Page 60 of Queen of the Underworld

And then, just when he had begun to believe there was hope for him and that his desires—his wants—might not go unfulfilled, just when he had begun to decipher his feelings for her and realise the depth of them, she had gone out of her way to anger him.

But he swore it hadn’t been fear or fury that had flashed in her green eyes as he had stalked towards her. It had been desire. Need that had swept him up in it and made him a slave to her, flooding him with a consuming hunger to satisfy her and please her.

When he had reached for her, aching to touch her, she had cast a shocked look at his hands. Anger had brought his claws out, had pulled the darkness to the fore so quickly he hadn’t been able to hold it back and he hadn’t realised his nails had transformed until he had been reaching for her.

He had felt something other than an urgent need to satisfy her and a desire to possess her in that moment.

He had felt…hurt.

Still felt hurt.

It was the only word that fitted the raw, bitter and agonising feeling that had hit him the moment she had lowered her wide eyes to his hands and continued to hollow out his chest even now.

Hades’s brow furrowed, the darkness loosening its hold on him as he gazed at the tower, aware he should check on her. Leaving her alone wasn’t the answer. He reached out with his senses, as he always did whenever he passed, checking on her and reassuring himself that she was still there. His gaze drifted to the empty balcony. More than once he had caught her standing there, and she had pivoted away from him and disappeared inside, stealing the pleasure of her beauty from him.

He continued to send her food, and she continued to refuse to eat it. He half-smiled at that. His little goddess was wise. She knew what eating food of his world would do, but she wasn’t sure which had come from it and which he had brought in from the mortal world, so she avoided all of it.

She didn’t refuse to bathe though.

Whenever his servants had returned from emptying her bath, they had rapped knuckles on his door and reported that she had used the water he had provided. His queen liked to bathe. Perhaps he could use that to his advantage somehow. He wasn’t sure how.

He scoffed.

Asking her to bathe with him would only see her pulling away from him again.

Hades heaved a long, weary sigh. Nothing was going right for him at the moment. Since their evening together, a slew of new problems had rolled in for him to deal with, and he was beginning to feel she was the source of them. Somehow, she was influencing his realm to strike out at him and make him pay for abducting her and refusing to take her back to Olympus.

Or perhaps the darkness was to blame.

Darkness she had provoked.

He stalked forwards, his glare rooted on the point beyond the barracks, where Tartarus stood, and he clenched his fists so hard his arms shook as muscle clamped down onto bone. He wouldn’t give her up though. She could destroy this realm and he wouldn’t surrender her. He needed her too much.

His mood blackened again, every small thing that had happened over the last few days clawing at him to drag him down deeper into the darkness.

First, several people in a far district of the Underworld had attempted to set themselves up as rulers of that area, and the legion posted there had reported it to him. Hades had been forced to leave his chambers to crush them. It had only taken a matter of minutes, but it had soured his mood and he had been even more exhausted when he had returned. He frowned. Something was very wrong in the Underworld, and he wasn’t sure he could blame Persephone and some kind of power she was exerting to strike out at him. He couldn’t even blame the darkness.

It wasn’t like his subjects to act in such a manner, as if they didn’t fear him.

His wrath had ensured that those in the district feared him now more than ever, and he had left the legion there to watch over them, constructing a permanent residence for the soldiers from the black rock and earth. Which had cost him greatly, but he had concealed it from all present. It wouldn’t do for his men to see he was weakened.

Then, the prisoners in Tartarus had grown restless, and he had spent several hours there, quelling them so they no longer battered the bars of their cells and attacked each other, tearing the weaker apart to bathe the spiral staircase that drove deep into the earth with a river of blood.

Finally, Cerberus had slipped his leash during a patrol around the grounds with the temple guards and had taken himself off for a walk, something which wasn’t like his beloved pet.

Hades was beginning to suspect Cerberus was acting out, attempting to get his attention, and that Persephone was the reason he was misbehaving.

He had found Cerberus over forty leagues east from the temple after an entire day of searching for him. The beast had been bounding around with one of the gargantuan grey bipedal creatures that roamed the mountains in that area of the Underworld and were often violent towards any who strayed through their territory.

When Hades had eventually gotten Cerberus back into his stable, he had received word that Nyx, goddess of night and one of his most powerful allies, required an audience, and had accepted her request only to be told it would be inconvenient for her to attend that evening and she would visit the next day.

Hades had the feeling he hadn’t been keeping himself busy the last few days to avoid seeing Persephone because he couldn’t shake the way she had looked at him. Everything in his realm had conspired against him to keep him away from her.

He glanced up at the tower again, and stilled.

Persephone stood on the balcony.

He turned towards her, no longer able to resist the craving to be in her company and attempt to court her again. If he could call it courting. He stared up at her, deeply aware it had been a mistake to take her and place her in that tower, and hold her captive, as if she was a possession and belonged to him now. She was far from belonging to him, and his rash actions had only made his work to make her want him as her husband even harder.

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