The key, which had snagged on the bottom edge of my binding during that last bit, came free with a desperate tug.
“Perhaps she no longer favors the binding that hides my treasure from me.”
She favors! She favors!I thought frantically.
The moment the latch lifted, I slipped inside the room and shut the door in C’adon’s face. The souls in this room scattered to the far wall, taking up the same space until they became a blur of indistinct features and shapes.
I didn’t even try to scan them. Instead, I focused on slowing my breathing and racing heart.
“I can remember how they felt,” he said through the door. “It is burned inside my head, a tempting memory that claws at my mind when I am weak. And I am weak. For her, always. I would rue the day I first lay my gaze upon her sunlit glory, but I cannot. I remember the sweet willingness in which she gave herself to me.”
Panic and desire clashed in my chest, and I struggled to rationalize his words. I knew he wasn’t talking about me. He couldn’t be. I’d never given myself to him, not in the way he was describing. But whoever had? He wanted her in the worst way. What would it be like to be wanted like that?
Something thumped heavily against the door. The wall of souls shuddered and jostled.
“No. That was a dream,” C’adon said angrily.
Thump.
“No, it was real. She was willing before she discovered the truth.”
Thump, thump, thump. The intensity of the hits echoed in my chest.
“Hated Zeus, why wasn’t Hell enough of a punishment?”
I waited for more but only heard silence. My stomach dipped at the thought that he had left me and then filled with hope that he hadn’t and was standing out there, waiting to pounce. What was wrong with me? Did I really want to pick up where we’d just left off? Definitely not. Definitely a little.
Shit.
It would be safer if I stayed where I was until we both settled down a bit. Yet, I couldn’t risk being left behind if he was walking away.
I feared abandonment more than his desires, which wasn’t logical since he’d followed me each time I’d tried leaving him.
My gaze shifted to the souls. Crowded and cowering, they were too hard to see, which meant I had no reason to linger anyway.
Biting my lip, I set my hand on the latch and slowly opened the door. However, he wasn’t waiting for me when I stepped into the hall. Before I could panic, I spotted the next door, which stood open with light spilling out.
I hurried forward, less concerned about what C’adon intended to do to me and more interested in finding a bed. The space wasn’t filled with old furnishings, though. There was nothing in it at all. Not even C’adon.
Confused, I stepped inside and almost jumped when the door slammed shut behind me.
“Do not run,” C’adon said coaxingly.
My heart stuttered, and my insides went hot and cold with conflicting emotions.
He set his hands on my shoulders and gently steered me to the center of the room.
“Play your game. Clean yourself.”
The moment he released me, steaming water encased my legs up to my knees. Shocked, I looked down at the tub in which I now stood then up at the changed room.
A tray of bread, cheese, and fruit waited on a low table near a chaise. Linens hung from the wooden rafters of a bed layered with three down-stuffed mattresses. Oils and chips of soap rested on the floor within my reach.
Behind me, there was nothing but silence. But I could feel him there, watching me, waiting for my reaction. He’d hidden in an empty room and waited until I entered to transform it. Why? Was this another test? He’d said,“Play your game. Clean yourself.”If I did bathe, would he know I’d heard? If I didn’t bathe, then what?
I looked down at the clean water again and decided this wasn’t an opportunity I could pass. I’d been in Hell for at least two days, if not four, and needed to wash. Dress still on, I sank into the water with a sigh and leaned back for real this time as the skirt of my dress billowed around my legs.
“She likes it,” C’adon breathed nearby, intruding on my bliss.
