His hand reached out, fingers brushing my arm, grounding me and setting me ablaze all at once. Firm. Steady. Possessive.
And for one impossible second—just one—everything else vanished.
The smoke. The screams. The fire.
There was only him.
And me.
And the way we burned.
The flames howled, furious and alive, clawing their way up the walls like they wanted to devour everything. The heat pressed in from all sides, searing, suffocating—but I didn’t move. I wouldn’t.
Callista stumbled back, her face twisted into something grotesque—rage and fear tangled up behind those wild eyes. She looked feral. Cornered.
“You were always his whore!” she spat, voice sharp enough to slice bone. “You really think he won’t turn on you next? He will. Just like he turned on me.”
Her words tried to claw into me, but they couldn’t reach. Not anymore.
Because he was at my side now—Hades. Solid. Silent. Radiating wrath like a loaded gun with the safety off. I didn’t have to look at him to feel it, that storm coiling beneath his skin, held back only because I was still holding the line.
But this wasn’t his to fight alone.
This was mine too.
I stepped forward. My body ached from the restraints, from the smoke, from the chaos—but my spine was steel. My voice came low, sharp, and steady. “No,” I said, each syllable slicing through the heat. “He’ll destroy anyone who tries to hurt me.” My eyes locked on hers. “That includes you.”
She flinched. Just barely. But I saw it.
The fire behind her surged, swallowing the beams like they were sugar. Her bravado cracked as smoke curled around her feet, rising up like it wanted to pull her down. She glanced around, like maybe there was still a way out.
There wasn’t.
“You don’t understand!” she shrieked, pressing her back to the wall, eyes darting like a caged animal. “You don’t know what he really is!”
“Oh, I do,” I said, voice cold as the steel she’d bound me with. “And I’m not afraid of him.”
Her lips parted like she wanted to argue—but she couldn’t. Not with the fire licking at her heels. Not with me standing tall, and Hades a step behind me, carved from shadow and rage.
This wasn’t fear anymore.
It was power.
I tilted my head, watching her squirm. “You lit the match, Callista. Now burn with it.”
She gasped—just once. A sound too soft for someone who’d screamed so loud. Then the flames rose, and her face vanished behind the smoke.
I didn’t look away.
And neither did he.
Together, we watched her world fall. No more running. No more games.
Just fire, and truth, and us.
The heat clawed at my skin, chasing us like it didn’t want to let go. One second I was in that hellhole, smoke thick in my lungs, and the next—I was airborne.
Hades had me. His arms locked around me, iron-willed and unrelenting, like I might vanish if he loosened his grip. My heart thundered against my ribs, adrenaline still ripping through me, but all I could feel was him. The fire was behind us, smoke curling like a curse, but he moved through it like a god. Like nothing could touch him. Like nothing would touch me.
