Page 18 of A Worthy Opponent
I know I’m staring at her like I’ve never seen her before, but I can’t seem to stop. She manages to drag me a few steps before I remember that I’m supposed to be resisting. “Why do you care so much?”
She finally stops and looks at me, anger flickering into confusion. “We’re friends, Tink. Protecting each other is what friends do.”
There’s that word again. Friends. Apparently I don’t really know what it means, after all. I can’t let her confront Hades. I’ve made my bed with Hook, and fighting Hades will only endanger Aurora’s deal. Panic flares in my throat, hot and tangled and confused. I’ve never had to look out for someone else before. I’ve been too busy trying tosurvive. But if Aurora gets hurt because she’s trying to defend me …
“We were seeing each other in secret,” I blurt. “I couldn’t do anything until my contract was up.”
She finally stops tugging on my wrist and narrows her eyes. “You’re not lying?”
Oh, this sweet girl. Even after so long of moving through our world, she has an innocence about her that nothing has touched. I hope nothing ever does. I take a breath and work on morphing my expression into one she’ll believe. “I’m not lying.”
She studies me for a long moment. Finally, she shakes her head, looking more confused. “Wow. I just … Wow. I didn’t see this coming.”
“I don’t think anyone did.” That, at least, is the truth. I carefully remove her hand from my wrist. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to someone who was willing to go to bat for me. “Thank you. You don’t have to fight for me.”
“Of course I do.” She smiles, though it looks a little brittle. “The Underworld is going to be weird without you here. I’m going to miss you.”
The novelty of beingmissedis something I’ll have to ponder later. The feeling in my throat only gets more tangled, and I try to swallow past it. Are my palms sweating? Because this feels more anxiety-inducing than participating in my first scene. “I, um, I’m going to be busy for a bit getting settled in.” Another wobbly breath that does nothing to fill my lungs. I expel the rest of the words in a rush, already bracing for rejection. “But do you want to get coffee sometime soon?”
“Really?” The hope that flares in her dark eyes makes me feel both like the biggest asshole in existence and also so relieved I’m a little dizzy. She gives me a happy smile. “I’d love to get coffee.”
I open my mouth to say—I don’t even know. Maybe to apologize for being such a dick since I’ve known her. Hook sweeps in before I get a word out. He hands me my bright drink and slips an arm around my waist again. “I’m stealing my wife back, Aurora.”
She immediately drops her gaze, her training finally kicking back in. “I wouldn’t dream of keeping her from you,” she murmurs, though there’s an archness beneath the words that tells me she’d fight him with everything she has if she thought for a second he was forcing me to do something I didn’t want to. Just like she was about to fight Hades.
Yeah, I reallyaman asshole.
Hook guides me to a booth near the door to the public playroom, and I’m still too caught up in processing Aurora’s response to be irritated by him. It’s only when he slides into the booth next to me instead of across from me that I refocus on Hook. Impossible not to when he’s pressed against me from shoulder to knee. He drapes one arm over the back of the booth, which brings me closer yet, tucked right under his arm.
I fit. It’s annoying that I fit.
I take a sip of my drink, mostly to give my hands something to do. It’s perfect, but then Tis made it. She’s the best bartender I’ve ever encountered, in my totally unbiased opinion. But thinking about her only makes me think about everything I’ve lost in the course of the last few days.
It’s time to stop dicking around and put some honesty on the table. I look up at Hook. “You’re using me as bait.”
He doesn’t blink, doesn’t lose that charming smile, but his body tenses the smallest bit. Confirmation, not that I need it. In the hours after the farce of a wedding ceremony, I had plenty of time to think this through from all angles. There’s only one that makes sense. Hook can’t find Peter on his own, so he needs to piss him off enough that Peter comes to Hook.He’s likely tried other things already, so he’s landed on me. He must have thought I’d say no if he told me the full truth.
Finally, he responds. “I’m using you as bait.”
It shouldn’t sting. I knew he didn’t practically blackmail me into marriage because he was overcome by love or some bullshit like that. This was always about territory and power.Everythingin Carver City is about territory and power: claiming it, keeping it, taking out anyone who threatens it. It was never about me.
It really, really shouldn’t sting.
I take another drink, hating that my hand shakes. “Where he’s concerned, I’ve always been a big red button.”
“I won’t let anything happen to you.” Hook speaks so low, I can almost convince myself that I can’t actually make out the words.
“That’s not a promise you have any business making.” Bitterness creeps into my tone, a direct counterpoint to the sweet drink on my tongue. “It’s not a promise youeverhad any business making.”
“I know you had no reason to trust me then, and you have no reason to trust me now.” I feel, more than hear, his exhale. “But youcantrust me to keep you safe.”
At least he’s not pretending he doesn’t understand. I close my eyes and strive for calm, strive to keep the past in the past, locked up in the box I created just so I could get through my days without being a sobbing mess of trauma. “I don’t want to talk aboutthen.” The before, when I couldn’t take tomorrow for granted because the threat of Peter hung over my head every second of every day.
For a moment, I think Hook will push the subject. Another of those long exhales and all the tension leeches out of his body. “One day, we’ll talk about what happened the night I offered to get you out of his territory.”
“No, we won’t.” There’s no point in pulling out all thewrongs done during those years and looking them over. Hook isn’t even the perpetrator, but he stood by and witnessed, which is almost as bad. I don’t exactly blame him for it, but Icanblame him for the fact that the past is clinging to my back more fiercely than it ever has.
“Tink.” He practically purrs my name, a low grumbling sound that has me focusing on him completely. Just like that, the rest of it fades away, and there’s only this man who stares at me as if he can divine my thoughts right out of my head. He drags his thumb along my jaw to stop just below my bottom lip. “Would you like your reward?”
