Page 25 of Queen of the Underworld

Everyone believed the darkness to be him, that the beast that rampaged and destroyed mountains and painted his lands with blood was simply him in a rage.

But it was so much more than that.

It was a slow, agonising death of the light.

A war he had waged for millennia, ever since he had been condemned to the Underworld by his own brother, and he was beginning to feel that he was losing his mind.

That one day, his humanity would be stripped from him by the darkness and he wouldn’t return.

He would sink into the abyss.

Hades cast a glance around him at his realm, at the towering black mountains and the temples, and the people coming and going. He feared that when it happened, when he lost the fight for good, he would destroy this realm that was everything to him, would slay these souls that worshipped him, and damn them all.

His gaze drifted to the tower, a feeling beating within him as he stared at it. The goddess might be his only salvation. She had drawn him back from the darkness with just the sound of her voice, had given him the strength to defeat it by only speaking his name.

And by the gods, that revelation made him feel more vulnerable than ever.

The darkness stirred in response, rising as it had so many times when he felt like this, becoming a shield around his heart.

Because he feared.

He feared he might come to depend upon her and might believe she would save him, and rather than doing that, she might damn him by leaving him.

By despising him as deeply as he despised the darkness.

He had to secure her.

How?

He couldn’t just take her, not as he had wanted, not as he believed he could. The darker side of his blood had been all too quick to attempt that, the thought that this bewitching female was his pounding in his veins and driving him to claim her—to conquer her. As he had slowly clawed his way back towards the light, or as towards the light as he could manage, he had realised what a grave mistake he had made.

And how he might have ruined everything.

In his haste to have her, he had worked against himself, revealing his darkest side to her and no doubt making himself appear as much a monster as all in Olympus believed him to be.

But he hadn’t gone as far as to destroy all hope of securing her. He felt that deep in his black soul. There was still a chance. Albeit a small one. She might be his. He might not have ruined everything.

Not as his brother had clearly planned for him to when he had plotted his downfall and goaded him into taking her and forcing her to be his queen.

He would continue as he had planned instead, tamping down the dark whispers that urged him to claim his female, to touch and taste her and make her his, and focusing on teasing out that desire that had flashed in her eyes from time to time and drawing it to the surface. He had spent his every waking hour, and the ones where he should have been sleeping, going over every moment they had shared, studying them in minute detail and devising a strategy that would secure his victory.

This battle he fought with the goddess wasn’t much different to every other war he had won. First, he would study his opponent, and then he would fine-tune his strategy as he learned more about her, focusing on any weakness she might present, and in the end, he would win and achieve what he had set out to do.

He would break down her walls.

The first part of his strategy was simple, but he hoped it would prove the most effective weapon in his arsenal.

He had decided to begin with his appearance.

His eyes had remained blue for the best part of the time they had been apart, and his fangs were in check, and beneath his gauntlets, his nails were rounded and normal. Even his ears were not as pointed.

She would find his appearance more pleasing now.

That would disarm her.

She would feel more at ease around him and in time she would grow used to him. As they conversed and he learned about her, she would begin to view him not as the monster the citizens of Olympus painted him as, but as a male just like any other she had encountered before.

He grinned slowly. Or perhaps a league above them.

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