Page 89 of The Catacomb King
I licked my lips. I would have loved to be able to say I didn’t believe him.
My fingers trembling, I unlaced my corset.
I watched Hades’s muscles twitch at the sound of the cords whispering through the eyelets.
I let the dress slide off and pool on the ground. I stepped into the tub, hissing as the hot water slid up my calves. I moaned involuntarily. It feltsogood. Hades’s back muscles spasmed.
Then I realized I didn’t have any soap. “Oh, shit.”
Hades’s back muscles flickered. He had started to whip around and then caught himself. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“No, stupid. It’s a bath, not a sword. I just realized I forgot the soap. It’s over there, next to the pomegranates.” I sank grumpily into the water. “It’s fine.” I told myself to just be happy about the bath. It was so annoying, though, to finally get the nicest bath of my life and forget the fucking soap.
Hades sighed. He creaked to his feet and picked up the bar of soap.
“You said you wouldn’t turn around!”
“I’m not turning around.” He walked backwards toward the tub. When the backs of his thighs bumped into the rim, he reached behind him with the bar. “Take it.”
I couldn’t help but gaze up at his bare torso through the steam. It wasright there. The expanse of muscle and flesh. It was slick with dampness. I could imagine how hard it would be if I touched it. My mouth was wet.
I took the bar of soap. My wet fingers brushed his palm. He shuddered.
Then he went and settled back down beside the brazier. Still with his back to me.
“Start bandaging your damn wounds,” I said throatily. “You promised. And start talking.”
Hades picked up the bandages. He bit a length off with his teeth, wadded it up, and began to clean the blood from his body as best he could. “I wasn’t going to drown you in the Lake.”
“Please. Don’t bullshit me.”
“I’m not. That’s why I kept my hand on your throat. I was checking your pulse. I was waiting for… something. If that thing didn’t happen, and if your pulse slowed, I was going to pull you up. I would have sacrificed my own self to the Monarch sooner than feed you to Him. I would —” He broke off. Cleared his throat. “I want you alive, Persephone.”
Wanted me. He wanted me. “Why?”
“Because you’re good for my people,” he said. “Better for them than I am. You took better care of them in three days than I’ve been able to do in years. And… like I told you, up above. You’re a good person. Good, period. And.” Another clearing of the throat. “I don’t know. I just want you alive. I liked having you around, even though all you ever did was give me a hard time. I liked watching you work. I don’t know.”
I wasn’t about to admit it, but I knew what he meant. I liked watching him work, too. Watching him read, watching him think, watching him call the chaosgötten by name. The thought that he felt that way about me, too, made my stomach flip.
ButIhad never tried to sacrificehim.
“Why did you act like you were going to drown me, then? You even held me under. I even can’t swim.”
His back stiffened. “I didn’t know you couldn’t swim.”
“Answer the question.”
Hades said, as if by way of explanation, “Something is wrong with my father.” And then: “I really wish I’d known you couldn’t swim.”
He had cleaned the blood as best he could from his body. I longed to go over there and help him get the rest of it off his back, but I held still. He didn’t deserve my help. Not yet. Now heset the bandage aside and undid the drawstring on his trousers. Stood up and shimmied out of them. I sank my teeth into the inside of my cheek. Shadows pooled in the strong muscles of his ass and thighs.
His hips were violet and black with bruises. So were the swollen backs of his knees.
Whoever had yanked at his arms had tried to pull his legs off, too.
Perhaps sensing my shocked silence, Hades said, “My legs were easier to fix than my shoulders. I was able to use both hands. Elke would have helped, but she doesn’t have hands at all.”
“…Do you want me tolaugh? This isn’t funny.”
