Page 71 of Seduced

Poppy took off her muff and cloak and placed them on him. He did not move when her fingers brushed his chest; he did not feel it.

“What is happening to me?” he murmured, looking up at the gray sky.

The clouds were thick, white and full of snow, and the sky had the brilliance of mid-afternoon, even though it was closer to dawn than to midnight.

“How should I know,” Poppy answered, “if you don’t?”

Hades didn’t reply. His breath was coming in shallow gasps, clouding whitely around his pale, full lips. His eyelashes were long and curling, white with snow. His hair had fallen back, exposing his slender neck and the sharpness of his cheekbones, chin jutting out towards the sky, clean-shaven and chiseled.

His body was drenched in snow, his muscles almost sculpted by it, and as he lay there, he looked like a god fallen to earth from the skies.

Poppy’s heart jumped in her chest and she swore at it internally. Why couldn’t she be sensible for once? Even if he was the world’s most beautiful creature, sprawled out in the snow like some ridiculously gorgeous ice sculpture, that did not excuse her heart being an absolute imbecile about him.

“Are you trying to die?” she asked him, even though that was not at all what she had meant to say.

“Sometimes,” he replied.

Hot panic flooded Poppy’s face, and she forgot all about the cold.

“You can’t!” she exclaimed.

She should really start thinking before she spoke. It was just that…she hadn’t been allowed to talk in so long, and now that she was, she said whatever thought popped into her head, however imbecilic.

Hades’ lips curled in a sneer. “Whyever not?”

Poppy was silent for a bit, thinking of what to say next.

Yes, that’s it, think before you speak, you’ll get the hang of it soon.

Do not say what is expected of you, or what would incur the least amount of wrath.

What do you want to say?

She almost jumped in surprise. Say what shewantedto say? What a novel idea!

“Why would you want that?” she asked Hades instead, trying not to sound as scared as she felt. Surely she had heard him wrong; he could not possibly have meant it.

“Because I have to tell you something that will break you,” he said. “And make you hate me. Even more than you already do.”

Then his eyes fluttered closed.

She was seized by an urgency that gave her strength which surely defied human logic. Ignoring his no-touching rule, she grabbed him by the arms and lifted him into a seated position. At first, his body was limp and heavy, and her weak arm hurt like the devil from the effort of pulling his weight, but suddenly he seemed to come alive.

His drooping head snapped up, his eyes looking for hers.

“Come on, help me here,” Poppy murmured. “How is it possible that you are so slender yet you weigh two tons?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and made a visible effort to keep himself upright as he sat there in the snow. He gathered his legs to his chest and hugged them, panting into his knees. “I’m sorry I was such an animal to you and DeVere,” he went. “There is no excuse. I am sorry.”

“Why did you have that reaction to him, my lord? The poor man…”

“I know, I know,” Hades shut his eyes tightly. “It was not his fault. But please do not talk so kindly of him, I cannot bear it. He…Did you know the name of the gray cat that keeps following you around like a damn puppy?”

“They all follow me around,” Poppy said. Her head was aching from the cold and from his jumping around from subject to subject. “But yes, I know the one your lordship means, I suppose. They have names, you say?”

Hades nodded, wincing. His fingers were turning blue.

“All of them do,” he choked out. “I started naming them after the seven deadly sins, but as you can see, I have far more than seven cats. Anyway, the name of that bastard is Envy.”

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