Eve
My head lolled as my thoughts spun in slow, nauseating circles. The darkness around felt familiar—like my old prison—but heavier. Tighter. Sleep ca in fits, broken by cold sweats and Rhea's restless muttering in the background of my mind.
She was back… but quiet. Exhausted. Distant.
And then the footsteps ca.
Slow. Heavy. Purposeful.
My spine straightened against the wall before I could stop myself. The chains around my wrists clinked as I sat up on the bed. Light flooded the cell as the door groaned open, sharp and sudden, making my eyes water.
By the ti I blinked away the sting, he was already in front of .
Hades.
Or… what was left of him.
He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, posture rigid, too perfect. His skin was paler than I rembered, like moonlight carved into stone. His face looked untouched by ti—smooth and sharp—but harder sohow. Harsher. As if every softness in him had been whittled away.
I couldn't imagine his dimples showing anymore, even if he smiled.
And his eyes… gods, his eyes.
They were grey still, but tinged now with sothing darker. A red halo around the iris that turned them into sothing unnatural. Sothing wrong.
He said nothing for a while.
Just stared at .
"What do you want?" I asked finally, my voice rough from disuse.
His expression didn't change. "The password."
I blinked. "What?"
"The passphrase. Seven words," he said flatly. "The encrypted file on the mory card. I need it."
I blinked again, confusion flooding . "I have no idea what you're talking about."
He didn't react at first. Just stared harder, as though he could pull the truth out of my skin with his eyes alone.
Then he took a step forward.
And I recoiled.
The sll hit before the sound of his boots did—sothing sickly, almost sweet. Like rot. Like death.
Rhea stirred with a sharp hiss. "Don't let him touch us."
"I don't know it," I said quietly.
He tilted his head, just slightly. "Try again."
"I'm not lying," I said, brow furrowing. "I never even knew what was inside that card."
There was a beat of silence.
Then a bitter laugh escaped before I could stop it. I shook my head.
"Of course," I muttered. "You think I'm lying because it would hurt your pride more to believe I simply didn't know. That I never even mattered enough to be given the truth."
His jaw tensed.
My voice grew quieter, but sharper. "n always think they're smarter than they are. That every move a woman makes is part of so master plan they just haven't figured out yet."
He flinched—barely—but I caught it.
And then he stepped closer again.
The chains around my wrists rattled as I instinctively pulled back.
The scent of death clung to him like a second skin now, and beneath it… sothing else. Sothing older.
"I want the truth," he said, the words soft but thrumming with rage.
I t his eyes, even as my heart pounded. "Then look sowhere else. Because whatever it is you're trying to find in —it's not there. Not anymore."
His lips parted as if to speak—then closed again.
He stared a mont longer… and then turned away, silent.
But the air between us stayed heavy.
Thick with things we weren't saying.
Things we'd never say.
> He doesn't want the truth, Rhea growled. He wants you to be guilty. That's the only version of this that justifies what he's becoming.
I bit my tongue.
And watched the man I loved beco a stranger again.
"I am a fucking liar, Hades!" I spat, managing not to let my lips quiver—refusing to let him see how the fragnts of the heart he shattered dug into . "Yet you want to speak so bizarre truth to you? Tell you so code?" I actually laughed—because if I didn't, I would sob instead. This was what we had beco. Months of progress, understanding, and love turned to filth. "The Beast of the Night has no password to give you, Hades. How can you expect anything from the woman that made you a broken widower?"
His eyes flared—red swallowing grey like ink dropped in water. The faint lines of black began to rise along his neck, spreading like frost beneath glass.
Veins.
Thick, corrupted veins pulsing just beneath the surface of his skin.
And then—growing slow, agonizing, deliberate—a sharp protrusion pushed up beneath his hairline. It wasn't just bone. It was wrong. Too sharp. Too black. A horn, forming like it had always been waiting.
My breath caught in my throat.
"Rhea," I whispered.
The corruption, she said. It's more now. It has more influence. What has he done? Her horror leaked into my mind.
His body twitched, muscles flexing like he was holding sothing in—a snarl, a scream, or worse. The flux was leaking through him now, no longer content to hide in shadows.
"I gave you everything," he growled, voice distorted at the edges. Deeper. Unnatural. "My na. My ho. What was left of my heart."
"You gave a cage!" I scread back. "You made believe I was finally safe, only to tear it all away the mont it suited your purpose. You seduced into giving you what you needed—and then called it necessity. Don't talk to about what you gave. I am a monster—most definitely—there is no other word for what I am. A murderer. A bitch. A mutt." I smirked, my jaw aching from grinding my teeth. "We are both beasts, born out of our fathers' machinations. We are one and the sa."
His hands flexed at his sides.
And when he looked at again, there was no Hades in his eyes.
Only Lucien.
And sothing worse behind him.
"I hate you," he hissed, more to himself than to . As if he was trying to drill that fact in—
A tremor rolled through the floor as power surged around him—dark, volatile energy that made the chains on my wrists rattle. Rhea whimpered in the back of my mind, but I held his gaze.
Even though he was terrifying now.
Even though everything in scread to run.
"You want to hear sothing true?" I said, voice trembling but steady. "I did love you. With everything I had. Even when you looked at like I was the monster. Even when you used . Even when you let believe I could have a future."
His breath hitched.
But then he smiled.
It was cold. Hollow. Almost pitying.
"You still do," he said, the grey of his eyes peeking through, the vulnerability making stop.
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