Because Zagreus wasn’t just a man here, he was a god. Or the devil dressed in tailored black.
He wrapped his arm around my waist with such suddenness that I gasped breathily, but it reverberated loudly in my chest. His hand slid across the curve of my hip, and he dipped his mouth once more to my ear.
“Be a good girl for me, Dolcezza. This place is full of wild.”
I wanted to ask him if he was referring to himself, because right now, at this very moment, no one seemed to scare me more than him.
“Don’t give me a reason to decorate this floor with blood.”
Heat spread in slow pulses across my skin, and I nodded. My legs trembled at his beautiful, merciless words. He whispered in sin.
I lifted my head, looking at him through my lashes.
The scar caught the light as he turned his head slightly, and for a moment, I saw him.
All of him.
A fallen angel, carved from something unholy, something both cruel and impossibly beautiful. The scar running from his temple to his cheekbone didn’t mar him, it marked him. Like he’d once fought God… and almost won.
He didn’t stop to acknowledge the others. Champagne glasses raised to him. Men bowed. Women tried to smile. Some whispered behind their hands. But Zagreus walked like none of it mattered. Like he ruled the world and everyone in it was merely background noise.
I wasn’t used to being looked at like this. Like I was something scandalous belonging to a man of power.
Some faces twisted when they saw me. Jealous, disapproving, and confused. I didn’t blame them. I felt the same.
I wanted to vanish.
But my… husband’s grip on my waist wouldn’t let me. He led us down the hallway, away from the dancing and music, away from the crowd. We crossed deep red carpeting and gold-veined marble columns. The walls were lined with dim sconces, and this area was a lot more secluded. There was hardly anyone except for a few guards in black that I saw.
At the end of the corridor stood a pair of heavy, wooden doors.
Two giant men flanked them, dressed in black, built like statues. When they saw him, their heads dropped in unison. No words, no eye contact, they just kept their heads down without lifting their eyes.
As startled and terrified as I was at the realisation that Zagreus was a lot more powerful than I initially thought, it erected several goosebumps all over my flesh.
Zagreus looked down at me, and I averted my face, feeling something in the pit of my belly all of a sudden. I heard himsaying something under his breath, and the guards opened the doors.
The scent hit me first, whiskey and aged wood mingled with leather and cinnamon, with something faintly smoky behind it. The air was thicker here. Heavier. Almost suffocating. Or maybe it was just me.
Maybe it was the fact that I was walking into the lion’s den with the lion himself pressing a hand against the small of my back like I belonged to him. Like I was his to guide. His to own.
God, what the hell was I doing here?
Even breathing made the knot in my stomach tighten until it felt like my ribs were crushing in on it. I didn’t even know if it was fear anymore. Or anticipation. Or both, tangled so tightly together I couldn’t tell them apart.
The room was dimly lit, but a chandelier above with warm lights, shadows dancing on old stone walls. A massive fireplace crackled at the far end, its flames licking at the dark air like a beast hungry for more.
I shouldn’t have come with him here.
I should’ve said no. I should’ve run. Or screamed. Or pushed him away when I still had the chance.
But I didn’t.
I let him touch me. I let him look at me like that, like he saw right through me, down to every ugly, trembling part of me I try to keep hidden.
And the worst part?
I wanted him to see.
