Page 7 of Queen of the Underworld

He glanced at her again, her beauty a lance through his heart that made it ache and bleed. How different they were. He spread his left hand and gazed at his palm and his outstretched talons, feeling the vastness of the differences between them, and the wretched darkness he had courted and allowed to infect him.

Darkness that would be a barrier between him and this beauty.

One he might not be able to overcome.

The darkness murmured in his ear, spying an opening and slipping through the cracks to tease control from him.

He didn’t need to overcome anything.

He only needed to take what he desired.

He needed to take her.

She would make a fine queen. He would bend her to his will, and she would obey him, and please him.

Hades crushed that dark desire and cast it away from him, and fought back against the darkness, fearing she might see that part of himself he could never quite conquer. She would never want him. No one wanted him. Shadows snaked around his soul, slowly closing to squeeze out the light.

He lifted his gaze to her.

And those shadows parted again, the darkness receding the moment his eyes landed on her and she bewitched him all over again.

Her glittering emerald eyes danced over the flowers she held as she lightly touched the blooms, a smile playing on her lips that spoke of pleasure—joy he wasn’t sure he had ever felt in his long existence.

Certainly never over something as simple as some flowers.

She blossomed before him as she inspected the bouquet, her flowing crimson hair a striking splash of colour amongst the green of the forest. The layers of her soft jade gown swept around her bare feet as she slowly walked through a clearing filled with flowers of every colour, every step she made carried out with grace and care, her feet touching only grass and never once straying too close to one of the delicate blooms despite the fact she kept her striking gaze on her bouquet.

And she wore a crown of flowers that made her look like a queen.

His queen.

Not just a beauty to warm his bed and ease his loins. This graceful goddess was his queen.

Something deep within him knew it, and something dark once again demanded he take her and make her his.

Hades fought it, slowly subduing that wicked urge as he studied her, using the sight of her to tame the very feeling she had evoked.

The air seemed to sparkle as he watched her tending to the colourful blooms, as he lingered in the shadows drinking his fill of her. She was innocence and beauty as she spoke to the small animals that strayed close to her, trusting her despite how easily she could harm them.

Perhaps they could feel what he could—that this female would never harm another.

Perhaps she had been born of this forest. She looked as if she might have been, and appeared as if she wasn’t quite of this world. She was something else. Nothing like the other goddesses he had seen and knew. His fingers twitched with a need to reach out and grasp her so he would know whether she was real or a figment of his imagination, conjured to torment him.

While at the same time, he wanted to remain where he was, observing her from a distance, overcome by the softer emotions that clashed with darker desires.

She was bewitching.

Enchanting.

Magical.

Alluring.

Hades wasn’t sure he had ever seen anything so pure.

So perfect.

So damned beautiful.

---