Page 40 of Hell Hath No Fury
“You won’t share your secret with me,” Nyx said after we drank in silence for a few moments.
“You haven’t already seen it?” I asked, surprised. I’d assumed that because of Nyx’s concern for me before I left that she was likely to be keeping closer than normal watch on me and my future.
Though she didn’t see in pictures, clear and distinct. It was much more complicated than that.
She pursed her lips, her nose wrinkling. “I’ve seen change. Dark. Large. Centered around you and something else.” She stepped forward. “Someone else,” she clarified, her eyes never leaving mine.
I gripped the bottle.
“He will destroy you,” she whispered, reaching over to clasp my free hand. “There are no alternates. This is your path.”
Her voice shook ever so slightly. For good reason. The future was never set in stone. Though the Mother had a path for each of us, she’d also gifted us with free will. And we veered on and off that path daily. Hourly. By the second. Nyx always saw multiple futures, and they were ever changing.
“Tread carefully,” she warned me, voice otherworldly. “And remember, love conquers all.”
I blinked at her in horror. Shock.
Yes, she could’ve gone into my room at the main house and read the letter. But Nyx would never do that. Never betray my privacy like that.
That meant my mother saw the same thing as Nyx.
My soul shuddered, and I clutched onto the beer.
“We will be here,” Nyx said, breaking the silence that had yawned on.
I blinked over at her. “Minerva and I will be here. When the time comes.” She gazed at me, but she wasn’t seeing me. “And the time soon comes,” she murmured, her hand squeezing mine. It was warm. “Go back to the cottage. To … him.”
My body stiffened under her hand.
“Your peace departs soon,” she added. “Then we will have war.”
I swallowed the last of my beer, and it tasted like dread and death.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“You need to go,” I said, slamming the door behind me. Max jerked up, snatching the knife from the kitchen island where he’d presumably been making himself a sandwich. He obviously hadn’t been expecting me to come home like this. I’d been moving softly since we’d arrived at the cottage, and he was a man who, even though he didn’t remember who he was, lived a life where he had to be on the defense.
I couldn’t help but smirk at the man with the broken leg brandishing a blunt tomato knife at me.
My brow crept up, and I smirked, leaning against the door jamb in an effort to appear casual and to distract myself from how fucking hot he looked wearing a pair of grey sweats slung low on his hips and nothing else.
His abs appeared to be etched from marble, a long and angry scar cutting through the middle of them, evidence of one of the many places his life might’ve ended if Death had not let him slip through her fingers.
The ‘V’ pointing down toward what I knew was a very sizable endowment was also carved sharply, indicative of how low his body fat was.
My stomach did a flip. As it had been doing every second I was in his presence. It was an agonizing effort, keeping my desire to myself. But it wasn’t just mine. His, too, filtered through the air, thick, smokey and enchanting. There were moments, many moments, charged with a sexual energy that hummed in the air, when I thought we might give in. But I always turned my back.
“You’ll have to do better than that if you want to hurt me, I’m afraid,” I informed him, nodding down toward the knife still clutched in his fist.
He dragged his gaze downward to his hand, acting surprised to see that he was still holding the knife. He slowly placed it down on the kitchen island, laying his hands flat on the surface before focusing on me once more.
The weight of his gaze settled on my shoulders, and heat throbbed between my thighs.
Nyx’s words, the sensation between my thighs and my general reaction to his presence were indeed why he needed to get the fuck out of here. Before things got messy.
Even though I was certain that messing with him would be worth it.
“You need to leave,” I repeated, this time more firmly.
