Page 72 of Broken Obsession

It didn’t mean anything. It’d been a payment for services rendered, nothing more.

It couldn’t be anything more.

Eden still hadn’t decided how far he was willing to take this.

“Strange how?” Ares cocked his head, clearly perplexed.

He glanced around to make sure no one was too close, then lowered his voice anyway and said, “You’re acting like my boyfriend. Which you are not.”

“Aren’t I though?”

Eden stared at him, but Ares didn’t falter. “Did you sneak that clause into the contract as well?”

“No.”

“Then no, you aren’t. I don’t recall that being a part of the deal we made.”

“When? The night I killed Galen Stone for you?”

“Keep your voice down!”

“Why? No one here cares what I do.”

If the warning Celeste had just given was any indicator, that wasn’t true at all. They cared, they just wouldn’t risk theirown necks to try and stop him. Which led him back to the other odd part of that conversation…

“Why do they take that whole nickname of yours so seriously?” he asked. “And is it only members of the founding families, or is it the whole campus?”

“Nickname?”

He snorted. “The Dean acted like you were a real god just now.”

“Oh, that.” Ares turned and started down the stairs, leaving Eden to either linger dumbly or follow.

With a growl, he went after him, catching up on a center path that cut across the north quad. “Lucifer.”

“People like to talk. Does it really matter?”

Eden weighed his options, but curiosity had always been his biggest weakness. Hell, wasn’t that how he’d ended up in bed with Ares? He’d wanted to know what the Black Hart really had to offer. If it was worth it.

It had been, but that was beside the point.

He didn’t really have anything left to offer in exchange for answers. Despite his complaints, Eden knew better. Ares had lured him here with the promise of revenge and a job he’d always wanted. He’d known what he was doing when he’d made that deal with the devil, knew that, on some level, ownership was going to come into play, whether Eden agreed to sign over his life or not.

If Ares really wanted to hold his hand and make their relationship known to everyone here, there was nothing Eden could do to stop him.

But answers…Answers he could get.

“Fine, don’t tell me.” It was risky, but recalling how the Black Hart had reacted to Noon’s mere presence gave him an idea. It was a bad one, but he was going to go for it anyway.

Damn that curiosity.

“I’ll just ask Nyoka,” Eden concluded, like it was no big deal. Like he’d spoken to the man whose name he’d only just learned a dozen times before.

As expected, Ares came up short, freezing in place. The flicker in his red gaze warned Eden he was already close to pushing too far, but fortune favored the bold and all that jazz.

“What?” He turned on his heels so he could face off with the stubborn Black Hart, slipping his hands into his front pockets to add to the casual air he was trying to project. “Since you won’t tell me yourself, that leaves me no choice but to seek answers elsewhere. What was the other one? The one you called yesterday? Ellery, right?”

“Paradise.”