Page 41 of Queen of the Underworld

But then the woman muttered, “Realm.”

“Realm,” Persephone echoed. Hades had been speaking of his realm? She tried to recall anything else he had said and only one word stood out. “And what does…asha… mean?”

The servant glanced off to her right, towards the staircase, and then back at her, her voice low. “Me… or mine.”

Hades had been talking about his realm and himself? He hadn’t been saying things about her?

A wave of relief surged through her, chasing away the pain and loosening the hold her gloomy thoughts had on her, allowing her to claw her way back out of the mire. Almost. She skirted it, thoughts of the things Hades had said and her theory about him only wanting her so he could strike a blow at his brother attempting to pull her back down.

Persephone huffed and mentally swept her hand through the air, the decisive action intended to put an end to her miserable thoughts. Unfortunately, they persisted, whispering moments from her past at her, comments other Olympians had made about her and things her mother had said to her.

Ripping apart what little self-confidence she had.

She tried to find a way to distract herself from her dark thoughts, hating how she always let them get the better of her. Another two words Hades had said came to her and she turned to ask the servant for more translations, but footsteps echoed up the staircase and the woman was quick to back away and move to one side as more females appeared. The front pair wrestled with a beaten gold bath and the rest carried steaming pitchers of water.

Persephone kept her distance, warily watching them as they set the bath down opposite the foot of the bed and filled it, each woman leaving once her pitcher was empty. When the bath was full, the dark-haired woman took a large square of black fabric from the final servant and laid it over the sweeping edge of the tub, and then followed the others out.

Leaving Persephone alone.

To stop her gloomy mood from pulling her down into the mire, she focused on what she had learned, putting it to memory and formulating a plan, attempting to be positive instead of letting her past push her down a spiral of negativity.

“Riesal is realm. Asha is me or mine. What other words could I learn if the same female brings my bath tomorrow and the next day? Enough to understand Hades?” She stared at the bath, doubting she could learn the language that quickly and sure that Hades was manipulating her, giving her something she wanted in order to make her do as he bid.

She glared at the black dress and then looked at the water. She wanted to be angry with him and refuse this luxury he had given her, but she would only be spiting herself. And it might be nice to relax a little. It might even improve her mood.

She drifted to the golden bath and skimmed her hand through the milky blue water that looked as if it had come from a mineral-rich pool like the ones she had seen in Olympus. She had never bathed in one herself, but her mother swore by the restorative powers of the waters, while denying Persephone’s desire to go to one to discover their power for herself.

Apparently, the bathhouses were no place for a young goddess.

She wasn’t that young, and she knew younger goddesses than she had gone to the baths. She stared at the water as her fingers cut through it. It might not be the public baths of Olympus, but it was a chance to try the water, one she couldn’t resist. She stripped off her green dress, letting it pool on the floor around her feet, stepped out of it and into the bath.

Sank to her shoulders.

Sighed as the water warmed every inch of her and made her tingle. She could feel herself relaxing as it seeped into her pores and the steam bathed her face and she breathed it in. Bliss. Was this what she had been missing her entire life?

She frowned at the water and toyed with it. She had been missing so many things, and while he could be infuriating at times, and she still wasn’t sure what he was up to, Hades was showing them to her, allowing her to experience them.

This mineral-rich water that soothed her to her core and felt as if it was restoring her strength and easing her troubles away.

The feel of a man’s lips on hers.

She touched them, painting them with the water, and felt a ghost of his bare hands on her arms and shoulders.

And his breath on her nape.

She shivered and sank deeper into the water.

Her mind on Hades.

And wicked thoughts heating her blood.

Chapter 11

Persephone’s eyes slipped closed as she finished draping her washed dress over the edge of the bath and savoured the heat of the water. She tried to push Hades out of her head. He refused to go, her mind tormenting her with replays of his breath and his thumbs on her nape, sending a chill tumbling down her spine and spreading through her.

She shouldn’t want him.

Some part of her felt that.

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