Page 37 of Seduced

What was wrong with these two? Was no one normal in this place?

“I was almost killed by my own—” Hades was screaming back, but Poppy had had enough.

“Excuse me!” She shouted in order to be heard over the two men who were fighting like three-year-old boys. And that was a generous assessment of the situation. They both stopped, and turned to cast startled eyes on her, as if they had quite forgotten her presence. “Are you fighting about who had the most pitiful childhood?”

The two gentlemen seemed to contemplate this for a few blessedly silent seconds.

“I suppose we are,” Hades said, turning his gaze on her. His eyes took her breath away. They were brilliant with harsh pain; she couldn’t stand to look away. “Pathetic, isn’t it?” He laughed and it sounded like a sob.

“I’m sorry, Alexei,” Dante suddenly looked pale, the bruises around his eyes more noticeable. It made him look younger, thinner. A sorrier sight Poppy had never seen. Her heart broke. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have referred to that, I regret—”

A string of curses flew from Hades’ lips.

“Stop it, Dante,” he cried fiercely. “I swear to God if you don’t stop apologizing to me right now, I’ll…”

“So you have known each other since you were young?” Poppy felt as if she were in the process of continually diffusing an explosive situation. She also felt as if she were surrounded by toddlers.

“We were at school together,” Dante said, and Hades snorted.

“School,” he scoffed, and there was so much disgust in his voice, as if this was the worst one of all the curses he had pronounced so far.

It wasn’t—as far as Poppy knew.

“Although I am a good five years younger,” Dante added, proudly.

“Neither of you sound too bright,” Poppy observed.

“Right.” Did Hades’ cheeks turn a shade of dark pink? “Let’s get on with it, Dante, shall we? Can you take over now, and begin your ministrations of Miss Wyatt’s…injuries?”

Dante approached her slowly, his soulful eyes taking in her whole body carefully, with an almost scientific level of concentration.

“Trust me,” he said to her, his voice low and soft, as he knelt beside her, and lifted her stocking all the way up with a touch so light, she barely felt any pain. “I know pain.”

Hades was clutching his hair. “Dante, if you keep saying things like that, I swear to G—”

“He does too,” Dante nodded towards Hades dismissively, “but his fashion of inflicting pain on himself differs from mine, so, naturally, he must be my superior.”

“I never said that,” Hades sounded impatient. And a little demented. “For God’s sake, Dante. You put yourself into a stupor with drugs and alcohol, and I can’t make you stop destroying yourself, except if I practically incarcerate you in here, and put you under observation. Does that sound safe to you?”

“Not any safer than the supposed pugilismyoudo, Hades,” Dante said, for the first time calling him something other than ‘Alexei’.

“If you are going to act like an infant, I can’t talk to you.” Hades was indignant.

“As I said, Miss Wyatt, I was heavily tortured as a child, it is no secret,” Dante went on, matter-of-factly, ignoring Hades. “The memories barely bother me anymore. Mostly because I am the one who is inflicting the pain on myself these days. Whenever I am not numbing the pain with alcohol and—”

“Dante!” Hade’s warning tone was unmistakable.

Dante fell silent, examining the wounds on her legs, the embedded grains and seeds, the dried blood, the broken and bruised skin.

“Forgive me,” he said, before pressing his fingers on a seed, and trying to pry it away from her skin with a well-manicured nail. “I am broken myself, but you…you are shattered.”

Poppy hissed in pain and shut her eyes tightly. There were stars behind them, and her head was light and heavy at the same time....

“Hey, no!” A voice shouted, and a hand was on her back, shaking her. Hades’ hand.

“She will keep fainting, she is in too much pain, Alexei,” Dante said, standing up and taking a step away from the settee to speak in a low voice to Hades. Not low enough for her not to be able to hear, however. “I can remove them, but…Christ in heaven. She won’t be able to endure it.”

You would be surprised at what I have had to endure, Poppy thought, but didn’t say anything.

---