AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her brow furrowed as she watched me. "I don't understand."
"Do you believe in true love?"
"Like the little kid movies?"
I tilted her head up to meet my serious gaze. I had to make sure she knew I wasn't talking about a little kid's fantasy. "No. True love. There is a story started by the Three Fates, that in each life they have woven a true love, the soul's perfect match.As Clotho spins, Lachesis matches the threads to each other, and then they are cast into the world after Atropos cuts them from the spool. Apart they are never whole, but together, they are each other's missing piece. My mother and father are that kind of match. They would do anything for each other."
"Not to sound like a broken record, but I don't understand."
I allowed a soft smile to cross my face as I watched her. "You, Samantha, are my soul's perfect match."
She gasped and fell back, the contact between us broken. "What? That isn't possible."
"I knew it the moment I saw you in Fantasia."
"Alastor, you are a great guy, but—"
I laughed. "Are you going to brush me off? I know you feel it too. You just need to grow accustomed to it."
"Do you know how insane you sound right now?" She found her feet and backed away like I would pounce on her and hold her hostage. Was a reaction like this the reason my dad had kidnapped my mother? I could understand his point of view, because I would do anything to keep her in my orbit. Maybe I was insane.
"I imagine it is the shock you're feeling. Haven't I proven to you I will not force myself on you? I told you, I want every part of you. Without the complete package, sex means nothing."
She backed away a few more steps, and Cerberus stood between us, as if she needed protection from me. He was feeding off of her fear.
"I should go," she said. She secured the robe more tightly, as if she would leave the room wearing only that. I would become my father if she tried.
"I didn't mean to scare you. You can't leave, you are safe here. If you don't want me around, I'll go." I unfolded from the chair and fished the room key from my back pocket. Dropping it on the table that was now between us, I glanced between herand Cer. "He will stay with you to ensure your safety. I will keep watch from the lobby tonight."
"No, wait, you're right. I'm overreacting. I can't kick you out of your room." The words left her mouth, but her face told me a different story. She would run, no matter the danger, if I stayed.
"This is my choice. I don't want to make you uncomfortable, and it is clear that I have." The ding of the arriving room service halted our conversation. A man rolled the tray of food I ordered for her into the room while another handed me a bag of clothes bought from the boutique in the lobby. "I'll see you in the morning, Samantha, after you have gotten some rest."
I placed the bag in the chair I had been sitting in, and with a brief nod, I followed the two men out of my suite, leaving her gapping after me. Of course, the front desk would give me a new key card if I asked. They all knew who I was, the mysterious man in the penthouse with money to spend. But I wouldn't betray my word like that. After procuring a drink from the small piano bar off the lobby, I settled into a chair next to the elevators. Nothing would get past me into my rooms. She would be safe at least tonight.
I sipped the whiskey as I thought of the different things I could have said to ease her into the idea of true love. I was sure I had sounded like a lunatic, raving about how she was the one, when I knew she had commitment issues. Of course, she would attempt to run from me. I was everything she was avoiding. Even if she had accepted Lex and Raiden, that didn't mean she was ready for the level of engagement I was.
"Son." My father's voice broke into my thoughts, and I lazily flipped my eyes up to him.
Of course, he would show up after I used so much power to save her. He would have felt it. Losing a soul so close to death would be notable to the King of the Underworld, worth the personal investigation.
"Father." I swirled the whiskey in the glass before taking a sip.
"It was you?" His voice was cautious, unassuming. He knew the rules he had taught me from the time I could crawl. Don't interfere in mortal lives. Everyone had a time and place for death. It was the natural course of a human's life.
"Me?" I barely shifted in my seat. What would I choose?
"Who did you save?"
I sighed and searched the space for anyone listening to our late night conversation. The only one in the area was the half asleep desk clerk. "The hunter."
His eyebrows hid behind his hair as they rose with his shock. "She was not on the list."
"So you are saying I should have saved her?" I asked.
"No, I'm saying someone is interfering in her life." His knowing look told me I didn't need to confess, because he knew I was part of that interference.
"Alastor," he said, the full weight of his disappointment in me in a single word. "You broke the only rule."
