“You’re enjoying this,” I muttered, standing a few feet away.
“I enjoy a lot of things,” he said casually, resting one arm across the back of the bench. “Watching you try to pretend you don’t care might top the list.”
I scoffed. “I don’t have to care. I could walk out that door right now.”
“Then why haven’t you?”
The words hung in the air between us, heavy and smug and infuriating. He tilted his head like he already knew the answer.
“Maybe I just don’t like unfinished messes,” I shot back.
“Mm. Is that what I am to you? A mess?” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, bloodied hands hanging loose like the violence hadn’t fully drained from them yet. “You patching me up out of pity, Persephone?”
“No,” I snapped. “I’m doing it so your arrogance doesn’t get infected and kill you. Though now that I say it out loud, maybe that isn’t the worst idea.”
He grinned, all sharp teeth and wolfish charm. “You’re adorable when you try to sound dangerous.”
I rolled my eyes and turned away.
Big mistake.
The second I shifted to walk past him, his hand shot out and wrapped around my wrist—not hard, but firm. Unyielding.
“Let go,” I said, heat spiking through me like a threat—or a thrill.
He didn’t.
Instead, he looked up at me with that same calm darkness in his eyes, like he’d planned this moment before I even walked in.
“You don’t trust me,” he said.
“You’re damn right I don’t.”
He didn’t look hurt. He looked amused.
“I don’t need you to trust me, Persephone. I just need you to stop lying to yourself about what you feel when I’m near.”
My pulse jumped. Right there beneath his thumb, he’d feel it—racing like prey in a trap.
I jerked my arm, but he didn’t let go.
“You think I’m not scared of you?” I hissed.
His grip didn’t tighten, but his voice did. “You should be.”
Silence fell like a blade between us.
And still—I didn’t pull away again.
Not yet.
Chapter 18
Hades
I didn’t expect her to come.
But there she was—Persephone—standing in front of me like a goddamn storm wrapped in sunshine, her wrist caught in my hand, her pulse thudding like war drums beneath my fingers. That beat wasn’t fear.
