“You too,” he says. But she stays in place, wings slowly flapping.
“Looks like I’m not the only one who doesn’t listen to you,” I whisper.
His gaze snaps up to my face, but I don’t meet it.
“It’s fine,” I tell the loyal little creature. “You can stay with him.”
“You promised to obey me, Lyra.”
I raise my eyebrows, then offer my most pleasant smile. “Did I?” I never really agreed.
Hades releases my hand, the warmth from his rough palm against mine seeps away…and the absence feels like a loss.
Get a grip.
“You’re lucky,” he says finally. “They haven’t left my arm for someone else since my mother gave them to me.”
His mother? The Titaness Rhea? A being he and his brothers fought and caged in Tartarus with all the other Titans. These are from her? I stare at them.
“Draw your finger from your elbow to your wrist,” Hades tells me.
When I do, the animals disappear, closing their eyes and lying down as they sink into my skin and fade away.
“Wow,” I whisper.
“Now, when you awaken them, they will listen to you.”
I raise my gaze to his. “To do what?”
“Whatever you need. They can bring you items. Or you can send them to find information—scout out the best route, overhear conversations, spy on other champions.” His lips tilt. “Maybe on the gods, if you’re careful.”
Sounds like a good way to land myself another curse.
“You don’t have to send them all at the same time,” he says. “Just like the animals they represent, each has different talents you can use.”
I look back down at my skin, which is now blank as if they were never there. As if they’re not sleeping under the surface.
Hades clears his throat. “You are also allowed a gift from me personally…”
He pauses.
Long enough that it hits me. The god of death is…hesitating.
His gaze drops lower. “I offer you a kiss.”
By now I should stop being shocked, especially by Hades, but the impact of that word reverberates like a tuning fork striking metal. It shivers through me all the way to my core, where a new sensation stirs. An uneasy sensation.
A haunting sensation.
I’ve never been kissed. I shouldn’t want it. Should I? Or is this just curiosity?
He steps into me, forcing me to tip my head up. “This kiss will mark you as mine.”
In the less than twenty-four hours I’ve known him, I’ve felt a thousand different emotions when it comes to this god—fear, hate, irritation, envy, frustration, grudging gratefulness. Most of those feelings run along the lines of anger, the burn of it rising and falling with each passing event.
I didn’t deserve this. Any of it.
So no one is more surprised than me when the word “mine,” uttered in that silky voice with his mercurial gaze intent on my face, stirs in my belly a quivering, like his precious butterflies are all trapped inside me.
No. Definitely no. Horrifyingly no. A very hard no. I am not getting fluttery over any god or goddess, but especially not this one.
With a tiny step backward, I frown at him. “What kind of gift is that?”
He looks right back at me. “This mark will give you safe passage through the Underworld so that you may return to the Overworld and not get trapped down there.”
“Oh.”
I don’t move back when he takes another step closer. That’s a gift worth receiving, even if it involves a kiss.
Hades takes one more step, and his unique bitter-chocolate scent wraps around me. He uses a gentle finger under my chin to tilt my face up to his, then leans down slowly. Only instead of a brotherly kiss somewhere neutral, his lips hover over mine, almost touching.
His breath is warm against my flesh before I realize what he’s doing, and I make a tiny sound in my throat.
Immediately, he freezes, gaze lifting to meet mine, though he doesn’t move away. “Problem?”
“Can’t you just kiss my forehead or cheek?” Gods, I sound like a petrified virgin. Which I am, but no need to sound like it.
After a second, he slowly shakes his head. “It doesn’t work that way. Do you want a different gift?”
