Page 83 of Queen of the Underworld

Hades scoffed. “You thought to ask my brother for aid?”

He couldn’t believe it. Not the fact she had openly declared she had been leaving with the intention of returning, something which was incredible enough, nor the fact she had meant to bring an army of Olympians back with her. To his realm.

He wanted to bathe in how good she was, and the fact she had wanted to aid him, and hadn’t been leaving him forever, but he got stuck on the fact her plan included his brother and bringing Olympians into his realm.

Hades’s expression darkened and hers slackened, a spark of fear igniting in her eyes as they leaped between his, that look telling him she knew she had said something wrong.

“Never seek to involve my brother and Olympus in matters of the Underworld,” he growled, putting force behind each word so she would never make the same mistake again. “The business of my realm is mine to handle, not Zeus’s or Poseidon’s. No Olympian will set foot on my soil. On this I will not be moved.”

She had started to shrink back, but then she got that fire in her eyes and her spine straightened and her shoulders went rigid, and she glared right back at him. “I meant only to help. I did not realise your need to control everything and be in command at all times ran so deep, but for the record, I am an Olympian… in your realm… brought here by you… therefore you have broken your own rules. Perhaps I should return to Olympus as planned so I no longer taint your wonderful realm.”

She wrenched free of his grip, tipped her chin up and swept past him, the anger that clouded the air around her making it hard to breathe as he desperately thought of something to say while reeling from her verbal blows.

Her indignant air was somewhat ruined when she placed her right foot down, hissed in a pained breath and bent forwards to clutch at her thigh.

His anger was ruined with it.

“Persephone,” he breathed and rounded her, the concern that had arrowed through him growing as he saw the unmistakable stain of fresh blood coating her hands and her green dress.

He frowned and cursed himself for forgetting she had been injured. It should have been at the front of his mind, tending to her the first thing he had done the moment he had returned to her, but instead he had let his anger get the better of him and had come dangerously close to driving a wedge between them again. He bent and swept her into his arms, cradling her under her knees and around her back, and teleported with her before she could loose the angry protest he could see rising to the tip of her tongue as she pushed at his shoulders.

Hades landed in his bedchamber with her and she stilled, her enormous green eyes sweeping around the room and an echo of her shock rolling through him too. He had intended to return her to her room, and somehow he had ended up in his.

Her gaze landed on him, incredulous and demanding.

He refused to voice the reason he had brought her to his room, unwilling to make himself vulnerable. He needed her safe. She was hurt and he needed to tend to her, and ached to make her feel she was safe and nothing could harm her now she was with him again. If he told her that, she would withdraw again, or might shift the blame for her injuries onto him.

Nyx would suffer for what she had done.

But for Persephone’s sake, and the sake of his realm, he would not kill her.

His mood darkened again as he strode to the large bed.

“What are you doing?” Her voice trembled, betraying the nerves he could already sense in her.

He growled.

“Tending to you.”

Chapter 23

Persephone’s small hands pressed against the pauldrons of Hades’s black armour as he carried her across his black-walled chambers, heading for his large bed.

“Really, there is no need. It is only a small cut. It will heal. Take me back to my room.” She sounded flustered.

“No,” Hades bit out, the thought of leaving her alone and unprotected rousing his darker side again, pulling it back to the fore and making him seethe with a need to snarl and lash out at anyone who strayed close to his room.

His senses stretched outwards to pinpoint everyone nearby and track them, pleasing images of them foolishly nearing his queen and him cutting them down filling his mind to distract him. Persephone continued to protest, but he refused to hear them. When she tried to push free of his arms, he tightened his grip on her and she gasped, the pained sound cutting at him and dragging him back to her.

Hades loosened his hold and gently set her down on his bed, and with a glare at her he hoped was commanding, growled, “Do not move from that spot.”

He turned and crossed the room to a side table. He grabbed one of the cloths that had been folded beside a golden bowl of water, wetted it and washed his face and hands to make himself more presentable, and then removed his gauntlets from his belt to set them down on the table. He gathered the bowl and two clean cloths, pivoted and frowned at Persephone.

She hobbled across the room, heading for the closed wooden doors to his right. When she noticed he had caught her, she moved quicker, wincing whenever she placed weight on her right leg.

Hades teleported to the small table beside his bed, set the water and cloths down, and then teleported to her. She gasped as he swept her back into his arms and scowled up at him as she beat her fist against his chest, only hurting herself as she tried to pummel it through his breastplate.

He set her back down on the bed as gently as he could manage given the fact she was intent on infuriating him.

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