Chapter 86 A Slip of the Tongue
(Apollo & Adelaide)
Adelaide's stomach dropped.
The last time he’d said that, he’d turned her body into a battlefield between pleasure and denial. He’d proven he could drown her in sensation without ever touching the places she least wanted him to—and most needed him to. He’d shown her that her own nerves could be turned traitor, that need could be sharpened into an instrument as cruel as any blade.
Her cheeks burned hotter. “You can torture me all you like,” she said, trying to sound brave. “You won’t get anything I don’t have.”
“Maybe.” He tilted his head. “Maybe not.”
His fingers slid inward, across the side of her chest. Not touching anything sensitive. Not quite. But close enough that her body flinched, muscles tightening in wary anticipation.
She hated that.
“Stop.” Her voice came out thinner than she wanted. “Don’t—”
“Don’t what?” His hand drifted higher, his claws splayed, the edge of his palm barely brushing the outer curve of her breast.
Her breath stuttered.
“Don’t touch me,” she whispered.
“Liar,” he said again, almost gently. “Your body never said that.”
He twisted his wrist. The mark on his arm flared in response.
Heat surged through the bond—fast, brutal, like a spark thrown into dry tinder.
Adelaide gasped. Her back bowed away from the cross, heels digging into air, fingers flexing uselessly against the smoke. Her nipples tightened, a wave of tingling sensation rolling down her chest and pooling low in her belly.
“No—” she choked, even as a traitorous sound slipped past her lips. It was small and helpless and utterly honest, the kind of noise no one made on purpose.
He watched her with hawk-like focus. “There,” he murmured. “You feel it?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “I won’t— I’m not—”
Another pulse, sharper this time. Like a hand pressing open a wound.
Her hips jerked. A tiny, broken whimper escaped, humiliatingly soft.
“Your body remembers,” he said calmly. “I’m only… encouraging its memory.”
“Stop it,” she ground out.
“Say please.”
“I’d rather die.”
He smiled, slow and dark. “We’ll see.”
His hand slid down her side, rough palm dragging against oversensitive skin. The sensation left goosebumps racing in its wake.
He stopped at her hip. His claws curved gently around the bone there, holding her steady.
“I told you,” Apollo went on, voice dropping to a low rasp, “we would explore different kinds of torture.”
Her heart pounded so hard it hurt. “It doesn’t matter what you do,” she said, forcing each word past her clenching throat. “I won’t give him up.”
She didn’t realise what she’d said until his eyes narrowed.
“Him,” Apollo repeated. “Interesting.”
Her stomach lurched. “That’s… not… I didn’t mean—”
Grey smoke curled from his nostrils. “So our intruder is a he.”
She bit down on her tongue. Stupid. Stupid. The pain tasted like metal.
“I don’t know who it was,” she insisted. “I never saw a face.”
He considered that, gold eyes flickering over her features. The bond hummed quietly. He didn’t call her a liar this time.
“Maybe you didn’t,” he acknowledged. “Maybe some rat-thing pushed the dress under the door like a coward.”
“He was not a rat,” she blurted before she could stop herself.
The silence that followed was suffocating. Even the torches seemed to lean back, their flames shrinking as if trying not to be noticed.
Apollo’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Ah,” he murmured. “So you did meet someone.”
“I didn’t,” she said quickly. “I only meant—”
“Do you know the difference,” he cut in, voice soft and deadly, “between a confession and a slip of the tongue?”
Her mouth went dry. “No.”
“Neither do I,” he said. “In your case.”
His claw tightened on her hip, just shy of hurting. The mark flared again, not as violently this time, but enough to send a warm shudder through her stomach.
She bit back a gasp.
“Answer me something honestly,” he said. “Just one thing.”
“No.”
He leaned in until his nose almost brushed hers. “You remember what I can do with the bond,” he reminded her quietly. “I can feel every quiver. Every lie. Every half-truth you wrap in pretty words to make yourself feel brave. Do not test me on honesty, Adelaide. You’ll lose.”
She swallowed hard. Her throat clicked. “What do you want to know?”
His gaze dropped to her mouth. Lingered there for a slow heartbeat. “Do you want this to stop?”
She stared at him.
Every instinct screamed yes. Every rational thought, every shred of dignity, every human part of her that knew this was wrong and twisted and monstrous—
Yes. Stop. Let me down. Let me go. Leave me alone.
But when she opened her mouth, the word stuck.
Because there was something else, something shameful, terrible, and undeniable, that was burning under her skin. The knowledge that the only time she wasn’t drowning in fear down here was when he was touching her. When he was pulling on the mark. When the fire roared so loudly inside her that it silenced everything else. The rest of Hell fell away when he did this; there was no throne, no pact, no screams, no sister, no village—just heat and light and the dizzy, awful relief of not thinking.
He saw the war behind her eyes. Of course he did.
“Careful,” he whispered. “You’re thinking too long. I might take it as an answer.”
A tear slipped down her temple. “I don’t want—” She gulped in a breath. “I don’t want you.”
“But you want what I do to you,” he said.
She shook her head weakly. “No.”
“Liar,” he said for the third time, but there was no cruelty in it this time. Just certainty. The word landed softly, almost fondly, like he was naming a familiar pattern rather than an insult.
He lifted his other hand, palm hovering over her lower stomach without touching.
“Here,” he said quietly. “You are burning. Right now. You don’t need me to pull the bond for that. Your body is already… ready.”
The word made her flinch.
He tilted his head. “You could beg,” he offered. “You could ask me to let you fall just once. No questions. No demands. You’d sleep afterwards. On a bed. Untied.”
It was the most generous thing he’d offered her since dragging her to Hell.
The worst part was that he meant it. She could feel it through the bond. He was not lying. If she begged now, if she pleaded and said his name the way he liked, he would let her break. He would catch her as she fell. He would put her in the bed afterwards and watch her sleep like a beast guarding its hoard.
And then he would start again. The promise of that cycle flickered before her like a prophecy in miniature: burn, fall, sleep, wake, repeat, until she no longer remembered what part of it had been choice.
She sucked in a sharp breath. “You’re trying to make me ask.”
His smile was slow, dark, beautiful in the way of ruined cathedrals. “Of course.”
“I won’t,” she whispered.
His eyes flared. Something like pride—not the kind anyone wanted from him—flickered there. “Good,” he said softly. “I’d be bored if you did it so soon.” His thumb pressed, just once, against the hollow of her hip, a silent promise that the game was far from over, while somewhere beneath her feet the runes shivered, as if they too were waiting to see how long she could hold out before she finally burned through.