Page 45 of Curse the Flame

Cerberus’s ears perked. So did mine. Dad? I guess, in a way, Hades is Cerberus’s master.

Just as she shifted in her seat, I couldn’t help myself. I know what she expects from the terrifying Hades, but I don’t want her to look at me and see Hades. I’m Aiden, and Aiden lowered the report enough to cast a look over at his blossom.

“He absolutely would.”

Willow froze. “What was that?”

I raised my eyebrows. “You weren’t thinking of stealing from a god, were you?”

She sucked in a breath, and my heart stopped. A moment later, her eyes brightened. I exhaled, grateful that she could tell I was teasing. Me. Teasing. I don’t think I’ve teased anyone since I was mortal, but with Willow? It was instinctive.

But then, believing I’d returned to the report, she stretched one hand across the table toward my plate of discarded bones.

She wasn’t quick about it. I don’t even think she was trying to be sneaky. In fact, it was more like she was testing what she could get away with, and it became very clear that I’ll let her drain all the ichor from my body if that’s what she wanted.

But she doesn’t want to become a killer like I once was. She just wanted to steal a lamb bone and drop it down to Cerberus.

The hound of Hades accepted it with all the dignity of an immortal guardian pretending he hadn’t been waiting for precisely that to happen.

And I smiled.

I smiled.

That’s not all. She saw that smile, and my blossom smiled back. It was a small, shy smile that—like my name for her—bloomed into something so big, my formerly cold heart thawed completely.

I don’t remember falling in love with Willow because, from the moment I freed her from that tree, my heart’s been hers.

I just wish she would accept mine in return.

Walking in the office, knowing that Hades’s work is never done, I expect to find the judges’ latest report. Considering I was a mechanic before I became a soldier, was a veteran before I became a hired gun, I realized long ago that hell? Hell is paperwork, and even in the Underworld there is so much of the damn stuff.

On top of the black marble desktop, I see an inch-thick stack of vellum, straight from Aeacus today, but that’s not what has me pausing in the middle of the room.

There, sitting on top of the stack, is a pomegranate.

Another goddamn pomegranate.

It’s easier to conjure the fires of the Underworld when I tap into Hades’s power. But since I don’t want him to see the pomegranate and start plotting, I use more energy than I should to cast the fire that incinerates both Aeacus’s reports and the pomegranate.

I must. The more I love Willow, the more I must fight the temptation to feed her the pomegranate seeds. It’s only the pomegranate that does it, and I know that because the damn fruit has been stalking me since that first supper.

The magic wants her to eat it. Hades wants her to eat it.

But I can’t let that happen.

Not until Willow wants to stay.

It wasn’t that long ago that I dwelled on how Hades was far more patient than Aiden. Not anymore. I’ll wait as long as it takes for her to choose to be my bride, no matter what it costs.

She’s worth it, and though I don’t deserve her, that won’t stop me from keeping her… just without the trickery that our story is known for. If I want to change it so that we’re happy forever, it starts with the pomegranate.

The goddamned pomegranate…

CHAPTER 12

PERSEPHONE’S GARDEN

WILLOW