I watch his feet, and when he’s close enough, I flash him a victorious smile, hooking my leg around his, pulling it, making him fall to the ground. I fall with him, my legs going either side of his body. I lean down and whisper in his ear, “Looks like I don’t need to go easy on you either. I guess I’ll stop then.”
His hands rest on my hips, a cheeky grin on his face. “I like this position.”
“Hm?” I ask amused, leaning down for a kiss, but before I can make contact, he’s flipped us, my hands now pinned under his, above my head.
I bring my head up quickly, head-butting him. He groans, his hands leaving my hands to go to his face as he falls backward. I slip out from under him, jumping to my feet. With a light kick to his chest, he falls back onto his back. I press my foot down, applying a small amount of pressure to keep him there.
“Give up yet?” I ask.
He struggles for a bit before eventually stopping. “Yeah,” he sighs.
Triumphant, I take my foot off his chest, reaching down to help him up.
“Another round?” he asks, his eyes becoming determined.
“Of course, I’m just getting warmed up.”
He doesn’t give me time to prepare myself as he brings a leg up. I appreciate how fast and strong he is as I watch the leg moving toward me. When I realize that I am getting distracted with ogling him, I block his kick.
***
After two more rounds of me beating Reid, he has let all of the thoughts go out of his head about being gentle with me, not caring if he hurts me. I can see it in his eyes. He just wants to win one. It’s extra embarrassing for him, as members have started to crowd around the mat, cheering us on. He doesn’t want to lose to a girl; it would affect not only his ego but his credibility with the gang. Knowing this, I allow Reid to beat me in this round. I “accidentally” leave it too late to block a kick to my right side, causing me to “stumble” to the left. With the time it takes me to stumble, Reid is able to reach out and grab my left arm across his body, spinning me into his chest. His arm comes up to my throat, applying some pressure, his left arm holding my arm up against my chest, allowing him to hold onto them both. He pins me there for a second, causing cheers to erupt from the gang members at their leader winning a round. Reid kisses me on the cheek before he lets me go. I purse my lips and nod in approval, not expecting that.
“Time for weapons, I think,” Reid says sweat pouring down his face and wetting his shirt, his ego reinstated. I wipe my forehead as I nod. It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be, especially with me straining to keep my muscles at human capabilities.
I follow behind Reid, through the crowd, and to the weapon wall. Sparring against guards my whole life, I eventually got used to all different kinds of weapons, and I was able to beat them all at every weapon by the time I was ten. I would be able to beat Kyle on a good day, but I’ve still never beaten my dad.
I examine the array of weapons that Reid has, noting that some of them look more unused than others. I know Reid is handy with a knife from Meredith’s scar, so I decide to see just how handy he is. Reid seems to be waiting for my decision before he chooses one himself. I exclude any weapon which is not a knife as I examine each knife closely. I reach out, pulling a knife with a five-and-half-inch blade off the wall. I flip it in my hands a couple of times, testing the weight in my hand. Once I am happy, I send a smug smile in Reid’s direction.
He nods in approval, picking a knife off the wall also.
“Don’t hold back,” I taunt, skipping back to the mat. I turn on my heel, widening my stance. I tuck a strand of my hair which fell out of my bun behind my ear as I take in Reid opposite me.
He acts quickly, bringing the knife up and through the air. I dodge it, bringing my leg around as I move, trying to kick him or knock him over, but he catches it, pulling sharply.
I stumble onto the floor. Seeing that Reid is not waiting around, I quickly flip backward on my hands, so I am standing again, missing Reid’s slash at me with the knife just in time.
I cock my head to the side and grin; he is good with a knife. I twirl the knife in my hands, so the knife is sticking up in my fist. I raise it, going to slam the end of the handle against his skull. His hand meets my wrist, squeezing it tightly. My grip loosens on the knife, sending it clattering to the ground. Reid kicks it to the side, bringing my hand around my back, twisting it at an angle. His knife rises, and he presses it against my neck.
“I think I won,” he says smugly.
I relax, hoping to make him think that I am giving up. When it has the desired effect, getting Reid to pull the knife away from my neck and to loosen his grip on my arm, I don’t hesitate. I take the opportunity, lifting my hands and flipping Reid over me.
He lands on the floor, the air getting knocked out of his chest. I see the knife and decide to give them a show. I go down into a cartwheel, grabbing the knife as I go, so when I am upright again, I am holding the knife over Reid. I lower down, pretending to go and stab him, stopping the knife so the tip is a millimeter away from his heart.
His shocked eyes meet mine. The room has gone deathly silent. Happy with my victory and making a point, I bring it up. Slowly, a small smile creeps onto his face. He motions with his hand, his eyes still on me.
“How can you deal with multiple attackers?” he asks.
I can sense it before it happens. A man from the side runs at me using another knife as his weapon. I lean down, giving a quick kiss to Reid, mumbling against his lips that he is really testing me. I spring to my feet, ready to face my attackers.
The man running at me lifts his knife to strike at me, but I block him with ease. I move to retaliate as I kick one of the other men running at me. I send a knee into the balls of the man in front of me as I turn to deal with the third attacker. As I turn, I haven’t judged how close they are to me. As he keeps running and I step around, the momentum keeps him coming, causing the knife in his hand to sink into my stomach. A look of fear and shock slowly emerges onto the man’s face as I cry out in pain. I look back at him with the same expression. How am I going to explain this to Reid and the others? It’s going to heal much quicker than it would with any human. It won’t heal straight away, as it was deep, but it will be healed in an hour. If I were human, I would be in serious danger. I fall backward, the knife slipping back out.
“You are a fucking idiot!” Reid seethes out as he runs up to me. I look around at the surrounding gang and see that Hunter and his friends are all near, watching me with worry and confliction on their face. Reid bends down, holding onto my legs and back as he straightens, so he is carrying me.
“I’m fine,” I insist weakly.
“Everyone better move if they want to live,” he yells dangerously.
They all move without argument. Reid strides out of the room, bounding up the stairs in seconds. I’ll let him dress it with a bandage, and it can heal hidden, without him knowing how fast it has. I rest my head on Reid’s chest as he runs.
“That was fun. We should do it again sometime,” I mumble quietly.
Chapter 28
Is This Some Kind of Sick Joke?
Reid shoves the door to his office open, shifting us to allow us through the doorway. He places me gently on the couch, not stopping as he rushes through the only door I haven’t seen behind. Through the small gap in the door, I am able to make out a bathroom.
Reid bends down, rifling through the cabinet, reappearing again with a first aid bag. He moves out of my line of sight, and I hear a tap running. Pulling the door closed forcefully behind him, Reid falls to his knees next to the couch, placing the glass of water and bag beside him. He reaches out and slowly, trying not to hurt me, pulls the bloody tank top up my body to reveal the slash in my stomach.
I breathe in a worried, shuddering breath when I see that the wound is slowly healing. Just bandage it up and leave it, I plead with Reid silently. Reid unzips the bag, grabbing a cloth, quickly dipping it in the water, turning back to me. He
touches the cold water on my skin, trying to clear some of the blood away to see the full extent of the damage.
“You’re crazy if you believe we are going to do that again,” he murmurs, looking up at me.
I internally roll my eyes, but on the exterior, I keep my expression blank, not replying. He looks back down at my stomach, slowly working on wiping the blood away.
When he gets close the wound, I breathe in a sharp breath. His apologetic eyes rush up to meet mine whenever this happens. I take the time that it’s taking him to clean me to observe him. His brows have a small wrinkle between them, which I want to reach out and smooth away, showing his concern and concentration. His blue eyes come up to meet mine when I look at them.
He smirks before looking back down at my stomach, only for a small frown to replace it. I follow his gaze and see that the wound has almost completely healed, leaving behind a surface cut about two inches long. Oh shit, it healed faster than I expected to.
“I told you it was fine. It didn’t go in deep. It was just the angle.” The wrinkles between his dark eyebrows deepen and multiply as he scrunches them up in confusion
“B-but I saw the knife. It had blood all over the blade. It went in all the way,” he mutters more to himself than to me.
I close my eyes. I have two choices. One: to lie to him and keep him from my secret for longer, causing him to hate me for keeping it from him even more when he finds out. Or two: tell him the truth, risking him to hate me and all his memories of me being wiped again. It could also mean that I have to go back home to Hell, but that’s all in the worst case. He could still react the same way he did when he first found out, with admiration and no hate or fear, but he’s had his feelings about me at that time wiped from his memory by my dad. It was also in different circumstances; he still had the hormones raging through him from the bite.
I grab his head, pulling him closer to me. I lean forward so our lips are barely touching.
“Whatever I do or say next, please don’t hate me,” I plead in a whisper, and our lips rub. I don’t allow him to answer; I claim his lips in a kiss. It starts off slowly, his soft, supple, rough lips moving over mine. Tingles shoot throughout my body, starting at my lips. Holding onto his neck, not wanting to let him go yet, I happily reciprocate Reid’s movements which are getting faster and more passionate. He grunts as my tongue ventures into his mouth. He battles with me, stopping only to suck on my tongue. I let out all of my emotions into the kiss: how I feel about him, how I feel about the situation with Adrian and at home, and how I feel about what I am about to do.
Reid nips at my lip before he travels from my lips, over my face, down my jaw, and to my neck, placing small bites along the way. He searches until he can find my sweet spot. I let out a soft moan, and Reid grins against my neck and places another harder bite. He licks the tender place before pulling back, looking deeply into my eyes.
“I could never and will never hate you. I feel the total opposite actually. That is unless I find out that you’re a cop or from a rival gang, then I will hate you for lying and gaining my trust. I don’t trust easily, but you seem to be different,” he says softly, his hand coming up to stroke my cheek.
I lean my head into his hand, taking a snapshot of this moment and his face, in case it never happens again.
“You still may hate me for what I am about to do,” I tell him, looking away from his relaxed and happy face, not wanting the see the trust that is present disappear from them.
“I doubt it very much,” he says, reaching out to me, but I move back and away from him. I concentrate for a moment, letting my horns and fangs extend, and feeling my face contorting.
I turn back to Reid, keeping my now red eyes off his blue ones, afraid to see his reaction. When he saw me the first time, it was at the very beginning when I didn’t know him as much as I do now. Over the short amount of time that I have known him, I have grown to like him a lot, and if he can accept me for who I am, that would make it all the much better.
Reid blinks a couple of times to make sure he is clear on what he is seeing. Once he has confirmed it’s actually happening, he backs away, his warm hand leaving my cheek, the comfort I was feeling from it as he talked also leaving me as well.
“Shit, shit, shit. Did you drug me?” he asks loudly.
“No,” I reply with conviction as I try and reach for his hands.
“Then what the fuck is happening? Is this real?” he asks angrily, backing even further away, moving his hands out of my reach to his hair. He runs them through the damp hair repeatedly.
“Reid, you are not drugged or seeing things.” I try to placate him.
His eyes meet mine for a moment, looking as if he’s thinking something over. His hand goes to the back of his pants, pausing for a moment, almost as if he doesn’t want to do it, before pulling the black gun out and aiming it at me. I don’t give him any reaction. His finger hovers over the trigger, shaking.
“Is this some kind of sick joke? Did Meredith hire you to make me trust you and then stab me in the back by playing a big joke on me? I should shoot you right now,” he spits out.
“You can shoot me. It wouldn’t kill me,” I tell him. His trigger finger twitches, but his hands are holding the gun weakly, meaning if he did pull it, it could be dangerous for him, and the bullet will not necessarily meet its target, and Reid knows this.
“I thought you wouldn’t hate me,” I point out getting angry. Why has he changed his opinion on me? He didn’t react anything like this the first time. It’s almost the total opposite. None of his prior emotions are present on his face.
“That’s before you pull this.” He waves the gun at me as he speaks.
“It’s not a joke. It’s real. I have nothing to do with Meredith. I hate that bitch. I was the one to give her the over scar for gods’ sake!” I shout.
Reid looks taken aback for a moment before he recovers, shooting a glare in my direction
“I thought I could trust you! Get out. I don’t want to see you ever again! You let me kiss you. I kissed a monster!”
I let my body fall back, feeling the hit from his words physically. That hurt, but it was the truth. No one has ever said it, but, of course, he would think I’m a monster, who wouldn’t?
“Reid, just let me explain. I don’t care if after that you want me to leave, but first, just let me explain…” I say my voice getting a lot quieter. He doesn’t object, so I continue.
“You remember the first day we met and the men that you were with said that I was a demon?”
He nods his head slightly. At least he is listening and even responding.
“They weren’t lying.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? If you can, could you go back to the other face? You’re fucking creepy,” he says in disgust.
I let out a sad sigh but comply, changing back to my normal face.
“I’m saying that I am a demon,” I respond.
“You’re mad. Demons don’t exist,” he says, looking away from me.
I groan, knowing I will need to prove it further. I would have thought that my face would have been enough.
“The cut. You said that you saw the knife sink all the way in. It did. I just have a quicker healing process than any human. You know that it would have been life threatening to me if I was like you,” I tell him, pulling the tank top up to show him my skin which is now fully healed.
His face slowly loses the disbelief, revealing that I am getting through to him.
“What’s to stop me from telling everyone?” he asks.
“I don’t think you’ll want to deal with my dad when he’s angry,” I caution him.
“And why not?” he replies, raising an eyebrow in a challenge.
“Because he’s Hades.”
“The Greek god?” he asks with a snort.
“You won’t remember, but when we had our date, I ended up biting you. I tried to wipe your memories, but it wouldn’t work, so I had to take us down to the un
derworld, my actual home, and have my dad do it. He made it so you forgot what happened, but he also made it so whenever you went to kiss me that day, you would cluck like a chicken. That’s why I wouldn’t kiss you,” I explain, smiling as I remember.
“I hated lying to you, but I was afraid if I told you again, I would get this reaction. I didn’t know what the compulsion would do to you. I thought I would never have to tell you and if I did, it would be at a point where you couldn’t be angry with me. But now that you know, you can’t tell anyone. It could put both of us in danger,” I beg with him as I lean toward him.
“I’m used to danger,” he says, moving back and going to his feet.
“Reid, promise me you won’t tell anyone,” I say forcefully, hoping it would get my point across and he wouldn’t have any other choice.
He strides to his desk, throwing the gun down there. His shoulders hunch as he grips onto the edge of the desk.
“Get out,” he manages to say through gritted teeth.
“I’ll know if you tell someone,” I tell him. It would be easy to find out, as there would be an uproar from my dad and his siblings, as well as from people on Earth. I storm to the door, rushing out. I let the door slam behind me.
I should have just lied to him, but I couldn’t keep it from him any longer. It’s no use now. I’ve lost him forever, I think as I walk back, angrily to the entrance hall. I stride through the people who are quickly getting out of my way when they see my expression and make my way to the door, only to be stopped when I hear Bianca calling out.
“Hey, bitch, you didn’t forget about me, did you?”
I turn with a sigh. “Sorry, I just…”
She crosses her arms, raising an eyebrow. “What happened?”
Wow, she’s good.
“I think Reid and I just broke up,” I respond with a frown.
“So that was why you were being so loud,” she says.
My eyes widen. How much did she hear?
“What? You could hear us?” I ask her, panicking.
“We all could, but not the actual words. I, however, may have come down concerned about you, arriving to hear Reid freaking out, and decided to listen at the door.”
Hades’ Daughter (The War of Fate) Page 22
