I didn’t want to lose Elyse. Except something fucked-up was going down. Energy clamped around me, and I expected Zeus to come claim me any second now and toss me back into Mount Olympus. What could I possibly say to make him reconsider?

Grinding my teeth, I set down the now-empty shot glass on the bar. I sat on my stool, with no strength to move. Zeus would never let me return to Earth again—at least for a millennia. How in the world would I say goodbye to Elyse? I crumpled the napkin I’d been scribbling a poem on for her. But I could barely string two words together.

Every inch of me longed for her, but then what?

I’d failed and given in because I hadn’t been able to ignore the way my heart pounded each time I thought of her.

And I was royally fucked because the magic pressing down on me had to be Zeus coming. The supernatural shockwaves that pulsated through the air…

Maybe I ought to move to another country as far from her as possible.

I flagged down the bartender and downed a few more shots of whiskey, expecting to find Zeus thundering through the roof into the bar. But with each drink, time stretched out and no god. Alcohol took a lot longer to take effect in my body, but maybe I was starting to get tipsy by jumping to conclusions. Perhaps the energies were from something else in the surrounding city, and I had to find out what was going on rather than sitting here and feeling sorry for myself.

Outside, I flagged down a cab and pointed in a direction where the heat waves were strongest.

“Keep heading west,” I said.

“Until when?” he asked.

“Until I say stop.” I pulled out a wad of cash. Cash was a language every human on Earth spoke.

The closer we got to the city center, the stronger the shockwave became until it shook me like an earthquake with every pulse. The driver felt nothing. None of the humans would. He sang along to the radio as he drove, blissfully unaware that the world might very well be ending.

What the hell was going on tonight?

“Here is fine,” I barked as my body vibrated from the sensation. I threw the wad of cash at the driver, jumping out of the car before it came to a full stop. I hit the road at a dead run toward some kind of park, going for the source of the power that rocked through me.

I skidded to a halt when I finally saw her. Elyse was wielding a sword, and she was in a fight with Hades. This was where the magic was coming from?

Elyse was powerful. Stronger than she had ever been, than any Lowe had been. The magic that pulsated through the air was so thick, it pushed into my throat, my lungs, with every breath. I tasted her on my tongue, felt her in my veins, and my heart shuddered.

Hades was fighting as if this was serious. He had that fucking pitchfork with him, the two-pronged bitch that obliterated anything that wasn’t a god, and he was swinging his weapon over his head. If he managed to get past Elyse’s power and her sword, he could kill her. I tensed, my muscles flexed, my hands curled into balls.

The pitchfork grazed her shoulder, and she stumbled backward, her breath hitching. She dodged another attack and ducked, stabbing at Hades’s leg, but he jumped out of reach. Hades was going to kill her if they didn’t stop this shit. After he had seen me coming out of her apartment earlier in the day, he looked ready to explode after finding out Elyse and I had had sex.

I charged toward them. Elyse needed my help. I had to stand up for her, defend her. She was the one woman I had risked everything for. I couldn’t stand by and do nothing.

When I raced closer, Hades pinned me with his eyes that held no anger or hatred. His gaze was full of pleading, like he was afraid. I halted in my tracks. What did Hades have to be terrified of if he was fear itself?

Hades looked over his shoulder for a second, but it was enough to tell me what was going on. The power that I felt wasn’t from a brawl. It was an intervention. Hades stopping Elyse from something?

She fought with a fury that made her sexy as hell and likely to win this round if she kept it up. What was Hades keeping her away from?

I skirted the duo, peering into the darkness that swallowed everything behind Hades. My scalp crawled with terror and bloodlust—not my own but that of a creature I hated. Death was back there in one of the shadowy alleys. A guttural laughter echoed from his direction. The bastard was enjoying the show, amused by Hades battling Elyse.

As soon as I realized what was going on, X glared at me from the eternal darkness, his eyes glowing with a fire that consumed souls.

The deaths. The news. The people he had killed. Elyse was here to avenge them. To confront X for the lives of the humans she had been empowered to protect.

If she got through Hades and fought X herself, she would die too. Elyse wouldn’t come back to life to fight again and again until her lives were depleted, either. X would consume her, and she would know an eternity of emptiness, rather than the peace that had been promised to her family by Zeus.

Hades was protecting her.

My heart shredded.

I couldn’t stand up for Elyse.

Hades was doing the right thing, and if anything, I ought to step by his side. Force her to end this. But I couldn’t fight against her. Not in this lifetime or any. If I battled Hades, joining forces with Elyse, we would win. But that would lead to her demise.

Elyse would die at X’s hands if Hades lost. She wouldn’t come back from death at X’s hands, but be gone for real. That was why we couldn’t let her battle X.

Standing back hurt like hell, tearing me apart from the inside out, and I hated myself. But if I moved to her, I’d lose her for eternity. She’d perish from the world, and Hades’s plan was the only way to protect her. This wasn’t just about stopping Elyse today, but saving her the next time she attacked X. So I had to have faith this plan would work because she wasn’t going to listen to us.

I sucked in a sharp breath, feeling as if someone had jammed a blade into my heart and twisted. My blood burned for her. Since meeting her, she’d been on my mind every second. Now my heart sank into the ground.

X crept closer.

Nausea churned unrestrained in my stomach, and regret formed in my head that if I’d stayed with Elyse, had returned to her place earlier, she’d be safe for now. Instead of facing Death, I could have brought her to unimaginable pleasures, holding her in my arms like we were meant to be. But such thoughts were useless, grating on my nerves, because if not today, tomorrow she’d attempt to battle Death. She wouldn’t stop, so how was I meant to save her from herself?

Hades was right. She couldn’t defeat him, yet I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t insistent on attacking X.

X moved like a shadow through the darkness; the only thing I could see of him was the black hair that blew like smoke in the wind and the eyes of ominous fire that threatened to devour the very thing that made Elyse so precious. Hades was standing in her way to keep her from reaching X, but no one was stopping X from getting to her.

I had to do something. If I couldn’t help her from being who she believed she should be, I could help Hades save her.