Page 29 of Where Darkness Bloomed
“I am to be your husband.”
The words rang, reverberating into the silence.
The air thinned in her lungs. Her knuckles grew white against the blanket, gripping so tightly her fingers ached. Words became stuck in her throat.
When she finally managed to speak, her voice trembled. “My father...Zeus—”
“Has given his consent.”
The calm in his voice wasn’t cruel, it was absolute.
Disbelief cracked through Kore, and she stared at him. “But my mother, she would never—”
One look at him stopped the words cold. He said nothing. But in the silence, she suddenly understood.
Her mother had not known.
Tightness seized around her ribs. Fear rushed in, swift and cold.
“My lord, I—” Her voice broke. “I cannot—”
Panic broke through her, blinding and wild. Her foot edged back, carrying her a step closer to the chamber door.
He did not move, his gaze following her movement with the same controlled stillness. As if he had known this moment would come and chose not to stop it.
Before reason could reclaim her, she ran.
Chapter 14
From the shadows behind his onyx throne, Hades stood unmoving.
The sound of bare feet striking stone echoed softly through the cavernous silence. A breath later, Persephone burst into the throne room.
She was still wrapped in the blanket, her breath unsteady and eyes wild as they swept the hall.
It was blessedly empty. Except for him.
She had not noticed him yet, but he saw everything. The way her fingers gripped the blanket, knuckles white. The tremble in her limbs. The panicked gasps that made her chest heave.
Then she turned—and her gaze collided with his.
A broken sound came from her throat, and she froze. Fear bloomed in her eyes, sharp and unforgiving as a dagger driven into his ribs.
She took a step back from him. Then another.
He remained where he was, forearms braced against the throne’s back. Every instinct demanded he step forward, that he offer low assurances to draw her from the icy grip of fear.
But the look of terror in her eyes held him still. So different to how she had looked at him on Olympus.
The silence between them thickened.
She stepped back again. Too fast—her foot snagged against the trailing end of the blanket.
The fall was swift, brutal.
She crashed to the stone floor with a breathless cry, the blanket twisting around her like a snare. Her hair spilled in waves over her bare shoulders, wild and unbound.
On the dais, Hades gripped the stone hard enough that it groaned inprotest beneath his hands. A slow ache curled in his chest, spreading like a relentless tide, threatening to crack the control he wore like armor.
