seventeen

Poppy

She listened to Rania explain literally everything that was wrong with her—and explain how it could be made right again. She tried to keep the tears from falling down her face and failed.

Then a thought occurred to her:

What if God was not for people like my brother, who are righteous and austere, and do everything right? What if God was for people like us, like Rania and Hades and me and Dante? What if God was for the broken and the destroyed?

What if God was for the nearly dead, for the nearly lost?

What if God was Someone who did not simply tolerate or punish, but Someone who loved? Someone who would say things like what Rania just said to me?

What if a dancer, a sinner and a lord of the underworld were exactly who God wanted?

Wouldn't that be ridiculously amazing?

"I need to tell you something," Hades was saying. "Are you quite all right, love?"

His voice was hoarse with concern, and Poppy realized that she had been staring unseeingly into the fire for the better part of five minutes.

It was no use thinking thoughts like that, hoping. Good things were not meant for people like her, and that was all there was to it.

"Of course, my lord," she said. "What is it?"

"It's about Lucian…Viscount DeVere."

At once, she was all attention. "Oh! Do you have news of him? Is he well?"

"You are certainly concerned about his welfare," Hades sneered. Why did he look so annoyed at her interest for the man?

"Seeing as he nearly died in my hands," Poppy said, "yes, I am."

Hades stood up in a quick, fluid motion and presented her with a view of his back. It looked tense and corded with tight muscles, even beneath his jacket. He brought a fist to his mouth. What the hell was his problem? Don't swear.

Rania took off with a stupid excuse about finding Dante. Poppy tried to shoot daggers at her with her eyes, but Rania hardly seemed moved at all, and she left her alone with Hades.

"What of DeVere?" Poppy asked when Hades did not seem forthcoming with any more answers.

"I seem to have paid off all his debts," he said.

"Why did you do that?"

"In case I might want to kiss you again," Hades replied matter-of-factly. Poppy regretted having stood up too, and not being anywhere near a chair or a wall she could grab for support. "I wanted to be worthy of you."

"I don't know what to say, my lord," Poppy mumbled. "I am equal parts disgusted and intrigued."

"Well, I am seduced."

That was it. Unless she found something to hold on to soon, she was going down. She was in too much pain and bleeding far too much to be able to deal with this right now.

"Y-you…" she sputtered.

"At any rate, I wanted to warn you, in case he shows up here, at the club."

"Why would he come here again?"

"What?" Hades sounded distracted, as though his thoughts were miles away. "Oh," he said. "Because in return for paying off his debt, I hired him to be part of my personal guard. I did not care to, but he insisted."

"Oh." Poppy did not know how to respond. "You might actually be the best person I have met in my life."

"Unless you have not met more than one person in your life," Hades retorted, "that is impossible."

"Why are you so…?"

"I am sorry for intruding on your privacy like that." Hades was rigid and tall again, ready to make his escape. Oh, but the man was insufferable. "I was quite…distraught. If you are feeling more the thing in a few hours, you are welcome to join me in the great hall. If you can stomach it. I take my leave of you."

He bowed quite formally, and left.

She was indeed feeling much more the thing in a few hours, after another soak in a warm bath and a few more hours of sleep. Rania took off to get herself ready, and Poppy was ready to visit the card tables once more, and see if anyone needed rescuing.

Before Rania left, she helped Poppy get inside a dress that was much too light in color and form-fitting in shape. It had no flourishes or embellishments, but instead fell across her body in a simple line, its high waistline right below her breasts, its material soft and silk-like. It had a wide neckline that reached to her shoulders, but was thankfully high enough not to make her feel exposed. It had been years since Poppy had worn anything other than gray.

"Dresses are meant to make you feel beautiful and powerful," Rania said. "To help you celebrate your own beauty. If you feel comfortable in it, then you should wear it. If not, then no. It's as simple as that."

"But what about…?" Poppy stopped, not quite knowing how to continue.

"What about what?" Rania was busy doing up the million little buttons at the back.

"What about society's opinions? And rules?" Poppy murmured, swallowing down the real question, which was: What if it's a sin to feel so beautiful?

"Society can go hang itself," Rania quipped. "If it can pick its jaw off the floor after seeing you look like an angel in this dress." Her hands, warm and soft, wiped a few stray curls off the nape of Poppy's neck. "But you do realize, there will be no society up there in the grand hall, don't you?"

Poppy did.

After all, this was the Hell Club.

When had anything normal happened here? Not tonight, that was for sure.

Poppy walked into the card room, flanked by two of Hade's guards on either side, at his insistence. She was trying to take deep breaths and remember Rania's description of her dress, which went something like ‘it fits you like a glove and makes you look like a painting, so have courage and be strong, little one', when she stopped short, her breath catching.

He was here, just as Hades had said.

The Viscount DeVere.

He looked extremely alive, dressed to the nines. His skin was a little pale, and there was a necklace of purple-black bruises around his throat, almost perfectly concealed by a snow-white cravat. As soon as Poppy entered the room, he jumped up from his chair with a clamor that made all the patrons look up from their tables, and started running in her direction.

The viscount, ignoring the daggers of the annoyed looks sent his way, crossed the entire room in three long strides and fell on both knees in front of her, grabbing the hem of her dress. He fell to kissing it, his hands shaking.

"Thank you," he kept saying, his voice thick with tears. "Thank you."

He kissed her skirt some more, and then his hands were reaching for hers. She was about to snatch her hands away before he could grab them and cry over them too, when someone abruptly struck him down.

"No man's hands on you," a voice muttered above her head. Hades' voice. "Nobody touch her! Get the bloody hell off!"

And then DeVere was being picked up bodily and thrown across the floor.

Poppy just stood there, watching the viscount fall on a heap on the carpet, and wished that the ground would open up and swallow her whole. She could not believe her eyes.

Hades stood over the viscount's prone body, panting, like some kind of avenging angel. Except he had not avenged anything; he had merely accosted a poor, depressed viscount. Hades panted, his blue eyes dark and huge, as if he himself could not believe what he had done.

That's it; this is too much.

Keeping her head down, Poppy pushed through the people who were quickly congregating around her, curious to see the spectacle, and fought against tears as she quickly made her escape.

"I'm sorry!" Someone was grabbing her elbow, halting her. She was close to the door now, but still not out. But Hades was there, holding her back, looking down at her with a desperate, drowning look on his face. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have done that, I lost my head. But I never—I never met someone good and pure before, and now I have no idea how to act around you."

"Well, in that case," Poppy moved to free her arm from his grasp, and he let her go at once, "let me help your lordship out. I am not good and pure."

He merely looked at her, his expression hard, inscrutable, then bowed and walked away. Poppy stared after him, the noise of the room fading around her as her mind filled with strange thoughts.

What on earth is the matter with him?

He had acted so strangely and violently. Almost as if…as if…

She couldn't even allow herself to think of it:

As if he were jealous.

But that was definitely impossible.

Hades did not get jealous. He was incapable of it.