Page 87 of Queen of the Underworld

She glared at him, as if that would take her centuries.

It probably would.

“I will return tomorrow.” Hades pivoted on his heel and swept from the room before Persephone’s influence on him had him changing his mind and releasing Nyx. He couldn’t. Persephone was right and Nyx had committed treason of the highest order by attempting to kill his queen. He would stand firm and keep her imprisoned.

He strode along the columned corridor of the entrance hall of Tartarus and out into his realm.

He scowled at the black ground as it crunched beneath his boots, his eyebrows knitting hard and the corners of his lips turning downwards. Anger rolled through him again as his thoughts turned to Demeter and how she treated her daughter.

Hades pulled down a deep breath and expelled it, seeking calm and trying to let his anger go. Not only his anger towards Demeter. Nyx had meddled, and it had placed Persephone in grave danger, but he felt it had also broken a barrier between him and his little goddess, one that he might not have overcome if not for Nyx’s intervention.

He stilled and stared at the lands around him, a flat plain that rose into jagged peaks on all sides and stretched in a long curve from Tartarus to his temple. His gaze drifted to the tower he had built from the black earth, his thoughts swift to latch onto Persephone and warmth blooming inside him. Her words rang in his ears, not the softly spoken ones she had left him with after he had tended to her but the ones she had lashed at him with in the valley after he had saved her.

And ones before that too.

That warmth grew stronger, even as his blood chilled. His mind and body switched between the polar feelings as he thought about Persephone, going in circles. No one had ever made him see his failings in the way she had, or awakened feelings in him that were powerful and easily overwhelmed and seized control of him. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so out of sorts. Not out of sorts, he reasoned as he gazed at the tower. She was bringing a softer version of himself to the fore, one he hadn’t realised existed, and that was the reason he felt off balance at times around her.

He wasn’t used to feeling the things he did when he was near her, and when he was miles from her. She lived in his thoughts, a permanent resident he couldn’t evict, even in the midst of battle when his mind needed to be sharp and focused. She was there. Filling him with a need to survive so he could return to her.

So he could see her again.

Hades swept his gaze over the mountains that reached high into the sky, their sharp forbidding peaks like the fangs of a beast. His kingdom. His home. While he had grown to love it, he had despised it at first, and now Persephone had opened his eyes, he could see how it had shaped him and how his dark feelings in turn had shaped it.

He could see all his failings.

His gaze lowered to the ground, his mood shifting towards sombre as he felt something else deep in his soul.

He was alone.

And he had never felt it as much as he did now, with Persephone’s tender words echoing in his mind and that soft look she had given him imprinted on his heart.

He couldn’t recall the last time someone had shown real concern for his wellbeing.

He smiled wryly. Nyx only cared about the state of the realm. Without him ruling the Underworld, her own position would be in jeopardy. He wasn’t sure she had acted out of care for his wellbeing when she had tried to send Persephone away.

But Persephone’s concern had been genuine.

And while it pleased him, it had also unleashed a plague of thoughts in his mind that refused to be wiped out.

Hades glanced up at the tower again and frowned as shock swept through him.

Persephone stood on the balcony. She had left his chambers, breaking her vow, but had returned to the tower, sacrificing her freedom. Why?

He half expected her to go inside as he stared at her, but she remained where she was, her gaze searing him and making him yearn for her. Every soft gasp and shy glance she had given him when he had been tending to her filled his mind, stealing his focus away from his surroundings and narrowing it down to her. He rubbed the pads of his fingers together, still able to feel the satin of her skin and the warmth of the valley of her thighs.

By the gods, he had never craved a female as fiercely as he craved her.

He felt sure she would know the depth of his need and his desire as he gazed at her, yearning to be close to her, to trace his hands over her bare skin and savour her shocked and pleased little gasps and how her green eyes would grow dark with need.

He felt sure she would go inside, breaking this moment.

Her reaction to his nearness had been enough to tell him that she wasn’t used to being that close to a male, and the knowledge that she might be untouched provoked a dangerous need in him, one that had pounded inside him throughout their time apart and continued to drum in his mind now.

He wanted to be her one and only.

The darkly possessive part of him that wanted to claim her and then guard her from the world, ensuring no other male laid a hand on her, awakened as he gazed at her, as his heart galloped and his blood heated. She would be his and his alone.

His queen.

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