Page 60 of Seduced

After three tries, the man woke up in Poppy’s arms. He woke up crying.

Poppy smoothed back the matted hair from his brow; he couldn’t have been older than five and twenty. His body, wrecked by sobs, jerked against Poppy’s skirt, and she and Hades tried to calm him, for he was barely able to breathe.

“I have lost everything,” DeVere gasped, fighting for breath. “You shouldn’t have saved me, you shouldn’t have, you sh—”

He fainted dead away.

“Is he dead?” Hades asked, with some interest.

“Almost,” Poppy replied. “Come on, help me.”

Then Hades was pulling the bell for the servants and running back to kneel by the unconscious man. The next two hours passed in a pandemonium of activity and panic, as everyone did battle to save the young man’s life.

They succeeded, barely.

Two hours later, having left the Viscount DeVere very much alive, hoarse and tearful in the care of his dumbfounded butler and servants, Hades and Poppy finally stumbled out into the street. A doctor had been called, but he wouldn’t be there until midmorning, probably.

A pale dawn was breaking out in the horizon, and the sky was clear and starry above their heads.

“Good God.” Hades was still panting. “Is that what you have been doing? Every night?”

“I mostly waited outside of your club for a desperate soul to save,” Poppy replied. “Once only, I walked in. Well, and a second time. But the rest of the nights, yes. I stopped them from hanging themselves. Sometimes I fished them out of the Thames. Sometimes I was too late.”

“Good God.”

“You said that.”

“It bears repeating.”

Poppy stopped walking and leaned her elbows on her knees in an extremely unladylike manner. She was panting so much, her chest hurt.

“You,” Hades said, stopping beside her and leaning an arm over her back, as if to touch her, “are an angel.” His fingers did not meet her dress, but hovered right above her skin. “And I am Hades,” he mused. “Thus my name. I finally understand. That is why they call me Hades, isn’t it? Because I lead people to their death.”

Poppy replied nothing to that, because she thought it kinder.

He had, after all, spoken the truth.

Alexei

As soon as they got back to the club, he left Poppy to the care of her friends and sprinted towards his rooms. Once there, he knelt over the chamber pot, fully expecting to be violently ill. He waited for a few minutes, but nothing happened.

The nausea persisted, as did the echo of his own words:

‘Thus my name. I lead people to their death.’

The dying man’s bulging eyes, his jerking legs, the sobs that tore from his throat as he woke up, were constantly in front of his eyes. He retched miserably, but there was nothing in his stomach to come up.

“That’s it,” he murmured, gasping as he sat back. “I can’t endure this any longer.”

He picked himself off the floor and walked to Nikolaos’ rooms.

The prince was fast asleep, but other people’s comfort had never stopped Alexei from getting what he needed. He climbed on the bed and sat next to his still, sleeping form for a few minutes. When that did not wake the prince up, Alexei grabbed Nikolaos’ shoulder like a bloody wet nurse.

“What-what?” Nikolaos sprung up, ready for battle, his hair a black mess, his eyes wild and focused, hooded with sleep. “Are they upon us?”

Alexei did not know from which battle’s nightmarish field he had awoken the Greek prince, but he spent a few seconds reassuring him that he was safe in the Hellion Club. Nausea still rolled in his stomach, but he swallowed it down.

“Oh, it’s you,” Nikolaos said, sitting up, properly awake. “What do you want now?”

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