Tempting the Fates

Chapter 16

The door to his study opened on its own, and he ushered me through. I glanced around the room and took a seat on the couch in the same place I had sat earlier. He sat beside me, and my body reacted to how close he was. I could smell the delicious dark scent coming off his skin, like a pheromone. My chest tightened.

"What happened?" he repeated. He took my hand and cradled it on top of his.

"Oh. I broke something and cut my hand trying to clean it up." I admitted.

"That's why we have help, Callie." He sighed. "You should let them clean it up so you don't get hurt."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "That's not how I was raised, Hades. If I made a mess, I cleaned it. Either way, I sewed it up. It's fine now."

"I apologize." He sighed. "I did not mean to sound so rude. I only meant to say, please be careful. You're the most important woman in this kingdom, and I do worry about your safety." He paused, as if he were deciding whether to keep talking. "I'd keep you with me every minute of the day just to know you're safe, but I will not make you a prisoner here. It's important to me that you know you are free to go wherever you want."

I forced the tears back again. Free to go everywhere except home, back to my old life...

He removed the bandage with gentle motions. The wound was still fresh and stung a bit as the air hit it. He placed his hand over mine. I winced, purely out of instinct, but I was surprised to find that his touch wasn't painful. In fact, it felt good. The discomfort was dissolving every moment our skin was connected. Then he grazed his fingertips along my palm and down my own fingers.

"There. Much better." He said.

I glanced down at my hand and gaped at the pale skin on my palm. It was healed. The stitches and blood had vanished, and there was not even a hint of a scar. I flipped my hand over several times, as if it were simply an illusion that would change back.

"How?" I asked, dumbfounded.

"I'm a god, remember?" he smirked.

I blushed, embarrassed. "Oh, yeah. Well, thank you. You'd certainly put a doctor out of business."

I stopped to think about what I'd just said. I pondered all the ways I could help people if I had powers like his. The world was so broken, and there were still so many illnesses that had no cure. If I couldn't help the world as a whole, I would help it one person at a time.

"Everything else okay?" he asked. "You looked upset, and it didn't seem like your hand was the reason why."

I had been so desperate to get to him, that I hadn't figured out what I was going to say about my dad. My mom had told me to only trust him- but did I trust my mom? I looked into Hades' eyes, and my heart knew: he was a trustworthy and considerate person. There didn't need to be any secrets between us, especially not about my father.

"My mom sent me a letter. She was keeping an eye on my dad, and..." I could feel a lump forming in my throat. My eyes burned as tears formed. "He's gone. She thinks someone took him." The relief I got from telling him was overwhelming. I felt that dam within me break and I sobbed openly.

A comforting hand rested on the very center of my back. He scooted closer to me, until our knees touched. Somewhere behind all my grief, warmth blossomed. The darkness in my heart was dissolving, like sugar in water. His touch alone was helping in ways that I couldn't comprehend.

"I'm so sorry, Callie. I tried to keep your arrival an absolute secret for this reason. Apart from Hermes and your mother, I tried not to let anyone in Olympus know of our union."

He handed me a handkerchief, just as he had during the night. I dabbed my eyes with it, my hands shaking as they moved.

"Why would someone take my dad?"

He pursed his lips. "Whoever took your dad did it for leverage. They likely want to draw you out or use him as a bargaining chip to get what they want."

"What do they want from me?" I dabbed my eyes again.

"Well," Hades' hand absentmindedly drifted up an inch, and back down. The movement sent a chill up my spine and a shockwave of electricity down every limb in my body. "They want you."