Page 127 of Queen of the Underworld

Hades’s grin widened.

And so had Hades.

He sprinted harder, into a teleport that landed him ahead of the blond male.

The male’s sandals skidded on the wet white stones of the main avenue as he tried to come to a halt, his hazel eyes flooding with fear as they landed on Hades. The wretched god slipped and fell on his backside, and Persephone grunted as she planted face-first into the road beside him.

Hades growled when she wriggled free of the god’s grip, sank onto her backside, twisting to face him at the same time, and touched her bloodied lip.

His beautiful queen was hurt.

He had been settled on only terrifying and perhaps injuring the male in order to teach him a lesson, and so he didn’t anger Zeus by slaying one of his pantheon.

Now, the male would die.

“Aristaeus, do not be a fool.” Persephone picked herself up as the blond male reached for the sword in the leather scabbard that hung from his waist. “I never wanted to marry you. I would sooner die than be your wife.”

Aristaeus.

Hades arched an eyebrow. Demeter had thought to marry her beautiful daughter off to a dull little god of low standing?

Persephone had been made to be a queen.

His queen.

Hades readied his bident and pointed it at Aristaeus. “You would be wise to heed her words.”

Apparently, Aristaeus was as big a fool as Persephone had said he was, because rather than bending the knee as he should have, lowering himself before a god of Hades’s stature and strength, the blond drew his sword.

Persephone pulled a face and hurled her right hand towards the male, and vines burst from the flagstones, cracking them as they erupted and shot towards the god. They snaked around his leg and wrist, holding him back as he went to swing his sword, and then hurled him to the ground.

Bloodying his lip as his face smacked off the pale stones.

“Do not touch my Hades,” she growled, a fierce little thing that froze Hades’s boots in place and had him staring at her, bewitched by the sight of her.

And painfully aroused.

“You will learn your place!” Aristaeus bellowed as he launched at her, a seething hunger for violence flashing across his face as he swept his hand up, the back of it aimed at her face.

Hades thrust his bident forwards before the male could strike her, lunging towards him, and the male grunted as it sliced across his forearm as it slipped between the two prongs, and then howled in agony as Hades continued driving forwards, until the twin spikes lodged into the white wall of a building.

And bone crunched.

“Dare strike my queen and you will not live to tell the tale,” Hades boomed and shoved his hand against the male’s chest, pinning him to the wall as he frantically struggled to free his arm.

Aristaeus’s face grew dark and cold, and he brought his other arm up.

Hades barely dodged the tip of his blade, pirouetting away from him and pulling his bident with him. The male swung again, his blow cleaner this time, more skilled as he spun and put his weight into it. Hades blocked it with his bident and tried to twist the sword free of his grip, but Aristaeus withdrew it and stepped back, evading his attack.

And ran.

Right at Persephone.

“If I cannot have her, no one will!” Aristaeus yelled.

She shrieked and ducked beneath his arm, hitting the ground, and then resolve flashed across her face and she pressed her hands to the pale flagstones. Vines shot up around her and turned to thorny brambles that bent and rocketed towards the blond.

Aristaeus hacked at them.

---