Page 48 of Hateful Prince
Rage flooded my veins, sending blue sparks from my fingertips. “Say that again, beast. I dare you.”
“You’re the one picking fights. I was born to finish them.”
“You’re the one darkening my doorstep. I don’t recall offering an invite, so perhaps you should kindly fuck off.”
“I told you, I came to talk.”
“Yeah, well, I have a prior engagement. So you can take your talk and shove it. I have nothing to say to you.”
I pushed past him, which was fucking hard to do since he was the size of a semi-truck. Unfortunately for me, the demigod fell into step beside me.
“That’s fine. I am perfectly capable of walking and talking simultaneously.”
“I’ll alert the media.”
“What?”
“Never mind,” I said with a beleaguered sigh. Asshole would have appreciated the joke.
“So, explain to me why the god Hades would be skulking around in search of Temperance? It seems odd and out of character for you.”
“What do you mean?”
We continued down the hall until we reached the staircase. I’d genuinely been hoping he’d lose interest, maybe be waylaid by a shiny object of some kind, but no. He was still fucking here.
“I mean, you have a reputation for taking what you want, regardless of the consequences. Why wouldn’t you have already absconded with her? What are you plotting?”
I spared him a quick glance, my brow raised in mocking tribute. “Are you really complaining that I didn’t run off with your mate? I’ll make sure to let Dahlia know.”
He slammed a meaty palm against my chest, fisting my shirt and lifting me up on my toes. The indignity of it all had sparks flying from my fingers.
“I want to know what you’re up to. I don’t trust you. And if you threaten my mate again, I will do everything in my power to make your life a living hell.”
“Is that the best threat you can come up with? I rule hell, you manchild. I have nothing to fear from the likes of it or you. Especially since you can’t kill me.”
Tor stiffened, lightning flickering in the obsidian depths of his eyes. “Perhaps not, but I can fucking try. And I don’t have to kill you to make it hurt.”
“It’ll be so fun to let my wife nurse me back to health. Go ahead, pummel me. She’ll fall so far in love with me she’ll forget all about the rest of you and choose to come with me to the underworld.”
This time Tor didn’t take the bait. He laughed in my face. “First of all, she is not your wife. No vows have been exchanged between you in this life. Second, she is the other half of my soul. She could no more forget about me than she could stop breathing by choice. Fuck off with your threats, Hades.”
“It’s called holding your breath, Tor. Clearly you haven’t made her come so hard she forgot to breathe, have you? Good to know.”
Tor swelled in size, his breaths labored as his beast took hold of him.
I eyed the sharp ends of his horns and the pointed tips of his claws with a slight grimace. The demigod may not be able to kill me outright, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be toyed with like a mouse either. He was still twice my size and strong as hell. I wasn’t really in the mood to be in pain today. Even if my goddess would be there to care for me.
“Calm down, pal. Neither one of us is going to get anywhere with her if we’re out here drawing blood.”
“Speak for yourself,” he snarled. “Violence is my love language.”
“What the fuck do you know about love languages?”
Something in his face changed. “I... did a lot of reading last year. When I was working on myself.”
“An introspective monster. How nice. Put me down, would you? You’re wrinkling my shirt.”
Tor released me without another word, and I fell to my feet with a teeth-clattering thud. It took everything in me not to crumple. Fucker was tall.