Page 36 of Queen of the Underworld

The cruel and vicious god-king of the Underworld capable of warm feelings?

It seemed impossible, but as she watched him interacting with the three-headed beast, talking to it and stroking it in a way that spoke of tenderness, it seemed possible after all.

Persephone ran over all the stories she had heard about Hades, recalling all she knew about him and had experienced for herself, and trying to apply it to the male below her, one she felt sure wasn’t aware she was watching him. In fact, she felt certain that if he knew anyone was witnessing the gentle way he was with the hound that he would turn vicious and dark.

To protect himself.

Maybe this was just a trick, something he was staging to soften her towards him and make her more compliant.

She tried to convince herself of that and to be on her guard, but the more she watched him, the stronger a feeling grew inside her. One that struck a chord with her. He had proven himself dark and cold, but try as she might to be angry with him and to believe him a monster incapable of feeling, she couldn’t.

Because he appeared lonely.

As lonely as she was.

And he brought up barriers just as she did whenever she felt she was about to be hurt.

She studied him more closely as he moved in a gentle arc towards the tower, still speaking with the hound, trying to see if she was right or whether she was imprinting her own feelings on him, attempting to find some common ground with him or simply seeing what she wanted to see.

Softening him because she was attracted to him.

She gave up pretending she wasn’t.

This dark, imposing god roused more than anger and frustration, and fear in her.

He made her blood catch fire too.

Made it impossible to breathe when she was around him.

More impossible than the stifling heat that encompassed her all hours of the day, making her skin tacky and sleep uncomfortable at times. She fanned herself a little, longing for a cool breeze like the ones in her forest. She frowned. Strange that she longed for that and not the cool, sea breeze of Olympus. She should be wanting to return home, as she had told Hades, but she rarely thought about Olympus, and she was beginning to suspect she wouldn’t care if she never saw the white city again.

He paused and moved to face the beast, no trace of savageness in his expression now. The handsome lines of his face were soft, laced with melancholy as he said something she couldn’t hear, and then his shoulders heaved in a sigh and he moved on, his hand against the beast’s furry flank.

When he was like this, he didn’t fit the image she had of him at all, and she found it hard to believe it was Hades below her. A feeling grew in her chest as she watched him, as she saw another side of him, one he had revealed to her in this room at times too. Regret. Anger directed at herself. Guilt. She was no better than every other Olympian. She had judged Hades and feared him without even knowing him. She had listened to those tales of him and had believed them, never questioning them or seeking the truth for herself.

She took in the black, forbidding lands that stretched around her and the crimson sky, and how a passing pair of soldiers bowed their heads and went down on one knee as Hades approached them.

All the stories people told about him had a similar theme—he was always alone.

It was always Hades against someone else, or Hades committing some terrible act, and even when Zeus spoke of the Titanomachy, Hades always seemed to be alone.

She thought about how everyone perceived him—including her—and how even those he ruled behaved around him, and a feeling built inside her, birthing a question she wanted to ask him even when she knew it would be unwise and he would only lash out at her.

How lonely was he?

She often felt isolated, but not like this—not like him. The other gods—his family—stayed away from him, and he was even isolated from the light of the world. She took in his realm again.

All he knew was darkness and so he had become the embodiment of it.

It wasn’t just this realm and his rulership of it that had made him that way either.

Others were responsible for his darkness.

No Greeks prayed to her, but she knew how they prayed to him, and if they prayed to her in the same way, she would prefer to remain beyond the sphere of their supplication and attention. When the Greeks prayed to him, they turned their faces away and struck the ground to ensure he heard their pleas, and their offerings were grim and dark things. The slaughter of black sheep. The spilling of blood.

And none dared speak his name.

They called him other things.

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