Passion of the Vampire King (Blood Fire Saga Book 5) by Bella Klaus (best motivational books txt) 📗

the middle of the room. I caught glimpses of gossamer curtains, not knowing if I was about to step into a room filled with wraiths or one containing a four-poster bed. The lights brightened, revealing a circular table large enough to fit four but set with two chairs. Rose petals decorated the tabletop, the chairs, and the floor.

I inhaled a sharp breath through my nostrils. This was…

“You’re speechless,” he said with a smile.

I turned to the Demon King, my insides shriveling with mortification. For him. For me. For this ridiculous situation. “Why are you doing this?” It was one thing for Hades to want to keep me as a phoenix in Hell, but this romantic set-up was beyond awkward. “Valentine is my soulmate.”

Something flickered across his features, but his expression smoothed out too quickly for me to register the motion. The clench of regret in my gut told me I’d hurt his feelings, but I wouldn’t allow myself to feel guilty. Not once during our time together in the Flame did I suggest I was interested in anyone other than Valentine.

Hades swept an arm around my back, guiding me out of the elevator. “King Valentine is a mere child.”

“What does that make me?”

He tilted his head to the side. “What was it the Vampire King said about bitten apples?”

I flinched. Valentine had said that there were fruits that tasted sweeter than apples, and once they were bitten, they started to rot. That’s how he had described me on the palace steps. Used, spoiled, and not even particularly delicious to begin with. My pulse quickened. Did Hades bring this up in retaliation for rejecting him earlier?

“You were at the ball?” I asked.

“More or less.” His voice softened with sympathy. “When everyone mocked you as a blood cow who had mistaken a paid arrangement for a proposal of marriage, I heard your anguish, and the truth in your words pierced an arrow through my heart. Do you want to know what I thought at the time?”

I shrank away from Hades, trying not to think of cupid’s arrows. “No.”

“There goes a woman scorned.” He tilted his head and stared down at me with eyes that shone with compassion. “I shook my head as you raced through the crowd of mocking vampires, saying to myself that you would strike out from such a humiliating rejection and exact a most spectacular revenge on King Valentine and all his vampires.”

“Really.” My voice was flat.

After running though that memory in my jail cell, it was still fresh in my mind. It no longer cut like razor blades through the flesh, but my stomach still tightened at the thought that Valentine could have even uttered such words—even as part of a ruse to save my life.

Hades stepped back from me and flashed me what he probably thought was a dazzling smile. “Now, the personal power you demonstrated on the palace steps has manifested into a magic beyond compare, and the effect is beautiful.”

I ran a hand through my hair and tried not to roll my eyes. “Is this your attempt at manipulation?”

His face fell. “I don’t follow.”

“You’re congratulating me for turning Valentine into a preternatural.”

He shook his head, affecting a wide-eyed expression of confusion tinged with innocence.

I folded my arms across my chest. If I told him Valentine already knew about my burgeoning fire magic and set up that humiliating public rejection so I would have an excuse to escape Logris, Hades might use that information against him in the future. The Demon King could be trusted to twist anything to his benefit. My best course of action would be to make this dinner as short as possible.

He clicked his fingers, and light flared from the candles on the table.

Turning my gaze back to Hades, I said, “I’m not very hungry. Can I just have a bowl of soup?”

As I said those words, a growl reverberated from deep within my traitorous stomach. Hades raised his brows, giving my belly a pointed look.

“That’s just trapped wind,” I muttered. “All this to-ing and fro-ing makes a girl fart.”

Most other men of his social standing would have at least wrinkled their noses or pursed their lips with disapproval, but Hades grinned. “Very well. You may have your… bowl of soup, but you will sit through all seven courses.”

“Seven?”

“After the shortbread incident, I intend to make the most of our remaining two meals.” He leaned into me. “Ever heard of naked sushi? Dessert will be served nyotaimori.”

I sucked in a deep breath, remembering a late-night documentary Beatrice and I once watched at a sleepover at her place. A bunch of Japanese businessmen sat around a table where the plate was a naked woman with leaves covering her essentials. They’d arranged sushi over her body, while she lay there, letting everyone pick at her with chopsticks.

Something in the waggle of his eyebrows told me that he hadn’t arranged a third party to be the plate. I tried not to picture him naked, but the memory of his resurrection rolled to the front of my mind.

Staggering back, I clapped a hand over my mouth. “Who’s going to—”

“You.” He waved a hand, and the door to a room of magnolia walls opened. “Don’t worry about being naked in front of the invisible demons. Cerberus has them confined in the elevator. You and I will be completely alone.”

A blast of magic dragged me across the dining room and into the other chamber. As soon as the power released, the door slammed shut behind me.

“Again?” I whirled around and pounded my fists on the door.

“Yes?” Hades said from the other side.

“Why are you doing this?”

He didn’t reply for several moments, and silence stretched out, punctuated by the angry thud of my eardrums.

“You will bathe and dress appropriately for dinner with a king,” he said, his voice losing all signs of patience.

“But I don’t want to—”

“We had a bargain,” he hissed.

At least he was starting to show the true Hades beneath the smitten exterior. Turning around, I took