The Passion of Hades (The Hades Trials, #2)

by Eliza Raine

'You were wronged, by my worst enemy, and you paid the highest price. And now only you have the power to make it right.'

The only person who can tell you about your past is Hades. And what he knows is incomplete.'

'I can't see the benefit of telling you.' 'How about because I fucking asked?'

'Do I amuse you?' 'You just... Nobody other than you has ever spoken to me like that.'

'Yes, Hades, I know being with me blew your mind and I know you cried like a baby afterward, but we're not doing it again. Now, please stop bothering me.' I heard his deep, booming laugh in my head as I spun on my heels and marched away from him. 'Well played, Beautiful. Well played.’

'You are the same,' Poseidon hissed, his eyes glowing an intense blue. 'Your wrath is no less as a human, your temper as hot and unpredictable as it ever was.'

'You'd lose your fucking temper if you'd had your memories and power stolen!' Rage was burning through my blood, heating my whole body, and sending almost painful tingles across my skin. 'Everyone is happy to talk about my past, but nobody will tell me what I did! I'm being forced to risk my life, and the lives of strangers and the only friends I have here, for your entertainment! And nobody even expects me to survive, let alone win! Do you understand that I am not here to make your life difficult? I don't want to be here!'

'They'll go if you calm down, take deep breaths and think about something that doesn't make you angry.' 'Everything here makes me fucking angry!'

'When you use your power to grow things, to create life, you... You become practically irresistible.' He ground out the last word, like he really was struggling to resist something. To resist me.

'Do you have any idea how hard it is not to rip your clothes off right now?' he hissed. 'I can't be this close to you.'

'Persephone, your powers and your wrath were... unique.'

I hadn't been sure before, but now I was positive. There was no way I needed this dark, angry kind of power running through me. I knew it was part of a terrible past, and I needed to concentrate on the future.

'They made me take your strength, when I sent you away. You were scared, and I wasn't allowed to fix it. I prayed the fear would leave you when you started again in the mortal world.'

'There is a Queen inside you, Persephone. My Queen.'

Strength born from overcoming trauma is very different to blood-born arrogance. It is true

'Her experience as a human has changed her. Instead of being born to power, she's had to earn it. And the more we put her through, the stronger she may become. Stronger even than she was before.'

Persephone on the Rose throne, resplendent in one of her fierce black corseted gowns, an onyx crown atop her head and black vines coiling from her palms as she glowed with power.

'You'd prefer this?' I asked, and made my shirt vanish. Color leapt to her cheeks as her eyes widened. And I knew I wasn't imagining the lust I could see in them.

'After I lost you, I couldn't deal with the darkness,' I said quietly. 'You brought light and life to this place, and I became obsessed with replacing it.'

stopped talking as I realized I was babbling. Not a great trait in a king.

'You deserve to be worshiped,' I breathed. 'And I can't do that here. When I finally touch you I want to hear you scream my name, watch you come over and over.'

She took a shuddering breath as she looked up into my face and my heart swelled with so much hope and love that it actually rivaled the size of the dark pit of power in my gut.

I would never let her go again. I couldn't. She was light and life and love, and she was mine.

'She will cause the end of Olympus.' The words Poseidon had bellowed at me not ten minutes before echoed through my head. 'If she ever meets Cronos, we are all doomed.'