by Bella Klaus
“Alright,” I murmured. “Let’s go back to my apartment.”
“As you wish.” Hades took my hand, and brought my knuckles to his lips. Before he got to press a kiss on them, our surroundings changed, and we stood in the middle of my living room.
Except it was filled with felines. Black cats. White cats. Tortoiseshells, longhairs, shorthairs, Siamese. Sphynxes, Bengals, toygers. There were cats with squashed faces, cats that looked like werewolves, cats with ears as large as their heads.
They lay on the floors, the sofas, the kitchen surfaces, by the window, and beneath the tables. Jagged leaves lay strewn about the apartment, some of them attached to bunches of tiny white flowers. My nostrils filled with the mingled scents of grass and mint, reminding me of an invasive plant that Mother despised.
“Nepeta cataria,” I snarled.
“I beg your pardon?” Hades asked with a chuckle.
“Catnip.” I pointed at the prone feline bodies lounging around my new apartment in various states of inebriation.
“Why the bloody hell are so many of them here?” I whispered.
Hades teleported us to the mezzanine, where the air was less gloopy and gave me an even better view of the living area. There was still no sign of Dami among the crowds of lounging cats.
“There must be a hundred felines.” I turned to him, my brows furrowed. “Do you know if they’re having a party?”
“Hellcats are notorious for their mischief,” he said. “Which is why they need to be managed carefully. I hope you didn’t give your little friend too large of an allowance. She’s likely to attract an entourage of good-for-nothings and hangers-on.”
My stomach clenched. Dami had full access to the black credit card. It was one of the reasons she had been so happy to work without pay.
“Why?” I squeaked.
He placed an arm around the small of my back and walked me through my bedroom. “One Hellcat is fine on her own, two might be able to keep each other out of trouble. But get three together unsupervised, and they become bad influences.”
With a gulp, I glanced over my shoulder. Dami and Macavity were probably in their room, enjoying a romantic roll-around in large quantities of catnip. “What kind of things do they do apart from create feline opium dens?”
“Some of them are prone to organizing orgies.” Hades placed a large hand on the small of my back and guided me toward my dressing room. “Although it looks like your Damisa has invited some of the better ones.”
“Are you sure?” I asked as the door clicked shut.
He took off my helmet and unfastened the tie from my hair, letting it tumble down to my shoulders. “There’s a coffeeshop in London that specializes in cats. It’s where I originally found her. Most of those other felines had collars around their necks with the logo.”
I shook off the image of a cat petting zoo that served coffee and focused on the man standing in my dressing room, looking like he wanted to help me out of my armor.
“What are you doing here?” I placed my hands on my hips.
The corner of his full lips curved into a smile. A smile that told me he’d tried to take advantage of my fixation with the cat party. He lowered his lashes, fixing his gaze on my lips.
“You’re inappropriately dressed for dinner, and I’m here to help you choose your attire,” he said in a deep voice that rippled across my nerve endings.
“Alright then.” I glanced around, taking in the selection of new dresses hanging from my open closets. “Where are we going?”
“What do you fancy? French, Italian, Japanese? Or would you prefer something more exotic?”
I shook my head, my shoulders rising to my ears. “Duck Island was my very first restaurant. Apart from that, all I’ve eaten is fast food I got from Captain Caria.”
“We’ll have to remedy that,” he said with a smile. “There are so many fine eateries in the modern world. And centuries in which to explore them.”
Warmth spread across my insides, and I glanced over his shoulder at the open closets, marveling at all the clothes he had bought me. The thought of me in fabulous outfits, sharing adventures across the world with Hades, was beyond anything I could have imagined the night I’d finally left the mansion. My eyes returned to his full lips, and my skin tingled with the urge to kiss them.
Instead of leaning forward and capturing his lips, I swept my arm toward the open rail. “What do you suggest I wear tonight?”
Without taking his gaze away from mine, he raised his fingers and floated over a dress. “This one.”
I turned to the garment, which was a scoop-neck minidress with spaghetti straps that would accentuate my small waist but make my boobs look huge.
“Isn’t that a little too revealing?” I asked.
“Nothing could ever detract from your beauty.”
Heat rose to my cheeks, and I stepped back, trying to catch my breath. “Alright. And which accessories?”
“If it was up to me, you wouldn’t wear anything,” he said. “Have you ever heard of naked sushi?”
I shook my head.
Hades described how some restaurants paid women to lie on tables with rice and raw fish placed on their bodies like they were some kind of living plate. Back in the old days, they would even pour alcohol on their bodies for the customers to slurp.
I wrinkled my nose. “That sounds unhygienic.”
“It’s nothing of the sort.” He rubbed a hand up and down my back, spreading an explosion of invisible sparks. “The chefs place leaves over the flesh before laying the food. Part of the reason is to stop the sashimi from overheating.”
“Let’s try something else.” Eyeing the dress, I wondered if I should wear something less revealing.
“You don’t know what you’re missing.”
I placed a hand on his shoulder, making sure to look him straight in the eye. “If you’re offering your abs as my dinner plate, I’m ready. Make sure to bring an extra large fig leaf so I can concentrate on my food.”
His eyes narrowed. “I was hoping to dine from your delectable body.”
A pleasant shiver ran down my spine, and my nipples tightened with the thought of his lips on my skin. I cleared my throat, trying to think of something to change the subject, but the effort was futile. How could I think of anything but sex with Hades staring down at me with those flaming eyes?
He advanced on me, his nostrils flaring. “If the thought of sushi isn’t to your liking, I could always smear you with chocolate and lick you clean.”
The pulse between my legs pounded a rapid beat, and my breaths turned shallow. My tongue darted out to moisten my dry lips, only for his eyes to track the movement.
“You like the sound of that?” he asked.
“Not particularly.” I stepped back, trying not to hyperventilate.
He cupped my cheek with his large hand, looking like he would hold me steady for a kiss. “Do you know what I enjoy most after a hard day at work?”
“No?” I whispered.
“Burying myself in a hot wet cunt.”
I gulped. “Are you propositioning me?”
“Am I that obvious?” He bared his teeth in a predatory grin.
My feet shuffled back until I met the wall. Hades braced both palms at my sides, forming a cage with his arms. This was one of those traps I could easily escape, but my legs had turned to jelly, and the only thing keeping me from melting into a puddle of need was the hard surface at my back.
His eyes met mine in a gaze so penetrating that it felt like he was reading my thoughts. “Why don’t we relax, shower together, and enjoy each other’s bodies before we dine?”
“Or we could just dine,” I whispered. “After I have a shower alone.”
“Nonsense.” Hades leaned so close to me that I could feel the heat radiating from beneath his armor. “Kora,” he whispered into my ear, his full lips grazing the sensitive skin. “You make me crazy. I can hardly think of anything but fucking you when you’re close.”
/> The warmth of his breath had me tilting my head to the side, letting the sensations caress my skin. Hades sucked my earlobe between his lips.
My breath quickened, and all sensation rushed south. “What are you doing?”
“Let’s order a naked sushi kit,” he murmured.
“And eat among all those inebriated cats?” I asked.
“Your bedroom has all the necessary surfaces.” He pinned me to the wall with his larger body. “As well as easy access to a soft mattress.”
I placed a hand on his chest, meaning to shove him away, but his heart reverberated against my palm with such a rapid beat that I paused to gaze into his eyes. Hades stared at me with the type of passion I’d overheard when we had connected our magic. It was love and longing and lust, even though he had never voiced those thoughts out loud.
“Kora, what are you thinking?” he asked.
“That I would like to speak into your mind,” I said through our connection.
He exhaled a long breath. “I would like nothing more than that, but not if you believe our association will be temporary.”
I swallowed. He had said something much earlier about not wanting to hear my voice in his head because it gave him too much hope. Out loud, I asked, “What makes you think I want to break up with you?”
The fire in his eyes dimmed. “Being with me is all so exciting and new to you.” He pulled back, withdrawing his heat. “But whirlwind romances are always fleeting. How long before you tire of splitting your time between the living world and my realm?”
“Are you saying this because I won’t eat in Hell?” I asked.
Hades didn’t reply with words, only with a quirk of his brow.
I pursed my lips. “If this is some kind of reverse psychology to make me eat the food of the dead—”
“I wouldn’t be so crass as to try it twice,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“When your mother discovered I abducted Persephone, she caused a drought that killed all the crops. When so many humans died in the famine she’d started, Zeus had to negotiate your return.”
A knot of guilt formed in my stomach as I thought about the statue in the basement. Zeus had been left there to supply the coven with magic, and he looked like he was still suffering. At some point, after we’d dealt with Persephone, Samael, and Mother, I’d have asked Hades about reviving my father.
I leaned forward, trying to take in every scrap of information. It was rare for Hades to speak about his time with Persephone, and I longed to learn more about their relationship. “Did you release her in the end?”
He turned away from me, squeezed his eyes shut, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Every fiber of my being knew that if Persephone returned to Demeter, she and her clique of vengeful goddesses would poison her mind.”
“Her coven, you mean?” I asked.
“Hera, Hestia, Athena, and Artemis,” he said from between clenched teeth. “Once they got to her, Persephone would decide to stay with them in Mount Olympus.”
“What did you do?”
He hesitated for several moments, his gaze turned away from mine, his eyes distant. I placed a hand on the side of his face in silent encouragement for him to speak, but he exhaled a long sigh.
Just when I thought he would change the subject, he said, “Before Persephone left, I tricked her into eating pomegranate seeds. From trees grown in the Underworld.”
My throat thickened. “How did she react to eating the food of the dead?”
“It has no effect on the consumer until they leave the Underworld,” he said in a low voice. “With each passing day, the call to the land of the dead pulls on their souls. It’s so great that the body weakens, fades, and lapses into shadow.”
I gulped. The Compendium of Magic had made the effects of eating food of the dead far more dramatic, but it had been right to advise me not to eat during my time in Hell. I rubbed the base of my throat, trying to gather the right words, but there was no way to dress up something so despicable.
“How could you treat someone you loved so cruelly?” I asked.
“I was a different person thirty thousand years ago.” His face tightened. “No compassion. No heart. I felt nothing until I saw Persephone, and even then, it took millennia to develop normal emotions.”
My breath stilled. Hades was far from normal, but my view of the world was limited to a coven of vengeful goddesses, Hell, and what I’d watched on Netflix. I tried to imagine how I might have felt if Hades had damned my soul, but my mind kept drifting to Persephone’s hideous plant.
“How did she react?” I asked.
“She returned to me, furious,” he said, his voice broken. “Every day, she would curse me for trapping her. My deception set back our relationship for a century.”
I shifted uncomfortably against the wall. “Don’t ever do that to me.”
He shook his head. “If you eat the food of the dead, it will be your choice and not through trickery.”
A memory rolled to the forefront of my mind. I pictured the sunny-side-up eggs Minthe had brought on my first day in Hell. Hades had tried to force it on me and warned that he'd enchanted the food to return if I flushed it down the toilet.
My lips tightened. “What about that shitty brunch you tried to force me to eat?”
He chuckled. “Did you see how quickly I changed tactics when I discovered you’d killed two powerful demons with lightning?”
“Because you were worried about your own hide?”
“Because I wanted you so much that I was prepared to have you hate me for a century or more.” He leaned in close. “But I saw the error of my ways. Tactics such as those are no longer my style.”
I shook my head. The way he talked, it was like he’d changed his mind centuries ago, and not in a matter of days. “You’re such a—”
“Reckless bastard? A fool in love? Impulsive? Prone to losing my good sense?” he asked, his brows raised.
“Actually, I was going to call you something calculating.” I dipped out of the cage of his arms and stepped away from him and toward the door that led to the bathroom. “You like to present yourself as someone who lacks control, but no one could rule the Fifth on half its power without being screwed.”
“You wound me.” He clutched at his heart and smiled.
Casting him one last glance, I added, “The only reason we have this truce is because I’m holding enough power to condemn you.”
He placed his hand over his chest. “And I demand that you eviscerate me at the first sign of betrayal.”
I shook my head from side to side, my eyes narrowing. Maybe spending an eternity doing exactly what he wanted and never suffering long-lasting consequences had eroded his humility, but he had to know his charm wouldn’t work on me a second time.
Hades was as exciting as he was seductive, and I would need to see what lay beneath the facade and see if he could ever change before I decided if he was worth the effort.
Hades offered me a sheepish smile. “So, how about I make an order for delivery here?”
“Your Majesty?” a female voice said into my head, making me flinch.
“Namara?” he growled.
“I’m terribly sorry for interrupting you both, but this couldn’t wait,” she replied. “Our spies in the Champs-Élysées say they’ve just seen seven different demon chariots converge on the fifth level of the Eiffel Tower.”
My eyes bulged. I was sure it only had three. “Do you think Samael’s holding the meeting?”
“Given the differing styles of chariots, it looks like demons from different Factions have gathered in one spot,” Namara said.
Hades rubbed his chin. “Are they still in place?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” she replied. “Should I send in a team?”
“No.” He took my hand and walked me to the other side of the dressing room, toward an empty closet. “Thank you for the information. That will be all.”
With a flip of his ha
nd, Hades removed the closet’s back, revealing a darkened chamber that looked like its walls and floors were made of stone. Flaming torches flared to life, illuminating a small armory containing six dummies dressed in similar armor to the one I currently wore. Metal racks hung on the walls, containing daggers, spears, bows and arrows, and a range of throwing weapons I couldn’t begin to name.
My breath hitched. “What is this place?”
“Your cache.” He stepped inside. “It’s far easier to materialize objects for self-defense when they’re nearby. Since you’re new to magic, I created several storage rooms in places I knew you would visit.”
“Do you think I’m in that much danger?” I stood at the doorway with my arms wrapped around my middle.
He turned to me and arched a brow. “Now that you’re the Queen of the Fifth Faction, demons everywhere will know of your existence. Not all of them approve of gods and goddesses taking demon positions of leadership.”
It was too late to rage at Hades for not explaining the long-term implications of accepting the power at the Devil’s Ball. Besides, demons were the least of my worries when I had Mother, Persephone, and the coven still lurking around. Pulling back my shoulders, I strolled into the small chamber and surveyed the weapons on the wall.
My gaze caught on a pair of metallic gloves, complete with needle-thin claws that looked like they could fly across the room with a deft movement of the fingers. I reached for them but pulled back my hand and turned to Hades.
“What do you recommend I take?”
He shook his head. “Any of these weapons would work well for you. I kitted this room out based on Caria’s analysis of your fighting style.”
“Alright then.” I slipped on the gloves, which split at the seams and thinned into strips over my finger bones like a clawed exoskeleton. “How do I use them?”
Hades raised his hand and flared out his fingers. “That’s the basic movement. Everyone in a ninety-degree radius of that hand will get a needle in the chest.”
He stepped back and nodded, giving me space to copy his movement, but nothing happened. I bit down on my bottom lip. “It’s not working.”
“Because no one’s in range.” He flashed me a grin. “I’m going to change your armor.”