Page 19 of The Queen & the King

She searches my eyes. “At my house.”

No. No. No.

My body is tight even inside the dream, preparing to ward off a blow. “I need you to listen to me very carefully. What was I doing there?” I grab her arms, needing to reassure myself that she escaped this encounter intact.

She looks down at my hold on her, frowning. “You spoke with my mother. Don’t you remember?”

I want to hurl. I should have protected her. He got so close.

“I don’t have green eyes,” I growl. “My father does. What did he say to your mother?”

She lifts her hand, brushing her fingers against my cheeks, right below my eyes. I close my eyes in comfort at that tiny touch.

“He’s a very dangerous man,” I add, not opening my eyes or moving away from her touch.

She keeps stroking her fingers against my face, tracing my features. “Are you?”

“Yes,” I answer without thinking. “But not to you.”

Her fingers drop, and my eyes open, regretting my quick words. “Do I frighten you?”

Persephone tilts her head to the side, her eyes scanning my face, analyzing me. “No.”

I let out a soft exhale of relief. “Did you hear anything else he said? My father?”

“He said something about Olympus trembling at her feet. Then she left the room with him.”

Her eyes are curious, full of questions she isn’t sure she can ask. Or if she should ask them.

“There’s a war,” I explain. “My father and I are on opposite sides.”

She studies my face for a moment before sliding past me to sit on the blanket in the grass. “What are you fighting for?”

My lips twitch. Women fight for a cause. Men fight to prove who has the bigger stick.

I follow her, sitting next to her on the blanket. “Survival.”

Fourteen

Hades

SHE TAKES A BITE OF THE APPLE, TUCKING HER LEGS UNDER HER.

"He wants to kill me and my brothers.” He wants to wipe us from every existence, in every timeline, even parallel ones.

“Why?” She scans my face, for a moment looking so sincere, so like the woman I love that it breaks my heart. “Because you fight for survival?”

I glance up at the sky in this dream, smiling when I see how she’s recreated the sky of our home. The swirling vortex of the night sky dances across the realm, every single constellation sliding over the darkness. It is an old gift from Nyx.

“Because we defeated him. We trapped him in a cell made from the bones of a Primordial for thousands of years.” And I became his eternal jailor, alone in the Underworld.

“So… a mutually difficult relationship, then?” Persephone comments, pulling me from my thoughts.

I let out a surprised laugh. “Hard parental relationships seem to be a popular divine trait,” I quip back.

She smiles but looks away, back up at the stars. I follow her gaze, whispering to them, “She wants you to be something you’re not. Your mother.”

I hear her slight intake of breath. “What makes you say that?”

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