I want the night to cling to my skin.
A successful semi-escape. I did it. I went out, and I met a boy, and I was only terrified part of the time. I press my fingertips to my lips and move into the living room, then climb up the stairs. I’m as weightless as the starlight coming through the windows. She’ll never know I was gone.
All of my senses reach out through the second floor. Nothing, nothing, nothing. No sign she’s awake. No sign of any disturbance. I have one more secret to hang around my neck like a charm, hidden beneath my dress where nobody else can see. Nobody could blame me for loving this feeling. Well—my mother could blame me. But she’ll never know. My cheeks glow with it.
I push open the door to my bedroom and close it behind me with the softest exhale. Fatigue drapes itself across my shoulders like a heavy blanket. I’ll pay for this in the morning. In the dark I reach for the hem of my dress and turn toward the wardrobe.
There’s someone in my chair.
It stops my movement. My heart. Everything except a ragged breath. My hands clench tight around the fabric in my hands. Trapped. I’m trapped. In my clothes, in the room, in the house. Every horror story I’ve ever read rears up into my imagination—all three of them. About men who lay in wait. I think she let me read them on purpose because now, now, I can’t move.
It moves.
The dark shadows in the chair shifts. The moonlight catches the edge of her hair.
Her hair.
My mother.
Terror rolls over me with all the weight of a boulder set loose from the top of Luther Hades’ mountain. Tears wet my cheeks. The warmth in the air evaporates, and I might as well be standing in the field several hours from now, trying to swallow the knifelike cold of the deep night. Get to the door—I need to get to the door. But my feet don’t follow my mind’s orders. And it wouldn’t help anyway.
She rises from her seat and my brain forces the image to make sense, even though shadows press in on the sides of my vision. I can see her now. She wears her nightgown and pulls a quilt around her shoulders. Anyone else might see her as harmless. A sick woman, wrapped in a blanket. They would be wrong—what’s happening now is a nightmare.
Be strong, be cool, for god’s sake. I manage to stand up straight but can’t fight off the urge to squeeze my eyes shut and count to four, hoping against hope that this will actually have turned into a dream when I open my eyes.
It hasn’t.
In fact, it’s gotten closer.
I rip my hand away from the hem of my dress and wipe furiously at my cheeks. At least one wish came true—my knuckles are still cold.
“Mama, I—” The words squeak out as a whisper. I clear my throat and try again. “Mama, are you—are you feeling all right?”
A low laugh. “You’re worried about that now?” She moves fast enough to startle me. She’s inches away now, gray eyes blazing. The air superheat with her rage. The fever can’t be helping. “Where the hell did you go?”
“Out.” The truth, if not all of it. “I went for a walk. I couldn’t sleep, and it’s hot in here. I’m worried that your fever is worse.”
“And you thought going outside would help? Or did you think drugging me would help?”
“I didn’t—”
Her hand shoots out, a viper in the night, and pain lances through my skin. It doesn’t even matter that my dress has long sleeves, her nails are that sharp. She wrenches me toward her so she can speak directly into my ear.
“I’m not angry that you put something in my tea.” Not true, not true. “I’m angry that you’d do this to me so you could go meet someone. Someone who’s broken the rules, just like you. Someone who will have to pay the price, just like you.”
“I didn’t, Mama, I swear.” My arm is killing me. I also swear she’s drawing blood. I let the pain take over my expression. What else am I supposed to do? I can’t stop the tears. They’re a match for the clinging fear that fills my lungs and the ice tensing all of my muscles. “I only wanted to go for a walk. I was thinking.”
“Don’t lie to me.” Her voice rises until it hits the ceiling and falls back down, cracking over my head. “Someone came to meet you. Tell me who it was.”
The threat is there in her grasp and underneath every word she says. It’s not subtle. Tell me or else. Or else could mean so many things. Like a key turning in the lock on my door. Like a matched set of companions to watch my every move and report back to her. Dwindling food. She knows how to make tea, too. The walls of my bedroom sweep in, cramming the bed next to my shins and the chair into my chest and leaving no chance of escape. It’s bad enough, being in the house in the winter with nowhere to go and nothing new to read. It can only get worse. So much worse.
My arm twists even though I’m trying my best not to move. She grabs harder and now I do feel the skin break. My dress sticks to the crescent cuts from her fingernails. Any cooling effect I might have had from being outside is crushed under her hand—the skin feels hot and painful and a whimper escapes me.
My mother jerks her hand back, the dark line of her mouth twisted in disgust. “You’re a whore.” Her voice curves through the air like a slap. “I know you were meeting someone. I know someone came inside the fence.” She goes still for a brief moment and I match her, though all I want to do is run for the bathroom and run fresh water over my wounds. “That won’t be a problem anymore.”
She brushes by me on her way to the door. A howling sound kicks up outside the window—no, it’s inside my head. Because if she shuts that door, if she locks me in here, if I can’t get any air to breathe—
I lunge for the door at the same time my mother moves to slam it shut. I have nothing but my own body to stop it with and pain arcs up my arm when I make contact with the heavy wood of the door. There’s no other choice but to lean into it, hard, with everything I have.
“Please, Mama. Don’t do this.” Grit your teeth. Convince her. “I didn’t meet anyone. I promise. I was only going for a walk because I was so worried about you. I was trying to think of a way to get a doctor. I didn’t see anyone.”
The door shakes next to my body. Is this a sign of her giving in, or trying to shut it.
“Please,” I say one more time. Fresh tears roll down my cheeks. It would be better if I wasn’t crying, but I can’t stop it anyway, and here we are.
Here I am.
And then—
A sniffle.
Not from me, from her.
I should stay still, so I don’t distract her from...whatever she’s doing in this moment, which isn’t, surprisingly, shutting the door and locking me into my own bedroom. But curiosity gets the better of me. I shift slightly to the side, giving the door an inch and letting a sliver of light fall into the hallway.
My mother has raised her hand to her mouth and as I watch, mouth hanging open, she drops her hand from the door and uses it to clutch the front of the blanket around her shoulders.
She’s...crying.
Not full-blown sobbing. I’ve never seen her do that in all my life. I would remember. But her shoulders shake, and tears gather at the corners of her eyes. She still has the echo of her cough from before.
“Mama?”
“I’m only trying to protect you.” Her voice has gone low and miserable. “Don’t you understand? I’m trying to save you. You don’t know what’s out there. You just don’t know.” She tips her head back, staring at the ceiling, shaking her head. I’m chilled to the bone. To the core. I’d rather face her as a shadow in the corner than this.
I murmur something soothing and nonsensical and reach out a hand to touch her forehead. The heat is obvious even before my skin makes contact. The fever is back, and worse.
Thank god.
I think it before I can stop myself, and if that makes me a terrible person, then...I’m a terrible person. But I’m also a terrible person who puts my arm around her shoulders, never mind the pain, and takes her back down the hall to her bedroom. I help her back into bed. I tuck h
er in.
And when I’m sure she’s sleeping I go back down the hall to my own room.
I leave the door wide open.
10
Hades
Oliver Callahan sits across from me at my desk, his hands stretched out over the paperwork that’s fanned over every inch. “I don’t like...this part.” He stabs a finger at a paragraph about halfway down one of the sheets. “Seems off. Seems like he’s trying to fuck you over.”
Conor lifts his head from his position on the floor next to my chair. He makes a huffing sound that could be mistaken for agreement with Oliver if you’re the kind of sentimental person who thinks that way. I am not a sentimental person.
Still, Conor is right to agree with Oliver. The man’s been studying hard.
The dog lets his head fall back down on his front paws and lets out a contented sigh. He must know the day is almost over.
If I was capable of feeling affection, I might even feel it for a motherfucker like Oliver. Scars crisscross the back of his hands. Some of them are probably from when he almost killed himself trying to rob my diamond mine, but others are from stories he hasn’t told me. I don’t particularly care one way or the other. What matters to me is that he’s almost a caricature of loyalty.
That’s why I send him to meet my brother’s men. Better him than me. I see Zeus exactly as often as necessary. Lately, things have been going so well that it hasn’t been necessary at all. Which is good for me. It’s fantastic for Zeus, however, because it gives me less opportunities to kill him.
That was a joke. I wouldn’t murder my brother when there are far better options.
I gather up the contract and review the paragraph Oliver has pointed out. He crosses his arms over his chest and leans back like he doesn’t give a fuck, but I know he does. One day, if he pays attention, he’ll be able to get out of this place and start a business of his own. He’s crazy enough to threaten just about anyone into investing. It’ll be better in the long run if he can manage things himself, however.
Not that I intend to let him leave in the near future.
I meet his eyes over the top of the paper. “Oliver.”
He lifts his chin an inch, face showing nothing.
“You’re correct. I’ll deal with Zeus later.”
His lips twitch, which is as close to a smile as he’ll give at moments like these. Frankly it’s as close to a smile as I want to see. I’m not in the business of grinning like a fool at everyone who enters the office. It’s better if everyone who works for me thinks I’m incapable of that kind of weakness. Better for business. Better for control. Better for everything.
“Now.” I let the papers fall to the desk. “Tell me about this month’s shipments and revenues.” He does a bit of everything for me. Security. Delivery. Management. Bodies and diamonds both need all three.
“We’ve only had one shipping incident all month.” Oliver lets a hint of pride into his voice. “Sales are up by ten percent over last month and fifty percent over last year.”
“Rough or cut?”
“Fifteen for the rough, and—”
A knock at the door cuts him off mid-sentence.
Not just any door.
The side door, cut into the wall in such a way that it’s nearly invisible to everyone aside from me and Oliver. His eyes sweep across the wall behind me, then come back to mine.
“Go. We’ll finish this later.”
He gets to his feet without an ounce of hesitation and goes, leaving all the papers behind on the desk. I shove them into a pile while he makes his way across the office. I’m not the kind of man who gets worked up about an expected report. There’s no need for my heart to be racing now. The body betrays.
The door closes behind Oliver. Out of an abundance of caution I scan the office and the massive windows behind my desk. The factory floor is nearly empty at this time of night, between shifts. A couple of custodial staff move between the workstations below. Soon it will be alive with the sounds of people working to make me money, but for now an anticipatory quiet has settled over everything.
“Come in.”
The door opens noiselessly and the man I’ve hired for a very specific job—so specific I couldn’t give it to Oliver, because it might wreck him for all other jobs—steps into my office.
He looks like a fucking fool. The green coat he wears is slightly too big, which has the effect of making him look like an overgrown teenager. And his hair is wet. Like he didn’t brush it off when he got on the train to come here. And the wide smile—fuck. He obviously has no sense of his own face. That’s unsurprising. He has no sense of how ridiculous his name is, or how I’ve chosen him because nobody, not even Demeter, would suspect him of anything. With a grin like that, how could you?
Unless he’s more cunning than I thought.
Doubtful.
A man named Decker is exactly what he looks like on the surface.
The grin makes me reassess him anyway.
The high color in his cheeks could be a result of the cold outside. The explanation could be as simple as that.
He shrugs his shoulders like he can shake off the night air. “Little cold in here,” he comments, eyes raking over everything in the office.
At the sound of Decker’s voice, Conor shoves himself up off the floor, a low growl in his throat. Decker’s eyes go wide, and he holds both hands in the air. “I thought you said he’d get used to me.”
I let Conor get a little closer, stalking the lanky asshole, slowly closing the gap between them. One of my favorite things about Conor is how absolutely massive he is. Even a man Decker’s size would be no match for him without some decent weaponry. Right now, Conor has all the advantages in the form of his sharp teeth.
“Doesn’t appear that he has.”
Conor snaps at the air in front of Decker’s legs, warning him, and another growl tears through the air. The dog’s hatred fills the room like an electric cloud. That’s the kind of emotion I like. It’s wiped the smile off Decker’s face. The growl progresses to a bark, then another vicious growl.
Decker backs up toward the door, tension singing in every movement. It’s clear he wants to run. That’s probably the smartest instinct he’s ever had. He shoots a look at me with wide green eyes. His nerves are getting the better of him. I slip my hands in my pockets and watch.
Conor keeps stopping, like he’s sure that I’m going to call him off at any moment. And I am going to call him off, if only so I don’t have to call for someone to clean up the body. But it would be thrilling to let Conor off his leash, as it were. I can only imagine how that would go. Very poorly for Decker, of course.
I get a little lost in the fantasy.
Conor snaps at Decker a bit too close, and he leaps back, pressing himself against the corner with a shout.
“Conor.” I snap my fingers, and my dog is instantly transformed. He pads over to me with his own loyalty shining in his eyes and sits at my feet. I drop a hand to his head and ruffle his ears. “Good boy.”
Decker straightens up, tugging his coat back into place. His face has gone completely red. I can see him trying to work up the balls to say something to me, but I don’t have time for that tonight.
“Give me a status update.”
He lets out a heavy breath. “I made contact with her.”
And then he looks away, a smile flickering across his face so quickly that it’s gone in less than a blink. But I fucking see it. That smile? That fucker. He did more than make contact. A thousand possibilities flash through my mind. I can’t get ahead of myself. Not in this moment. Their options were narrowed by the fact that it’s winter, and it’s freezing. He couldn’t have made contact with her for long enough to do any of the filthy things I’m picturing now, against my will. Fuck that, and fuck him. I’d like to end him right now, but I deny myself the pleasure. Over the years I’ve become very, very good at denying myself pleasures. I can do it one more time.
“So the plan is on track,” I say
mildly.
Another big grin from Decker. Ah—it is a gesture he uses to hide behind. I wonder if he used it on her. “I’ve got everything under control. The only thing you need to worry about is the payment.”
The payment—as if I would ever worry about money in that way. Money is nothing.
And compared with the furious need roaring through me, money is ashes. It’s less than nothing.
Decker chews at his lip. “I have to get going.” He heads for the secret panel with a confidence I know he doesn’t feel. The wobble in his knees gives him away. “The train’s leaving soon.”
“Decker.”
He turns back, caution in his eyes. Finally. “Is there something else?”
Conor presses himself against my leg. Another warning. This will involve more denial than perhaps I can stand. But what’s a little torture if it means putting an end to Decker’s games? I look him in the eye, so I’m sure he understands it when I say: “Bring her to me.”
* * *
Thank you so much for reading Prince of Chaos! I know you need more of Hades and Persephone. You can find their story in King of Shadows now!
"Breathtaking, intense, and scorching hot, King of Shadows is the modern myth I've been waiting for." –Skye Warren, New York Times bestselling author
Luther Hades has always been my family’s sworn enemy. He’s the opposite of everything we stand for—ruthless to the core.
I want my freedom, but Hades wants me. And I’ve walked straight into his trap.
There has to be a way out of his fortress of a mansion. I’ll get away—I have to. Even if it costs me everything.
Prince of Chaos Page 5