Page 1 of Hades

Chapter 1

Ashaft of light sliced through the darkness. Fragile. Dim. The only light in this darkening world.

The Underworld.

His realm. His home. The lands he would do anything to protect, upholding his sacred vow and crushing any who dared rise against him, who dared target the souls under his care.

Who dared target his family.

Hades’s heart beat slowly. Evenly. Controlled. His breaths were steady.

A contrast to the desperate, fearful panting of the female on her knees before him in the windowless black room in the heart of his prison—Tartarus. A place where she had been many times in the last few months. Hades tightened his fists until his bones creaked under the intense pressure.

A place where she belonged.

He stared down at her, his face impassive, his emotions in check, for only a fool would allow an enemy to see such weakness.

And Hades was no fool.

Millennia of ruling the Underworld had taught him many lessons, but none more essential than this one—never reveal a weakness to an enemy, for they would always exploit it.

And for that reason, the goddess kneeling before him, her raven braids matted with filth, her black skirt ripped to reveal dirty scarred skin, and a narrow strip of fabric binding her breasts, had seen nothing but this cold mask he wore in all the times he had dragged her from her cell.

He had mistakenly revealed his weakness to his enemy, and they had exploited it.

Had targeted not just his beloved realm, but his family.

Had stolen his daughter from his cherished wife—from him—for centuries, making them believe she was dead.

Gone.

Lost to them forever.

A piece of his heart he thought he would never get back.

For that alone, he would have visited Eris to torture her daily for the rest of time, but the goddess had desperately confessed she’d had no part in Calindria’s false death and subsequent imprisonment. Eris had begged. Pleaded. Beseeched him as his shadows had torn into her, lancing her flesh and spilling her blood across the cracked black ground.

Oh, how the little goddess of strife had screamed.

Pleasure flitted through him, brief and fleeting, and neither of the other two occupants of the interrogation room saw it.

One, because the male was staring at the wretch before Hades as he was. The other because her head slumped forwards as if it had become too heavy for her to hold up. Her ragged breaths stirred the copper-drenched air. Fresh blood slid down her hunched shoulders, seeping from eight puncture marks across her back.

One for each of his children.

“My…” she croaked, her voice hoarse from screaming, and coughed to clear her throat. Her voice was faint—pathetic—when she managed to speak again. “My god-king—”

A hundred needle-like shadows exploded from the black ground and stabbed her as one as rage burned up his blood, disgust swift to roll through him, and as she cried out, her body bowing backwards and chest arching towards the pale light that filtered down onto her, he had to grind his teeth to stop himself from thundering his words at her.

“Dare,” he snarled instead, the single word making the ground beneath his pointed black metal boots quake. He lowered his voice to a fierce hiss. “Dare speak of me as your king, impudent filth. You serve another and I will know her location. Youwilltell me.”

As the last of her breath left her on a broken scream, Eris slumped forwards again, further this time, so her brow kissed the bloodstained dirt beneath her.

His fury mounted and swirled like a hurricane inside him, growing darker and more dangerous by the second—too powerful to contain despite the strength of his will. The thought of what this goddess had done, how long she had been in his service before she had betrayed him and had turned on her own family and his, and how close she had come to ending him with a poisoned blade, had his temper snapping the tethers holding it in place. He reached his gauntleted right hand out towards her before he could stop himself.

Hades stretched his black talons outwards, opening his fist, and then slowly closed it as he glared down at Eris.

On her next ragged inhale, she wheezed and then choked, and he stood still and silent as he gradually closed his fist further, savouring how the scent of her panic cut through the coppery stench of her blood and she frantically clawed at her throat and clutched at the ground. Her head lifted, desperate and agonised amber eyes seeking his.

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