Page 84 of Queen of the Underworld

She immediately wriggled away from him, shimmying to the other side of the bed. Hades growled and seized her arm, and tugged her back to his side.

“Stay,” he bit out as she wrestled against him, refusing to obey him.

“I can tend to myself,” she snapped in return and slapped at his hand on her arm.

When he didn’t release her, she twisted and reached for the cloths, and ended up almost knocking the water all over the floor. Hades quickly grabbed the bowl, so only a little spilled, and shot her a black look. She scowled right back at him.

He grabbed the top cloth and the bowl and sat on the bed, and again she tried to escape him. He placed his hand on the other side of her legs, hemming her in, and she looked as if she was going to give him hell, or perhaps he was frightening her. He reined in his frustration and drew down a breath to calm himself.

“I wish to tend to your wounds.” He let the words tumble from his lips, sure they would only make her want to bolt even more.

They had the opposite effect. Rather than continuing to fight him, she stilled and studied him, her green gaze seeking his. He felt as if she was searching for something in his eyes—the reason he needed to take care of her? Hades let her see it. He let her see that he needed to assuage his guilt about what had happened to her, and he needed to be the one to take care of her, so he could see with his own eyes that she would be well again.

She loosed a little huff, folded her arms over her chest and sank back against the headboard of his bed.

Hades took it as an invitation to take care of her and set about ripping one cloth into long strips and the other into four pieces. He placed those four pieces in the water and set the strips aside on the bed. He parted the torn layers of her dress, wrung out one of the pieces of cloth, and cleaned the blood from her skin, working methodically and avoiding the puncture wound. It was deep and she had lost a lot of blood. He was surprised she could walk at all. The injury cut into her muscle on the outside of her thigh. She was lucky the wyvern hadn’t caught her on the inside of her thigh. She might have bled out before he could reach her.

Anger at Nyx spiked his blood again and he purged it, focusing on tending to Persephone. He would punish his subordinate later. Right now, taking care of his love took priority and nothing was more important than reassuring himself she would be fine, and ensuring she would heal swiftly.

When her leg was clean, he focused on the wound, dabbing at the angry red edges and telling himself on repeat that she would be fine as a heavy sensation built inside him, thoughts of losing her tormenting him. She was a goddess. With some rest and sleep, she would be healed in no time. A few hours sleep would turn this wound into nothing more than a sore scar.

Hades took up the strips of material, gently raised her leg so her knee was bent, and began binding the wound, passing the material under her thigh and then over it, making tight passes with it.

Persephone began squirming.

“Keep still,” he murmured, not wanting her to loosen the bandages. He needed them tight.

She didn’t.

She wriggled harder as he made another pass with the bandage, threading it beneath her leg, and he glanced up at her.

And then back at her.

Her cheeks were bright pink and she refused to meet his gaze.

She kept staring at her leg.

Not her leg, he realised as he lowered his gaze there. She was staring at his hands, and he was suddenly very aware of where they were as he looked at them too. The wound was high up, close to her hips, and he had been passing his hands between her bare thighs, dangerously near to the juncture of them.

He was thankful for his armour as his cock shot steel-hard, the codpiece of it concealing the evidence of his sudden arousal from her. The blush that threatened to climb his cheeks as they both stared at his hands was in danger of giving him away though. He forced himself to keep working, slowly tamping down the surge of desire that had his hands close to shaking as his skin brushed hers. She was all softness and warmth, and he found himself grazing his thumbs across her thigh with each pass of the bandage, slowing down as he savoured touching her.

By the time he had run out of bandage and was forced to tuck the end in to secure it, he was painfully aroused, his heart racing and blood thundering as he fought to tear his gaze away from her thigh.

Her hands trembled as she smoothed her dress down over the apex of her thighs, covering herself, and then brushed her fingers over the bandage. He lifted his gaze to her face and she shyly met it, the blush of colour on her cheeks deepening.

The urge to lean towards her, capture her blazing cheek and pull her to him as he claimed her lips pounded inside him, battering his iron will. He stared at her lips, aching to take them and taste her again, to feel them beneath his and know that she was with him again, safely back in his arms. The tip of her tongue poked out, sweeping across her lower lip to dampen it and torment him, as if she was readying herself for his kiss and ached for it as fiercely as he did.

His gaze darted up to collide with hers. Banked heat darkened her green irises, beckoning him and making him teeter on the verge of surrendering to his need to kiss her, but the flicker of fear stopped him.

Hades pulled back on the reins of his need, clawing back control, and somehow found the strength to resist. He gathered the soiled cloths and placed them in the bowl, and set it on the small table beside the bed as he stood. His gaze drifted to her again as she angled her head back to look up at him, a soft expression on her face that was part fear, part need that called to him. Kissing her now would be a mistake. She had been through a lot and he could see it was catching up with her, her mind beginning to fill with all the things that could have happened. He had been in her position enough times, fresh from a battle for his life, to know that soon she would crave a physical outpouring of her relief.

He wanted her, but not like that. He didn’t want her to use him to satisfy the hungers that were about to hit her, that bewitching blend of relief and a desperate need to feel alive, to bathe in the fact she had survived. She would resent him for it once her mind had cleared and she was thinking straight again.

And he might resent himself a little for it too.

Hades forced himself to back away from her as he husked, “You may have my chambers if you swear to remain here and rest.”

She nodded and then frowned at him, a flicker of disappointment tugging at her fine eyebrows. “Where are you going?”

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