His eyes glint at me like sharpened knives.
I can’t tell if he’s offended or surprised by my running commentary.
Unfortunately for both of us, I have a good imagination—and a lot of opinions. “You have a perception issue, if you think about it.”
“I have a perception issue,” he repeats.
“Yes, you do. If they can’t see for themselves, mortals will believe what they are told. I was always told that Hades is shrouded in darkness, smells of fire, and is covered in tattoos that can come alive at his will.”
His gaze trails down my body with such slow deliberation, it sends the heat from earlier crawling farther up my neck and into my cheeks. “And yet you’re the one dressed in black and with tattoos, my star,” he points out.
I follow his gaze to my black fitted shirt paired with jeans—so it’s not all black. One sleeve has ridden up slightly to expose the pale skin of my wrist where the black ink tattoo peeks out. Two stars. A third star is on my other wrist, and when I put my arms together, they form Orion’s Belt.
One of the few things I remember before being taken in by the Order is watching Orion move across the sky outside my bedroom window. The constellation is an unchanging, ever-fixed mark in the night.
Is that why he called me his star twice now? I tug the sleeve down.
“So…” He comes out of his casual leaning to step closer. Close enough that I can breathe him in, which is when I learn that the god of death smells like the darkest, most sinful, bitter chocolate.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
I definitely do not want a god knowing my name. “Felix Argos.”
Hades doesn’t call me on the lie. Just watches me, gaze assessing like he’s debating something. A creative new punishment for me, probably.
“So…” I mimic his earlier phrasing and glance to the side of the temple and the way down the mountain. Escape is so close. Just out of reach, like the open door of a birdcage with a cat sitting outside. “What happens now?”
“What did you mean about being cursed?”
Ugh. I don’t want to talk about that. I hedge instead. “You don’t know?”
“Tell me like I don’t.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
He lifts a single eyebrow, and I get the message. Trying not to clench my teeth, I refuse to think about how Hades is only the second person I’ve ever shared this with.
After taking a deep breath, I say in a rush, “Twenty-three years ago, when I was still in my mother’s womb, she and my father came here to make an offering and pray for blessings on the birth. Her water broke, and your brother apparently took offense at her defiling his sacred sanctuary. As punishment, he cursed her baby—me, as it happens—that no one would ever love me. There. End of story.”
His gaze turns colder, so calculating that I take a step back.
“He made you unlovable?” he asks as though he isn’t quite sure he believes me.
I give a jerking nod.
That curse is why my parents gave me up. They said it was the debt, but I know otherwise. It landed me in the Order of Thieves at three years old. It’s why I have no ride-or-die friends. It’s why Boone…
Up until tonight, I’ve tried to convince myself that things could have been worse. I mean, I could have ended up as kraken fodder or with snakes for hair and stone statues as my friends.
But it led me to this moment. Facing a different god. A worse god.
One who obviously finds my curse interesting. Why? Because Zeus gave it to me? The current King of the Gods is a dick. That’s one thing Hades also agrees with me on. The question is, what is he going to do with me now?
Hades waves a hand at me, the action almost languid. “You may go.”
I may—
Wait… What?
5
Never Ask A God Why
“I can…go? Really—”
Hades lifts his eyebrows slowly. “You wish to argue?”
“No.” Never look a gift horse in the mouth…or a gift getaway in the escape hatch.
“This way,” he says.
He heads toward a path that takes us a different way down the mountain. I guess I’m supposed to follow? Hades prowls when he walks. I focus on his boots, because staring at his back—those leather straps do meet between his shoulder blades—or his perfectly formed ass, for that matter, just isn’t an option.
I hold my breath, every inch of me prickling with uncomfortable awareness that only grows as I keep up with him. It’s the whole “raw power of the gods” thing. That’s the only reason for the prickles, I tell myself.
I’m not sure I believe me.
