Little Saint Bride [Death and the Maiden, #1]

Chapter Thirteen: Unlucky for Some

I don't see Hadrian for the rest of the afternoon, and spend it with Mercer trudging through dusty leather-bound books until my eyesight blurs. Mercer seems interested in life at court in the Underworld, and tries to lure me into his research on different relations with other royal houses. Already pissed from curling up on a cold, wooden floor, I snap like a stinging wasp as the boy offers to read me a passage of his huge book. No, I don't want to hear which girls have been sent to court in the hopes that the Death Lord will marry one of them. No, I don't want to know about the War of the Three Courts over two hundred years ago. 

I want to find out about Hadrian's damn power.

After hearing the sorry tale of his lost lover (Can he be such a romantic? I wonder privately.  Unlikely. The book must be exaggerating), combined with the curse that would tie me to him, it seems less likely that I could seduce the God of the Underworld into a sleepy one-night-stand, and more likely that I would be going down that waterfall, answers still on hiatus. The library, therefore, is the only solution to my next idea: is there a way to take his power, like Hecate supposedly did?

And, moreover, who is Hecate? Does she live in Hadrian's kingdom? Or does she have her own?

I suppose I could ask Mercer, I think glumly. I might leave it until I have no other choice...

If I could find out that he had one weakness, one way of control, then I could investigate my brother's return by myself. 

'Are you listening?' I hear Mercer's voice ask, and for the first time the note of annoyance shines through. 

'Yes,' I reply absently, 'People think Hadrian as typically evil, but he just maintains balance of souls. When there's an imbalance, there's something going wrong...'

Mercer, satisfied, carries on droning the text to me. I make the relevant impressed facial expressions, all the while rifling through my fifteenth book, Death's Secret. I flick to the middle, not bothering to check chapters.

The words are even, handwritten, and filling around three hundred pages.

"People say he's the God of Death, so that makes him cold. But at that moment, I knew that this man was far from ice. I knew I was only entertainment for him, that we didn't have any emotional connection. When I went to his chambers, I was not looking for intellectual thought, but primal satisfaction. I was not disappointed. His skin was like blazing fire, warming my thighs and breasts. As he ran his hands along my middle, his thumbs were deftly massaging the tender parts of my skin, making me gasp and moan. Then, making sure he took things slowly, he descended, kissing each part of me until his tongue was caressing my---"

I slam the book shut, realising several things at once. Firstly, my heart is hammering so maniacally that I'm certain Mercer will notice in the quiet of the library. Secondly, I had just picked up some kind of erotica, and was reading it next to my only friend. Thirdly, I had been enjoying it.

Picturing Hadrian's eyes boring into mine--

No! I toss the book back towards the shelves, cheeks pink. Mercer looks up, and I pray he doesn't notice that I'm perspiring; thankfully he glances at the book, gives me a questioning tilt of his head, and I croak: 'No good.'

I pull out another book, my head still reeling from what I'd read, and the images coursing through my overactive imagination. Who wrote that, and was it about Hadrian? 

I frown. Of course he has lovers, Nerissa. He told you so himself. It's only physical. 

That torturous voice in the back of my mind can't stop from retorting. If it's nothing, why are you crushing that book between your fist?