“You think you’re fast. But I promise I’m faster.”

  The danger that poured off of him, the unrestrained violence that I knew he was capable of, shouldn’t have had me nearly moaning.

  I hated myself for wanting him, for wanting to know what it would feel like to have those big, rough, tattooed hands holding me down, giving me bruises. I was disgusted with myself.

  There had to be something wrong with me. Yet I stood there, not trying to stop him. I was hyper aware and fully awake as I stayed frozen in place. And still he came closer.

  “I’m not afraid of you.” I said those words, and I placed my palms flat on the wall behind me, staring up at Hades as he stopped in front of me.

  “No?” He inclined his head slightly and searched my face, his focus slipping to my mouth every so often. “You probably should be, Princess.”

  I shivered in response to his tone, to this very intimidating sight of him. And when I inhaled, I could pick up the scent of clean male sweat. Never in my life did I think what that aroma would arouse, but I found my body continuing to light up by his proximity.

  “But I’ll be honest.” He rolled his hips, and I gasped then, unable to hold the sound in as he pushed his cock against me. “I like the fact I don’t affect you like I do others.”

  He leaned in, and I turned my head, closing my eyes and telling myself it was to get away from him.

  But that was a lie. And when I heard him inhale and felt the brush of the tip of his nose against the side of my throat, a soft sound escaped me because it felt so good.

  “It makes me harder than I’ve ever fucking been in my life when you act like a feisty little thing.” When I said nothing in response, he pulled back and slowly smiled. “No one has the balls to butt heads with me.” He was full-on grinning now. “Not being afraid makes me want to fuck you, baby.”

  “Oh my God.” The words spilled out of me before I could stop them.

  Hades lifted his arm to place his hand on the wall beside my head, his thick, tattooed arm caging me in. This was reminiscent of three days ago, when he’d taken me over his knee and spanked my ass so hard I was pretty sure I could’ve orgasmed from it alone.

  And as if he read my thoughts, any humor faded from his expression, and he ground his hard, prominent erection into my hip.

  I bit my lip, holding in a gasp that would’ve left me.

  “What’s your endgame?” My voice was breathy, whisper-thin. His eyebrow twitched as if he wanted to cock it, as if it surprised him I’d ask the question.

  “My endgame?”

  I licked my lips, and he focused on the act. “Yes.” My voice was still so soft that I wondered if he could even hear me. “I’m not a fool. I know you’re not helping me out of the kindness of your heart. I know no judge would sign over an eighteen-year-old’s care to someone else. Legally, I’m an adult.”

  He didn’t speak, but the corner of his mouth curled up. “Are you now, sweetheart?”

  “You and my father didn’t get along. You hated each other. You were never around me and don’t care for me as an uncle would for a niece…”

  “No,” he said in a strange voice. He ground himself against me. “I don’t see you as my niece, Bunny.”

  “Stop doing that.” There was zero conviction in my voice.

  The feeling of him digging that enormous erection into my hip had me using every ounce of self-control I possessed not to moan.

  I was so aroused it was embarrassing.

  “I definitely don’t think of you as my niece.”

  My heart leapt in my chest.

  “My endgame, darling.” He pulled back and took several steps away from me.

  I couldn’t stop myself from looking down at his groin. Oh, God… his gym shorts were tented so obscenely.

  The length of his dick was so long, the girth so substantial, that there was no way it could be real.

  “If you really knew the bastard your father was, Persephone, he’d be knocked down from that pedestal you worship him on.”

  I snapped my attention to Hades and furrowed my brow.

  “You don’t get to talk about my father,” I spat out, annoyed. “You didn’t have a relationship with him.”

  “I had enough memories with your father to last me a lifetime in hell.”

  I didn’t know what he meant, but my anger was already so nuclear that it didn’t matter. “And I don’t worship my father. But he was a good man, and he loved me.”

  Hades’ smirk faded, and he didn’t respond, didn’t even blink as he stared at me.

  He glanced away, and I could see his jaw clench. He was clearly thinking about something intense and doing it hard. And with each passing second, his expression turned even more volatile.

  When he looked at me again, a small sound escaped my lips because his expression was so frightening. “Just go, Persephone. Go before I do something that will make you cry.”

  I couldn’t move, not from fear, but from this electrifying confusion, this strange emotion whispering to see how far I could push him.

  Instinctively, I knew I should leave, but I pictured myself being the terrified gazelle, and he was the starving lion.

  Hades was on a razor’s edge right now. He was liable to snap. I didn’t know why or how I knew that, but I could see that deviant flare in his eyes. But I stood rooted to the spot until a little growl left him and he moved closer.

  “Go.”

  His voice was frighteningly low, a vibration of warning I felt everywhere.

  “I said fucking go,” he roared, and I was smart enough to leave then, to force myself to turn and run up the stairs, down the hall, and right to my room where I locked myself in.

  The only thing I didn’t understand was why I was so… wet.

  Chapter 10

  Hades

  It should have been easier to break Persephone, to ruin her like Zachariah damn nearly did with me so many times.

  I wanted to hurt her, to make him pay even if he was dead and rotting in the ground.

  But I was finding it difficult to… not like her as much as I did.

  After she went back to her room, I spent another hour beating the shit out of the dummy, and then sought her out.

  And that’s where I was now, my shoulder against the frame of her door, my focus on her sleeping form.

  Persephone was a tiny thing in the center of the massive bed. Her dark hair was spread out on the white pillowcase beneath her, and her scent… drove me fucking insane.

  Sweet. Tempting. Potent.

  It was all the things that could drive a man to his knees. A weaker man, that was.

  I walked into her room and stopped beside her bed. The small rise and fall of her chest was almost mesmerizing, and a sense of almost calm settled over me.

  I felt nothing like it before. I wouldn’t call it peace because a man like me would never know such things, but it was definitely something I shouldn’t crave.

  I reached out before I could stop myself and brushed a strand of her hair away from her cheek. She stirred slightly but otherwise slept.

  The glow of the moonlight came through a small part in the curtains, and her skin almost glowed, looking luminescent.

  She was too beautiful for the ugly likes of me. She was flawless, whereas I had scarred and tattooed skin. She was pure, and I was the fucking devil himself.

  Little Persephone, so fragile and breakable. I could destroy her so easily. She’d never stand a chance.

  I let myself touch her buttery, soft skin, and when a soft sigh spilled from those plush, pink lips, an indistinct sound rose in my throat.

  I was a bastard for the obscene things running through my mind. Images of pulling the duvet back, ripping her nightgown off, and feasting on her ran through my mind.

  I could picture wrenching open her thighs and sucking on that virgin cunt, lapping at her as she tried to push me away, but still ground that perfect pussy against my mouth.

  God, I’d ruin her, make her bleed, have her scratches on my back as she clung to me and cried out. She’d beg me to stop, but I wouldn’t because I knew she truly didn’t want me to. She’d plead with me to go harder, to be rougher.

  And I would. Jesus Christ, I’d be so savage with her that no other experience in her life would compare.

  Maybe it was the egotistical side of me, or maybe it was something else, a tendril of dark obsession.

  Because the thought of anyone else sampling her, touching her, even looking in her fucking direction, had this unusual rage boiling within my gut.

  I ripped my hand away from her and moved several steps back, not liking the way she made me feel, not liking that the very sight and thought of her was fucking with my head.

  It should be the other way around. I should be the one messing with her.

  I felt my anger and irritation grow that this tiny woman, far too young for me, could have this kind of effect on a man like me.

  I took a left, going down the dark hallways toward the east wing, a part of the house that I purposely blocked off.

  Only two staff members were allowed on this side of the house, ones who rotated duties to keep everything clean… to look after the one person whom I wanted to live for fucking ever. Just so I could watch him suffer.

  And only so that I could torment him the way he’d done to me.

  When I stopped in front of the door, I placed my palm on it, the wood cold, silence coming from the other side.

  My blood rushed as I gripped the handle and turned it, pushing the door open and stepping inside.

  I knew where he was instantly. The fucker couldn’t move by himself.

  He lay in the center of his bed, the sound of his labored breathing echoing off the walls.

  I moved farther into the room until I could smell the antiseptic that surrounded him, a scent that clung to everything.

  Even though my hatred for him ran deep, I made sure he had the best care money could buy with state-of-the-art medical equipment keeping his decrepit form alive. And it was because, if I could, I would’ve made sure the bastard lived until I took my last breath. I’d make sure he suffered for as long as possible.

  I turned to reach for the chair beside the bed, dragging it across the floor so the legs scraped against the wood. It was loud, jarring, and he blinked open his eyes and turned his head to look at me.

  My father by legalities only. Michael Cronus.

  He made a deep sound in his chest, the wheezing growing louder as it drowned out the sound of the oxygen coming out of the tube.

  I sat down, leaned back, and rested my arms on either side of me, staring at Michael and letting him see how much he relied on me for literally his next breath.

  He made another rough sound, unable to speak anymore, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t want to hear what he had to say.

  “I bet you have so many things you’d like to talk to me about.” I kept my tone conversational as he shifted on the bed. I had no doubts vile things about me ran through his head. He just couldn’t voice them anymore. The stroke had taken care of that.

  But he was too weak, too frail, to do much more than turn his head and adjust his arms.

  “I bet you wish you could grab your belt right now, don’t you?” I ground my molars, phantom pains slicing across my body.

  Michael had been such a corrupt man his entire life that this was the result of all that poison he surrounded himself with.

  It ate away at him from the inside out.

  “Do you know who’s come to live with me?” I looked down at my hand and ran my fingers over the edge of the armrest.

  There were nail marks within the wood, ones that had such significant memories tied to them.

  He brought the belt down across my shoulders, and I dug my nails into the chair, holding in my cry. The splinters pierced my fingers, my blood a polish for the wood. The buckle tore into the center of my back, the sharp edge scraping into my skin, tearing it open. Michael sharpened the edge specifically for that reason. “Marks give character,” he said repeatedly—a mantra, a slogan that I was sure he’d have tattooed on himself if he wasn’t so vain.

  I’d learned long ago to keep my mouth shut. That begging, pleading for mercy, for the pain and abuse to stop, only gave me more.

  “Sweet, little Persephone.” I ran my thumb over my bottom lip, the thought of her causing my pulse to rise. I’d told him about Zachariah’s death, getting immense pleasure in giving him the “bad news.” I’d seen a single tear slide down Michael’s cheek after telling him.

  “I know you don’t care about Persephone. You only loved Zachariah. He was your carbon copy, isn’t that right? A soldier you could shape and mold.” He grunted out incoherently. “But I’m going to have fun breaking her in. It’ll be my gift to Zachariah. I just wish he was here to see it.” Michael made a louder grunt, and I slowly grinned, but something twisted inside of me as I thought about hurting Persephone.

  I leaned forward and rested my forearms on my thighs, staring into his cloudy blue eyes. “Will it hurt you to know I’m hurting something of Zachariah’s?” Michael’s arm twitched, and he slid it across the bed, closer to me. I reached out and held my hand out, palm up. “Go on. Take it, old man. I know you want to have a go at me like the good ole times.” He wheezed and dropped his arm several inches from where I held my palm out, and I chuckled and leaned back in the chair.

  “Go on and rest, Michael. I’ll just sit here and enjoy watching you struggle to breathe.”

  And I did that, but I couldn’t focus, not when I kept thinking about Persephone looking all soft and… mine in that enormous bed.

  So I traced those crescent-shaped marks on the wood, feeling a semblance of calm settle over me.

  “I remember the first time I dug my nails into the arm of this chair,” I said in a low voice, staring into my father’s eyes as I spoke. “You gagged me with a dirty rag, called Zachariah in the room, and watched him beat me with that willow switch you’re so fond of.”

  I glanced down at the scarred wood.

  “You especially liked that night.” I slowly looked at my father. “You couldn’t take your eyes off Zachariah as he beat the fucking shit out of me. In fact…” I leaned forward again. “I’m pretty sure you got off on it. Isn’t that right, old man?” I shook my head. “Sick bastard.”

  Michael made more rough noises. I was familiar with them enough to know if he could speak, he would say the nastiest things to me right now.

  Worthless.

  Piece of shit.

  Waste of space.

  Only good as a backup son.

  If I didn’t need more children, I would have left you to rot in that gutter you came from.

  For a long time, I’d never understood why he wanted me if he hated me so much. But it had been the “backup son” comment that finally clicked into place.

  Michael was a planner. He had to have things just so, right in their place, and the amount of planning he did bordered on obsessive and anal.

  God forbid anything happened to his precious Zachariah, but just in case… he’d have me. A good little trained soldier to carry on his life’s work.

  “It was a shame you could only father one child, isn’t that right?” I said the words mainly to myself. “That’s the only reason you pulled me into your man-made hell.”

  More grunts from the bastard. That was the only thing he was now capable of. So I leaned back in my chair, not expecting an answer. I never did. That wasn’t why I was here.

  I was here to watch him suffer. And watch I did.

  I didn’t want an apology, didn’t even care if he acknowledged what he did to me as a child. That time had passed. Michael molded me into the man I was today.

  Heartless and cold. Apathetic and uncaring. And I thought about sweet, little Persephone just thrust into the middle of all this and paying for her father’s sins.

  I ran a hand over my mouth, exhaustion settling into me. I was tired, exhausted mentally and physically, but she’d etched herself into my very marrow.

  I sat there long into the early morning, watching Michael struggle to breathe and enjoying every fucking minute of it.

  Chapter 11

  Persephone

  Several weeks later

  I was staring out the passenger side window when Hades came to a stop in front of the school I’d be finishing my remaining year at. The rest of the summer had passed in a blur, and I hoped the rest of the year did, too.

  Although my previous school had been private and most of the students came from wealthy families, Emerson Mann Private was in a league all its own.

  I’d done some research before my first day, finding out that the main student body were children of politicians, attorneys and doctors, foreign dignitaries, even some celebrities.

  I could smell the money pouring off of them as their chauffeured drivers held the doors open of their luxury cars.

  “Well, sweetheart?”

  I turned and looked at Hades.

  He rested back against the cream-colored, leather seat, one arm resting on the steering wheel lazily, and his dark sunglasses perched over his eyes. He wore a signature three-piece suit, and his short, black hair was styled in a way that looked like he’d run his fingers through it.

  Once again, I hated how attractive he was and felt a flush move through my body at the remembrance of what he looked like in those gym shorts—all sweaty, hard, male flesh covered in tattoos.

  Then my face grew even warmer as I remembered how he’d had me over his lap. I squeezed my thighs together as wetness settled right between my legs.

  And when his smile slowly grew, I had a feeling he knew exactly where my thoughts had gone.

  He reached out before I knew what he was doing and brushed a strand of my hair away. I didn’t miss how his finger lingered on my cheek a second before he pulled back, curling his fingers into a tight fist.

  I was so stunned by that gentle touch I couldn’t move.