Bonus Chapter (Hadrian's POV): Tigress

A/N: As a thank you and because Chapter 3/4 was requested, here is Nerissa and Hadrian's meeting from Hadrian's point of view. It's a long one...nearly 4000 words! So happy reading.

If I get the chance, I'll also add in another Chapter. I think 9 was popular. Let me know your thoughts about Hadrian's chapter in the comments!

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My court is beautiful.

Alright, to be precise, it's vintage. Shabby chic. Actually, it's probably one of the ugliest sceneries in any of the gods' villages, but that's beside the point. The Ice Court has sculptures of crystal angels, and the Autumn Court has that special harvest all year round which makes a rustic red and orange theme very easy. Even our rivals in Spring have the glory of flowers and meadows and Hell knows what else, but in my eyes, nothing quite equals my court.

The Underworld.

Apart from a series of very large, deep and deadly rivers leading to one extremely large waterfall, there's not a lot in the way of nature. I don't have fountains to await my guests (I do have Jefferson, though, which must be a negative mark). What buildings we do have are made of old, worn stone— I did say vintage— and some dreadful craftsmanship, so that everything is a little ramshackle.

What I love most, though, is that my court has life in a place where only death awaits.

What can I say? I'm a proud father of a strange city of souls.

Unlike the other courts, most of my denizens were once human, and that puts me in a very unique position: my head isn't stuck up my ass yet.

Whilst Summer parades in sweltering suns and forgets how much destruction a drought can cause, the Underworld takes in the souls that aren't ready to go beyond the waterfall. And these souls provide a vivacity that the other courts don't have, because they retain that essence only humans have. It also brings their world and mine into very close perspectives, and I, as death, walk among them.

So when someone decides to mess with my Underworld, in my court, on my turf— I personally oversee the investigation.

That's how I ended up here, trudging along the banks of the Styx.

In the past few months, over twelve of my Ferrymen have died. One death isn't too uncommon— it's a tough job. Then another occurred and all the ones that came after, and we thought that there might be a spirit on the loose. A banshee or a rusalka, perhaps. But when my scouts brought back the bodies, no such spirits attacked like that; as though they'd shredded the Ferrymen and enjoyed it.

No, it's something worse. We know that now.

We discovered two more bodies earlier today. All left lifeless and dismembered, evidence spattered along the ground in a way that left no evidence at all. Char, the Ferrymen's leader, gave up after the second. He takes their deaths much worse than I do— he knew them all, trained them all, then scooped their innards off the banks of the Underworld's rivers.

Char's face, despondent and lost, was what drove me to continue the search without him. Whilst he had to do the hard work of informing any close friends and other such arrangements, my time had been free.

Now, I'm spending it catching a killer.

I've passed some of the Ferrymen already on the other rivers, but everything has been in order. Everyone accounted for, and as a bonus, there'd been no erroneous limbs or missing digits. It's bestowed a certain confidence that perhaps the day can't get worse. The Styx, unlike some of the other rivers, has suffered a loss from a few of its Ferryman, so there's only one remaining. With any luck, that will still be the same. But my heart sinks as dark shapes begin to form in the distance— by the Stygian dock where a Ferryman should be.

I quickly check the register that Char gave me, before stuffing it back into my pocket. Apparently, the Ferryman should be a woman called Mig, and a short biography gives her fuzzy blonde hair, six feet tall, and brown eyes.

As I get closer, I know one thing for certain: it's not Mig I can see standing there.

The young woman has one foot propped on the side of the Ferryman's boat, and her face is in profile. She has a strong, proud look in her eyes: even as she stares down with the intensity of a tigress glaring at Hell's doors. Her body thrums with a taught, ready energy, and her stance looks ready for a fight.

The chin that she juts out in defiance is delicate, pointed, and complimenting her oval face. High cheekbones and rosy stained cheeks move as she chews on the inside of her lip in concentration.

She doesn't see me, and it's just as well. I stare at her, taking in the long, flowing hair that cascades down her back more beautifully than the waterfall I live next to.

The waterfall that's been my favourite and most aesthetically pleasing thing since...

I shake off the thought, but my eyes find that hair again, at the delicious darkness to it, curling into tendrils around her neck and hips. Thick eyelashes and a faraway gaze prevent me from looking into her eyes— eyes which I start pondering on what colour they're most likely to be.

Stop it, Hadrian. I chastise myself, reminding my inner romantic that I'm here to catch a killer.

Speaking of...

I swallow, a reluctant revelation creeping from my belly.

What is this girl doing, if not being suspicious?

The first girl I'd fancied in a good long while and she's probably going to be a murderer. Great. Just what Char had told me to bring home.

Turning my gaze from the distracting girl, I find the person next to her: a boy about her age, with golden tan skin and hair to match. He looks muscular and strong, and I decide he's my first target to take out.

I hope that I'm not making the wrong decision.

Around me, I feel the heatless light of the sun on the dry cracks of the ground; I feel the water, as it turns and shifts, speeding towards its descent. My power rises, surfaces, flares: I become air and sand, water and earth, as I vanish like a chameleon into the shadows around me. My blood thrums in a steady, magic filled pulse as I tap into the gifts my necromancer body has.

The boy doesn't see me coming as I wrap a hand around his mouth and, with my other hand, manoeuvre his arm behind his back. My magic encircles his scream, muffling him: he can only blink in surprise.

The girl is still speaking to her boy, and thankfully, she hasn't turned around yet. I can't quite make out her words— but perhaps that's because my ears are crying that her voice, as dark and deathly as it is, sounds like birdsong.

We haven't had birds in the Underworld since...

I push away that thought.

Curious to look properly at her face, I find myself willing her to turn. Without my approval, my mouth speaks.

'And I have found my culprit.'

She stumbles and turns, the most human thing I've seen of her so far. The face that meets mine is as familiar and as old as time itself, yet I've never seen it before. But her dark blue eyes, startled and afraid, send a whisper through my mind.

Where have you been all this time?

No— I know well by now that she's not coming back, that every trick of Hecate's was solely to build up my hopes and then shatter them entirely. She loves to play games like that. And besides, this girl— this fiery, cunning tigress— is nothing like Persephone. They look nothing alike, and from the mumbled cussing, Persephone didn't know half those cuss words either.

Much more likely is that Hecate sent this girl, sent her to capture me and distract me.

They say life's a bitch but trust me—death is worse.

So I'm about to demand that the girl tell me who she is or her boyfriend will get it, when my tigress' face changes. She screams and flutters to the floor, raising a hand to her brow like she's about to faint.

How in Hell's name do I threaten somebody on the floor, crying for help?

Cunning, wicked tigress.

I can see Char nodding his approval already, and that irks me to know she's done exactly what I'd have done if I were her.

'Shut up,' I say through gritted teeth. 'You're not getting away.'

I start to say, 'And there's nobody around to answer your screams,' when, firstly, I realise how creepy it sounds and secondly— she starts to scream again. A keening, colossal wail that makes me flinch, loosening my grip on the boy. If anything, the girl's got a good pair of lungs. Enough to shatter windows, I suspect.

I spot her, crawling pathetically along the floor. My brows knit, and my grip slackens again. Had I misjudged the two?

A shooting, dull pain hits my abdomen as the boy brings his elbow into my belly. I double over, wheezing and crying out. His nails scratch as he scrabbles to get away from me, sending hot blood slowly seeping down my face. He's got a lucky aim— he winded me. As I straighten, he's not as skilled as I presumed: his stance, as he readies it, looks shaky and unwilling.

With one eye shut, I leap into the fray. Even without activating my powers, I'm quicker and smarter than the boy. His attacks are clumsy, slow, uncoordinated: I block and parry with grim ease, until I feel like he needs to hit me a few times for his own morale. As I allow him to take a step inside my guard and give himself an opportunity, we are both distracted by the lithe figure prowling towards us.

She's literally shredded her dress. She's standing in her underwear; a tight, lacy corset and negligible things. Her face is as thunderous as ever, and she approaches me with the readiness of a drunken sailor facing a brawl. I blush, my gaze automatically shooting anywhere but to her breasts, her lips, her exposed body.

I count to ten. Today is the hardest day, ever. And my guard has completely disintegrated.

'Put him down!' her voice rings out. A sneaky peek tells me her face is hardened, set. She pulls the blade high— she's stolen the dead Ferryman's cutlass!— so she's pointing it towards me. 'I'm your enemy now.'

Enemy.

Right? The girl with the deliciously exposed shoulders is trying to kill me.

And damn, is it working.

I manage to side step her attack at the last possible moment. One minute, she's glaring at me and then, catching me off guard, she's rushing towards me, sword raised. I move with infuriating slowness.

Even worse is the tearing sound that registers after she's danced backwards, and a glance to my chest affirms my fears.

A nasty, long tear now adorns my leather jacket.

Something feral inside me snarls. I love this jacket.

She's killed it.

I'm gripping one of the knives at my belt before I can say, 'Not my jacket, you bitch!'

And then we're fighting, me with a goddamn knife and her with a cutlass, sidestepping and dancing around one another like flirtatious assassins. As our blades clash and screech, metal biting metal, metal biting flesh, metal biting— more of my damn jacket— I thank Char over and over for drilling my blade work until I could do it automatically.

Because if he hadn't, one look from those blue eyes and she'd have gutted me in an instant. Only instinct keeps me defending my lazy attempts to defend; I'm too busy staring at her, conscious of her.

Finally, I take a step into her without thought, and it works. She falters.

I take her arm.

That damn tigress catches me out again: she drops and scratches, hisses and rolls— she slips through my fingers like smoke, only to materialise before me with glee and triumph.

There's something so attractive about a woman that literally runs circles around me.

Time to get serious. I wipe my expression clear, plastering on a sweet and dark smile before selecting a second knife.

I use my necromancer gifts. I become shadow, whirling around her, so she's left reeling. To my surprise, she senses me— she doesn't need to use her eyes, like most. Perhaps she hears the crunch of my boots on the mud floor, or the scent of me behind her.

Either way, another cut of red wells up, this time on my arm.

But she's left herself close. Close enough that I can see the freckles on her cheeks, feel the urge to press her soft skin against mine...

I smile. 'Who are you?'

Char's teaching has drilled in enough that I raise my blade to her throat, but she's one clear thought ahead, and her tiny body makes a surprising impact as she rams me. I splutter, winded, and lose my balance, and we both topple. She regains her posture first, hands out to grab the knife where I'd dropped it, but I pull her back with the first thing I reach— her beautiful brown hair.

Her shriek of pain sends a trail of ice through my belly. That's when I realise that I don't want to hurt her, so I try to restrain her instead. If I can talk to her, maybe we'll find out what's going on.

She jabs my windpipe.

My throat makes a sound like a broken banjo. Eyes narrowed, she pushes me to the floor. Then the most wicked girl is on top of me and any comprehensible thought leaves my brain.

Her face— such anger and resentment are expressed there, mixed with a sorrow behind her blue eyes that seems much older than she. Her age— young, by human standards— can surely not be older than twenty.

Human. That's what she is. I can see it now, sense it. If she hadn't bewitched me so fully, perhaps my necromancy would have told me sooner that her soul was still beating behind that ribcage.

My tigress is dead. What could have possibly killed her? Any disease would cower.

I'm Death itself, and I'm cowering.

I try not to stare at her lips as they move, forming words. Thankfully, my brain focuses in enough time to make them out: to not be so utterly gormless in her presence.

'I am innocent! You attacked us!'

Innocent— innocent?

She must be kidding. No innocent has that much anger, sorrow and emotion roiling inside of them— enough to kill.

But her hands are still wrapped on my throat, and my voice comes out as a croak as I say, 'You technically attacked me, miss.'

Where is my sarcasm, my wit, the humour that solved many a tension within a court dispute? Where is my calm?

'Stop going easy on me just because I'm in my underwear! You were all ready to kill me earlier!'

That's actually a good point, but not because of the reasons she thinks. I'm just too head over heels to lift a finger in my defence.

Because that moment she ripped apart that wedding dress, something inside of me lit with fire.

Firmly, I take hold of her wrists, my mouth dry. 'That was before you took off your dress—'

But something is catching up in my brain, still addled and nonsensical because of the woman half straddling me. What was that thought earlier?

Oh yes.

Wedding dress. It had been filthy, but she'd been wearing the lace and pomp of a woman at her wedding, and the corset underneath is similarly adorned, for the attention of the lover she'd not reached.

My tigress was supposed to get married. Perhaps she had gotten married— but she'd died in that wedding dress, all the same, before that dress could be taken off her. She hadn't lived through her wedding night.

Something roars at that, something obstinate and ugly, questioning who.

Then something drops into place.

What year is it? I desperately think. How many years since the last one?

Her hand rises, and I realise she thinks I'm being impertinent.

'No, no, the previous dress was filthy— I didn't realise— you're a bride.'

No, not just any bride.

You're my bride.

I'm the lover you never reached.

I'm the reason you never lived beyond your wedding day.

Bile rises in my throat, a stark reminder of a fact I suppress every ten years. Because, even though I've never found her, I never stopped the tradition of sacrifices. Hecate's spell ensures that if I stop the sacrifices, she'll gain control immediately.

But— deep down— I knew there was a choice. I had just chosen to ignore it.

My bride presses a knee to my chest. A crunch of my bones, and she's literally crushing my heart. That boy nearby— her chaperone, I realise— brings her cutlass back to her. Less like a guard, I realise, and more like her bloody steward.

A smile turns the corners of my mouth. I fight it, but I can't help it: I can't think of a person less like the stereotype of an innocent virgin.

My face remains neutral as best I can as she brandishes the sword towards my face.

'You don't get to ask questions!'

'It wasn't a question,' I say.

'...Answer my questions! Who are you and what happened to the Ferryman?'

My cheeks heat, and I feel oddly aware of her heavy breathing, her tight corset bursting as she heaves out hunks of air.

Something tells me I can't give myself away yet. She doesn't know that I'm her husband, I'm the one that's cost her life— and if she finds out, maybe she'll decide to use that cutlass.

So I say something reckless.

'I'm a bounty hunter. And you're Death's Bride.'

She blinks, and for a moment I swear she's seen through my rushed lie.

'What happened to the Ferryman?' she demands. 'You have a pretty face, bounty hunter. How much information will you give me to save it?'

This truth I can tell her. 'I found him like this. Which is why I thought you—'

From the glance she shares with the other boy, I know she's innocent. She was as scared to see me as I was to see her: we both thought the other a killer.

'We didn't kill him,' she says, and she angles her head as though she's really sizing me up. 'We were looking for a way across. How else can we get across?'

'So you are the Bride,' I say, wanting confirmation. Why else would she need to cross?

Her eyes narrow further. Her whole expression has been fixed for the last five minutes as a mask of annoyance and distrust. 'What makes you say that?'

I want to laugh. I'd been late to recognise who she is, but that's because I'm keenly aware of her. Char would have chided my foolishness.

'The Bridal attire...' I say, trying to seem unperturbed. 'The young, innocent girl and her noble guide...looking for a way to get across the Styx.'

She weighs her options, twisting her head. Behind those eyes, a cunning and calculating mind is deciding whether or not she trusts me.

'What do you want, bounty hunter? We can pay you money. The coins we would have given to the Ferryman, were he alive...'

Her voice trails off as I look at her, and she looks at me. Now we've stopped fighting, our intimate position is making my heart thud against my chest, and I'm terrified she can hear it. I plaster a casual smile and say, 'I'd like for you to get off me.'

Actually, I really, really wouldn't— which is what's very, very bad.

I pull at my hair, an instinctual habit of my distress. Her eyes rake over me, and I fight the urge to glance at what she's assessing. I can't tell what's behind her eyes.

Then she stands up.

To my chagrin, she still has a sword at my throat.

Infuriating tigress.

'I'm off,' she says, with a petulant shrug. 'Now, will you take us across the Styx?'

A way across? Like, another Ferryman, here on the Styx? The laugh that escapes my mouth is a mixture of delirium and mirth, brought on by the exhaustion of the day and the strangeness of the last twenty minutes.

I can't tell her about the Ferrymen without explaining who I am— who I really am— and there's only one way I can think of to get across. And I can't help her— it's stipulated in Hecate's spell. I'm on dangerous ground already, but following me shouldn't be out of the rules.

My tigress will have to be as cunning as I think she is. But to be a Queen of the Underworld, she has to be.

'Why do you think I'm here?' I say, 'I'm looking for a way across, too. I'm a bounty hunter, not a sailor.'

Not quite true.

'What were you doing out here?' she asks, and she's looking at me curiously. Too curiously.

'Do you really want to know?' I say, my voice dropping low. If I tell her that I'm actually Death and I spend my days doing a number of necromantic things, what will she say?

'Answer me! What were you doing out here?'

I sigh. My acting skills are terrible: my lies aren't selling. I need to be more thorough. So I spin a small tale that encompasses some of my necromantic duties of shepherding souls along with some details of the murders. When she finally lowers her weapon, I'm surprised that she's believing my tale.

'Three is better than one, right?' she shrugs. 'We're both on the same side, so no point fighting about it. I'm Nerissa. That lump over there is Mercer.'

Nerissa. It's the most beautiful name I've heard in years. It's a word in an ancient language meaning sea nymph.

Staring at the ethereal girl, it's clear her name suits her.

In the background, her guide— Mercer— is vomiting forcefully. I can't help but laugh: her expression is priceless. A mixture of revulsion and pity, and plain irritation. A guide that's useless.

'What's your name?' she asks.

I smile. It's the first real truth I can tell her.

'You can call me Hadrian.'

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