It goes on long enough that Hades kneels down in front of me, frowning. “Lyra?”
Tears leaking down my cheeks, I shake my head, face and belly starting to ache from the traumatized hilarity that still has me in its clutches.
Frustration passes over his features, clamping his perfect lips tight until they’re in a thin line. “Lyra, stop it.”
Then Hades grabs me by the shoulders. The instant he touches me, the laughter stops, cutting off abruptly, and I stare at him.
And it all hits me.
I promised myself no crying. No crying, damn it. It takes everything I have to hold back the emotions. Almost like I have to force myself to be numb not to feel it. I know I’m staring at Hades, but I’m not really seeing him, focused inward. If I’d done anything like this in front of Felix, he would’ve told me to get my shit together or maybe even slapped me to shock me out of it.
I should get to my feet. Go change clothes and figure out my next steps. Not show this kind of weakness. Not to anyone.
Especially not Hades.
So when he silently sits down on the floor beside me, legs facing the other direction and right up against me, close enough to feel his warmth through my wet clothes, I don’t know how to handle it. Not a shoulder to cry on, exactly, but silent support.
I could endure him yelling, leaving, blaming, even throwing things.
But it’s like even an ounce of mortal fucking understanding, just the tiniest smidgeon, blows a hole through the emotional fortress I’ve built around myself over the years, and the tears just sort of escape. I bite my lip hard, trying to stop them.
And Hades does the worst possible thing—he softens.
He cups my face with one hand, his thumb skating gently over my lip where I drew blood. His eyes change from cutting steel to a swirl of mercury, and what I see in them is…understanding. “Don’t do that.”
I can’t talk around the lump clogging my throat, so I just shake my head.
“You’re going to be okay. I promise.”
I can’t remember the last time someone said anything remotely like that to me, and it hits me right in the feels. Then I shake my head because that’s not it. It’s not about me. Not at all. It shouldn’t have happened. Isabel didn’t deserve this. “I…” I have to swallow hard. “I held her hand while she…” I hardly knew her, but I just can’t seem to let this go. “She was in so much pain.”
So much pain.
“I know,” he murmurs and wipes away the tears that escaped with the pad of his thumb. “I know.”
I can’t get the image of Isabel’s face out of my head—the panic, the haunting certainty that she was going to die in her terrified eyes as she screamed and screamed. “I didn’t let go. Not even…when—”
I can’t say it. Not out loud. That will make it more real, make it worse, cement it in my mind.
“I saw,” he says. The low rumble of his voice surrounds me, and something soothing about that sound finally seems to penetrate, and the tightness in my chest eases just a little.
I curl my hand around his wrist and give in, leaning into his touch, closing my eyes, listening to the steady in and out of his breathing, trying to time my own to the sound, to him. It helps.
Being with…him.
His comfort. His steadiness. His touch.
The god of death’s touch.
What in the Overworld am I thinking?
My eyes blink open to find him watching me.
Hades puts a finger under my chin, making me look at him. “If I promise to take care of her in the Underworld—give her a lovely spot in Elysium—will that help?”
31
To Know Your Enemy
I stare into swirling gunmetal-gray eyes as, on the heels of realization of where we’re sitting and how we’re touching, awkwardness steals through me. It slowly stiffens each individual part of my body, working its way from my center out until I’m hyperaware of every place we touch. Of how I want to move even closer, press into him.
I’m twenty-three years old, and it’s never been more obvious to me than now that I’ve never been held in the arms of a man. Ever. I need to extricate myself from this situation before I do something foolish. Like straddle his lap, lay my head on his shoulder, and ask him to just hold me.
“Lyra?” He wants an answer to his offer.
I’m not processing. The wiring in my brain has short-circuited, and oddly, the only random thing I can think about is… “Are you affected by my curse?”
He hesitates. And I have my answer. He can’t feel anything real or lasting for me. No one can.
“I need you,” he finally says.
I blink, trying not to let that make me feel anything and focus on the truth. “Right. You need me to win, and to do that you need me functioning.”
I once found a small dog near the entrance to the den’s tunnels. Pledges aren’t allowed to have pets, so I carried him to the nearest animal shelter. The look he gave me when I left him there…that’s what Hades reminds me of just for a second. A sort of lost kind of hurt.
It disappears under a mask of boredom in the next blink, so fast I question what I saw as he takes his hand away from my face.
