Page 5 of Raising Hell
“Was that not what you wanted?” he demanded.
“Yes. I’m just trying to figure out if this is some kind of trick.”
He barked out a harsh laugh. “I am not the one who tricks.”
Right, his dead wife liked to do that.
Feeling that nudge of pity again, I slid my hand into his, my fingers stroking over his palm.
He exhaled heavily and closed his eyes.
“You’re doing it again,” I said, even as I gently traced my thumb over his fingers.
“How so?”
“You’re acting like I’m touching something other than your hand.”
The smile that parted his lips was breathtaking and made my pulse race. His teeth gleamed white in the torchlight.
“Goddess, you know me too well to pretend to be someone other than who you are.”
Pushing aside my reaction to his devilish smile, I frowned.
“You mean I was right?” I withdrew my hand from his. “You’re making it impossible to be nice to you.”
His low chuckle as he opened his eyes did things to my insides. “You know what I would consider nice.”
“Gods, you make me want to smack you.”
His humor vanished, and he opened his arms wide.
“Bestow your touch upon me however you will it. Strike me. Cut me. I care not how you touch me, only that you do.”
Making an annoyed sound, I turned away from him and resumed my pacing.
The stubborn god was so messed up in the head that he couldn’t even see my refusal to hurt him as a sign that I wasn’t Persephone. Instead, he twisted it to mean I was avoiding having sex with him. How was I ever going to convince him I wasn’t his dead wife? She could do everything I could do. And he would think anything I couldn’t or wouldn’t do, like cut him with a barbaric knife, was a trick or some game because that’s what she’d been into.
Maybe it wasn’t about what I could or couldn’t do but what I knew. Hadn’t I just acknowledged that knowledge was my strength? What did I know that Persephone wouldn’t know?
I thought of my last glimpse of Persephone, nothing but a pile of dusty bones on a decaying mattress. She’d obviously been dead a long time. Hades, too, if his idea of indoor plumbing was a pot under the bed.
My gaze scanned the current room’s furnishings and the dress I wore. The Grecian-style gown left one of my shoulders bare and had a simple woven belt that hugged my waist. Underneath the flowing material, a wrap of soft cloth bound my breasts. That was it. No underwear.
While the lack of anything there absolutely had everything to do with Hades' drive to bed his wife, it may have also been partially due to whatever served as underwear when he’d died. I recalled the moment I’d seen him use the chamber pot and how there’d been nothing under the weird tie pants either.
Just how long ago had they both died?
I stopped my pacing and looked at him.
“What year is it in the human world?” I asked.
He looked thoughtful for a moment before crossing his arms.
“I care little about those trivial details.”
“Is it because you don’t care or you don’t know?”
“Both. Why track the inconsequential passing of mortal seasons when our lives stretch for an eternity?”
