Page 88 of The Catacomb King
There was a dead silence.
“Well, I’d better get started,” Elke said hastily. She scuttled off.
Hades, with great effort, hauled himself to his feet. He slouched over to the bucket and began to head to the saltwater pool.
“Hades!”
“Let me draw your bath,” he said heavily. “Let me feel like I’m doing somebody some good.”
“Forget the fucking bath! You fuckingdrownedme!”
“I was never going to drown you.” He closed his eyes. “Look. If you let me make you a bath, I’ll clean and bandage up. Okay?”
“You’ll clean and bandage up,andyou’ll give me some gods-damned answers.”
“You drive a hard bargain, goddess.” But he was smiling a little. Or he would have been, I thought, if it didn’t clearly hurt his face so bad.
There was nothing I could do to stop him and Elke drawing and heating water for my bath. I did, though, fetch a bucket from another chamber to help them. “What?” I demanded when Hades looked at me, exasperated. “What am I supposed to do, just stand around while you wait on me?”
“That’s the idea.”
“Fuck off,” I told him again.
Within fifteen minutes we had the bathtub full to the brim, hot and steaming. This was insane. I kept feeling like I was going to wake up. I hadn’t taken a bath in over a year, and I had never taken one like this: a full, rich, hot bath in a tub long enough to stretch out in, redolent with steam and the smell of camphor soap. This was a bath for kings and queens.
I was still staring at the water when Elke said, “Okay, bye!”
I whipped around. “Wait, don’t leave me here with —”
Her spider-rear was already vanishing, closing the door behind her. She deadbolted it from the other side.K-chunk.
“— him,” I finished lamely.
I was alone with Hades and his bruised, shirtless body.
He glared at me.
My traitorous breath caught in my throat. I tried to cover it up. Haughtily I said, “Well, I certainly don’t see how I can be expected to take a bath withyouhere.”
“I can’t leave,” he said flatly. “I’m a prisoner.”
“Elke was literally just here with the door open.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
I flexed my hands at my sides. My skin tingled under his gaze. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t bathe with him here, but we’d filled the whole stupid tub.
And now I was locked in.
The truth of it hit me. I was a prisoner now, too. And my mother was still rotting in Hades’s bedchambers! And Calix was still coming with his cannons! Why was I taking a fucking bath?! “Elke’s coming back, right?”
“Yes. She just has to make sure no one notices she’s been visiting me. She’ll be back in a couple of hours, probably with something to eat.” Seeing me dart a glance at the pomegranates, he added dryly, “Something with substance. But don’t worry. I won’t make you eat it. I’ll never try to make you do anything again. I learned my lesson, goddess.”
He turned around. His broad back was covered in bruises. I pressed my knuckles to my mouth to stop from crying out. In obvious pain, he lowered himself to the ground beside the brazier, in front of the locked door, as far away from me as he could get.
I whispered involuntarily, “Hades?” Immediately I wished I hadn’t. My voice was humiliating.
But he didn’t mock me for it. “I won’t look,” he said softly. He reached for the bandages. “Go on.”
