Cruel Indulgence [Wattys 2015]

extended summary

Cruel Indulgence

"She's dead." He snarled. Hades' golden gaze bore into hers, as ferocious as a beast, thereby, as misunderstood as one also. "She's dead, and you are too. It would do you good to learn so much that a once a life is met with its demise, it is forlorn to revive it."

Catalina craned her neck, her penetrating gaze assessing his form in a manner most Gods would render borderline disrespectful. "But then again," her soft voice claimed, woven like a string of silk caressing his senses. "One who had never lived, is quite incapable of dying, no?"

His glare however, was met with the upward curl of her ruby lips. "So how have you had it, ádi̱s?" she prodded.

"Never died, or never lived?"

~*~

Catalina Ivy Verona possessed every toxic vein that shamed her name. Presumptuous as they were, the town of Oxbourn scorned her so for the 'immoral thug' she'd become past her mother's burial eleven years ago. Not that she made the effort to shed light upon herself. When tossed upon the streets, one tends to learn it's ways. Survival is the key, no?

At least, that is what she chanted to herself as an ill-paid job by a less than steady dock had her drowning to her death. Of course, an elaborate chat with a silver eyed beast among the waters, claiming to be the god of it had her wondering if the only injury she'd received, was a brain deep damage to her head.

Tossed into an everlasting duel among two immortal brothers, Catalina found herself falling into the heart of the Underworld — and into the lap of Hades. 31 days to steal the devil's Zo̱í̱ stone, and return to the oceans to submit her findings in exchange for her life. It wasn't supposed to be so hard to leave hell. And she most certainly wasn't supposed to lend her fragile heart to a man who's own long stopped beating.