To distract herself from her fear, she took in the room, not missing how different it was to Marek’s Spanish villa.
It suited Keras.
There was an understated elegance about the room, a sense of luxury in every small detail. Clean white walls. Crisp polished wood. Delicate fabrics on the chairs seated around the table to her right. A chandelier that twinkled at her through the doorway beyond it, the crystals and gold reflecting warm light.
She could only imagine the money Keras had poured into his home.
It was opulent.
Befitting of the firstborn of Hades.
It was also very neat. Everything had a place and was in it, and not a speck of dust marred the furniture. She had never noticed how neat Keras was.
Her gaze strayed back to him, her heartbeat going off the scale again as she mustered her courage, as curiosity tugged a question to her lips.
Why hadn’t he sensed her yet?
Maybe he had. Maybe he was aware of her and too angry with her to face her. She studied him and frowned when she sensed no anger in him. She would have pondered whether he was struggling with other emotions.
Only she couldn’t sense anything coming from him.
Which was odd.
She had been attuned to him once, able to detect the slightest shift in his feelings. Perhaps in their years apart, that skill had grown rusty or a distance had grown between them, stealing it from her.
Enyo watched him for a few seconds more, giving herself time to grow accustomed to the fact it was Keras before her.
His rich masculine scent was the same, teased her senses with earth and spice, had her recalling the time she had fallen asleep resting against his shoulder in the secluded arbour in her brother’s garden.
It warmed her.
Soothed her.
Gave her the courage she had been lacking as he opened the cupboard set into the kitchen island in front of him and bent over.
“It has been two centuries since I last laid eyes upon that fine backside but I do believe I would recognise it anywhere.” Enyo cringed as she finished saying that, sure she had made a terrible mistake and he wouldn’t remember that day several hundred years ago, when they had been hunting in the mortal world and his horse had bolted.
She had found him thrown face first into a bush, his backside sticking out of it, and had remarked about recognising his fine backside.
Tense seconds trickled past.
Keras straightened and turned. “Enyo!”
When he smiled at her, his emerald eyes lighting up with it, all of her nerves rushed out of her, replaced with warmth that heated her right down to her marrow.
To her soul.
Gods, he was as gorgeous as she remembered, and something hit her hard.
She had missed him so badly.
Surprise swept through her when he stepped into her and wrapped his arms around her, swiftly giving way to a lightness that chased every shadow from her heart, every fear from her mind as he held her.
She hugged him back, closed her eyes and told herself to keep it together and not be weak. She leaned into his embrace, fighting tears that stung her eyes. A whirlwind of emotions swept through her, tangled ribbons of them that pulled her along with them, had her spinning as she held him.
She kissed his cheek, secretly breathed him in.
He still smelled the same. Still felt the same. If not better. It had been centuries, but she had never forgotten how good it felt to be in his arms.
She did her best not to cling to him, not to let him see how deeply his friendly greeting was affecting her as a single thought spun through her mind.
It was Keras—his cheek beneath her lips, his strong arms around her.
She pulled herself together and withdrew her lips, before she ended up making a fool of herself. If she hadn’t managed that already.
Keras drew back and smiled at her. “Anyone would think you had missed me.”
She laughed, but couldn’t deny it. “There isn’t a man in all the Underworld who can hug like you do.”
His arms dropped away from her as he stepped back, the embrace over too soon, and she schooled her features to hide her disappointment.
Her nerves began to rise again as silence stretched between them once more, as he stared at her and she swore something lit his green eyes, something cold and dark.
“I have been scouting the Underworld,” she blurted, and cursed herself.
She crushed her nerves.
They rose back up again, persistent and more than a little annoying.
She needed to appear strong, as confident as she used to be. She needed Keras to believe she had only come to relay information to him, at least until she felt sure of a few things.
Like whether or not he hated her now.
“People have been seen entering Nemesis’s realm over the last few decades. Not the usual gods or goddesses who are summoned there either. I heard several reports that people of an unknown breed had visited her.”
Keras leaned his backside against the black counter of the island and folded his arms across his chest. Her gaze crept down to it, to the onyx material that hugged his lean muscled figure. The modern dress of the mortal world suited him, accentuated his fine figure, revealing his long legs and how his wide shoulders tapered into a trim waist.
“What breeds?” His deep voice rolled over her, warming her and making it hard to think.
“I am not sure.” That was the truth and not just because she felt a little addled being in his presence again, was still a little off-balance from the hug he had given her. “There were reports of both males and females, but none of them gods or goddesses. Not even demigods of note, but I cannot be certain there are not some involved. I can question the people who spoke of them and see if they know. Perhaps even visit the communities and ask questions there.”
“If more Hellspawn are involved, Father would want to know.”
Hellspawn. A term he and his brothers often used for the breeds Hades had allowed to remain in the Underworld after the last rebellion. The breeds that had been banished had been renamed daemons, a word that sounded more like a vile curse whenever Hades or Keras had spoken it in front of her.
Keras dipped his head and a damp ribbon of black hair slipped onto his brow, curled there and caressed his pale skin.
He had bathed recently. Just the thought of him doing such a thing had heat licking through her veins. She fought it and subdued it, aware that Keras’s senses were strong and not wanting him to detect the desire that still burned inside her despite their centuries apart.
He swept the rogue strand back and ran his long fingers through his hair. “Thank you for your information.”
Enyo frowned at that, his cold response causing her nerves to gain ground. Was he angry with her because she had never come to see him? Marek had told her more than once that she caused him trouble when she came to see him rather than Keras, that Keras was always furious with him.
Was he furious with her too?
He leaned to his right and went to turn.
Her gaze snagged on the bottle on the black counter and the empty glass beside it. “What is that?”
She jerked her chin towards it.
Keras didn’t even glance at it. “An experiment.”
She read the red and white label. Vodka. She knew what that was.
“Alcohol?” Her gaze leaped back to collide with his as shock rippled through her. “I thought that—”
Keras cut her off. “Valen tried it and went off the deep end.”