Page 26 of The Catacomb King
Hades snorted a little under his breath. “It won’t kill you,” he said. He was stepping across the carpet toward me, his footsteps nearly soundless. Holding the plump fruit out to me. I could sense the weight of it in his hand. I could smell it, thick and tangy. It made me breathless.
I lowered the spear and reached for it.
And quickly pulled my hand back. I dropped the spear and pushed past him to the bed. It was the only place to sit down since I’d broken the chair, and I needed to sit on my hands to control myself. “No.”
“You think starving to death will save your mother?”
The bastard. “If I eat it, I’ll never be able to return to her.” I risked a glance up at him. He had followed me to the bed. He hadn’t put the fruit away. He was standing over me now, holding the fruit out almost desperately. It was so close it nearly touched my lips. I could smell it. A bare faint sound like a moan escaped my throat. Hades’s hand quivered on the fruit’s flesh. I would have clapped my hand over my mouth, but that would have meant releasing my hands, and I was so afraid that if I let myhands go I would seize the fruit and gobble it down. I wouldn’t be able to help myself.
“Come on, human-who-thinks-she’s-a-goddess,” Hades rasped out. He cleared his throat. “You’d rather starve to death than have to stay here?”
Yes, I almost bit out.
But then I thought about actually going home.
Living out the rest of my days in the dust-ravaged landscape that surrounded Limer, while Calix and Josie and everyone else left me. While my mother coughed blood onto our shitty scarred floors.
Of course I didn’t want to go home. I just didn’t want my mother to die. I had an obligation. If there were a way to fulfill my obligationwithoutgoing back, then —
I tried to squash that cruel, dangerous thought, but it was too late. Because what if — and I wasn’t going to do this, butwhat if— what if Hades or his servant, Elke, agreed to bring the water and the edenica herbs to the border? Along with… along with a message? A message that let Calix and Josie know that I’d been kidnapped and wouldn’t be returning, and asking them to look after my mother for me?
Surely Calix would do it. He was my oldest, dearest friend.
(An ugly, doubtful voice at the back of my mind whispered,Are you sure?)
I stomped on it, but it was too late. My mind scrambled around frantically for another option. Josie, then. Josie would look after my mother. Plus, she wouldn’t have to worry about being kidnapped anymore. She wouldn’t have to go to Corcagia. She could stay in the village.
But I knew shewantedto go to Corcagia.
Would I really do that to her? Steal her from her beautiful future at the nursing college in the filigreed capitol city? Just so I wouldn’t have to go home?
Yes. Yes, I would. The knowledge was like a knife in my heart, that I would be so cruel. But like a knife, it was also undeniable.
But there was still the whole matter of what the underworld Prince planned to do to me.
I answered him: “You mean, would I rather leave than stay here and be your plaything? Yes.”
Hades rolled his eyes. “Trust me. If I wanted a plaything I wouldn’t have picked you. You’re a humanandyou never shut up.”
“Go get a new one, then!”
“Listen. You should be glad I have plans for you. Those plans will keep you alive for three days before you’re sacrificed.Ifyou eat something and don’t starve to death first.”
“Oh, goody,” I said bitterly. “Three days.”
“It’s better than the alternative.”
My anger surged again. But this wasn’t getting us anywhere. I was starving and terrified, but I needed knowledge. “Maybe Iwouldbe glad if I knew what, exactly, your plans were.” Although I seriously doubted it. “Come on, Prince. The Vizeking said to edify me. So edify me.”
Again, his body’s locking-up. I hated it. He was a monster, but he was so human-looking. A weak part of me longed to touch the outline of his body, knowing it would soften if I did. But I sat on my hands and stared him down.
And won.
“Fine,” he said. He thrust the pomegranate into his pocket — a small mercy, though I almost keened when it disappeared — and pulled me off the bed. “You are one stubborn, impossible creature, you know that?”
“I do know that,” I admitted.
“Come and see my world, then,” he said, and: “Just remembered that you asked for this.”
