Page 44 of Learn My Lesson
As if I could even if I wanted to. I wave a hand vaguely and wrap my arms around Meg, cuddling her into me. She kisses my neck and nuzzles me, obviously as blitzed as I feel. Damn. I just… Damn. I didn’t know sex could be like this. It was beyond good, beyond great. It was fucking life-changing.
And I can’t shake the feeling that we’ve only scratched the surface.
Hades returns quickly with blankets and a warm, damp rag. He helps us sit up and cleans us up a little. Though he doesn’t linger on that aspect, there’s an element of softness in his caretaking that I didn’t expect. Maybe I should have. Several minutes later, he has us wrapped up in our respective blankets and leaning against him on either side. It feels so fucking right, I don’t bother to question it. Meg reaches across his lap and laces her fingers through mine, another little point of contact, a connection I crave as much as Hades’s warm strength.
I don’t know how much time passes while Hades acts as rock to our respective storms. Long enough that my heart is no longer trying to beat its way out of my chest and my breathing evens out. Finally, as if he’s as reluctant to break this peace as I am, he sighs. “I suppose it’s long since past time to talk.”
1 I know the “little” nicknames are a bit of a cliché in romance, but I love them. There’s something very indulgent about them, and as long as I’m writing, you’ll see them pop up periodically in my books.
2 Sometimes you need an outsider to see what is really there, a truth that you’re way too close to identify clearly. Hercules serves that purpose in this book.
MEG
I don’t have the energy for this conversation now, which must have been the point when we began this night. It doesn’t seem to matter, though, because Hades is speaking in that careful way of his that seems to come out when he’s negotiating. I push up a little, needing to see his face as he talks. My body resists the call to action, but I power through the languid feeling coating my muscles. Some things are more important than the afterglow. On his other side, Hercules does the same, shifting back to rest against the arm of the couch. His legs are still pressing against Hades; he doesn’t seem to be able to give up that contact any more than I can.
Hades plays his fingers along my knee and sighs. “I targeted Hercules specifically.”
I know that already. He does nothing without reason, and we were in that restaurant with the sole purpose of netting Hercules. “Yes, I’m aware of that, even if you didn’t bother to tell me.” My voice comes out sharper than I want it to, giving too much away, but I can’t seem to help myself. My defenses are down, crashed to pieces by these two men.
He continues as if I haven’t spoken. “I did intend him as a gift to you, love. But that’s not the reason I picked him specifically.”
A gift. I still haven’t quite wrapped my mind around the fact that Hades knew exactly how messed up we’d gotten, and instead of talking to me like a normal person, he served me Hercules on a platter. I don’t know that I can throw stones at this point, though. As Hades pointed out, I didn’t exactly tell him everything I was feeling.
Maybe he’s right. We aren’t normal people to fix our problems in that way. And I can’t deny that Hercules’s presence helps in ways I wasn’t expecting. Not solely in prodding us to talk to each other, but he’s a soft, ooey-gooey center to all our harsh edges. He blunts us, allows us to connect in a softer way.
I clear my throat, bringing my attention back to this room, this conversation. “Why did you pick him specifically?”
“A long time ago, before I came to Carver City, I lived in Olympus.”
“I know.” Just that he lived in Olympus and was exiled. Nothing more. Maybe I should know more about him, how he grew up, what his family was like. It’s not something we’ve ever talked about. My parents were hardly saints, and they turned their backs on me when I ran off with Declan all those years ago. I couldn’t bear to admit that they were right about him, so I’ve never gone back. And they’ve never once tried to reach out. It doesn’t hurt quite as much as it used to, but that tenderness means I never pushed Hades about his past. What is the point? We have our now and our future.
Obviously, I should have paid more attention.
“I…” For the first time tonight, Hades hesitates. He glances at Hercules, a connection so brief, I wouldn’t have caught it if I weren’t watching them so closely. “I had a family. Wife. Son. A promising future as one of the most powerful people within the city.”
A wife.
A son.
Each word hits me in the chest with the force of a sledgehammer. Two things I can never ever give Hades. Two things I desperately don’t want, even now.?1 I start to pull away, but his hand bracketing my knee tightens and he turns to me. “Listen.”
I don’t want to. I don’t want to hear how happy he was. How normal he was. Some truths aren’t mine to bear, and this one is too much to handle. I might laugh if I could find the breath for it. Of all the secrets lurking in his past, this will be the one to break me. Not the horrible things he’s done. Not those he’s hurt along the way in his quest to secure power. Not the legion of people he’s fucked. Just this. A wife. A son. An entire life I knew nothing about. I swallow hard. “I’d really rather not.”
“Listen.” This time it’s Hercules who speaks, his deep voice steadying something in me despite every molecule in my body demanding I get the hell out of here.
Hades gives me a long look and continues. “We didn’t last the year after I inherited the position of Hades. I was too young and too…innocent. I couldn’t protect them.”
A pit opens up in my chest. “What happened?”
“Zeus killed them.”
Hercules makes a choked noise, but Hades doesn’t look away from my face. “He killed them,” he repeats. “And he drove me out of Olympus with nothing but sorrow to accompany me. For thirty years, he’s been untouchable, well beyond my reach, and now I have the chance to balance the scales. A son for a son.”
My mind is racing and my body tenses as if I’m about to flee for my life, rejecting the things he’s saying. “You… Hercules… His son.”
“Zeus is my father, yes.”
More pieces fall into place. The reason Hercules left Olympus, because of his father’s monstrosity. It never occurred to me that it could be connected to Hades. I grab Hades’s wrist and wait for him to look at me. “You are not killing Hercules.”
