My knees buckled beneath me.
It wasn't the sound of his voice—or its voice.
It was the way he said my name.
Like it had been waiting.
Longing.
Like the world had simply stalled until I arrived to witness its rebirth in him.
I stared, frozen. My hands trembled where they hovered near his blistered face, the smell of his blood sharp and metallic between us. My vision blurred, not from rage, but from the kind of sorrow that cracked open bone.
"Stop," I whispered. "Stop calling me that. He's not gone—he's not."
I said it again, but my voice was smaller this time.
More to convince myself.
Tears spilled, as his words hit me like a frieght train to the chest.
"EVE!" Kael's voice split the air like thunder. My head snapped to his direction. "LOOK OUT!"
I turned, too slow.
A sickening, wet rip tore through the silence—and the back of Hades' body opened.
Red.
Slick.
