His features softened, and my heart skipped a beat. Whenever Hadrian looked at me with such tenderness, whatever worries I had simply faded away, and everything in my world felt right again...even if there always seemed someone new wanting to kill me.
Hadrian asked me if I was ready to talk, and a vivid memory flashed in my mind: a coin burning and melting into my flesh—-
My fingers uncurled involuntarily, and when I glanced down, I was stunned to see two Chinese characters tattooed on my palm in bright red ink.
Hadrian's lips tightened as he gazed down at my hand. "Do you know what this means?"
I shook my head.
"It's a name," Hadrian said flatly.
"Li Shang?" I guessed hopefully.
My husband's forehead creased. "Li Shang?"
"Um, never mind." If he realized Li Shang was another Disney character, I had a feeling Hadrian might kill me for real this time.
"These characters spell the name Yan Wang. He's the Chinese god of death—-"
My brows shot up. "Are you saying Chinese ghosts aren't allowed in your Underworld?" Because if he was, that was kinda—-oh, good, he was shaking his head.
"He is who I am in his realm."
"Ah." I totally got it now. "We're talking Spiderverse, right?"
"Parallel universe," Hadrian corrected.
"Exactly. Spiderverse."
Hadrian's lips curved, and I automatically smiled back, knowing that we had just silently agreed to disagree.
"How did you know to look for Yan Wang?"
I dug into my pocket to show him Little Iron, and Hadrian nodded in understanding. "He had me a little worried in the beginning," I admitted ruefully. "I asked Little Iron to show me the coin's owner first, and it just kept hopping—-"
Hadrian nodded thoughtfully. "As it should've."
Should have?
"You were the coin's owner, milady. Little Iron could only hop on your hand since it had nowhere else to go."
Oh, so that was what the hopping was all about!
Hadrian's gaze gleamed. "You didn't realize what it was doing?"
"Of course I did!" Not.
"Then—-"
"Anyway." I changed the topic in a rush and saw Hadrian's jaw harden noticeably as I relayed to him everything Yan Wang had said. He looked murderously grim by the time I finished...but not surprised.
"Is there something you don't know about their world?"
"Not much."
Gaah. With other men, those two words could've sounded obnoxious and distasteful, but since this was Hadrian, his mild tone only made it seem as if he was stating a fact, and it was honestly one of my favorite things about him. I just loved it so much every time he calmly asserted his Greek god...ship?
"Coins from their realm are made of powerful magic," Hadrian went on to say. "They can be used to trap the living in the Underworld and allow ghosts to take their place aboveground. In other cases, coins can be used to place a death curse on a person—-"
"Like mine," I said gloomily.
"The moment you touched the coin, you must've seen shadows or some semblance of darkness?"
I nodded reluctantly, remembering that strange sensation I had when my fingers came in contact with the coin. The shadows had been real, after all, never mind if this was one of the rare times I wished I was mistaken.
"Those shadows could and would have killed you in an instant...if you were human. But because you are who you are..."
Hadrian's pause was noticeable, and I couldn't help smiling despite everything. "Because I'm LOTUS," I said sweetly. "You can say it, can't you?"
"Because you're the Lady of the Underworld," Hadrian said instead as if he hadn't heard a thing, "the next worst thing the coin could've done was to trap you there for eternity. Even gods and goddesses require souls to exist, and if your soul hadn't returned to its physical shell in time, your body would've eventually lost its immortality and become susceptible to death."
And Little Iron might've known that, I realized, which could then explain why it had been in such a hurry for me to get to Yan Wang.
"If, on the other hand, someone succeeded in taking your life over there, it would've been worse. Your soul would remain trapped in their world...for eternity."
I could only stare at him in silence for several moments, my mind still reeling from all of the risks that I had unknowingly taken. Lost immortality. Death. Trapped for eternity. I couldn't believe I had risked all of that...and all because I had this silly habit of picking loose change?
"I'm sorry," I told Hadrian morosely. His one and only wish was to keep my neck out of trouble for a month, and I hadn't been unable to last a day. With my current track record, I really wouldn't be surprised if I ended up being assigned the title of Goddess of People Who Always Get Themselves in Trouble for the Stupidest Reasons.
"You were lucky Little Iron took you to Yan Wang," Hadrian said gently.
"I know." I was lucky as hell, but...what if there came a time when I was no longer lucky?