CHAPTER 103: TOGETHER WITH ME

Alice sat at the breakfast table, the eggs and bacon too difficult to swallow at this point. She raised a forkful to her mouth, but it hovered there, forgotten, as her eyes landed on the figure now seated directly across from her, who hadn’t been there earlier.

Hades.

How had this happened? One moment she was enjoying a surprisingly normal breakfast alone with Rowan; the next, a silent, hot—

Nope. She shook her head.

It had all begun, innocently enough, with Rowan. He seemed to be the only one she could connect with in this bewildering mansion, despite how utterly strange they all were. Maybe it was because Hades had initially put him in charge of her, though Rowan had informed her yesterday that Clarisse would be handling her immediate needs going forward. Still, he had been considerate enough to invite her to breakfast this morning.

"How are you feeling?" Rowan had asked, his voice genuinely solicitous. He sat across from her, a steaming mug of coffee in his hand, looking surprisingly comfortable in the bright, airy dining room.

She did feel better. In fact, she had woken up early, a strange burst of energy propelling her out of bed despite the lingering fatigue. She’d even done her makeup and dressed neatly in a crisp blouse and tailored trousers. Her hair was also nicely combed.

"Much better, thank you," she’d replied, managing a small, authentic smile.

Rowan smiled back, a rare, easy gesture. "Good. Say, is there anything you’d like to do today? Or anything you enjoy doing? You could... go out, perhaps? Nice fresh air, if you’d like?" He seemed genuinely interested, a surprising departure from the usual veiled questions and cryptic remarks from Hades’s crew. He was even talking about going out.

Alice paused. It had been a long time since someone asked her that and meant it. She opened her mouth, unsure of what her answer would be.

That was when Gavin walked in, on a mission for coffee. His movements, however, faltered ever so slightly when his gaze swept over the table and registered Rowan chatting animatedly with Alice. A subtle stillness settled over him.

Gavin paused, his eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly as he assessed the scene. He silently made his way to the state-of-the-art coffee machine, his back to them, carefully brewing his drink. He didn’t say a word, but Alice could practically feel the bombastic side-eye he was giving Rowan, even without seeing his face.

Now, instead of minding his own business and retreating to his silent corner, Gavin, with a freshly brewed cup of black coffee in hand, turned and headed directly for the gym.

Hades was there, shirtless, a sheen of sweat on his impossibly sculpted back as he lifted weights with a controlled, brutal rhythm. His mind seemed miles away, lost in thought, his expression unusually contemplative.

Gavin kept it simple. His voice was flat, devoid of inflection, cutting through the rhythmic clang of weights. "Breakfast?"

Hades paused mid-lift, lowering the barbell with a soft thud. He eyed Gavin, a silent question in his gaze which said, ’Since when do you start asking me pointless questions like that?’

Gavin met his stare without flinching. "Rowan is bonding with your little bride over breakfast." He delivered the line with the precision of a trained assassin delivering a fatal blow.

"Do with that what you will," Gavin then turned and exited the gym without another word, leaving Hades to process the information.

The barbell hit the floor with a much louder, more definitive clang this time.

Suddenly, Hades, who never had breakfast, who existed on black coffee and a terrifying lack of human needs, was now seated across from Alice.

Rowan had, inexplicably, disappeared.

The eggs in Alice’s mouth tasted like ash.

The silence stretched. She moved a piece of egg around, acutely aware of Hades’s unblinking gaze across the table. She tried to keep her gaze steady on her plate, but her eyes kept straying to his bare, muscled arms, the flexing of his biceps as he reached for his coffee mug.

He wore only a fitted black tank top that hugged every defined muscle, his hair looked like something she had run her fingers over. She almost choked. The bite of egg suddenly felt like sandpaper in her throat, not just from surprise, but from the sudden, jarring awareness of him.

Then, his voice cut through the quiet, "How are you feeling?"

"Good," she managed, her voice a little too bright, a little too quick, despite the unsettling proximity of her uninvited breakfast companion.

Silence again. The only sound was the clink of her fork. She wished Rowan would reappear. She wished she had never bothered to leave her room.

"Your arm?" he asked, after another beat, his gaze falling to where her sleeve barely covered the bandage.

"Good," she repeated, almost a whisper.

More quiet. The awkwardness was a living, breathing thing between them, suffocating her. She raised her coffee mug, taking a slow, deliberate sip, trying to appear nonchalant, all while acutely aware of the expanse of bare skin across from her.

"Do you want to go shopping?" he asked, abruptly.

Alice almost choked on her coffee, setting the mug down with a soft clatter.

"Shopping?" she repeated, disbelief lacing her voice. Her gaze darted to his face, then, involuntarily, to his impressive physique again. She quickly reined it in.

It had to be her ovulation. Because... why was her brain and body not remembering how dangerous this guy was?

He simply nodded.

"For what?" she asked, genuinely bewildered.

"Your room doesn’t look like a lady’s room. You should fill it up with whatever."

"What does a lady’s room look like?"

He seemed to consider this, a faint frown creasing his brow. "Many colors. And chaos?"

A light scoff escaped her lips, a tiny burst of air. Colors and chaos? Was he describing a kindergarten? She went back to her silence, picking at her breakfast, trying to ignore the simmering amusement and the surprising sense of awkward domesticity that had fallen over them.

She still wasn’t sure why he was speaking to her softly since last night. It bothered her.

"The doctor said you were very stressed," Hades stated, his voice calm, but with an underlying edge of something she couldn’t quite decipher.

"Oh, really?" she replied, her tone dripping with sarcasm.

He ignored the sarcasm. "What do you like to do?"

She looked at him, suspicion warring with a flicker of hope. This was a new tactic. "Why are you asking? Would you let me do it?"

He hesitated, a rare moment of uncertainty from Hades, his gaze briefly dropping from hers as if weighing an internal conflict. Then, he nodded gently.

Before she could truly embrace the hope, he added, his voice firm, "Together with me."