Page 6 of Insatiable

Fuck. “Should I go and hold her hair back or fetch water or something?”

Quinn shakes her head, her glare fixed on something behind me. I follow her stare to see Felix, who is sitting in the main hall looking like he's having a slanging match with Anthura. "I'm sure she'd rather be alone right now, but when she gets back from the bathroom, we'll focus on her more. Just look at what she's dealing with."

My eyes narrow at Felix and a surge of anger boils within me. "At least he has Anthura to occupy him," I mutter bitterly. "Hopefully that asshole will be too preoccupied with her to bother Ro this Circle."

"I was planning to speak to Dade," Quinn interjects calmly. "He'll make sure Felix stays away."

I let out a frustrated sigh. "I guess having a giant winged hotty for a bodyguard can't hurt." Suddenly, an idea strikes me and I sit up straight in my chair, excitement coursing through me. "Dade can access the lower level!"

Quinn gives me a suspicious look. "You heard George. Demons lurk down there. It's dangerous."

I narrow my eyes."You don't know dangerous until you've seen me go without food for more than a few hours," I snap, my stomach growling in agreement. "I'll take on whatever hell monsters are down there and then some."

"If it hadn’t been for Hades, I’d have died down there yesterday. I did die… kinda."

I want to be a supportive friend and ask what happened down there, but my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut and I can’t concentrate. I look at her pleadingly.

Quinn rolls her eyes and lets out a long breath. "Fine, I'll see if we can find some food. But I doubt Dade will let you go down with him."

I’m about to reach across the table to hug Quinn when I see a familiar figure heading our way. My stomach drops, instinct kicking in before I even process the thought—I duck under the table. Too late.

“Juliette?” Tomas’s voice cuts through the room, and my heart sinks. I force myself to look up from under the table, offering him a weak, sarcastic smile. “Hi, Tomas. Fancy meeting you here. Guess when I told you to go to Hell, you took me a little too literally.”

Quinn raises an eyebrow at me, curiosity gleaming in her eyes, but I can’t meet her gaze. All my focus is on Tomas, the man who shattered me a lifetime ago.

“Do you know what brought me here?” His voice is thick with regret, but I don’t care.

“Herpes? One of your countless whores?” I snap, thinking of the bimbo sitting next to him in the atrium. The hunger gnawing at my insides fuels my anger, making it harder to hold back. Not that I care. /he deserves my venom.

He flinches but doesn’t back down. “I entered the games, hoping I’d find you. I saw your name come up on my portal months ago. When you moved from Purgatory to Lust, I spent weeks searching for you, but you must’ve been in a different tower. That’s when I knew you’d entered the Inferno Games.”

Anger twists in my gut, a much-needed distraction from the relentless hunger. If rage alone could carry me through this circle, I’d be unstoppable. Anything to get away from this man.

“And the last time I saw you, I told you to never darken my door again,” I say, my voice cold. “Maybe you should’ve thought about that before signing up for the games.”

A thought strikes me, and suspicion creeps into my voice. “How did you even get in? Only people from Purgatory are allowed to enter. You can pass through the circles, but you can’t enter from them.”

Tomas shuffles his feet, and for a split second, I’m dragged back to the moment he confessed to cheating on me. Was it the first time? The second? The tenth? Who knows? He had the same guilty shuffle then, like he wasn’t already planning to do it again.

“We had people from Purgatory in our tower. I asked Hades if I could enter the games, and he let me.” He shrugs like Hades hands out entry passes as if it's nothing. “He let Tate in too.”

I remember the gorgeous blonde woman he was sitting next to on the couch and pull my face into a grimace. “Hooker wasn’t she? I see you keep similar company down here as you did up there.”

Tomas spreads his arms, trying to defend himself. “That’s not fair! I barely know Tate!”

Quinn finally breaks her silence, her confusion palpable. “Someone want to clue me in? I take it you two know each other?”

I exhale slowly, knowing there’s no point in hiding it anymore. “Tomas, meet my good friend, Quinn. Quinn, meet Tomas, the two-timing, lowlife, cheating scumbag of a man who also happens to be my ex-husband.”

Quinn’s eyes widen, her mouth falling open in shock.

“Not ex,” Tomas interjects, holding up his hand to show the ring I gave him eons ago, still sitting on his finger. “We’re still married. Look.”

For a moment, I almost feel sorry for the naïve bride I once was, the girl who thought love could fix anything. But that sadness gave way to resentment long ago—at least when it came to Tomas.

“I might not have filed for divorce in life, Tomas, but as you recall, our wedding vows said til death do us part and seeing as we are both dead, I think that trumps divorce papers. Our marriage was over the second your penis fell into another woman’s vagina. And as for my wedding ring, I took it off years ago.”

The asshole actually has the nerve to look sad. “I shouldn’t have done that to you. You were the love of my life, the mother of my kids, the?—”

---