Page 30 of Hades

Perhaps his children got that from him.

Because the feeling of uselessness that invaded his soul tore at his strength too, filling him with both shame and anger.

He couldn’t enter the mortal world. It was forbidden. Zeus had laid down the law about that a long time ago. He wasn’t to leave the Underworld. His power was too dark—too strong for that fragile world to bear.

But he couldn’t stand here and do nothing. He turned away from his children as they discussed what they should do and gazed at the palace again—a home he had built for Persephone.

Was she really in the mortal realm?

He couldn’t bear the thought of her being in a place where he couldn’t reach her. It conjured memories of the day he had first seen her, how he had broken the rules and had found a beautiful scarlet-haired maiden in an enchanted forest. A place where the very air had seemed to sparkle as he had watched her tending to colourful blooms and speaking to the small animals. She had looked as if she had been born of the woods in her flowing green gown, with flowers in her hair like a crown, as if she had been made to be his queen, and her little bare feet, and her bright emerald eyes filled with light.

She had bewitched him.

And he had fallen for her in an instant.

Hades clenched his fists. He couldn’t live without her.

And he wouldn’t.

If he had to break all the rules again, if he had to risk it all, he would do it.

He had taken her back from someone once.

And he would do it again.

Chapter 9

“We could not locate him.”

Those were not the words Hades had wanted to hear leaving Thanatos’s lips when the god of death returned to the palace with his twin in tow. Hades curled the talons of his black gauntlets over the arms of his throne and the mountain behind him quaked and released another thick plume of ash.

Heat washed around him as a fresh ribbon of lava snaked down the black face and several boulders tumbled into the churning river that separated his outdoor throne room from the mountain. The open-air room was a relic of his old temple, situated on the banks of a river facing a sheer cliff atop which the palace stood.

A place where people had come to beg at his feet before he had met Persephone.

A place where he had condemned many to Tartarus, or a fate far worse.

Ten thick, black fluted columns set two metres apart supported a lintel decorated with a frieze on either side of him, forming an avenue between his throne and the tunnel that cut into the cliff and led up to the palace where it towered above him. Atop each column, a statue glared down into the middle of the temple. A few were missing, thanks to one of his sons. Esher had come close to toppling this place when they had fought here, his son battling him for the soul of Aiko, his beloved, when she had been taken from him by the enemy.

Hades stared Thanatos and Hypnos down, his mood darkening as he thought about that day and how fiercely Esher had fought him, and how Persephone had intervened to calm them both and bring about a peaceful conclusion to their battle. He thought about how angry and wounded Esher had been, how ready he had been to kill his own flesh and blood—his own parents—to have Aiko back in his life.

Hades felt that same anger and pain, that same desperate need.

No. What he felt was a rage and hurt ten thousand times more potent, and it made him ten thousand times more dangerous than his son had been.

Persephone had been missing for close to a day and already the darkness was stealing control, slowly gaining ground against the light, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold out against it.

Or what would happen when it consumed him.

Twisted black thoughts had kept him awake through the night, his backside planted on his throne, with only his shadows for company. They had driven off anyone who had come to see him, even his sons. Valen and Marek had been forced to file their reports from a distance, yelling them at him. Esher had taken one look at him and grumbled that he would tell Keras his news from the mortal world instead.

“Find him,” Hades growled and pressed his claws into the arms of the throne, one that had been constructed of bones so ancient they were now black stone.

He had killed the beast they had belonged to, a creature that had threatened his realm and all in it, a primordial being that had almost killed him but in the end he had been the victor.

Just as he would be this time.

“Find him, or I will.” Hades slid his crimson gaze towards Hypnos. The god of sleep resembled his twin in many ways, with his fall of black hair and silver eyes, and impressive height and build, but he lacked the onyx feathered wings of his brother. “If I find him, he will not be given a chance to defend himself.”

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