Page 12 of Queen of the Underworld

He needed to return to her right now, before she left the forest and he was forced to await her return.

He would do as Zeus decreed.

He would take her.

And she would be his queen.

Chapter 3

The stretch of dusty land that formed a cape at the very edge of the world had beckoned her again this morning, within the first few minutes of her day. It was a place few dared to venture, which made it perfect to her.

Persephone had barely sat down for breakfast when her mother, Demeter, had begun talking about Aristaeus, the minor god she was determined to marry Persephone off to. Aristaeus was growing impatient and wanted to wed Persephone soon, and she had the feeling her mother wanted that too.

How much longer could she put it off?

She had managed to claw together several years of freedom for herself, but with each one that passed, it was growing harder. She had the terrible feeling that it was only a matter of days now before her mother and Aristaeus forced her into wedlock, stealing that precious freedom from her.

Persephone blamed the rumours that had run through Olympus years ago for her upcoming demise. Her mother had been more than content for her to remain a maiden before someone had started the whispers that had reached her household—a rumour that the god of war, Ares, meant to ask for her hand.

As if she would marry such a narcissistic oaf.

A few days after hearing the rumour, her mother had announced her betrothal to Aristaeus.

As if she would marry such a dull, witless male.

The more Persephone thought about the match, the more she felt her mother had picked Aristaeus out of all her suitors because if she married him, she would remain in her current position within the Olympian pantheon. Marrying Aristaeus would neither elevate her above her mother, nor shift her to a lower position in the hierarchy of the gods.

Marrying Ares would have placed her above her mother.

Persephone plucked at a flower. She didn’t want that. She didn’t want to replace her mother. But she also didn’t want to marry a male she hadn’t chosen; one she could never come to love.

Demeter was deaf to her protests, having heard them many times over the years, so Persephone hadn’t bothered to argue with her this morning. As soon as her stomach had been full enough to see her through the day, she had made her excuses, had gathered her trio of maidens and had gone as far from Olympus as she could get.

As a goddess of several hundred years, she didn’t need her mother to decide who she married, or whether she married at all. What she really needed was to escape the hold her mother had on her.

Persephone frowned at the flower in her fingers.

What she really needed to do was pluck up the courage to speak to a male, and then follow that up with being brave enough to steal a kiss, or let him steal one from her.

She was growing tired of hearing her servants, and her mother’s servants, and even some of the goddesses she knew, talking about males when she had no experience of them herself and it was looking more and more like her first experience would be with her dreaded suitor.

Her future husband.

Persephone’s lips flattened.

It wasn’t going to happen.

She would speak to Zeus about it and convince him to persuade her mother that allowing her to find her true love was the wiser course of action. There were many goddesses who were older than she was and they still hadn’t married.

Including the one who had given her the braided token that Mira, the oldest of her maidens, was in possession of so her mother didn’t find out about it—a token that allowed her to teleport.

Unlike many of the gods and goddesses of Olympus, Persephone hadn’t been born with the ability to teleport. It was only a minor inconvenience since her mother rarely let her out of her sight.

Persephone had been sneaking out more and more often recently though, striking out on her own to explore the world, savouring her freedom as she began to feel it was slipping away from her.

She had found this spot decades ago.

And she had decided to make it her own—her haven.

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