Tempted by Darkness (Bound to Hades #1) - Lillian Sable Page 0,2

like my hold on reality. Frigid air froze my vocal cords as if even the universe itself begged me not to speak the final words.

He tried one last time, speaking with entreaty even as his lip curled with threat. "Let me rule you, and everything I have will be yours."

I forced myself to speak through the physical pain and a similar feeling in my soul.

“No man is my master. I belong to no one.”

“I belong to no one,” Adonis repeated the line, his tone musing. “I’m with the tension up until this point, but this line I don’t get. A few pages before, the girl acts like she’s obsessed with this dude. Now, she doesn’t want to belong to him? I don’t get it.”

I made a note on my script without bothering to look up at him on the stage. I was sitting in the first row of the theater while he chewed up the lines. “We’re not changing it if that’s what you’re asking.”

“And she’s supposed to be an orphan girl, where is the inheriting a kingdom stuff coming from?”

With endless patience, I regarded my closest friend with a droll smile. “Are you gunning for a writing credit or something? Because not everything needs to be analyzed with a fine-tooth comb.”

“I’m just saying that this is a really interesting take on the myth of Hades. Everybody knows he rules the underworld, but you don’t really hear about him having a queen.” He tossed the script with a rakish smile. “This is your first production. I just want to make sure everything is perfect.”

I regarded him with a droll expression, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. Just because the guy is my best friend doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize when I’m being managed. Just because he meant well, didn’t mean that I wasn’t occasionally driven crazy by his micro-managing.

Adonis looked like the type of guy who should be huddled up on the side of a football field shouting plays at the other meatheads, not dramatically reciting Shakespeare on the stage. He had broad shoulders and towered over me at over six feet tall. Built like an athlete, he was lean and muscled in all the right places. When he smiled, it felt like being warmed by sunshine, his eyes bluer than a clear sky with hair so golden it shone underneath the stage lights.

Pretty much the textbook definition of the all-American boy. Girls threw themselves at him wherever he went, but he never seemed to stay in a relationship for very long and acted all sheepish whenever I asked him what happened with the last one he dated.

That had to be what started our friendship in the first place. I was the first girl he ever met who didn’t seem to care about his good looks. I noticed it, of course, but it was like noticing a beautiful painting hanging in the museum. You look, but it never occurs to you to touch because it’s not something to own.

And I would never tell him that the more I got to know him, the more I wanted to touch, even though my attraction had little to do with how gorgeous he was on the outside. It was the inside that really set him apart, even though nobody else seemed to see it. But even if he were interested, which I doubted, trying to date would ruin what we have. His romantic relationships never ended well.

“It’s crazy how much overlap there is in your head between perfection and whatever you happen to be doing.”

Bringing his hands to his chest, Adonis dramatically fell to his knees. “Forgive me, lovely and fair Persephone. I meant no offense.”

“Then say your lines and quit it with the commentary.” I giggled, then lurched out of the way when he lunged for me. But I wasn’t fast enough to stop him from grabbing me around the waist and swinging me around until I felt dizzy. “Put me down! We only have the stage for an hour.”

“So sorry, doll. I find your gripping performance too fascinating to keep my head on my shoulders.”

He liked to tease me, but the compliment was real. If it weren’t for Adonis’s encouragement, I never would have decided to let this play be performed.

I’d spent years trying to forget the crazy things I would see when I closed my eyes. But I finally realized that the only way to get the images out of my head was to put them somewhere else,