Page 117 of Queen of the Underworld

And lingered.

He glanced back at Hades.

Looked as if he wanted to say something as his dark eyebrows furrowed slightly and his lips parted, but then he disappeared.

Hades lowered his head and rested his cheek against the top of Persephone’s head. Her grip didn’t loosen. She clung to him as tightly as he did to her, and he liked to believe she didn’t want to let him go either and that she would be as miserable as he during their time apart.

He lightly rubbed her back, unsure how to comfort her, but wishing he could steal her hurt away and free her from it.

How he had changed.

How she had changed him.

By the gods, he loved her.

Would do anything for her.

Even bear months away from her.

Although he still wasn’t sure he would be able to manage it, not without losing himself to the darkness again. Was his realm doomed to fall back into darkness and violence as the light she created within him guttered out during their time apart? Only to find balance and peace whenever she returned?

He wasn’t sure the Underworld could take it. He didn’t want his people to suffer because his only light in this world was far from him, too far to keep the darkness at bay for him.

If he told her how her leaving might cause death and cruelty and violence too, would she stay?

Chapter 34

Hades drew back and looked down at Persephone, his heart supplying the answer to that question. He couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t place her in that position, making her choose between bearing the deaths of mortals and bearing the horrors of what would happen to the souls in his realm. He would do his best to keep them from her and make her believe that his realm continued as it was now without her.

That he was continuing as he was now without her.

An impossible feat.

The moment she returned to him, she would see the darkness had taken him, and would be forced to draw him back into the light.

He smiled tightly when she emerged from his embrace and looked up at him, her eyes red and lashes still damp. She looked far too pale still. He carefully brushed the backs of his talons across her cheek, concern for her eclipsing the concern he felt for himself and his realm.

“Do you wish to go somewhere still?” he husked, willing to do all the things she wanted in the scant few hours they had together. Whatever she desired, she would have.

She nodded.

“To the Elysian Fields?” He focused on that part of the realm, preparing to teleport her there.

Only she stopped him with a small shake of her head.

He frowned. “Where then? To our chambers?”

He smiled wickedly, trying to lighten the mood and succeeding judging by the half smile she gave him and the way her gaze admonished him.

“The orchard.” Her gaze left him to drift up to her right, towards the top of the plateau that towered above them beyond the sheer cliff of the canyon. “I would like to go to the orchard.”

“The Elysian Fields are far more beautiful, my love.” He cupped her cheek and canted his head, studying her distant gaze and not liking how far away from him she already looked.

She forced another smile as her gaze came back to lock with his. “And I will see them when I am… next here. I will see them when I am next here.”

For a heartbeat, he had felt sure she would call his realm her home, and gods, it warmed his aching soul to know she thought of this place as her home now.

“Please, Hades. Take me to the orchard.” Her emerald gaze backed up that plea, and he nodded, pulled her against him and into a teleport.

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