Page 57 of Hades

“Tell her I look forward to seeing her.” Sue Ann handed me my bread, and I assured her I would pass along the message. Not that my mother would care. I wasn’t even sure she’d remember who Sue Ann was, given she only saw the woman one week out of the year.

Back on the street, I peered down the road in both directions. My ears strained for the roar of a motorcycle, though I still couldn’t tell if anticipation or dread was souring my stomach. The bread was warm in my hands, the cotton bag soft against my palms. The sun beat down on my shoulders, sweat gathering at the small of my back.

Whatever caused the churning didn’t matter. There was only one decision to be made. I climbed into my truck and turned toward home. My eyes kept straying to the rearview and side mirrors, and I hated to admit I was looking for him. Searching for any sign of that motorcycle. Any glimpse of leather and dark hair and the man who’d made me feel wanted for the first time in my life before throwing me away like garbage.

It was all in vain, of course, because if he’d wanted to see me, if he’d wanted to talk to me, he would have stopped in town. He could have pulled over and walked up to me the way he did at my home, cradled my face and kissed me. Could have explained why he left. Could have given me something, anything, to hold onto.

Instead, he’d continued on his way as though I were no one special. Just a beautiful woman who caught his eye as she walked down the street. Just another piece of ass he’d sampled and found wanting.

I wasn’t humble enough to think I wasn’t beautiful, or naïve enough to believe men didn’t notice me. But I wasn’t so full of pride that I expected them to drop to their knees and beg me to come home with them either.

I knew Brock felt an attraction to me. There was no mistaking the very hard bulge he’d ground against me in my kitchen. No question he’d kissed me the way a lover kissed the object of his desire. But attraction didn’t equal love. Wanting someone’s body didn’t mean you wanted their mind, their soul.

It didn’t mean you wanted them.

I needed to remember that Brock was a biker. He was the vice president of the Gods of Mayhem, and I wasn’t stupid. I’d seen the women at the club, the ones I knew were there to have sex with the men. The club whores who draped themselves over the brothers like they owned them. He wasn’t hurting for company in his bed.

But there was something about the way he called me his queen. Something that felt like more than a line. More than just another pet name.

It felt deeper, more meaningful, as though the word itself was a crown placed on my head. A title given with intention. A brand that wasn’t offered lightly.

Maybe it was my own fantasies, my own desire to belong, that filled my head and heart with the notion that what I’d seen between Cash and Kytten, between Banshee and Aspen, was something I could reach for. Something I could have. That I could matter to another human being in a way that went beyond transactions and obligations.

Yet once again, someone had tossed me aside. Given me scraps of attention to earn my loyalty, only to leave me feeling discarded, unwanted, and forgotten.

Unloved.

The word echoed in my head as I drove home, the truck rattling over potholes, the bread cooling on the seat beside me. Unloved. Unwanted. Used. The trifecta of my existence. The story of my life written in the spaces between other people’s needs and my own desperate hope that maybe, just maybe, this time would be different.

But it never was.

And I was a fool for thinking it could be.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Hades

“She didn’t fucking run,” Poseidon growled as he slapped a piece of paper against Zeus’ chest. “Well, she did,” he corrected, “but she isn’t running now.”

Zeus scanned the paper Poseidon handed him, then passed it to me. The words blurred together at first, my mind still half-focused on golden hair and soft skin and the way Lettie’s pussy had felt grinding against my cock. Fuck. I forced myself to focus on the email.

“Son of a bitch,” I muttered. “Are you sure this is real?”

“It’s real. I had Coeus trace it.”

“What do you think she did?” I asked, scanning the email again, searching for any clue in Alex’s words. My fingers tightened on the paper. Another fucking crisis. Another goddamn problem pulling me away from what I actually wanted. From who I wanted.

“With her, it could be fucking anything,” Zeus muttered. He looked up at Poseidon. “What do you want me to do?”

“I can’t leave her there,” he said. “She’s my fucking sister. She could kill Satan himself, and I wouldn’t leave her in hell.”

Zeus stared at his enforcer. His hand rubbed the back of his neck, and then he sighed. The weight of leadership pressed down on him like a physical thing. I could see it in the tension of his shoulders, the tightness around his eyes. The man was drowning in responsibility and guilt, and Alex’s bullshit was just one more anchor dragging him under.

“OFFICERS, IN CHURCH!”

He spun around and walked off. Poseidon turned to me, his eyes pleading for an answer I couldn’t give him. Alex had become a liability. A fucking time bomb waiting to explode and take us all down with her. We’d found her bike behind the 7-Eleven.

We didn’t find Alex.