“Get out, or I will never fucking help you again.” His words are venomous.
I don’t move.
“Get. Out!” His voice thunders like a crack of lightning. He slams his foot down, and the ground shudders. Pain spears through my stomach, my magic jarring through me as the damning realisation hits me. He’s just killed the living threads beneath the stone ground. Snuffed them out like nothing.
He destroyed life with such ease...
“I know you’re conscious. Get. Out.” His command lashes through me.
I shake my head.
And then he steps into the pool fully dressed and pissed off.
He doesn’t glide in like a normal man. He sinks to the bottom as if simply jumping the distance like a force of nature. His boots land with a heavy thud on the tiled floor. His eyes burn pale, pale blue as they lock on mine. In the distorted water, he looks like a predator.
He grabs me by the arm, yanking me close, before wrapping his arm around my waist, trapping my arms by my side. I try to pull away, but strength is on his side.
He pushes off the ground with one foot and propels us upwards, breaking the surface of the water and dragging me unwillingly with him. The water parts around us in violent ripples, my chest colliding with his. His grip is rough and unforgiving, but I can hear the steady pounding of his heartbeatagainst my ear, not thumping out of fear, but out of pure rage.
Did I push him too far?
“When I give you a warning, you listen.” His voice is low and lethal, but his breath is warm against my face. His hair, once carefully styled, now falls in soaked strands across his forehead, droplets tracing the sharp line of his jaw. His shirt clings to him like a second skin, plastered over hard muscle that shifts as he holds me tighter.
And gods help me, my stomach flips.
I glare up at him anyway, refusing to let the heat crawling over my skin win. I’m still silent. Still holding my breath.
His eyes narrow, icy fire swirling in them. “Heaven,” he hisses. His jaw flexes, a muscle ticking as though he’s fighting the urge to shake me senseless. “Fuck!”
“Why don’t you get that we need to get Sienna back?! That we can’t waste time!” I snap.
“How many times am I going to hear the same shit?” he growls.
He hauls me over his shoulder like I weigh nothing. The sudden motion rips a gasp from me, air flooding back into my lungs as I choke. His hand grips my thigh, holding me steady as he uses only one arm to hoist himself up and out of the pool. His muscles bulge, and the strength in that simple act sends a shiver down my spine.
He drops me unceremoniously on my feet, and I almost fall but don’t. Water puddles at our feet, dripping from his body as he towers over me. “Stop behaving like a spoiled brat.”
“You stop behaving like an immature-”
The words die on my lips when I feel something shift around us.
A darkness swirls through the air, thick and heavy, wrapping around us like pain and despair. My lungs seize, every breath a ragged gasp as though the very air is too heavy to draw in. My skin prickles with icy dread, the hairs on my arms rising.
Theo stills. His hand, almost unconsciously, comes to my waist, pulling me closer to him as his eyes snap to the right. His jaw is set, carved in shadow, but his body is tense, like a predator recognising the presence of something greater.
“Looks like you just got your wish,” he mutters darkly, though his voice is tight.
My pulse hammers in my throat.
And then I feel it. A presence so vast, so suffocating, it makes Theo’s earlier rage feel like a child’s tantrum. My knees weaken, heart slamming painfully against my ribs.
I turn slowly, trying to squash the fear and hopelessness I’m feeling just as the darkness thickens and the temperature plummets.
Hades is here.
A Deal Proposed
Theo
