Page 66 of The Queen & the King

My mother’s jaw ticks as she watches me, her nostrils flaring slightly. “No matter. I will find another.”

I laugh humorlessly. “Do you plan to let himsampleme, also?”

My mother slams her newspaper down on the table. “Yes,” she hisses.

I hold her gaze, refusing to back down.

“I will let a whole army do it if need be. Untilhecan no longer look at you,” she snarls.

I quirk a brow at my mother’s slip. “Who?”

Mother narrows her eyes at me, the paper crumpling in her tensing hands.

I don’t look away, not for a moment, rage bubbling under my skin. Say. His. Name. I dare you.

“You are my daughter. You will do what I order.”

The cracks on my mother’s skin become more pronounced with every second of our conversation, and I look back down at the table. “As I have been, Mother.”

“And you will continue to do so.” She stands from the table, her chair almost falling from the force. “I will be looking for a suitor who will accept you, tainted as you are.”

My mother thinks she won that round, that I submitted. I want her to think that because what she doesn’t know is that she gave me the biggest clue she could have. Shetook something from me, and it’s something to do with Hades.

Check, Mother.1

1 The Nightmare & The Daydream Chapters 34 & 35

Forty-One

Hades

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN’T FIND HER DREAM, MORPHY?”Melinoë demands. The two Gods of Dreams hover over my bed, prepared to drop me into Persephone’s dreams.

“It’s as if she’s… gone.”

I snarl, the sound more feral and monstrous than ever. My shadows erupt from me, slamming into both of them. Mellie flies back, hitting the wall hard, denting it. Morpheus slams into a table, snapping his teeth and biting back his retort.

“Throw my girlfriend one more time, and we will have issues,” Helios warns, narrowing his eyes on me. He moves to help her to her feet.

“I’m not your fucking girlfriend,” Mellie hisses, slapping his hand away and standing on her own. “Hades. You need to calm the fuck down. We’re doing all we can here.”

I jump to my feet, my glamor failing to hide the darkness in my face. I’m too scattered to even manage it at the moment. “Yet it is not enough! We are at war, and my queen is trapped!”

For every Titan I help to collect, I remember how they escaped, how I lost her, and how the war seems to become morecomplicated. The traces of Kronus have vanished. Whatever my father is up to, it is not good. Soon, there will be nothing left, and I can’t fight. I am fucking trapped in the Underworld, relying on others not only to fight but for access to my wife. I have to sit idle.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Mellie snarls. “I have been nearly killing myself to ensure you can see her as often as you want, and you have the fucking nerve to tell me it’s not enough?”

I don’t need a mirror to know the darkness spreading over my skin is staining my eyes now. The proof is in the way the rage, sorrow, and frustration are encroaching on my mind. “Is she here right now?”

“No, and neither am I!” She whirls, shouting, “Berry! Come!”

Cerberus trots to her side, and I can’t stop my mouth. The boiling rage is too much. “You must not truly care about her.”

My breath whistles out of me as Helios slams into me with the force of a comet. We hit the window, breaking the glass with my back. My wings snap out to stop myself from plummeting into the gardens below.

“You may be a king, but you don’t have to be a dick,” Helios growls, his eyes glowing like two solar flares. I can only imagine how this is affecting the actual sun.

Mellie doesn’t look back, taking Cerberus on a walk with her, leaving Helios and me alone. Morpheus must have taken the opportunity to vanish.

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