Page 96 of Queen of the Underworld

That shouldn’t thrill her. She knew it. But it did. It lit a fire in her veins that only grew hotter as Hades returned to driving the chariot, turning his profile to her. He was all darkness. His ears were pointed, the tips flaring through his mussed black hair. His irises were onyx embracing fire. The spikes of his crown rose like daggers from his hair. His fangs flashed between his profane lips as he sneered and snapped the reins. And his claws were out.

She shouldn’t find him so alluring when he was like this, all darkness and danger, but by the gods, she wanted him now more than ever.

When his gaze slid towards her, she didn’t look away. She locked eyes with him, the fire he roused in her fading a little as she watched the war that continued to play out in his gaze. He was still fighting his darkness. That had her focus shifting from the need that thrummed inside her, to a desire to know more about this side of him.

“Speak to me of your darkness, Hades,” she murmured, keeping her tone soft and light in an effort not to anger him or provoke him in any way. She didn’t want to make this fight harder on him. She just wanted to know why it happened and how it felt so she could help him with it.

The black slashes of his eyebrows dipped low and knitted hard, a crease forming between them as his eyes narrowed on her and his lips flattened.

That look was all it took for her to know he wouldn’t tell her about it.

Not today at least.

Persephone sighed, but didn’t press him.

Which seemed to surprise him because his features softened and something akin to relief flickered in his eyes before he turned his profile to her and guided the chariot around a cluster of large boulders.

Persephone placed her hand over his right one where it gripped the reins, her gaze on it for a heartbeat before she lifted it to his noble profile and softly said, “I know you have secrets… and that you will tell me in your own time.”

He slanted another look at her, his eyebrows pitching low again, and his features darkened.

His voice was little more than a rumbling growl as he said, “Never stand between me and another when my eyes go black.”

Persephone studied those eyes, watching as crimson slowly seeped from his pupils into his irises, driving out the obsidian. His hand trembled beneath hers and she palmed it, wanting to comfort him and chase away the fear she could see building in his eyes.

Hades tugged her closer to him, pinning her against his side so she had to angle her head back to keep her eyes locked with his.

“Swear to me that you will run, my love. If I ever change around you like that again, vow that you will run. Swear it to me.” His grim expression and the hard, demanding edge to his voice didn’t conceal the fear that built in his eyes as they darted between hers.

He was truly afraid that he would hurt her, and she didn’t want him to suffer like that, allowing doubts and fears to tear at his strength. Doubts and fears that might shred this fragile thing between them to ribbons and destroy it by making him distance himself from her in some foolish effort to protect her from himself.

“I will run,” she said, and relief washed across his features until she added, “If I feel I cannot help you.”

Hades shook his head. Hard. His expression was as dark as his realm as he glowered at her.

“No. You will run regardless. You will not try to help me. You will run,” he snarled.

Persephone might have meekly given in to him once, but he had been the one to awaken the fierce, unyielding side of her that would do all in her power to protect him and to help him.

“No. I will never run from you again. Not unless I feel you are beyond my help,” she countered. She needed to show him she believed he wouldn’t hurt her, because he had no shred of faith in himself. He believed he would hurt her.

So she had to believe that he wouldn’t.

When he bared fangs at her and looked as if he might snap them and growl, she lifted her hand to his chest and smoothed her palm across it.

That simple touch was enough to soothe the savage beast and calm him. His gaze fell to her hand, softening and turning almost hazy as she stroked his chest. Did he like the feel of her hand on him? Did he like it as much as she liked touching him and feeling all that hard, honed strength beneath her fingertips?

That fire he had started in her burst back to life, fanned by the feel of his body beneath her questing fingers. She lifted her gaze to his face and his eyes collided with hers, the banked heat in them scorching her.

She pressed closer to him, aching for his lips on hers.

Chapter 27

They rounded a bend in a pass at breakneck speed that jostled Persephone out of her fantasy about kissing Hades. His arm tightened against her back, his shadows holding her in place so she only swayed with him. She tore her gaze from him and looked ahead of them, a shiver cascading over her arms as the walls of the pass opened up into a small valley nestled among high peaks.

A waterfall of lava ran down the face of one of those black mountains and fell into the lake of molten rock that occupied most of the valley floor.

Incredible.

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