Page 45 of Hades

A rosebush.

He looked at the other plants he had trampled in his dark need to reach the soldier, cleaving a path through them and crushing the life from their delicate forms. The despair he had desired to paint across the male’s face filled him instead and he staggered back along the path, shaking his head as his eyes moistened.

No.

He bent and tried to fix one of the blue poppies, flashing his fangs at it when his clumsy attempt only broke the flower from the bruised stem. He cast it aside, his growl like thunder as frustration clamoured in his veins and dark shadows rolled outwards from him. They twined with the flowers, as desperate as he was to fix what he had done.

But his efforts were in vain.

Hades sank to his knees in the middle of the broken blooms, his shoulders sagging as his eyes misted and burned, and he ached behind his sternum.

Where his heart should have been.

He gathered several of the flowers to him and opened his palm to stare at them, his head bent and other arm hanging limp at his side. Persephone had worked so hard to make his soil bear life, and he had destroyed her painstaking efforts. His black claws curled over the flowers and it took all of his iron will to stop himself from crushing them, destroying the evidence of what he had done.

Eyes landed on him, more than just the guards warily watching him now.

Hades’s head whipped to his left and he bared his fangs at several of his children where they stood over one hundred feet away, closer to the palace. Hunger for violence seethed inside him, spreading poisonous tendrils through his mind and body that coaxed him into surrendering to the urge to lash out at them and put them in their places.

Perhaps even fight one of them.

His gaze shifted to Thanatos and then Keras.

Which would be the stronger of the two? Which would satisfy this craving for violence that gripped him, demanding satisfaction?

He could fight both of them.

Yes.

Both of them.

Or perhaps all four males.

Ares and Daimon were strong too.

Battling all four of them could satisfy him.

Hades lumbered onto his feet, his claws twitching and fangs itching in his gums, throbbing with a need to rip into flesh. Thirst raked him, a consuming need for the feel of blood pouring down his chin and bathing his tongue. He staggered a few steps towards them in a haze, the visions of battling them that spun through his mind seducing him and tugging him in their direction.

The scent of lilies hit him and he dropped his gaze, tears spilling down his cheeks as he stared at the white flowers beneath his boots.

“Persephone,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion, and his brow furrowed as he bent towards the blooms. He plucked one, lifted it to his nose, and closed his eyes as he breathed in the comforting fragrance that so closely matched Persephone’s scent. The rage that had been stealing control of him lost its hold, falling away as he sank into her scent.

His love.

His everything.

In the distance, Cerberus whined as if feeling everything Hades did, the pitiful sound reaching across the palace grounds to him. He pivoted in the direction of the stables, the urge to lash out at his children forgotten as the need to see his beloved pet—theirbeloved pet—seized him.

Keras had been against bringing Cerberus out of hiding. All of his children had been in fact. Hades hadn’t cared. He needed Cerberus. The beast was the only thing stopping Hades from stepping off the edge he was dangerously close to now. He idly reached up and brushed his fingers through his wild black hair, caught hold of his spiked obsidian crown and cast it away from him, flinging it across the ground and not caring where it landed.

Because without his queen, he was no king.

He was a beast.

A monster.

Cerberus extended his middle head towards Hades the moment he was within reach and Hades placed his hand on the black beast’s muzzle. Despite the creature’s formidable appearance—all razor-sharp fangs and claws, and hulking muscle—his fur was soft and comforting, rousing memories of better days when Cerberus had often fallen asleep after a long walk and Hades had rested with his back against him, propping himself up.

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