Page 38 of The Catacomb King
I shook off the strange book. The tingling feeling in my esophagus when he called me goddess. I thought about this. Then I had an idea. I said, “You’re really going to do whatever I want?”
Hades said warily, “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”
“Because if you don’t have a map, then you’re going to help me make one.”
Gestörbunlund, Chaosgötten, Lümerlund
Iforced him to lead me back and forth between the graveyard, the reservoir, and the library. Over and over and over again.
It was awful.
Eventually I couldn’t stand it anymore. Not only were my bare feet killing me from walking on the hard, uneven ground, but my stomach was hot and sick at the sight of all the dead and dying godlings. There were so many of them that I had started thinking of the tunnels asthe catacombs.
I had to stop. I collapsed against one of the bejeweled walls, rubbing my feet and breathing hard. Hades, apparently as fresh as the day he was born, the bastard, crossed his arms and looked at me. “I thought you walked all the time up in the Lümerlund,” he said. “Back and forth, back and forth, to steal our herbs.”
“Yeah, but then I hadshoes. And the — the slope. This ground slopes.”
Alarm flickered in Hades’s eyes. He crouched down in one smooth motion and grabbed my foot.
“Ow!”
“Calm down,” he snapped, “I’m barely touching you.” This was true. He had only lightly encircled my ankle with his fingers.Gods, his hands were enormous. And his skin was so warm against my chill, damp flesh.
I tried to shake him off, but he was relentless. “You’re bleeding,” he said accusingly.
“We’ve probably walked miles on these fucking rocks, and I’m barefoot. What did you expect?”
“I didn’t expect you to just suffer without saying anything, that’s for sure.”
“That,” I said with hauteur, “is because you don’t know me at all.”
“And who would want to, with a personality like that.”
“Oh, please. This from the creature whose only friend is his maidservant.”
Hades ran his thumb along the bottom of my foot. I shivered.
“Sit down,” he said.
“I beg your pardon.”
“Sitdown.” He hopped up and, without warning, wrapped his arms around me. Just as he had aboveground, in the sun, on the strange magical grass. When he’d kidnapped me.
I tried to get away but he pulled me to the floor, piling me unceremoniously on top of his lap. I squawked. But he had already pretzeled me up and was inspecting the bottom of my foot. “For Monarch’s sake, hold still, woman. I’ve got to get these little rocks out of your foot, or you’ll be useless.”
“I don’t havelittle rocksin my — ow!”
Hades held up the minuscule shard of stone that had been embedded in the callused part of my heel and grinned.
“That’s not a rock,” I muttered. “That’s barely a splinter. I get worse than that scrubbing the Stammerers’ floors.”
“Hold still before I pin you to the floor,” Hades said.
I thought about Hades pinning me to the floor. I held still.
Hades ran his fingers over the sole of my foot again. Light as a cobweb. I suppressed a shiver.
“Do you like that?” he whispered.
