I give him a flat look. “Yes.”
Hades’ gaze narrows, glittering at me in silvery slits. “I would always tell you any important information that might help you survive the Crucible, Lyra.”
He almost sounds…hurt…that I’d think otherwise. “I know. That’s why I had to do this. You’ve already been punished for me once.”
He pulls back a smidge like that answer surprised him. Then his fingers spread out from where he’s still cupping my neck, spearing through my hair, and my body reacts instantly to a touch that’s now familiar. Something behind his eyes changes, the heat morphing from anger to…oh wow. “You took a risk to protect me?” he demands.
I’m not ready to admit that. “I used the opportunity available. That’s all.”
He stares at me, still anchoring me to him with that one hand, as if he can plumb the depths of my mind and heart with a look.
Then his gaze slowly lowers to my lips, and I swear silver fire flares in his eyes. “He kissed you.”
72
What Scares Me The Most
Oh…my…gods… Can he see Boone’s kiss? In the mark Hades left on me with his gift? Feel it somehow, maybe?
What I want to say is that it was a kiss between friends. But there’s still enough pride inside me to stay the words. It’s none of Hades’ business who I kiss, the same way it’s none of Boone’s. Yes, I was just kissing Hades this morning, but we both know that’s all it can be.
All I am to him is a champion he hopes will win him the Crucible. That’s it.
So why am I not moving out of his grasp? Putting some distance between us? Insisting he not touch me? He would listen to me if I asked. I know he would.
Gaze never leaving mine, Hades slowly lowers his head, and everything about me, every single piece of me, focuses solely on him. On him and the swirl of desire inside me, the wanting.
I want this. Again.
Gods, I shouldn’t. But I do.
He brushes my lips with his just barely, then groans deep in his throat. His fingers curl into my scalp as he kisses me harder. Harder and hotter. This is a claiming. A plundering.
He catches me about the waist and lifts me onto the table where we eat breakfast in the mornings, parting my legs so that he can pull me up flush against his hard body, never once taking his lips from mine, and the flames at my back match the heat we’re generating together.
“This is all I was thinking about during that farce of a meeting,” Hades groans against my lips. Then kisses me again, hard. “Tasting you again. Making you light up for me.”
His lips feather across the line of my jaw to the sensitive spot behind my ear. “Because you do light up, Lyra. Stars are made of fire. Meant to burn.”
His hands are at my hips, gripping me, pulling me against his heat, even as he sucks at my neck, and I moan. I’m holding on to him and tipping my head to give him more access.
“I wanted to get back here. To do this again. To you. With you. I wanted—” He jerks his head up. He’s glaring at me now, his expression a battle of both anger and need, all of it scorching. “And then there you were, outside that window. I could feel my mark on you. My mark. And you were with him. When you are mine.”
The accusation wakes me up a little from the haze of need I plunged into so readily. I blink, then take a deep breath. “Temporarily.”
He rears back. “What?”
“Only while the Crucible lasts. Isn’t that right?”
His expression shuts down, turns dark, and the stars in the sky outside might as well be chips of ice dousing me in a chill. “I will never force you into something you don’t want,” he says in a voice that scrapes over my skin. “But make no mistake, Lyra. I want you to be mine. Not a champion. Not a thief. Not a mortal. Mine.” He snarls the word. “And no one else’s.”
He gives me one more hard, claiming kiss, and when he raises his head, Hades looks over my shoulder, directly into the flames keeping Boone away from us—flames I assumed were too high and too deep for Boone to see through—and Hades smiles.
A darkly triumphant challenge of a smile.
My own confusion, lust, need, heat, and whatever else has been poured into the cauldron of emotions roiling inside me burn away in an instant flare of anger. It was all for show. I shove Hades away from me and hop off the table.
“You want me to be yours?” I demand. “I don’t think you know what that really means. How could you? A god,” I scoff. “Your power means you get what you want, when you want, forever, but it’s made you a spoiled ass. Yours?” My voice is turning a tad shrill, and I don’t give a damn. “If you really meant that, you wouldn’t kiss me for him. To show him. You’d kiss me because you can’t not kiss me. Because I am the only thing you can see.”
I’ve had a long, long time to imagine exactly what that would feel like.
An answering fury that matches my own curls his lip. His shoulders square and his chin lifts, and suddenly he is the arrogant, seething, powerful god he shows less and less around me. “You have ideas about things of which you know nothing.”
He stalks away from me. The wall of flames snuffs out the second he reaches it. As he prowls past Boone, he snaps, “Keep your fucking hands off my champion if you know what’s good for you. And return that helm before anyone figures out it’s gone. You. Not her.”
For a second, I think Boone might punch Hades in the face, but instead he rushes to my side. “You okay?”
Relief that he might not have seen anything doesn’t unknot the emotions twisting inside me like a den of writhing snakes. But I nod.
Boone glares at Hades. “You act like I’m the one who’s done something wrong here, but I’m not, and neither is Lyra.”
Hades stops, back to us, as Boone continues.
“This is your fault. There’s no reason for you to have taken her away from her life and put her in danger like this.”
He’s right. This is Hades’ fault.
