“Why don’t you let me worry about what I want?” Hercules gives me a squeeze. “What I want is you. Both of you.”
“You hate us.” Why can’t I let this go and just accept it? It’s easier to let lust and love have their way than to pick apart their solution, but I can’t seem to stop. “You’re furious at us for lying to you, for trapping you.”
“Yeah, I was.” He chuckles against my hair. “Maybe I’m still kind of pissed, but you were right before. I have no one to blame but myself.”
He’s too good. Too pure. We’ll tarnish him. It might take a few weeks, months, years, but eventually he’ll lose that shine and start compromising the values that makes Hercules the man he is. He won’t be able to avoid it, not if he wants to survive this world. It hurts me to think about, but telling him to go would hurt too. “This can’t possibly work,” I whisper.
“We won’t know unless we try it for real.” Hercules runs his hands over my body like he’s trying to soothe a startled animal. “We can do this. There will be some bumps along the way, a whole lot of communication, some mistakes, but we can make it work.”
I reach up and tentatively touch Hades’s chin. He’s staring at me like he can read the doubts on my soul. I can’t seem to stop shaking. “This is a trick.”
“No trick.” He covers my hand with his, sealing me to him. “This is… an alternate route.”
An alternate route. As if it is really that simple. “But—”
“Megaera.” He doesn’t raise his voice, but he doesn’t have to for me to know I won’t like what he’s about to say. “I am not Declan. After all this time, you should know that. I won’t treat you as carelessly as he did. Ever.”
Hercules tenses. “Who is Declan?”
How dare Hades spill forth my darkest shame like that? His eyes are still tender, but there’s a challenge there now too. He’s willing to compromise his vengeance, to offer a part of himself up on the altar that could be this new relationship. Am I willing to do the same? I close my eyes and let the soft sound of their breathing soothe me. I’m scared. I’m so scared. “Declan is the man who convinced me to bargain myself away to further his own goals. He wanted something only Hades could provide and so he convinced me to make a deal on his behalf. My freedom for his ambition.”
Hercules’s shocked inhale is too pure. “You took that deal?”
“I had my reasons.”
I open my eyes, I can’t help it. Hades is looking at me just like he did that first day, all warmth and danger and a sweet possession that calls to every part of me. I lick my lips. “Do you remember the first thing you said to me upon sealing that bargain?”
He strokes the back of my hand. “That you are destined to be a queen, not some man’s pawn.”
Hercules is still tense behind me. “You let her sell herself for some piece of shit. What the hell, Hades?”
He lifts his gaze to the man behind me. “I’d think you would know by now that I’m not a good man, little Hercules. I wanted Meg from the first moment I saw her, and when she offered herself to me, I took her.”
Hercules huffs out a breath. “Yeah, I get that. That’s not my fucking problem, Hades. You let him profit off her sacrifice.”
“Ah. That.” Hades presses a kiss to my knuckles and releases me. “Would you like to tell him, love, or should I?”
It’s been a long, long time since I thought about Declan or the beginning of my relationship with Hades. He didn’t fuck me that first year I was under contract with him. He simply trained me in everything from BDSM to the politics of Carver City. There were nights where we’d talk for hours after a scene, and I felt like I’d found another part of my soul I didn’t know I was missing.
It strikes me that I have that same sensation with Hercules, too, albeit in a very different way.
My chest goes warm and tight. “Declan was running a small territory just south of Jasmine’s father’s.” A vicious part of me rises to the fore at the memory and I smile. “About a year after we made our bargain, Hades dismantled his support system in the space of a week. And when he came crawling into the Underworld to beg for help, Hades exiled him from the city entirely.”
“You can do that?”
Hades shrugs. “If I start running major players out of town, they’ll all turn on me. Neutral territory is my strength, and so I don’t directly meddle with power squabbles in the various territories.” His eyes go lethal. “However, it was a special circumstance, and everyone recognized it as such.”
The others saw it as a courting gift, a way of balancing the scales. It helped that I was already developing a reputation in the Underworld and most of them liked me. Nine years later, and they still gravitate to me, but there’s a healthy dose of fear mixed in. I’m one small step down from Hades in their eyes, and they treat me with every respect and courtesy.
Hercules is quiet for a long moment, obviously processing. “It doesn’t seem like enough.”
I jerk away and sit up. “What?” Did he seriously just say that?
Hades isn’t looking at me now. He’s got a strange expression on his face, as if Hercules has done something delightful. “He hasn’t been seen in nearly a decade, little Hercules.”
I freeze. “Hades, you didn’t.”
Now he turns that look in my direction. “The terms were clear, love. If he attempted to come back to Carver City, I would ensure it never happened again.”
I remember that, of course. But no one crosses Hades. Surely Declan wasn’t stupid enough to try. I open my mouth to ask, but reconsider. Does it really matter? Hades’s hands aren’t clean. They haven’t been for the entirety of the time I’ve known him. They won’t be in the future either. Will knowing that he killed my ex make a difference?
Yes. Yes, it would.
“Did he come back?”
He doesn’t blink. “Yes.”
I can’t breathe. “When?”
“A week after he left. He attempted to slide back into his old role.” His eyes give me nothing. “He couldn’t get to me, so he blamed you for the broken bargain. I ensured he ceased to be a threat.”
That sounds like Declan. Even after all these years, I remember his rage. When we were first together, I was naive enough to think it was sexy. A man with emotions. I didn’t realize how toxic he was until it was far too late and I’d signed my life away. Declan never loved me. He loved that I loved him and he found me useful. Having me be the reason Hades turned on him must have driven him mad. Funny that I never stopped to consider it until now. I was too busy forcefully shucking off my innocence, shedding it like a skin that no longer fit. Declan was like all the other things in my past—something I wanted to leave behind and never think of again.
“You killed him.” Hercules still has that strange expression on his face, as if he can’t decide whether he’s horrified or not.
“I’ll do anything to protect those I love, little Hercules.” Hades doesn’t look away from my face. “Anything.”
“I get it,” Hercules says slowly. Now he’s looking at me, too, his expression contemplative. “Some people are worth protecting, no matter the cost.”