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He admired the fact that the woman could hold his gaze. None of the people gathered behind her did.
“I’m here to see Apollo.”
A few giggles broke out behind her.
“Silence!” Madam Selene ordered, glaring at everyone in disfavor. “Imbeciles! Do not mock the God of the Dead.”
The room went quiet, and a thick tension grew. Hades could feel the anxiety and fear permeating the air, though he wasn’t certain if it was his presence or Madam Selene’s disdain that perpetuated it. He had a feeling that part of the reason the madam was able to run this multistoried brothel so effectively was because no one wished to earn her disappointment.
The madam met Hades’s gaze.
“Of course. Allow me to escort you to his quarters.”
She turned without hesitation, and as she did, her workers parted, pressing themselves against the wall as she and Hades walked past. Once in the hallway, they entered a mirrored elevator. The madam pulled a keyring from the pocket of her long skirt, using it to access Apollo’s floor. Hades noticed how tightly she held it in her hands. For all her composure, he made her anxious, and she was right to be.
Hades watched her in the mirror. Her jaw was set, her chin lifted, and her chest rose and fell rapidly.
“Do I make you nervous, Madam Selene?”
“Anyone would be nervous in the presence of such a god,” she said.
Hades chuckled, and he looked at his feet as he spoke. “Could it be that you are nervous because you once allowed my fiancée to go to auction?”
Madam Selene jerked her head toward Hades. “She said she wouldn’t tell.”
“Are you suggesting my future wife, the Queen of the Underworld, is a liar, Madam?”
“No, of course not. I—”
“She didn’t tell me,” he said. “Apollo did.”
The madam took a deep, shuddering breath. “Have you come to kill me, then?”
Hades laughed, but she looked stricken.
“No,” he said. “Though I will ask for your penance.”
She swallowed. “And what might that be?”
“A favor,” he said. “To be collected at a future date.”
“I hardly have anything of value to offer, my lord,” she said.
“You have your soul,” Hades said and met her gaze.
She stared, still and silent, likely waiting for him to steal her soul.
“But I can take that at will,” he said. “I’ll determine what is valuable, Madam, and trust me when I say, I will collect.”
When he met her eyes again, she nodded once.
The elevator doors opened then, and Hades stepped out into Apollo’s suite. Unlike his Crysos apartment, this was extravagantly decorated. Everything was patterned, none of it the same—a floral couch, striped pillows, curtains stitched with small diamonds—and all of it was trimmed in gold and dripped with jewels.
This should be a torture chamber, Hades thought. It definitely made him feel mad.
Hades moved into the adjacent room where a spotless tub sat on clawed feet. Beyond that was a massive bed upon which Apollo lay flat on his back, arms and legs spread wide. He wore a robe, but it was open, exposing a very obvious erection, and he was snoring.
Loud.
