Page 6 of Hades

Becoming a ray of light and a streak of colour he had come to crave, had grown addicted to, and now couldn’t live without.

Eris’s gaze seared the side of his face.

He slid a look at her and bared his fangs when he caught her expression. It wasn’t shocked or sympathetic. It was knowing. Conniving. He had let the mask of ice slip and revealed his turbulent emotions to her, and now she was aware of his weakness and saw it as a source of hope.

Hades decided to crush it again.

“Deal with her,” he growled and spun on his heel, his crimson cloak swirling outwards as he pivoted to face the door and stalked towards it. “I want to hear her screams from my palace.”

Not that he would be listening.

He needed to see Persephone.

The second he was beyond the boundaries of Tartarus, a black vale stretching around him and cragged peaks piercing the turbulent crimson sky, he focused and teleported.

Landed in the grounds of his home.

He stared at the long, elegant black stone palace that was almost Georgian in appearance, with rows of windows set between half columns and a low-pitched roof hidden behind a balustrade that ran the length of the building. In the central third of the façade, full columns supported a triangular pediment. It had been a gift to Persephone after she had seen one like it in England and had come home prattling excitedly about modern architecture.

He had wanted to make her happy, so the design and construction of their new home had started immediately.

He always wanted to make her happy.

Her smile was a light that brightened the darkest reaches of his heart.

Hades swept his gaze over the palace and the colourful gardens she had created, and the other mansions that occupied the grounds—the homes of his children—and then the ancient black Grecian temples behind him, a feeling building inside him.

Growing stronger.

And stronger.

Every second of every day he failed to find and put a stop to Mnemosyne.

This home his family shared, the smile that lit up his world, the children that meant more to him than they would ever know, all of it would cease to exist if he didn’t act soon.

Time was running out.

Chapter 2

Persephone hurried from room to room in the palace, checking every one she passed even though she knew she wouldn’t find who she was looking for in the mixture of dark salons and studies, and the odd more brightly coloured drawing room.

Hades.

She needed to see him.

That need had been building all day. No. It had been building before that. He had been troubled and distant when he had returned to her yesterday, after she had reached out to him because she had felt the darkness rising within him.

And he had held her for close to an hour.

Unmoving. Unspeaking.

He had stormed right up to her in their chambers and had swept her into his arms and just held her.

She curled her hand into a fist and tucked it close to her heart, so the dark green layers of her strapless dress brushed her wrist, the warmth she had felt in his embrace giving way to a chill that numbed her. Something was wrong. Hades had been troubled from the moment this war had begun, but he had never been so distant.

When he had released her, he had dropped a kiss on her brow and muttered something about needing to speak with the legions.

And then he had left.

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