Page 37 of Queen of the Underworld

They feared him.

And before today she had never really thought about how differently they worshipped his brothers.

When the mortals prayed to Zeus, they raised their hands and faces to the sky.

They spoke his name with pride.

They offered love and not fear.

And for some reason, that made her feel sad.

And angry.

Persephone curled her fingers into trembling fists and stared at him, trying to understand how it all made him feel and failing, because she couldn’t imagine how deeply the behaviour of the mortals and his own family had scarred him.

Or how lonely it made him feel.

Whatever pain she had felt during her life, it was insignificant compared with the pain he must carry in his heart.

Hades stilled and glanced her way, and she averted her gaze, pretending she wasn’t watching him by checking on her wound. She peeled the strip of fabric she had bound around it away. It was only a scar now, healed by the sleep she had snatched. She brushed her fingers over the small silvery line. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. She knew that in her heart.

She looked back at him.

He was gone.

Where had he gone?

“You have not touched your food again.”

She gasped and whirled so quickly her head spun, coming to face him as his deep voice swept around her. Her eyes widened as they landed on him, her heart beating faster as she tried to think of something to say, but her voice failed her. She hadn’t noticed it before, but he wasn’t wearing his armour. In its place was a fine black tunic that reached his thighs, and tight black trousers with knee-high boots. The outfit hugged his lithe figure, revealing a hint of the body hidden beneath.

Rather than looking at her, he kept his profile to her, his gaze on the untouched fruit platter.

“Be ready to dine with me in eight hours from now,” he said, the words spoken softly but clearly an order.

She straightened her spine and found her voice. “I do not exactly have anything to change into or even water to wash with to make myself presentable, my god-king Hades.”

His eyes narrowed, crimson flaring around his irises as he slanted a look at her. She couldn’t tell whether it was anger or the heat of desire that put that scarlet in his gaze, but her body reacted as if it was the latter, warming and making her painfully aware of him as he came to face her.

He stared at her, the crimson spreading. Was he thinking about her bathing? Or was this flare of heat because she had called himhergod-king Hades? She hadn’t meant it like that. She hadn’t intended for it to sound as if he belonged to her. She had been trying to mock him or irritate him or something. Frustration rolled through her. She wasn’t sure what she had been trying to do. It had just come out, bursting from her lips because she was angry.

That was it.

She was angry.

And it wasn’t anger that he had been treated poorly in his life. It was anger that he was treating her poorly.

Outside, a great mournful howl went up, and Hades glared beyond her at the balcony, his eyebrows knitting hard and the corners of his lips turning downwards. A series of growls followed it, together with male voices speaking in hushed, calming tones. Persephone didn’t need to look to know Hades’s hound was acting up, evidently upset by his sudden disappearance.

“Perhaps you should see to your pet?” she said, her tone somewhere between scathing and haughty, even when that irritating voice at the back of her mind hissed that he was taking care of his pet—of her.

“I will see to those things,” he rumbled, his voice far too wicked and sexy. “You will have the finest water to bathe in and a gown to match your beauty.”

She held her ground and resisted the fire that licked through her veins, and the heat that scalded her cheeks at his compliment, unwilling to let him see how easily he affected her. “My gown will be the same colour as this one you spoiled with my blood.”

She waved her hand down her body, bringing his attention to the dull brown spots on the green fabric.

He scowled at her, black eyebrows meeting hard above eyes that held more scarlet, and almost moved a step towards her but then he curled his fingers into fists and rocked back onto his heels.

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