Pre-Order Blitz and Giveaway! HADES by Felicity Heaton (Guardians of Hades #9)

One of his shadows snapped at her right knee and she jerked to her left, leaning her body away from it and curling her arms protectively over her chest. Giving away her fear. He made the shadow settle again and waited for her to look at him.

When she did, he flatly said, “Tell me of their plan.”

“The information is worth nothing. The plan would have changed!”

His brows drew down and his lips flattened, and this time she eased backwards away from him. “Then you can tell me, for as you say, the information is worth nothing.”

But it might contain a clue that would allow him to turn the tide of this war in his favour and end it before it really began.

Eris flicked another look at her brother and lingered for a moment, a war erupting in her amber irises. She was considering telling him, weighing up the pros and cons. Was he finally getting somewhere?

Her gaze roamed back to him. “I have nothing to tell you.”

Hades lunged towards her and bared his fangs as rage drenched his vision in crimson. Shadows burst from the soles of his feet, surging towards Eris as she shrieked and reared back, and the ground beneath him cracked, jagged fractures splintering outwards from beneath him.

They flared orange, flooding with boiling lava that swiftly filled every fault line that streaked across the trembling black rock.

Eris scrambled backwards as two fissures closed in on her.

Unleashed an ear-splitting cry as one touched her and the scent of burning flesh filled the thick air.

Hades raised his hand and closed his fist so tightly that Eris’s eyes bulged and blood burst from her lips. He hauled her off the ground without touching her, his eyes slowly narrowing on her as his shadows hungrily snapped at her. The fissure that had scalded her leg split wide open beneath her and she frantically flailed, her bare feet kicking as her gaze edged downwards.

As shadows rose to drag her into the bubbling, hissing pool of molten rock.

“Perhaps you should take a break, my god-king. The legions may have discovered something and wish to report it.” Thanatos’s deep voice rolled through the room like a calming wave.

Hades’s attention snapped to him.

The shadows instantly ceased moving towards Eris’s ankles as awareness of what he had done hit him. Too close. He swept his hand to his right, discarding her, and she struck the rough wall and hit the ground on her side. She remained there, breathing hard, each desperate gasp grating in his ears.

“Allow me to take over questioning Eris, my god-king.” Thanatos stepped forwards and then stopped dead, his glowing blue gaze snagging on one of the fissures in front of Hades’s boots.

Hades looked down.

Not snagging on one of the fissures.

A green vine grew from the cooling lava, a bud forming at its tip. Leaves unfurled, stretching towards him rather than the slender light, as if he was the source of their nourishment and life, and then the bud opened.

A red rose that bloomed for him.

So delicate and beautiful.

Too delicate to belong in this grim world he ruled.

Hades stared at it, calm suffusing him, and felt to the very depth of his wretched soul that it was too delicate—that this war would finally crush that sweet flower which brought him light and balance.

Who made his life worth living.

An ache grew inside him.

An ache to see her, to dip his head to her shoulder as he crushed her to his chest and breathed in her subtle fragrance of lilies.

To find his strength in her as he had so many times before.