Queen of the Underworld (Gold Foil Special Edition Paperback)

Hades was in a black mood and the Underworld shook because of it.

Crimson lightning struck around him, each bolt that connected with the obsidian earth making it tremble and spraying chunks of rock and gravel in all directions. A great jagged streak hit close to him, the heat and power of it buffeting his left side and knocking him away from it. The chariot pitched, the sudden movement shaking him with enough force that the cold, numbing darkness lost its hold on him for a heartbeat.

A moment he seized as fiercely as he gripped the leather reins to guide the horses to safety.

He gave a hard shake of his head, trying to dislodge the thickening darkness as it crept back in, as it whispered in his ear and shredded the fragile fragments of his humanity with sharp talons.

Before he could even begin to fight it, it pulled him back down into the abyss, stealing control of him once more, and all he could feel was hatred. At himself. At this world. At everyone.

His lips stretched into a slow, malicious grin as he raced through the dark lands on his chariot, carving the earth up in his wake as he thundered forwards, the shadows that clung to his shoulders streaming behind him like onyx wings. The light from the ribbons of lava that flowed down the cragged faces of the black mountains and formed rivers beside the road reflected off his obsidian plate armour, chasing over the talons of his gauntlets as he raised his hands and snapped the reins again, urging the four black steeds to run faster.

The thick air filled with the beautiful melody of screams of souls as the ground trembled and bucked, and a spiky mountain burst from a plain off to his left, like the fierce teeth of a beast that had circled beneath its prey from below to catch them within its jaws.

And devour them.

The fear of every soul in the village the mountain destroyed trickled through him, feeding the darkness within him.

His lips peeled back off his fangs as his grin widened. He savoured their pain. Their terror. Pleasure rolled through him, a drug he couldn’t get enough of, one that only made him crave more as the darkness tightened its grip on him. He cracked the reins harder, demanding the enormous onyx horses obey him. They whinnied in response and surged forwards on a new wave of power, carrying him faster across the uneven land, up an incline towards an ancient mountain range.

Another fierce bolt of scarlet lightning struck close to him and his head whipped towards it. The brightness of it seared his eyes and he flinched, growling at the light. The cold receded for another heartbeat, and Hades was quicker this time.

He gritted his teeth and fought the darkness, refusing to let it rip control from him again. Sweat dotted his brow as he struggled against it, attempting to purge it from his soul to free him of its grip. His breaths shallowed and grew faster, his muscles clamping down on his bones with enough force to make his entire body ache as he waged war against himself. The darker side of his blood that he kept secret from all—a feral beast that lurked within him, constantly waiting for the right moment to strike, constantly trying to make that moment happen by whispering poisonous words in his ear to weaken him—fought back, clawing at his mind with wicked words designed to spread doubt and feed his fears.

Hades clutched the reins harder, trying not to listen to the truth it spoke, but it wouldn’t be silenced. It purred at him, murmuring words designed to seduce and tempt, to draw him back into its arms and make him surrender to it.

He couldn’t remember why the darkness had risen this time.

But he felt sure he had done terrible things while it had held him in its grip, numbing him and robbing him of any soft emotions he might possess, transforming him into a monster fuelled by rage and a thirst for violence.

He always did.

Hades looked at his realm as the lightning continued to rage across it, as the land shifted and mountains erupted. This catastrophic storm was his fault. It was born of him.

And he regretted it.

He tried to pull his temper back under control, fought harder against the darkness that slowly chilled his blood and shut down his feelings, those seductive words it murmured to him luring him back towards it. He couldn’t give in to it. He glared at the black talons of his gauntlets and tightened his grip on the reins. He couldn’t.

Whatever had plunged him into a black rage must have been powerful, so devastating that he had completely lost himself to the darkness.

If he let it take him again, he might not come back from it.

Fear of what he might do if he became the darkness, losing the last shreds of his humanity, was a potent motivator and had him fighting harder as he clamped his teeth together and growled. He could not let the darkness take him again.

But he couldn’t remember why it had so easily stolen control.

If he could, he might be able to tame the darkness again and bring it back under his control.

Hades looked at his dark realm again. How long had he raged? So much felt different to him as his powers stretched outwards, connecting with the lands and funnelling through them to reach far from him. He swallowed hard, regret tasting bitter in his mouth. He hadn’t meant to harm so many under his care.

But then, he never did.

His mood shifted, guilt twining with the regret, with the fear, dragging him back down. He didn’t want to feel these things. Did he? He wanted them gone. Didn’t he?

Hades lost focus as those desires snaked through him, the thunder of hoofs growing distant in his ears and his connection to his realm falling away. No. He didn’t want to feel them. He didn’t want to feel anything.

What was the point when it only led to pain?

The darkness purred again, wrapping cold arms around him that promised oblivion. That promised an end to his suffering.

It was better he felt nothing.

Then the betrayals didn’t cut so deep.

He frowned at his hands as a flicker of a memory broke the surface, shimmering just beyond his reach—the reason the darkness had consumed him. It was there and gone in a flash, and he snarled as he cursed it, as he tried to make it come back. Lightning struck all around him, carving great pits in the black earth, and in the distance ahead of him, people screamed.

His grin slowly returned as one by one those screams fed the darkness and dulled his emotions, leaving him numb once more. Before it took him again, tearing awareness and control from him, a question echoed in his mind.

What was he so angry about?

The darkness purred an answer.

What did it matter?

Every day was the same. Nothing would ever change that. He woke in a black rage, consumed by something he could not name, his soul shrouded in darkness, and stalked from his temple to carry out his duties.

Over and over again.

Forever.

Hades pushed back the darkness, mastering it again, but not quite able to shed it completely. It hissed another question at him, another attempt to tear him down and make him give in, one that had him wavering and had anger spiking his blood.

How long had it been since he had seen the sun?

He gazed skywards, but there was blood red where he felt blue should have been, and thick plumes of black ash where white clouds should have drifted.

Hades curled his lip and shut down that line of thought, his mood darkening further as his black eyebrows knitted hard. He sneered at his realm, one made of ash and blood.

A realm of darkness.

Where Zeus, his youngest brother, had dared to banish him while he bathed in the light of Olympus, and allowed their brother, Poseidon, to rule another realm of sunshine and life.

While Hades ruled death.

They had betrayed him. Yes. His own flesh and blood. His own brothers. Even Poseidon, the one he had protected with his life countless times, had betrayed him. They always betrayed him. Always formed an allied front against him. Always sought to cage him here. To steal the light from him.

Another scream scraped in his ears like a broken symphony as he entered a village, his horses not slowing as they thundered down the narrow path that cut through the heart of the cluster of thatched black stone buildings. Males and females desperately scrambled out of his way, racing for cover to avoid being struck by his horses or the lightning that slammed into the ground.

Hades glared at the noble souls.

Souls sent to him by Zeus.

“Olympians,” he growled.

On a sneer, he unleashed a fraction of his power.

Behind him, a great fault split the earth in two, and those screams became bellows of sheer terror, threaded with notes of agony as other males and females yelled names or cried for help.

Hades’s eyelids drooped to half-mast and his smile grew lazy as his shadows seized those who were close to climbing free of the crevasse and hurled them into the dark depths. Pleasure rolled through him, fogging his mind and making him crave more.

He turned his sights on the road ahead of him, one that cut through a gorge.

The souls who were walking along it towards him all fell to their knees as he approached and clasped their hands together, raising them above their bowed heads as they murmured praise to him.

His shadows tore from the ground, rocketing towards them.

Hades clamped his molars together and growled as he shoved back against the darkness, subduing it in time to halt the shadows before they cut the people to ribbons. He breathed hard as he drew them back to him and wrestled for control of his own body, clawing it back inch by inch. The darkness within him writhed and snarled, battering the cage of his body and scraping at his mind, raking talons over it in a light caress as it poured honeyed words in his ear.

Kill them.

“No,” he hissed and urged the horses onwards, before the souls could snap out of the haze of terror that had fallen over them when his shadows had launched at them. “They are not souls from Olympus. They were mortal once.”

He cast a regretful glance down at them as he thundered past them, guilt twining with agony to form a sharp lance in his breast, and he turned his face away, despising himself for the horror he had unleashed on the village. Those souls hadn’t deserved his wrath either.

His mood shifted again, his rage swift to rise as he broke out onto a large plain. He huffed and tightened his hands around the reins as thoughts of Zeus and Poseidon clouded his mind and the shadows encroached, spreading to blot out the light.

Because he had recalled why his mood was so foul and the darkness had taken him.

Poseidon had dared to interfere with Thanatos’s duty to reap a female’s soul and bring it to Hades.

The god of death had returned from the veil without severing her life from her body despite the fact the Moirai had dictated her time had come, and when Hades had asked him why he had dared come to him empty-handed, Thanatos had growled that Poseidon had struck a deal with the three Fates.

Sparing the female.

Because his brother had apparently laid claim to her.

She was to be his queen.

Hades snarled and cracked the reins as he glared at his realm. A mountain in the distance erupted, a cataclysmic blast of fiery light detonating to push back the darkness and fill the air with distant screams.

Zeus had his queen, and now Poseidon was to have his.

Where was Hades’s queen?

His younger brothers didn’t deserve a loyal female. Both were philanderers. They bedded their servants, and mortals, and any female who took their fancy. He knew it. He knew Zeus often left Olympus to seek out beautiful maidens in the mortal world, slaking his lusts with them.

While Hades spent his every waking moment working, ensuring that the dead found their resting place, and that the mortal world, Olympus and Poseidon’s islands remained free of wandering souls that could cause unbalance and tip the realms towards an apocalypse if they were left alone.

A wide glowing orange crevasse snaked across the land ahead of him and as he reached it the black rock rose to form a bridge beneath the hooves of his horses. They galloped onwards without breaking their stride, their confidence in their master absolute.

At least someone in his realm trusted him.

Would not betray him.

That stray thought gave him pause as he crossed the lava-riddled plateau nestled in the heart of towering black mountains.

Did he desire others to trust him as these beasts did?

He shook his head and scoffed. “No.”

His men feared him. Fear made them obey him. The souls feared him. Fear kept them in line, making his life easier. Fear was pivotal. It was key.

It brought all who stood before him to their knees and under his control.

But still the niggling feeling lingered, refusing to die despite his best attempts to kill it.

The darkness twisted it, distorting it into something else. Perhaps it wasn’t a desire to have someone trust him, but rather a desire to simply have someone.

Hades growled and cast that wretched thought aside. He needed no one. Not his brothers. Not a female. No one. All he needed in his life were subordinates who obeyed him without question and his duty.

His mood darkened again, thoughts turning treacherous, refusing to leave behind the one that had struck him. It echoed in his mind, tormenting him, flooding him with a need to lash out at the lands and roar at the sky.

Where was his queen?

The Fates had made one for each of his brothers. His younger brothers.

He was the eldest. The most powerful. If anyone deserved a queen, it was him.

A female who would do his bidding. Who would warm his bed and satisfy his needs, and obey him.

His grip on the leather reins slackened as a feeling coursed through him.

He found the thought of having someone… pleasing.

Yet the Moirai denied him.

He bared his fangs at his realm, mentally baring them at the three females. He had been given the darkest realm to rule, had been betrayed and banished from the mortal world by Zeus, and had been charged with the task of keeping the titans imprisoned, no easy feat given their vast strength.

All he knew was death and darkness.

He was owed something for the centuries he had remained loyal to his duties.

He clenched his jaw until his teeth ached. He growled through them, the sound rumbling across the land together with the cracking of rock as more fissures opened across the plain, blazing bright orange.

He was owed someone.

A sheer cliff across the base of one of the mountains ahead of him snared his gaze and he frowned at it. It was no natural cliff. He peered at it, straining to make it out as he turned his horses towards it, drawn to it and unable to deny the urge to take a closer look. As he neared it, his eyes slowly narrowed, the black slashes of his eyebrows dipping low.

There were markings on the wall of obsidian rock.

Hades slowed the horses and brought his chariot to a halt before it. He hadn’t been imagining them. Upon the chiselled surface of the cliff, markings had been inscribed, forming a circular pattern twenty feet wide.

He dropped off the back of his chariot, his black cloak swirling around his ankles, and cautiously approached the cliff, the pointed toes of his onyx metal boots scraping on the obsidian rock beneath his feet. When he was within forty feet of the markings, the circles and glyphs burst to life. Dazzlingly bright colours seared his sensitive eyes that had grown far too used to darkness and he flinched away, a growl leaving his lips as they pulled taut to flash his fangs.

A gate.

Hades squinted at it until his eyes adjusted to the brightness of the series of glyph-filled colourful rings, each of which rotated in the opposite direction to the previous one.

It had been so long since he had been near a gate that he had almost forgotten what they looked like.

Curiosity tugged him towards the shimmering circular portal despite the wary part of him that whispered to keep his distance.

He wasn’t meant to leave the Underworld.

Not because his youngest brother had decreed it, but because he was well aware of how his power affected the mortal realm.

And this gate led to that delicate light-filled world.

It was one of only two in the Underworld. The other was leagues away. He looked off to his left in that direction, the great black mountains that surrounded him blocking his view but not stopping him from seeing the gate in his mind. Despite the distance between him and it, he could sense the constant hum of its power. He could always feel it if he put his mind to it. He was connected to everything in his realm. It was part of him and he was part of it. Bound to it.

Zeus had made sure of that.

After defeating the titans and overthrowing their father, they had drawn lots. Hades was sure Zeus had manipulated the sticks, ensuring he received Olympus to rule while Hades was cast into the darkness to rule the dead. Zeus and Poseidon had formed a fast bond during the war, one that had left Hades feeling like an outcast within his own family, despite how Poseidon had followed him as eldest while they had been trapped by their father.

How quick his brother had been to follow Zeus instead once he had freed them, shunning Hades.

So, it hadn’t surprised him when Zeus had taken care of Poseidon, giving him the oceans to rule.

They were always taking care of each other.

He sneered, flashing fangs again.

Zeus hadn’t just bound Hades to this realm. He had sowed the seeds that sprouted in his mind to whisper that he couldn’t leave whenever he had the urge to walk in the light for a time to cleanse his soul. Zeus wanted him here, trapped, slowly losing himself. Each year he spent in this realm chipped away at the light within him, allowing more darkness to seep in.

Now, Hades wasn’t sure there was any light left in him.

He couldn’t remember the male he had been.

He could only remember the darkness.

The seething, unquenchable thirst for violence and bloodshed, and terror that was his constant companion, darkening his mind with shadows and whispering in his ear, seducing him into obeying it.

If he could shatter the gate between the Underworld and Olympus to allow the darkness to seep into that bright realm, he would do it.

He stared at the gate before him.

If he could shatter this one to make his realm collide with the mortal realm… His mood faltered. He would not do it. He sharply shook his head, dislodging the dark hunger that had spurred his terrible thoughts. He would not do either. The Underworld was his to protect now—his home. He would defend it and keep it safe until his last breath.

Hades stared at the gate, feeling the power of it humming in his bones. It was waiting for him. He looked back at his chariot, aware that he should leave, and then at the gate, aching to step through it. Drawn to it. Crossing the threshold felt like a vital need he had to satisfy, one that would kill him if he didn’t go through with it.

A stray thought gave him pause.

Had the Moirai brought him to this place he hadn’t ventured in centuries?

Hades gave another sharp shake of his head, angered by his foolish and sentimental thoughts. The Fates did not care about him enough to lead him anywhere. He was master of his own destiny. Poseidon’s interference and declaration that he would have a queen by his side had caused a fault in Hades’s armour, one he repaired as he hardened his heart and pushed out the weakness. He needed no one.

But he still couldn’t convince himself to turn away from the gate.

If he stepped through it and into the mortal world, he would aggravate Zeus, perhaps almost as much as Poseidon had aggravated him.

Hades hiked his shoulders and stalked forwards.

His pulse raced, heart galloping as he closed the distance between him and the shimmering rings. The power the gate emanated grew stronger as he neared it and the rings shone brighter. How long had it been since he had visited the mortal realm? How long had it been since he had walked in the light? Whatever light there was on the other side of the gate, it wouldn’t last long. His dark influence would blot it out in a matter of minutes, but they would be minutes in which he was no longer one with the shadows.

And if his disobedience angered his brothers, so be it.

He would show them who was the strongest and most powerful.

Hades drew down a breath.

And stepped into the portal.

And out into a cool, dark cavemouth.

Only he wasn’t alone.

Ahead of him, beyond the cave, the barren land gave way to lush grass and verdant trees bathed in light and filled with life—a young forest that shouldn’t have been there.

But it was the soft, melodic song of a female voice that snared his attention.

And bewitched him.