“Don’t be. Please.” He shouldn’t have had to suffer for my mistakes. “Let’s just go.”
“All right,” murmured Adonis, leading me down the path I’d traveled thousands of times before. I trailed after him, heartbroken and empty, and not even the warm weight of his hand in mine brought me comfort.
I thought I’d known what loneliness felt like, but it wasn’t until I walked that trail without Mother that I finally understood. Even in my darkest hour, Mother had been there for me. She’d loved and supported me no matter how often or hard we fought. And now—
Now the one person I’d always needed, the one person I’d thought would always be there for me, was gone.
* * *
That summer was simultaneously the best and worst of my life.
The hole Mother had left inside me only grew as it became clear she had no intention of returning. But at the same time, those four months with Adonis filled me in a way nothing ever had before. Every moment was an adventure—I’d explored the forest around the cottage countless times, but somehow every day he managed to find something new, something small but beautiful that I’d overlooked. A wild garden full of exotic flowers that tangled together in chaos. A tree so ancient and gnarled that I suspected it outdated Zeus. He reintroduced me to things I’d long since lost—the warmth of the sun on my skin, the shiver down my spine as I stepped into a cool river. He gave me back pieces of my life I’d never realized I missed.
No one could deny Adonis was gorgeous, but the more I got to know him, the more I realized that his appearance was little more than a taste of his inner beauty. He was kind, generous, honest and, despite the fact that Aphrodite had gotten to him, he was innocent in a way I hadn’t been since my marriage eons ago. He had nothing but love inside him, and he radiated it every waking hour. I drank it in, letting it fill me until all of the negativity washed away, and by the time four months was up, I’d never been more content with my lot in life. All of it, every last terrible moment, was worth it now that I knew it had led me to Adonis.
In the middle of summer, Aphrodite came to claim him. To her credit, she was mostly polite about it, only giving me a small smirk when Adonis turned his back. But the instant they left, that hole in my heart opened up, hemorrhaging all of the happiness I’d collected during our four months together.
I cried harder than I ever had before. Now that Adonis was no longer there to act as a buffer, for days I did nothing but curl up in bed and stare at the wall as reality set in.
Mother hated me. I’d cheated on Hades again. Hermes was barely talking to me, and the one light in my life was currently with a blonde whore who couldn’t possibly love him the way I did. He was just another toy to her, and the thought of him going through that, having no say in his time with Aphrodite the way I’d had no say in my time with Hades—
It wasn’t fair, but there was nothing I could do about it, either. Zeus had made up his mind, and if Adonis wasn’t willing to speak up on his own behalf, then so be it.
Though I wasn’t proud of it, I spied on them. He didn’t kiss her the way he kissed me; he didn’t watch her the way he watched me. And every time Aphrodite laughed, I swore I saw him flinch.
That should’ve given me some amount of satisfaction, but it only made me more miserable. Adonis should’ve had what I didn’t—freedom. And instead, in my quest to find happiness, I’d stolen that from him. Did that make me as bad as Hades? As bad as Mother and Zeus?
Eventually summer turned into autumn, and it was time for me to return to the Underworld. Hades greeted me in the meadow as always, but rather than a smile and a kiss on the cheek, he simply nodded coldly and took my hand without a word. Whatever he’d gone through in those six months, whatever thoughts and questions had haunted him, had also ruined every step of progress we’d made in the thousands of years since Hermes and I had broken up. And more than ever, self-loathing snaked through me, doing nothing but compounding my despair. I didn’t deserve Hades’s friendship. I didn’t deserve Adonis, not after doing this to him. I didn’t deserve any of it.
Those six months in the Underworld were blank. I went through the motions of existing, but some integral part of who I was had given up entirely. Hades stopped spending the evening with me. He no longer brought me breakfast. He could barely stand to look at me even when we had to, even when a mortal’s eternity depended on our communication. And rather than take steps to fix it, all I could do was drown in the darkness that was my life. Not even the promise of four months with Adonis in the spring made it better.
After several weeks of spying on Adonis and Aphrodite, I stopped, unable to stomach seeing him so upset any longer. But eventually her time with him passed as well, and shortly before the spring equinox, I couldn’t resist checking in on Adonis once more.
He stood in a stream I didn’t recognize, using a net to capture fish. I watched him, invisible to his eyes, and just seeing him like this—free and happy—was enough to make me smile. Four months wasn’t forever, and one day Aphrodite would grow bored of him. I never would though, and eventually, when mortality claimed him, I would have him entirely to myself. Aphrodite wouldn’t be able to touch him in the Underworld.
Behind me, someone giggled, and a cold wave of dread crashed through me, washing away what little warmth had blossomed. Even though it was his four months of freedom, even though everything I’d witnessed made it clear he didn’t love her, Aphrodite skipped out of the trees, a flower tucked behind her ear.
“Adonis! There you are.” She stepped into the stream with him and set a hand on his bare back. “Any luck?”
He shook his head. “A few close calls.”
“Well, I’ll just ask the nymphs to make us dinner then,” she murmured. “I’m starving.”
Standing on her tiptoes, she kissed him on the mouth, her hand dancing downward toward his waist. She wasn’t hungry for food, that was for damn sure.
I was going to kill her.
This was supposed to be Adonis’s time alone, not an extra third of a year for her. And why was he going along with this? Why hadn’t he refused her and walked away?
The same reason he hadn’t spoken up when Zeus had asked him, more than likely. Mortals with any sense of self-preservation didn’t question a god. Even one as feeble as Aphrodite.
I didn’t hesitate. I pulled my body through the space between us as I’d done almost exactly a year ago, and this time Aphrodite didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see me.