time, there’d been one glaring difference. No matter how furious she’d become, after Calypso and I had mated, she’d never killed again. It had been her line in the sand. Whether deserved or not, she’d always found another way.

True, in the end, she’d revived the nymph with a stern warning to never harm another child again, but I’d be a liar if I said that she was the same woman she was before. She was colder now. Angrier.

“The wheels in your head are spinning, Hades. Let me help you. Let me ease the burden, if only a little.”

I rolled my eyes, wishing like the bloody blazes that I could take her up on her offer, wishing it were as simple as all that. But she didn’t understand. I doubted anyone would.

“Look, it’s become obvious to me that you still care for her. I see you spying on her.”

I snorted. “If you’ve seen me doing that, then it also stands to reason you’ve been spying on me, little one.” I lifted a brow, daring her to deny it.

She didn’t. She merely shrugged and thinned her lips. “One does what one must when it comes to recovering that which matters most.”

“Let me guess.” I kicked out my leg. “You refer, of course, to love. But what if love is no longer enough? What if we’re both too different now? Changed.”

She curled her nose, looking at me as if I’d lost my mind. “You remember who you speak to, no?”

I chuckled. “I doubt you’d ever let me forget.”

She joined me in my laughter. “Well, I might be a bit pushy. I’ve been accused of that a time or two.”

“Try a million. You asked me what I remember, so let me be honest with you, Aphrodite. I remember it all. I do remember you. I remember that you were the only one who believed in me during my trial for murdering that traitorous Persephone who was not dead at all and my imprisonment for a crime I did not commit. It was you that saw me through all of that.”

She glowed as she stared down at her hands in her lap. “I always did have a soft spot for the maligned.”

My brows rose high, and I found myself wondering how she fared with her own marital woes. Even I, down here in the Underworld, had heard of the shame the forger had wrought on her. Publically breaking his oath to her in that way was a disgrace, and if I thought about it at all, I found myself wanting to wring the god’s pathetic neck for it.

Though in truth, I was far too selfish to actually do much for anyone right now. I knew I’d likely sunk to the lowest point I’d ever been in my life, and I was not proud of myself for it. But it was honest.

Scrubbing at my whiskered jaw with my long fingers, I stared at the crown of her head. “I do not deserve your friendship, Aphrodite.”

Her head whipped up, and a look of astonishment covered her features. “Of course you do.”

But I shook my head because deep in my heart, I knew it was true. “I’m a selfish and arrogant bastard. The very traits I loathe in my brothers, I’ve inherited. I stayed away, Dite, because seeing you reminded me of all that I’ve lost and what I can never have again.”

She quivered, but not with fear or pain. It looked more like steely determination that coursed down her spine. “You are not a quitter, Hades. And I won’t allow you to speak anymore nonsense to me.”

“You want to save something that’s no longer there, woman! Don’t you see that? The past is just that—the past. It exists only to a very few, but for most, it’s been obliterated from their minds and hearts completely.”

Jumping to her feet, she balled her tiny fists tight to her thighs. Her gown of fire whipped and curled menacingly around her curvy frame. “How can you say that to me? Have you not seen others already restore their happily ever afters? I know you have. As I said, I’ve been watching you. You took an active role in the Hatter’s and Alice’s romance, even going so far as to release Alice from the Elysian Fields. You say you don’t care, but you lie. I know you do.”

I shrugged. “So I helped out a few of them. So what? That changes nothing for me, and probably not for you. Accept it, Dite. The sooner you do, the sooner you can start learning to breathe again.”

Moving so fast I’d not even tracked her, she walked over to me and slapped my left cheek so hard I saw stars. Tears ran thick and heavy down her cheeks, and her face was screwed into a tight mask of anguish and agony.

My brows knitted together in surprise as I rubbed at my still-throbbing cheek. But if I expected Aphrodite to apologize for slapping me, I’d have been sorely mistaken. She looked just as angry as ever.

“I could just kill you right now,” she said, voice a low, raw, shivering sound.

It was funny that Love would threaten to kill me, Death. And yet, it actually wasn’t funny at all. The empty space in my chest where my heart should be echoed hollowly, making it hard for me to take a proper breath.

Her finger was in my face, and her body bristled as she breathed heavily. I could see her throat working, but she couldn’t seem to force out any words.

Shame filled my soul.

“I… I am sorry, Aphrodite. I should never have said that to you. You of all people understand what it is to lose as we have. I had no right.”

The tightly controlled mask she wore evaporated, and in an instant, she wilted onto my chest, wrapping her arms tightly around my body, clinging to me as if I were the only thing holding her to the earth as she sobbed from deep within herself.

Cursing myself ten types of fool, I rubbed at her back and gently whispered in her ear that she was safe with me, that I was sorry, and that I was still her friend.

She seemed to cry for an eternity, and wherever her tears landed, beautiful and exotic birds suddenly breathed to life, flying off in mated pairs, their jeweled plumage adding a dizzying spark of color to my otherwise dark chambers.

Finally, she sniffed and pulled back, staring at me with eyes gone red and puffy.

“Am I forgiven, little one?” I asked gravely, as she rubbed at her cheeks.

Pursing her lips, she collapsed on the steps beside me, staring down miserably at her lap. “I suppose so.”

Knowing how badly I’d messed things up again, I slid off my throne and sat beside her. I held her hand and squeezed it gently, neither of us saying anything for several long moments. When she finally turned to look at me, I could see she was lighter in spirit.

“You need to remember love, Hades. That’s what I came to tell you. To remind you.”

“I know love. I knew it well. It has pierced me completely, and I can never be the same again. I am a rotten bastard now, Dite, but I still care deeply for you. Please do not ever think otherwise. I’ve just never been any good at dealing with rejection.”

She snickered and rubbed at her swollen nose tip. “Oh, that I remember well. We used to call you the hermit. Did you know that? Long before you mated with Caly. You always kept yourself apart from the rest of us, and for so long, we all thought you arrogant and cynical. But then I got to know you, Hades, really know you, and I realized just how wrong we all were. You and I deserve better than this new reality. This isn't the life we were meant to lead. You must know that.”

I nodded and smiled as I recalled all the many names the goddess of love had dubbed me with. They all thought that, because I’d not associated much with them in Olympus, I hadn’t a clue what transpired in their world. But I’d always known.

“I wish I had your faith, Dite. But I’ve lived far longer than you, and in truth, I’ve never been good at optimism.”

“You don’t need to be.” She turned to me, facing me head on and squeezing my fingers gently in her hands to make sure I was paying attention, “I can have enough faith for the three of us. Only give me a chance to prove that I am not some ridiculous and silly goddess like all the rest of them think me to be. What you need is to be reminded of that love. I know you felt it, but you’ve forgotten the depths of it. There is no greater power in all the worlds. Love can truly move mountains. It can turn the darkest hearts and make even the most cynical and jaded believe in something greater than themselves. You remember what you’ve lost, but you’ve forgotten what it truly means to love. I haven’t been watching only you and Calypso, Hades. I’ve been watching all of our friends, those I knew well and those I knew only a little. And I sense that soon, Rayale will follow an instinct that will lead her here to you.”

I frowned, but she rubbed at the brow wrinkle with the tip of her finger and shook her head. “I know you do not give up your dead, but the person for who she comes is not dead. They are, however, trapped in a pocket of time in your realm.”

“What? I haven’t—”

“It’s because you’ve been too absorbed in your own pain to look around you, Hades. No offense, but you have been a bastard lately, and I really, really need you not to be.”

I didn’t know whether to grouse or laugh because, by damn, she was absolutely right. Hermanias was running my affairs since I’d hardly dared to stir from my looking glass. I’d become obsessed with my study of this new Calypso, trying to make heads or tails of whether I had any chance at all of finding common ground with her again.

I opened my mouth, and Aphrodite tensed, no doubt expecting me to deny what she’d said. But I didn’t. Instead, I sighed, from deep inside me, no longer trying to hide my weariness, and patted her hand.

“Then tell me what to do, Aphrodite. Tell me what I should do.”

She beamed. “Watch. Watch and remember. Grant Rayale access to your realm, no strings attached, and then watch her. The female is fierce and fiery, and her odds are no greater than our own of reclaiming her happily ever after. But there is a core of steel in her. She simply doesn’t know when to quit. An admirable trait in a human.”

Though I still doubted I’d figure out how to reclaim Calypso, I decided then and there that I would trust Aphrodite. She’d never lead me wrong before.

I dipped my chin. “Then so shall it be.”