Page 3 of Queen of the Underworld

Kill them.

“No,” he hissed and urged the horses onwards, before the souls could snap out of the haze of terror that had fallen over them when his shadows had launched at them. “They are not souls from Olympus. They were mortal once.”

He cast a regretful glance down at them as he thundered past them, guilt twining with agony to form a sharp lance in his breast, and he turned his face away, despising himself for the horror he had unleashed on the village. Those souls hadn’t deserved his wrath either.

His mood shifted again, his rage swift to rise as he broke out onto a large plain. He huffed and tightened his hands around the reins as thoughts of Zeus and Poseidon clouded his mind and the shadows encroached, spreading to blot out the light.

Because he had recalled why his mood was so foul and the darkness had taken him.

Poseidon had dared to interfere with Thanatos’s duty to reap a female’s soul and bring it to Hades.

The god of death had returned from the veil without severing her life from her body despite the fact the Moirai had dictated her time had come, and when Hades had asked him why he had dared come to him empty-handed, Thanatos had growled that Poseidon had struck a deal with the three Fates.

Sparing the female.

Because his brother had apparently laid claim to her.

She was to be his queen.

Hades snarled and cracked the reins as he glared at his realm. A mountain in the distance erupted, a cataclysmic blast of fiery light detonating to push back the darkness and fill the air with distant screams.

Zeus had his queen, and now Poseidon was to have his.

Where was Hades’s queen?

His younger brothers didn’t deserve a loyal female. Both were philanderers. They bedded their servants, and mortals, and any female who took their fancy. He knew it. He knew Zeus often left Olympus to seek out beautiful maidens in the mortal world, slaking his lusts with them.

While Hades spent his every waking moment working, ensuring that the dead found their resting place, and that the mortal world, Olympus and Poseidon’s islands remained free of wandering souls that could cause unbalance and tip the realms towards an apocalypse if they were left alone.

A wide glowing orange crevasse snaked across the land ahead of him and as he reached it the black rock rose to form a bridge beneath the hooves of his horses. They galloped onwards without breaking their stride, their confidence in their master absolute.

At least someone in his realm trusted him.

Would not betray him.

That stray thought gave him pause as he crossed the lava-riddled plateau nestled in the heart of towering black mountains.

Did he desire others to trust him as these beasts did?

He shook his head and scoffed. “No.”

His men feared him. Fear made them obey him. The souls feared him. Fear kept them in line, making his life easier. Fear was pivotal. It was key.

It brought all who stood before him to their knees and under his control.

But still the niggling feeling lingered, refusing to die despite his best attempts to kill it.

The darkness twisted it, distorting it into something else. Perhaps it wasn’t a desire to have someone trust him, but rather a desire to simply havesomeone.

Hades growled and cast that wretched thought aside. He needed no one. Not his brothers. Not a female. No one. All he needed in his life were subordinates who obeyed him without question and his duty.

His mood darkened again, thoughts turning treacherous, refusing to leave behind the one that had struck him. It echoed in his mind, tormenting him, flooding him with a need to lash out at the lands and roar at the sky.

Where washisqueen?

The Fates had made one for each of his brothers. Hisyoungerbrothers.

He was the eldest. The most powerful. If anyone deserved a queen, it was him.

---