Page 112 of Queen of the Underworld

And he wanted to keep that trust between them, and strengthen it if he could.

He wanted to trust her.

“The darkness…” he started and her eyes lit up, the dull edge of resignation that had been filling them disappearing in a heartbeat. He cleared his throat and fought for the words, to find a way of putting it that wouldn’t make her fear him or despise him. “The darkness is… My darkness is part of me… but in a different way to yours.”

“An affliction,” she murmured thoughtfully and when he frowned at her, her eyebrows rose and she gave a little shrug. “I have been studying you and how you change, and it always seems to me like you have to fight the change that comes over you, as if you have no control over it. It is not anger, nor rage, that makes you dark. It is something else, isn’t it?”

Hades nodded and tried to push the words out, but it was harder than he had expected and they refused to come. He stared at Persephone. He could trust her. She wouldn’t betray him. She wouldn’t run from him.

She had proven that.

Telling her might lift the weight from his heart, and it might even help him master the darkness so it wouldn’t take him again. Or at least it wouldn’t take him as easily as it did now.

If he told her of it, she might be able to help him with it.

The thought of that was more than appealing. It was as bewitching as she was as she patiently waited, not pressing or pushing him to tell her. That soft look in her eyes spoke to him, telling him that even if he failed to tell her, if he couldn’t find the words or the courage right now, that she wouldn’t be upset. She would continue to wait, even if it took forever for him to find the strength to tell her.

“It is an affliction,” he said, repeating what she had said in order to get the words flowing, and held her gaze, needing to lose himself in it in order to find his courage. “Many centuries ago, when I was given the Underworld to rule, I was bitter and angry. My brothers had betrayed me and condemned me to this dark place. I raged and I warred, and I spilled blood across the realm. With every drop, something grew inside me, feeding on the violence and the anger, and the hatred. I did not realise what was happening until it was too late. I created this darkness that overcomes me at times, and I must live with it.”

Persephone stroked his brow again, her featherlight touch soothing him as he let it all flow out of him, feeling as if a dam had broken and he couldn’t stop the surge.

“Rather than fighting it, I fed the darkness. I courted it. I wallowed in it. I realised my mistake when the blackouts began.”

She frowned now, concern flickering in her eyes. “Blackouts?”

His eyebrows pitched low and he struggled to hold her gaze. “If the darkness takes me, I find it hard to recall things I have done. I can wake a great distance from the temple grounds, bathed in blood, surrounded by death.”

Just as he had not long ago.

Hades didn’t tell her that. There were some things she was better off not knowing.

“They happen infrequently and I would never harm you, my love.” He threaded his fingers through her hair.

She smiled softly. “I know. What does it feel like?”

“When the darkness takes me?” He waited for her to nod before he continued. “Cold. Numbing. Like I am a prisoner in my own body. I am not in control. It poisons my mind, blackening it, and all I feel is an intense craving for violence—a thirst for bloodshed. I care little about anything when I am lost to it. It is…debilitating.”

It was the first time he had ever called it that, admitting how terrible it felt and how he despised the lack of control in only a single word.

One that made him feel weak.

But Persephone made him feel strong as she held his gaze, silently listening to him with no trace of judgement in her eyes. There was only warmth and understanding.

Warmth and understanding that fuelled his courage and gave him the strength to continue, pushing another admission up from the depths of his black soul that was difficult and cranked him tight inside as he struggled to force the words to leave his lips.

“The darkness… is like a living thing. It… speaks to me. Whispers to me.” He cast his gaze away from her, unable to look at her as he confessed something that made him feel weak and vulnerable, and he was sure would taint her opinion of him. “It tempts me, Persephone. It seduces… drawing me into its embrace as it feeds my fears to weaken me.”

“Even now?” she asked softly.

Hades nodded stiffly, because it was hissing vile things at him, tormenting him with thoughts that Persephone might no longer want him if he said anything else about the darkness.

Rather than leaving him, Persephone shuffled closer, making blissful contact with him, and gently framed his face in her warm, soft palms. She angled his head towards her, her emerald eyes still filled with understanding, and then she lowered her mouth to his and tenderly kissed him.

A kiss that made him ache and yearn for more.

A kiss that was a balm to his weary soul.

She drew back and breathed against his lips, “Even now?”

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