Page 27 of Queen of the Underworld

He uncurled his fist, his brow furrowing as he stared at his talons.

Hades feared she had that power.

He felt deep in the pit of his wretched soul that she could strike a blow that would break him, that it would only take a word or a look and he would be defeated.

A growl curled up his throat.

He squeezed his fingers into a fist again.

He would not be defeated by a mere slip of a female.

He took a hard step towards the tower and hesitated, and cursed himself for being weak. Fear was nothing but another weakness, and he had no room for them in his life. But he still couldn’t convince himself to move. Doubts plagued him, a thousand needles that stabbed at his soul until it bled oily black blood that seeped into his veins, darkening his thoughts. If she would not submit to him, he would make her.

Hades snarled and shut down that thought.

He would not.

He needed to be gentle with her.

Only he wasn’t sure how. He wasn’t accustomed to being soft or tender. He wasn’t sure he had ever been either of those things. Life had hardened him into a warrior from the moment he had been born. He blew out his breath as he gazed at the tower, attempting to expel the weakness that infested him. Could he be gentle?

Tender?

There was only one way to find out.

He swept his black cloak out behind him and stalked towards the tower.

Chapter 7

Hades’s heart drummed an unsteady rhythm as he approached the black tower, each step closer he came to it quickening his pulse. He held back the darkness, ignoring the whispers that threaded through his mind, denying them. Things would go well. He would check on the goddess and do his best to appear gentle, and he would keep his hands to himself.

That last part might be easier said than done if she looked at him with any trace of heat in her gaze. Just a flicker of desire would be enough to torch his control.

He swallowed and flexed his fingers into fists and stretched them, determined to do things right this time. He could be as pleasing as the next male, as civilised as any she had encountered in Olympus. The darkness seemed to chuckle at that and he bared his emerging fangs at the tower, fighting the doubt that flashed through him.

“My god-king Hades.” A male voice cut into his thoughts, the intrusion unwelcome.

The darker side of his blood snarled at him to cut the man down for delaying him, stopping him from being able to see his goddess, and Hades wrestled with it even as he wanted to obey it, wanted to remove this obstacle between him and the object of his desire.

Hades bared his fangs at the dark-haired male, a commander of one of his legions who wore black hoplite armour and carried his helmet beneath his right arm, the crimson crest of it brushing his bare biceps. His threadbare control threatened to snap as he stared the male down.

The commander wasn’t alone.

A legion one hundred strong kneeled behind him in regimented lines, their heads bent.

Hades shored up his defences and clawed back control, unwilling to let the darkness rip it from him. These men were good. Loyal. They didn’t deserve his wrath. They served him well and deserved his praise and his patience, not death.

Although, rewarding their service wasn’t the only reason he somehow managed to hold back his dark urge to cut them all down.

He didn’t want the goddess to see him eviscerating his own soldiers, painting his realm with their blood. So as much as the darkness purred at him to do it, Hades would not.

The darker part of him didn’t like that.

“What is it?” Hades growled, shadows writhing around the pointed toes of his metal boots as he stared the male down, his blood quickening as he wrestled with himself. The urge to strike the male for disturbing him was strong, near overwhelming, and he had to fight his shadows, struggling to stop them from lashing out and slicing the commander to ribbons.

The male kept his head bowed, but his wary brown eyes drifted to the restless shadows that twined up Hades’s legs.

Sweat beaded on the commander’s brow as he struggled to give his report without his voice fading or breaking. “There has been unrest in the Elysian Fields. Several souls there struck out at others.”

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