Page 84 of Captive Heart

He starts to pull away. But I kiss him on the cheek, quick as I can. His lips twitch and he runs his fingers over my cheek.

“Ah, lass,” he says, shaking his head. “What am I to do with ye?”

I shrug, blushing furiously. He drops his hand to mine and clasps my hand. I weave my fingers through with his, my heart skipping a beat.

This feels… dangerous.

I know that Hades is a bad man. And I have already learned that things don’t end well with villains. But my heart keeps whispering sweet lies to me.

Hades will change. One day he’ll want the same things you want… you just have to wait for him to be ready…

I squeeze his hand and he narrows his eyes on my face. Then he looks away, pulling me along a long road that slopes gently down toward the inevitable ocean.

I suck in a deep lungful of air.

“It smells so…” I lift my nose, trying to catch a note in the air. “I don’t know. Exotic? Like the air is made of different kinds of perfume, shifting and changing every few minutes. It’s driving me wild.”

His lips curl at the corners and he glances at me. “I can assure ye, most of Tunis does not smell like perfume.”

I roll my eyes. “I know. It’s just… it’s something different. It’s refreshing, after being stuck in that little shack south of New Orleans for so many years.”

Hades frowns. “How did ye end up there, of all places? I know that ye were hiding out from Constantine. But didn’t ye have family to protect ye?”

A bark of laughter escapes my lips. “Like whom? My mom, who I’m pretty sure is still rooting for me to get back together with Constantine? Or my dad? He’s barely in my life because he has a whole other family to attend to.”

Hades eyes narrow on a point in the distance. “Yer parents are divorced, then?”

“Nope. Better.” I shoot him a grin. “My mother is my dad’s long-term side piece.”

His brow furrows. “She’s… what?”

“They have been engaged in a twenty-seven year long affair.”

He scrunches up his face. “Can ye call a relationship that long an affair?”

I shrug. “No idea. My dad is a local politician, a real fire and brimstone, church every Sunday, squeaky clean record type. He’s married with a big, loving family. Buuuuuttttt he’s also been sneaking off for a little afternoon delight with my mom for almost thirty years. Hell, he had two kids with her!” I roll my eyes. “My mom would rather die than sully his reputation. And he would rather not be seen with any of us in public.”

“Jesus.” Hades seems to be working to keep up with the flow of information. “So that makes ye… a sibling?”

“Yeah.” I scrunch up my nose. “To my brother Lawrence. He’s… very sweet, but a little self-absorbed.”

Hades nods, his pace slowing. “I see.”

“You really don’t, but I think it’s better that way.” I say it fast and add a wink in at the end, trying to put some distance between me and my family’s dramatic history.

“Still. It sounds like ye were…” He stops, choosing his words carefully. “It sounds like they didn’t care for ye as they should have. And for that, I am sorry.” He glances away, sucking in a breath. “They missed out on knowing ye, I think.”

My cheeks fill with heat. “They did their best.”

He pulls a face. “They didn’t protect ye from Constantine. They allowed me to kidnap ye. And to be frank, they haven’t put up much of a fight back in New Orleans.”

“How would you know?” I slice a look at him. “Have you been checking up on me?”

Hades frowns, shrugging a single shoulder. I look at him, expecting him to say more, but he doesn’t.

Instead, Hades changes the subject. “We’re here.”

He takes me by the hand, pulling me down a little set of stairs that lead to a basement level. As soon as I make it to the second to last step, I smell something sweet, cinnamon and fried.

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