Chapter 18 #2
There’s a pop of sound, and I wince a heartbeat before my three-headed hellhound puppy tackles me to the ground. He hasn’t learned to teleport silently yet.
“Cerberus, down,” I command.
The serious head, who is most often in charge, gets right in my face. “Your heart is beating hard. We must relax you.”
The hellhound the size of a small wolf hasn’t figured out that pinning me to the ground is not relaxing. But, already made of death, he’s also the only creature alive immune to my killing power.
“Cerberus?” I hear the woman ask, and the dog and I both jerk our gazes to her.
“How do you know his name?” I demand.
At the same time, she steps closer. “What are you—”
She cuts off when two of the three heads growl at her in unison. Even with his tongue lolling out of his mouth, the goofier head is dead serious.
Honestly, I expect her to shriek or faint or try to run—the natural response to meeting my pet. Instead, her eyes go all sweet and glassy. “You’re just a puppy!”
What in all my hells?
Is she making a jest? The way a grin lights up her face, I know she’s not. She doesn’t even blink when the grumpier of the heads snaps in her direction. A clear warning. All she does is hold up her hands. “Hey, little fella.”
“Little?” The goofy head huffs.
Fates, grant me patience. “Get off me,” I snarl at the dog.
The serious head is still focused on me, nosing at my chest. “Your heart—”
“Is fine.”
He growls. “Is not. You could do bad things.”
No way am I admitting that my heart rate is entirely due to a certain green-eyed witch of a woman who seems to have a death wish, the way she runs headlong at the most dangerous things.
She called Cerberus “puppy” like he’s soft and cuddly, which he’s not. She’s a menace.
The dog is also not going to let this go.
With a sigh, I close my eyes and focus on controlling the beats, erratic at first, then steadier and steadier, until Cerberus finally grunts and steps off me. “Cerberus stay?” he asks. “Maim goddess?”
He’s still young and learning language.
“No. Home,” I command.
With an obedient woof, annoyingly happy that he’s done his job well—something I can’t be angry at him for—Cerberus disappears with a pop as quickly as he arrived.
“What was that about?” my guardian angel asks as I pick myself up off the ground.
I sigh as I dust off my purple cloak. “A gift from my father, trained to detect my heart rate and help me calm down before I kill something.” I eye her narrowly. “You, in this case. You’re lucky he didn’t attack you.”
She snorts a laugh, waving that comment away like an amusing fly. “The service animal trained to keep you from killing things is going to kill me? I don’t think so.”
“He also protects me from those who want to see me dead.”
“I’m no threat.” She tilts her head and studies me, no fear in her gaze. “Besides, you would have kept him from hurting me.”
So sure of herself—like she knows me better than I do. The thing is…she’s right.
But she shouldn’t fucking believe that. She has no reason under any of the heavens or the hells to trust me. “Did you not understand earlier?” I demand. “Even gods can’t touch me without risking death. My family secretly thinks I’m a monster—”
She suddenly closes the gap between us and sets a hand on my arm.
I yank away so violently that she gasps. But she doesn’t…die.
My power stayed inside me.
Shock holds me as still as the dead under my care, and I stare at the place she touched. Skin to skin. The feel of the softness of her fades slowly away.
I want…more.
But wanting more only ever leads to disappointment.
A flash fire of anger sweeps through me—anger at myself for wanting touch, for wanting her, and anger at her for putting herself in that kind of danger.
The emotion ignites in a physical burst of flames over my body, blue tipped, hot enough that I sense more than see her stumble back.
“You’re not a monster, Hades,” she tells me quietly, but also in a rush, like she’s running out of time.
I hear her voice despite the inferno around me.
If recognizing her when she first arrived felt like an axe to the chest, her words now are like one of Zeus’ thunderclaps, leaving my head ringing.
My flames are doused as quickly as they came, which never happens. And I’m not sure which shocks me more.
“What?” The word rips from my throat.
“Hades?” Cerberus is here again, staying well back. I once accidentally singed the fur off his tail in my anger. He’s still got a bald patch.
I hold up a hand toward the dog but keep my gaze trained on her. “I am fine.”
She stares right back at me, the moment drawing out between us, full of heartbeats.
“You’re unharmed.”
She frowns slowly. “Of course I am.”
She glances past my head, her eyes widening slightly in what looks like surprise or even fear. The first flash of fear I’ve seen from her.
I look, but there’s nothing. “What—”
The feel of her hand against mine has me tensing so hard I flinch. But this time I don’t pull away…because the fire doesn’t come.
My power doesn’t even twitch. And I can feel that it’s not her doing. It’s mine. I don’t want my power anywhere near her, so I stopped it.
I stopped it.
I face her, meeting eyes that are so soft, I want to dive into them. Then I slowly lower my gaze to where she’s still touching me. Such a small touch, just her fingertips against the back of my hand.
“That was dangerous,” I say, my voice hardly above a harsh whisper. “You risk too much.”
“I needed to show you.”
She slides her fingertips slowly around, then across my palm to lace our fingers together, and I’m breathing hard, feeling that innocent touch in every part of me.
And it feels so…good. Such a simple touch.
My fingers tighten around hers compulsively. I don’t want to let her go, even if I should.
“Hades.”
I shiver at my name on her lips and reluctantly drag my gaze from our entwined hands to her eyes.
“You’re not fine.” Her words are as gentle as her touch. “You’re far from fine right now, but you will be. You’re not a monster, Hades.”
Even the second time around, those words rock through me.
Then she offers me a smile, the kind only my mother tries to give me every so often.
But Mother’s are always filled with guilt or pity or worry.
This smile is filled with…certainty and trust. No fear or pity to be seen.
“One day, you’ll do the hard things no one else can.
But that is only possible when you master your powers.
Which you will. You just need to have faith in your own heart. ”
That very heart squeezes tight before beating like a trapped animal inside the cage of my chest.
“Hades,” Cerberus warns.
I ignore him, focused entirely and utterly on her. On green eyes that seem to hold nothing but kindness and something warmer…and yet a distance, too, like she’s holding herself back.
This is her holding herself back?
No one has ever said words like that to me. Never. Let alone dared to touch me after my powers manifested completely and raged out of control.
What if she’s the only one I can touch like this?
“I don’t believe you.”
She winces, gaze flicking over my shoulder again. This time, her eyes flare and she takes a step back like she’s going to try to run. I pull the rope taut between us.
She sees the gesture, and what flashes through her eyes is indecipherable—a thousand emotions I couldn’t begin to untwist. Like she wants to tell me things…but she’s stopping herself. Why?
“I wish I had more time to convince you,” she says.
“So stay.” The words drop between us. I shouldn’t ask her to stay. No one should be near me, but…
“You are not dangerous.” The words rush out of her now as she backs up another step. I tighten my grip, stepping with her.
She gives me a pained look. “Stop fearing yourself, Hades. Fear will always make everything worse.”
She goes slightly hazy around the edges in the strangest way, and I shake my head, trying to make her come into focus.
“I’m sorry,” she says, her voice sounding like it’s coming from far away. “I have to go. I…wish I could stay.”
She fades even more, and I tighten my grip on her and the rope, but it’s like holding on to water as she turns more hazy. She’s leaving, and I can’t stop her.
“What’s your name?” Desperation jerks the demand from my lips.
I have to know.
Her smile falters as she hesitates several more poundings of my heart.
“Lyra Keres.”
And then she’s gone.
As if she never existed. All that’s left of her is the sound of her name floating on the wind and the feel of her touch fading from my skin.