Untouched ✔

|tessera|

Hades stared at her, his eyes expressionless as they scrutinized her face slowly and her cheeks began to slowly turn a shade of pink. He turned away from her abruptly and began walking away.

Ariel frowned, turning around on the same spot to see if she had missed something.

“Are you coming or not?” he snapped, sounding quite impatient.

She gritted her teeth, her bare feet making soft padding noises as she tried to catch up to him. Even though the God of the Underworld was colder than the freezing temperatures of Antarctica, his palace was surprisingly warm.

She spoke quietly; “Are you going to tell me why I’m here with you?”

Hades clenched his jaw, eyeing her through the corner of his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. Maybe he had done it thoughtlessly or maybe he had done it on purpose, but when he crossed his arms over his chest, his muscles seemed to tighten and look more mouth-watering than before.

Ariel gulped once more, tearing her gaze away from his muscular arms and ran her fingers through her hair. She looked up to catch Hades looking at her hands with interest.

“Why do you wear those?”

She rolled her eyes, crossing her arms on her chest as she walked beside him defensively and said, “You just answered my question with another one; I don’t like that. And if you are a God how come you don’t know why I’m wearing these?”

Hades opened his mouth, turning to look at her and his eyes glazed with such ferocious anger; she could feel it emanating from his skin. “You dare question a God?”

She bit her bottom lip, trying to keep her tongue from speaking words that would cause her trouble. “I am not questioning the way you think I am. I am allowed to ask questions, no? All you had to do was answer it.”

“Same goes for you,” he hissed, his low voice, deepening with the anger coursing through his body, “all you had to do was answer it and not talk back.”

Ariel glared at him, clenching her fists and said, “I wear them so I don’t kill everything I touch. There. Now answer my question; why am I staying with you?”

Hades seemed a bit taken aback, but he didn’t let her catch it. He obviously knew why she worse them, he just wanted an answer out of her. But he didn’t expect her to be as childish as she was being. If she weren’t a threat to the other Gods, he would’ve sent her straight to Tartarus.

When he didn’t answer her right away, she figured he was too angry to answer her, but it wasn’t her fault he was being so difficult. She would have tried to be nice, but the God was making it harder than the Sunday crossword puzzle in the newspaper.

Ariel was generally a nice person, curt, but respectful. She just figured that if she was too nice, people would get attached to her and cause her unwanted pain. It was easier for her to push everything and everyone away and prevent her heart from shattering once more.

She couldn’t even own a pet without fearing the worse.

“The Gods,” Hades cleared his throat, still walking past every room they passed and then yanked her elbow to push her up a set of stairs, “they called a meeting. As you know, there is someone trying to get rid of us by using your powers. They figured that if you were here with us, then whoever is trying to exterminate us would have difficulty reaching you.”

He shrugged, “I offered killing you, but apparently even the God of Death can’t kill you.”

Ariel frowned, staring at him with wide eyes. “Wait you wanted to kill me?!”