Cruel Seduction (Dark Olympus, #5) (18)

Adonis merely maintains his smile and waits.

Ultimately, what decides me is the trio of people all but pressed against the glass, watching us. My knee has started to stiffen up, and if I try to get up on my own, I’m going to give them something to laugh about.

I slip my hand into Adonis’s. I’m a good four inches taller and have to weigh quite a bit more since I’m not built lean like him, but he pulls me to my feet with no apparent effort. He keeps my hand for a beat too long and then steps back. “Come on. My car is out front.”

He easily matches his stride to my slower one, and ignores the people snapping pictures of us as we step through the door and out onto the sidewalk. I can’t tell if he’s just that used to being a tiger in a cage or if he’s got a better poker face than I realized. Each click of the cameras make me want to smash them into a thousand pieces. I can’t. I know enough to recognize that, even if I chafe against the constraint.

Adonis presses a hand to the small of my back. Not urging me faster, just angling his body between mine and the press. It shocks me enough that I’m still processing it a few minutes later when we’re safely in the back of his town car.

He…protected me?

I shake my head sharply. No, this is another game. There’s no way this guy is as guileless as he seems. This fucked-up city would have eaten him alive if that were the case.

Not to mention my wife would have chewed him up and spit him out without missing a step.

He gives an address that’s only a few blocks away. When he catches my glare, he shrugs. “I’m not going to make you walk it when you’re obviously in pain. I don’t think I like you very much, but cruelty for cruelty’s sake isn’t how I operate.”

Again, I search his expression for pity or some kind of judgment, and again there’s nothing. He states it as fact and that’s that. I don’t know how to feel about it, so I ignore it completely. “You seem like a nice guy.” He huffs out a laugh, but I continue before he can get a word in edgewise. “What are you doing chasing after that witch?”

“Eris is a lot of things, but she’s hardly a witch.”

My wife’s birth name fits her far better than her title. We did our research before coming here, so I know what the last Aphrodite was like—blond and gorgeous and selling an image of perfection. She’s nothing like the woman I married. My Aphrodite is all too happy to be messy in public and make a spectacle of herself, all to humiliate me. Yeah, Eris fits her a whole lot better than Aphrodite, but I’ll never call her by that name. It feels like a capitulation, though I can’t begin to say why.

I shift on the seat. I can’t stretch out my knee in this position. “She’s doing a damned good impression of being a witch right now.”

“Yeah.” Adonis sighs. “I guess she is.”

The car stops outside a building that looks just like every other building in the center of the upper city. Chrome and glass and concrete. Back home, the buildings have more character. Even the rich like to put their own stamp on their businesses and residences. No one would mistake Minos’s house for any other, not with its copper roof tiles that have aged to a pleasing green or the brilliant coral door that is twice the size a normal door should be.

I rub my chest. I might have come here at Minos’s command, but part of me misses that house. Everything is wrong in this city, from the people to the buildings to how it’s affected my friendship with Pandora, rot already worming between us.

Adonis climbs out and again offers his hand. “Come on. No one will bother us in here.”

Again, I consider ignoring his offer for help, and again, my need not to fall flat on my face overrides the pride demanding I do it on my own. This time, his palm doesn’t linger against mine, and I tell myself I don’t mind the lack at all.

The door he guides me through takes us to a small half-circle lobby with a trio of doors leading deeper into the building. Stylized lettering frosts each of them, all in the same font and the same style. Only the words set them apart.

This city truly lacks soul.

Adonis heads to the far left one. He slips a key out of his pocket and unlocks the door. When he catches me looking, he shrugs. “As you said, it’s ten in the morning. They won’t be open for hours yet.”

I pause meaningfully. “If you’re looking to get some revenge, I’m not going to be an easy mark.”

“If I wanted to hurt you, I would have won the moment you got into the car with me.” His lips curve, though the expression still hasn’t reached his dark eyes. “I want to talk, Hephaestus. That’s all. We’ll have privacy here, which is something you’ll find in short supply in this city.”

“Theseus.” I don’t know why I say it. But once it’s out of my mouth, I don’t want to take it back. “My name is Theseus.”

“Not anymore.”

“Still, I’d rather you use it.” I follow him through the door and into a surprisingly charming little bar. It’s nothing like the pub I used to spend my time in before leaving Aeaea, its walls plastered with signed dollar bills, its floors permanently sticky and the jukebox stuck on some weird-ass band no one but the owner had heard of. But…this place does have more soul than most of the city I’ve interacted with so far. There’s black and red art hanging on the walls, the style abstract in a way that feels almost violent. I look at the painting nearest us for a long moment, trying to figure out what’s causing the effect. It makes me vaguely uncomfortable.