He ran his hand down her hair. “Don’t worry. I’ve already pushed your former boss out of these naughty little visions. But I can’t stop thinking about you wrapped all in rope, tied down with your legs spread, your skin flushed and covered in a thin layer of sweat as you wait to see what will happen next.”
She groaned again, and he smiled because even though he heard the mortification in her voice, her body was growing warmer against him, telling him she really did love all the same dirty little games he did.
His hand slid beneath her hair to massage the nape of her neck. “I guarantee with me, Cynna, you’ll enjoy every single thing I do. I love making you come harder than you ever have before. But most of all I love that my appetites arouse you, because they were part of me long before Hades and Zagreus got their hands on me.”
“This is so fucked up. You and me. It makes no sense.”
He closed his eyes and breathed her in, feeling calmer with every passing second. “Yeah, maybe. But it also feels right. And at the moment, I need as much right in my life as I can get.”
She turned her face into his neck and exhaled a long breath. And as he held her and the seconds ticked by on a clock somewhere in the house, he knew he couldn’t let her go. Not just because she soothed him, but because he didn’t want anything to happen to her. She’d risked her life to save him from Zagreus. He needed to make sure no one else—the Prince of Darkness included—ever hurt her again. The key was getting her to trust him enough so she wouldn’t run. And he could think of only one way to get her to do that.
“The scars on my back,” he said softly. “You asked me where I got them. I got them here.”
Her hand stilled its gentle rubbing over his collarbone. “Here?”
This wasn’t anything he’d ever told anyone before, and he didn’t like revisiting the past, but if it would convince her he was trustworthy, then he figured it was worth laying himself bare.
“My mother was a demigod. A warrior as tough as the Argonauts.”
“Atalanta?”
“Yeah.” She’d obviously heard stories about his legendary mother. “She was pissed when she wasn’t chosen to serve with the Argonauts. Made a pact with Hades for immortality and revenge. But she was foolish and didn’t consider the fact the god would double-cross her. She became immortal, like she wanted, but found herself confined to the Underworld serving Hades himself.”
“I know this story. Delia and the others used to tell it to the young of our settlement to warn against the follies of making deals with gods.” She huffed and shifted on his lap. “I clearly didn’t listen.”
A little of his anxiety eased. If she hadn’t made that deal with Zagreus, he wouldn’t be here with her now. In a sick sort of way, he was thankful she’d done that. Not that he wanted to think about thanking that son of a bitch too much right now, though.
“Yeah,” he went on, pushing thoughts of Zagreus to the back of his mind. “She built her army of daemons in the Underworld, unleashed them on the human realm, targeting Misos and any Argoleans, and plotted her revenge against the Argonauts. But it didn’t take her long to tire of her prison. There was only one way for her to escape. A loophole Hades put into the contract. A prophecy that stated that when two marked individuals—one human, one Argolean—were joined, it would create the perfect being, and she would be freed. Her daemons searched for the two for years in her attempt to bring them together but continued to fail. So, in a desperate bid to complete the prophecy herself, she sought out Krónos in Tartarus and made him yet another deal. She promised him that when she was eventually freed, she would then turn around and free him from his chains. All he had to do was help her create her own two ‘perfect halves.’”
“I know this as well. That’s how you and your brother were born. Krónos made her mortal long enough to impregnate her, then tricked an Argonaut into venturing into the highest depths of the Underworld where she, back in her immortal form, was waiting to seduce him. She was again impregnated, thus creating twins with different fathers. Superfecundation.”
He glanced down at her face resting against his shoulder. “That’s some story the witches shared with the young of your village.”
Her eyes tipped up, and her cheeks turned a soft shade of pink as she smoothed her hand over his chest. “That part Zagreus explained to me.”
Of course. Zagreus. He looked down at the coffee table and forced himself to go on. “Imagine Atalanta’s outrage when Demetrius and I were born and still weren’t enough to complete the prophecy.”
“I imagine she was pretty pissed.”
“Livid is an understatement. But she quickly adapted.” He held up his forearm so she could see the ancient Greek text that ran down his arms to intertwine his fingers. “Since we both bore the Argonaut markings, she decided to use us to infiltrate the guardians, knowing her dark link to us would be enough to influence our souls. Only she didn’t plan for the Argolean Council to get in the way.”