Page 33 of Queen of the Underworld

She had been the cold and cruel one.

He had been different today. Not gentle. Not really. Lighter, perhaps? She looked at the bedding he had created for her, a task that had stolen some of that light from him. How taxing had it been to make her bed more comfortable? It seemed to have cost him a lot of energy. She had noticed how unsteady he had been seconds after he had completed his task.

And how he had hoped his gift would please her.

It had been right there in his blue eyes—an unmistakable need for her to like what he had done. And do what? Accept that she was to be his?

A troubling, small part of her she hadn’t quite been able to silence during their time apart whispered that shewasattracted to him, and that it had been kind of him to tend to her needs. She scoffed. Kind? He was holding her prisoner. He wanted to force her to be his queen—the Fates only knew why because he would gain nothing from making her his wife.

He was no better than every other male in her life.

She glared out of the window, struggling to ignore the voice that asked if she would have accepted his advances had he approached her differently?

If he had come to Olympus, to her home, and asked for her to be his queen rather than snatching her from the mortal world, would she have accepted his proposal?

The answer to that was startling, but simple.

Yes.

Despite the darkness that blazed within him, she was deeply attracted to him, felt drawn to him whenever he was near and couldn’t banish him from her thoughts whenever they were apart. She had never felt anything like this before. No male in Olympus had ever caught her eye or captured the whole of her attention in the way Hades had, and no male before him had awakened such surprisingly strong emotions.

And desire.

The attraction she felt towards Hades wasn’t just deep. It was fierce. It consumed. Made her crave. Made her bold.

It made her feel alive for the first time in her life.

And it also made her afraid.

If Hades could make her feel like this with only his presence and the memory of his kiss, how would she feel if she allowed his caress? If she surrendered to him completely?

She shut down that line of thought and refused to answer those questions, because they were as dangerous as the male who had evoked them. Although, that dangerous side of him was alluring. Not that she would let him see she felt that way. She wasn’t going to reward his brutish behaviour, even when part of her secretly ached for his lips on hers again.

“Stop it,” she muttered, her lips flattening. “Banish him from your mind.”

No easy feat.

He took that moment to appear off to her left, striding towards the large black building that resembled a fort, with high walls and battlements, and a courtyard within the four straight sides. He cut an imposing figure as his black cloak flared behind him, and his shadows shifted restlessly beneath his feet, lashing out at things he passed. One unruly shadow even tossed a rock into a ravine that was new. She hadn’t noticed it before at least. It branched outwards from the path worn into the black dirt, splitting into several crevasses as it stretched towards the mountains off to her right.

She studied him as she ran over everything that had happened, attempting to piece him together and understand him. The feeling that there were two sides to the god-king of the Underworld remained. When he had grown dark, she had seen that internal battle erupt again in his eyes, almost hidden from view by how cold and sharp they had become.

The curiosity that stirred in her grew stronger, and had her considering something that would be foolish at best and dangerous at worst.

Asking him about it wouldn’t go over well.

Persephone moved to the small balcony that was barely wider than the door and refused to look down at the stomach-turning drop below her. She kept her gaze fixed on Hades, distracting herself from it, and leaned forwards to rest her elbows on the high stone balustrade.

“He had certainly known my name,” she murmured as she propped her chin up on her palm, still keeping the strip of cloth against her wound with her other hand. “But I could not decipher his thoughts. Does he think me a minor, weak goddess as others do? Insignificant?”

That word made her flinch.

How many times had her mother—Demeter, goddess of the harvest—made her feel that way?

While Persephone had inherited some of her powers, including her ability to heal others to a degree, she was nothing compared to her mother. No one prayed to her to help with their harvest, or their unborn child. No one bowed to her when she passed them in Olympus. She had spent her entire life in the shadow of her mother, feeling as if she didn’t exist at times.

“How many feasts have I attended where no one spoke a word to me?” She scoffed, and it came out sounding broken and not angry or bitter as she had intended. She tamped down the hurt that welled, denying it and refusing to let it get to her. She had no reason to be feeling down and to sink into the mire of depression. Or perhaps she did. She glared at Hades. “Will anyone even notice I am missing? I told him Mother would be frantic and implied Zeus would be trying to find me… but will Mother even care that I am gone?”

Persephone pulled down a breath, steadying herself before the answer to that question got the better of her and the weight of everything that had happened over the last few days became too much to bear.

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