Hades had been prowling around the room like a caged animal while the nurse had been doing her thing—in between checking him out—but now he’d stopped. He stopped to look at me, sitting cross legged in the hospital bed, propped up by the three extra pillows that he had obtained at some point. I’d been considering my phone which was sitting on the table, wondering if there was someone I should call. Not Aunt V. No way. Maybe Marilyn. Her strong, comforting presence was always helpful. Hades was going to leave sometime, and I wasn’t strong enough to be alone.
When he spoke, I thought it would be announcing his exit. But I was wrong. Really wrong.
“I’ve got a lot of things I want you to tell me about, but first things first, I want to know what the fuck you were doing in that parking lot alone at three in the morning. Kallum and I are going to have a fucking conversation about why in the fuck he doesn’t have someone watching over you.”
My stomach dropped at the chill in Hades’s voice, what was left unsaid. The probability that the kind of conversation he planned on having with Kallum would involve violence.
I was sure that Kallum had experience taking care of himself, but I was also sure he’d never come across a man like Hades. Because another man like Hades didn’t exist. The urge to protect my friend was overwhelming, so I spoke quickly without thinking.
“Dante doesn’t like waiting,” I said, moving in the bed. My ribs protested, and my cheek throbbed. I’d never been hit before. Boy did it hurt, though the pain was not what I was focusing on right now. It was the growing, deadly glare on Hades’s face.
“Dante doesn’t like waiting,” he repeated as he folded his huge arms in front of him as a vein bulged in his neck.
I shivered, actually fucking shivered at his tone. It was flat, emotionless. Or it should’ve been. Something about his eyes, though. The way his hands were fisted at his sides and the way his body was too still to be human, made it clear that there was emotion in there.
“Um, yeah,” I shrugged before I remembered everything hurt. “Dante is kind of an asshole. He doesn’t take his job very seriously, but honestly, I feel safer walking to my car alone than with Dante. Well, except for last night.”
Okay, that was the wrong thing to say. Totally fucking wrong thing to say.
“Dante is going to be looking for new employment starting now,” he seethed. “After he recuperates.”
I blinked. “Jesus, Hades, you can’t just make all these badass threats of violence about everyone you think deserves it.”
“Look at your fuckin’ face Freya,” he bit out. “He deserves it.”
I held in my flinch at his tone. I felt delicate today. Like tissue paper instead of the usual steel. Hades didn’t know me very well, but when he looked at me, I felt like he saw my insides, so I knew that he’d noticed how vulnerable I was. Fuck, anyone would notice, considering I was in a hospital bed after being beaten up by my asshole ex-boyfriend.
Anyone would’ve treated me a little more delicately. A lot more delicately.
Hades was not anyone.
And he was not treating me delicately. I didn’t even think this man was capable of that.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, my voice much wispier than I’d intended. “Why are you here in my hospital room, glowering, dripping dangerous hotness everywhere while promising vengeance? You barely know me. We’re...”
I didn’t know how to finish that sentence. All I knew was that it felt dangerously normal to have Hades here, his presence casting a shadow over the stark white hospital room.
“How about we talk about what I do and don’t know about you later? Right now, we’re going to focus on you telling me everything you know about the fuck who did this.”
I fingered the cheap polyester sheets, avoiding his eye contact. Yes, I would love to chop off Derek’s balls and then make him eat them. Well, the dark parts of me wanted to do that. But most of me, the lighter, more squeamish and more well-balanced part of me figured karma would find him. Maybe reporting this in a town where his parents couldn’t buy off the police meant he might actually get some justice.
Maybe not.
I’d report it no matter what, because if Derek was capable of doing this to me, he’d probably already hurt other women, or he would in the very near future. I’d do my very best to make sure he didn’t. But giving Hades information that he’d use to most likely kill him would weigh too heavily on my conscience, so I wasn’t doing that.
“Give me your fucking eyes, Freya,” Hades demanded, frost in his voice.