I Accidentally Seduced Hades novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Wrong Girl

Clary insists she's a mortal working girl, not his goddess, refuses his offer of a crown, and decides to seduce her way to the door, until the key she steals with a kiss turns out to open the wine cellar.

I read my own name three times.

The ink kept moving.

"That's a typo," I said.

"The Book doesn't make typos."

Hades closed the Book with one hand.

"This morning your line said a different year," he said. "Three years from now. It changed at nine-fifteen."

"What happened at nine-fifteen?"

"You said no to her."

My knees went funny.

"Okay," I said. "Okay. Here's what's happening. You've been shot with a love arrow. You think I'm some goddess you've been waiting for. I'm not. I'm Clary Gilroy. I'm a matchmaker. I have a brother, a rent-stabilized apartment, and a parking ticket I'm ignoring."

"I know who you are."

"You've known me for twenty minutes."

"Longer than that."

"You grabbed the wrong girl."

"Come and see the house," he said.

The house was a lot of house.

Black stone halls. Blue lamps that didn't flicker. Windows that looked out over a black river so wide I couldn't see the far side.

An old man sat in a long wooden boat at the bottom of a stair, peeling potatoes into a bucket.

"The ferryman," Hades said. "He runs the kitchen now. Nobody's crossed the river the slow way in a hundred years."

The ferryman looked at my gown.

Then at Hades.

"Another one," he said, gloomily.

"Another what?" I said.

He went back to his potatoes.

In the kitchen he set a bowl in front of me without asking.

Lamb, lemon, potatoes gone gold in the fat.

My stomach made a sound.

Hades caught my wrist before the spoon got to my mouth.

His hand was cool and dry.

"A living mortal who eats here can't leave," he said.

I put the spoon down very slowly.

"You let him serve me that."

"He serves everyone. It's his love language."

The ferryman took my bowl back and ate from it himself, standing up, watching me.

"Great," I said. "Good. I'll just starve. Super romantic."

"You won't starve," Hades said. "There's another way to live down here."

He took me out to the orchard.

Pomegranates. Split ones lay in the grass, seeds shining.

"I'm not eating one of those either," I said.

He didn't answer that.

He stopped under the biggest tree.

"Your date moved because you told her no in front of three hundred people," he said. "A contract is a chain. She's yanking it."

"So break it."

"I can't. It's hers." He turned to face me. "No contract holds a queen of the dead. Death outranks love."

It took me a second.

"Are you proposing to me?"

"I'm offering you a crown."

"In an orchard. Two hours after my boss shot you."

"You shot me."

"She had her hand on mine!"

"I noticed."

I made myself breathe.

Here was a very tall, very handsome god with a hole in his shirt.

As far as I could tell, he wanted me because a gold stick told him to.

The arrows wore off.

A banker fell for a cellist, and in a month he either loved her for real or he didn't.

"I'm not marrying a man under an arrow," I said. "When it wears off, you'll hate me. And I'll be stuck down here with a dog and a cook who eats my dinner."

"You think it'll wear off."

"I know it will."

He didn't argue.

He just said, "Then there's no harm in waiting," and walked back toward the house.

I stood under the tree and made a list.

One. Get out.

Two. Get to Jody before October 31.

Three. Get my name out of that Book.

To do one, I needed the door. To get the door, I needed him.

He was a man. He was arrow-struck. He was, as far as I could tell, extremely lonely.

I was Golden Hour's best matchmaker.

I knew exactly where a heart leaned.

I found him in a study full of black shelves, pouring wine into two glasses.

A ring of iron keys hung from his belt.

"I changed my mind," I said.

He looked up.

I walked across the room the way I'd seen a hundred clients walk when they meant it.

Slow. Hips first. Chin up.

My sandal caught the rug and I stumbled the last step into his chest.

He caught me by the waist.

I let him think it was on purpose.

His hands were big enough to close around me almost all the way.

I put my hands flat on his shirt.

"What changed your mind?" he said.

"You," I said, and went up on my toes.

I meant it to be quick.

It wasn't quick.

His mouth was warm, which I hadn't expected.

He kissed me back slowly.

His hand slid up my spine to the back of my neck and held me there.

My knees went soft.

I forgot, for a second, what my other hand was doing.

Then I remembered.

I slid it down his hip to the iron ring and eased it off his belt, one link at a time.

He made a low sound into my mouth.

I pulled back, breathless, keys behind my back.

His eyes were half-closed.

"Well," I said. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," he said.

I got as far as the door.

"Clary."

I turned around.

He was drinking his wine, perfectly calm, except for a little color high on his cheekbones.

"The big one," he said. "With the bent tooth."

I looked down at the ring.

"That one opens the wine cellar."

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