My Life From Hell (The Blooming Goddess #3)

Family Dinner (Part 3)

Hades snorted like he wasn't surprised, but Zeus actually seemed to be. "Perhaps you don't understand the choice I'm offering here. The correct decision brings you back into the safety and security of your family. The other ... does not."

That was actually kind of funny. "Secure? Like mob secure? One wrong move and I'm sleeping with the fishes?"

Zeus' brow creased in confusion. "Why would you sleep in water?"

Hades looked at his brother like he was a moron. "It's The Godfather ... Forget it. She obviously has a death wish."

"No. She doesn't." I said. I pushed away from the table and stood up, bracing my hands on the tabletop as I leaned toward them. "Since I very much want to live, how about this counter offer? Not only am I going to defeat you both, I'm now going to destroy you. I won't let your selfishness ..." I gripped the table, practically trembling in my rage, "your utter self-centeredness hurt humanity. No matter what it takes, I'll find a way past your ward, unite with Kai, and win."

I eyed a slender silver olive fork tossed in among the Kalamatas. I wanted to savage someone but its tines wouldn't inflict the messy, and therefore more painful, ongoing trauma I was after.

Zeus looked amused at my outburst. "You indolent whelp. Who do you think you are?"

I stood tall and steady. "I am the goddess of ushering in a spring in a world free from destruction of gods. A world that allows humans to bloom. But ultimately, Pops? I'm your daughter. And I am about to show you the true meaning of teenage rebellion."

I would have liked to leave on that high note, but Zeus had to have the last word.

My father toasted me mockingly with his glass. "Then eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die."

"Next week," Hades interrupted.

Zeus glowered at him. "Yes, obviously, but I was using a metaphor."

"No," his brother replied. "You were paraphrasing. Badly."

That's when they lunged for each other, and I left.

Actually, I scurried out shaking with adrenaline, and then just shaking because the edges of my vision had begun to blur. I wanted to be away from the restaurant if I passed out.

What scared me the most was that, for all my talk of humanity, I'd never felt so inhuman as I had back there, so driven by a primal need to destroy blindly. I wanted to kill them and feel the weight of their deaths. Truthfully, I had no idea if they could be killed, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was how I had felt.

I stepped past a planter box, full of cacti. They burst into flame as I went by. Tears spilled down my cheeks. I was drowning in my anger, in my crazy emotions. The sense of not being able to reign myself in, get myself back under control, scared me. My heart sped up and I let out a small whimper, pressing my fists into my eyes.

Solid arms slid around my body.

"Shhh," Kai whispered into my ear. "You're safe." He turned me in his arms, holding me tight.

I buried my head against his chest, and let his steady warmth slowly counteract my insane emotions. I inhaled his spicy scent like a lifeline. Finally, I relaxed and came back to the parking lot, and the night, and him.

But I hadn't forgotten how things stood between us. Warily, I raised my head to look at him, unsure of how this surprise visit was going to play out.

He tilted my chin up to better study me. "Did they hurt you?"

I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak yet.

I felt his relieved sigh against my chest as I took the sight of him in.

Kai wore a fitted gray sweater that stretched tight across his chest. The denim of his jeans scratched against my bare legs. There was the faintest tinge of dark under his eyes, and his hair was mussed.

I wanted to smooth everything away and make him feel better, but I kept my hands to myself. Touching would not lead to talking. I waited.

Finally, he spoke the words I'd been hoping to hear. "We should talk."

We didn't have to have our loaded discussion in a strip mall parking lot. Kai took me back to his house. I'd been there before, but only outside, trying—and failing—to be let in. He hadn't had this place when he'd been with Persephone. Even if I was imagining everything about her as an active presence in my brain, it was fun to think that my gloating was killing her right now.