by Amelia Wilde
“You want the truth?” He advances on me, caging me in, his face a mask of pain and frustration. This is the first time he’s ever looked how I feel. “You’ve always belonged to me. It was only ever a matter of summoning you.”
How many more knives, how many more cuts? When am I going to blessedly bleed out? If it happened now I could at least see the sky. “I thought you wanted me,” I hear myself say. I sound crazed. I feel crazed. I’ll float away and disappear any moment now. “I thought you cared.”
“That’s the fucking problem.” He backs me up until I’m flat against the unyielding rock of the mountain. “Loving you is like staring into the sun. You’re a liability, Persephone, and you always have been. To everybody.” Conor moves out of his position in a black blur and forces himself between us. “Get the fuck out of my way, Conor.” Conor snaps back at him, teeth out. His body shakes against my skin.
I get one more breath and then, because I can’t leave and I can’t stay, I squeeze between Conor and the wall and go back inside. I don’t look back.
24
Persephone
Hades does not come to find me in the guest suite, and at first I don’t care. I’ve cried so hard that I’m sick, or at the very least I’ve damaged something. My stomach, maybe. It hurts. Everything hurts. I curl up on the bed in a dramatic pose because it’s the only thing that seems right. Let him do what he’s going to do. I don’t care.
The minutes tick by, turning to hours. At some point I must fall asleep because it’s dark the next time I look.
And he’s still not back.
Maybe I killed him. Not directly, obviously, because that’s impossible. But maybe...
My sad, stupid heart seizes the thought and won’t let it go. Eventually I heave myself off the bed and tug the shawl around my shoulders. I look terrible—I can feel it. Puffy eyes. Red cheeks. Nobody’s going to care. I don’t care. I’m not really awake.
Hades is nowhere in his private rooms. It takes me twenty minutes to look inside all of them, my horror growing with every tick of the clock. Why can’t I just not care? If I could stop caring, everything would be so much easier. I wouldn’t care that we’ve had a fight and somehow he won. I’m not sure how, but this doesn’t feel like winning. At all.
No Hades. No Oliver. I check over my shoulder at the main doors, but nobody’s there. Nobody’s watching. I’m alone.
I’m not staying in here to wait for my fate. I’m done with all that. Whatever’s happening is outside the double doors.
Voices—thank god. I push away the sense of relief. There’s no earthly reason to be relieved that he left me in there to wait out that horrible silence. What comes at the end? A train ride back to my mother’s fields? No. I’ll figure something else out. Anything else. I’ll walk if I have to. That feels better—an inkling of a plan. It’s definitely not a good plan, but it’s a direction.
Hades has a meeting room.
He probably has more than one, but the voices lead me to this one, a space in the hall between the rotunda and his rooms. A crowd of people—ten or twelve—has gathered around a long meeting table. It’s all dark, like everywhere else he spends time, but a glowing light in the center of the table illuminates all of them. Hades stands at the end of the table, Conor by his side. The dog doesn’t like this. Neither does anybody else.
Hades sees me in the hallway. Conversation filters out. Words like weapons. Words like bombs. These are things that have to do with war, not business. I want to melt back into the shadows and disappear, but screw them. I’m part of this, too. Until I can pack up and leave, anyway. But before I leave, I’m going to find out what they know.
Oliver catches my eye on the way into the meeting room and nods. It untwists some of the anxiety at the core of me. Approaching Hades does not. He has a boundary around him now that I won’t cross. The invisible walls around him feel as real as the mountain stone.
I stop a foot away from him and listen. Nothing these people are saying makes any sense. Maybe this is still part of a dream. “What’s happening?”
Hades leans back in his chair, watching them but answering me. “Zeus and Demeter have formed an alliance. They’re moving on the mountain.”
“Why would they do that?” My mind is thick with heartache and grief. “You said that I...belong here. That she signed me away.”
He doesn’t blink. “She did.”
“Then why are they coming here? For you?” I pull the shawl tighter. Too tight.
Hades’s jaw works. “If people honored the terms of their contracts, none of this would be a problem, would it?” He meets my eyes with a glare. “Demeter offered you in exchange for services I provided.” He keeps his voice low. The others in the room keep talking amongst themselves. They’re being so courteous while I die all over again. “That’s how all of this started. This is why we’re in this fucking mess.”
Across the table, Oliver says something to one of the other men and his sentence ends with the word attack.
I’m awake. I’m wide awake now. An attack. They’re not talking about a figurative attack, they’re talking about a real one. They’re talking about killing and damage and casualties.
And...there’s a lot to attack here in the mountain. A lot that I love.
It hurts to know that and I push my fists over my heart to counterbalance the weight. It wouldn’t hurt if it wasn’t real, and it is. Because somehow, somehow, I’ve fallen for this place. For Oliver and his scar and his crossword puzzles. Eleanor and her flowers.
And Hades, who I hate. And love. Two sides of one coin.
“I’m yours now,” I whisper. “Why are they attacking?”
Hades looks at me, not a shred of blue visible in his eyes. I don’t even know how he’s upright. A current goes between us, through the empty space. He keeps his hands close to him. He won’t touch me. What if he never touches me again? The thought fills me with loss.
“Your mother changed her mind.”
He lets me sit with it—stand with it—for long enough that my heart tumbles onto the floor. And then he turns away.
“Go wait in your room, Persephone. Lock the door.”
“No.”
That would be easy. It would be so easy to go back to my room and cower in my bed and pretend this isn’t happening. But it is happening. And these aren’t just his people anymore. They’re mine.
“Show me the plans.” I overshoot it, too loud, but the people closest to me at the table notice. Then the next ones down. “Show me now.” Hades watches me, but I don’t look at him. “Faster than that.” It feels right to say it, an edge in my voice.
Oliver’s the first to get up and once the dam is broken the rest of them follow. There’s a brief scuffle over who gets to put the plans in front of me—a schematic of the entire mountain, including the train station. The only inaccurate part is Hades’ private quarters. He wouldn’t let them survey that, apparently. I guess I’m not surprised.
“We have the women and children going out to the train now.” Oliver draws a finger from the space by the mines—it must be housing—to the train station. “We have an emergency car. They could get—”
“No. No.” Think. I’ve read a lot of books about war, which my mother found preferable to anything with love or tenderness or escape. “Don’t send them out there. You’ll lose all of them.” The train track is a giant circle. Sending them out is sending them into my mother’s territory, and Zeus’s. They’ll panic, they won’t stay on, and if they get out into my mother’s property they won’t come back. “Don’t send them toward the train station.”
“Where, then?” Oliver holds up a hand to someone else at the table. They’re not making plans for the future. This is right now. What I say will change—or ruin—people’s lives.
“Up.” I tap quickly on Hades’ private rooms. “Bring them up, right now.”
Oliver looks at Hades over my head. He must get some kind of approval because a man behind him jumps up and runs out. Focu
s. Hiding isn’t enough.
“How close are they, Oliver?”
“Minutes.” He checks his watch. “Maybe less.”
I trace down the plans until I find what I’m looking for—a room labeled ARMORY. “Do you have charges?”
“Yes.”
“Is someone down there now?”
“We have people waiting.”
The room has gone quiet around us. I feel ancient. Like an ancient warrior queen. I wonder if all ancient warrior queens secretly felt like frauds but ultimately had to keep going anyway.
“You have to fill the train station with charges. That’s the biggest entrance. But it’s not the only one, is it?” The plans confirm this. There’s a secondary stop for the train, and there’s the mines themselves. “No. Charges at both stations. If anybody else is down in the minutes, have them shoot out the work-lights. What about outside?”
Two of the men at the table exchange a glance.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” There’s no time to be a shrinking violet right now. “Is there something out there?”
One man clears his throat. “We...acquired automatic weapons. Through back channels.”
“Send people there. Right now. Are you closing the station doors?”
“Now,” Oliver answers. “There are backups, but if we blow them apart they won’t hold forever.”
“Forever is a long time,” I tell him.
Oliver looks at me, and I wait for him to tell me this is the craziest idea he’s ever heard. That it won’t work. That they’re just going to bleed people out of the mountain like they planned and hope for the best. “Thank you,” he says finally, sounding sincere. Maybe a little surprised.
Everyone looks a little surprised.
They must have been waiting for this, because the few people who have been sitting leap up and the ones who were standing run for the doors. They divide all of my orders neatly between them, and in the space of thirty seconds they’re gone from the room. Heavy footsteps recede down the hall and Oliver yells for someone to go faster.
It’s me and Hades now, alone in this room.
There’s nothing to look at in the plans now—everything is in motion. But he’s still here. I look up into his face and find his eyes glowing with approval. With possession. I was stupid before, thinking I would ever leave. If I live through this, I never will. If.
He goes from the room then, crossing the hall into another room, this one mostly glass and screens. From here we can look down on the mountainside. The gates at the front edge of his property seem closer now. There are people there. A lot of people. Those gates won’t stay closed for long.
I reach for Hades’ hand, hoping against hope.
He takes mine back and lifts my knuckles to his lips. This could be the last kiss, I think. A boom sounds somewhere below us, horribly loud through meters of rock. Another boom.
“They’re here.” I squeeze his hand and watch the people at the gate hurry. They’re frenzied. Fierce. We’re under attack—our mountain, our family. Our love.
He squeezes back.
Thank you so much for reading SUMMER QUEEN! This breathtaking trilogy concludes with MIDNIGHT KINGDOM, available May 2020.
Revenge is a dangerous game, but I played it for Persephone. Now we’re locked in battle with a lethal enemy. I own her body and I’ll win her heart. But with enemies at the gate and my fortress under attack, there’s something more at stake—our lives.
Order MIDNIGHT KINGDOM now!
Need another forbidden romance right this instant? Try my epic best friend’s little sister romance with a scorching military hero in BEFORE SHE WAS MINE!
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Connect with Amelia
Amelia Wilde is a USA TODAY and Amazon Top 100 bestselling author of steamy contemporary romance and loves it a little too much. She lives in Michigan with her husband and daughters. She spends most of her time typing furiously on an iPad and appreciating the natural splendor of her home state from where she likes it best: inside.
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Copyright Information
© 2020 Amelia Wilde
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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For more books by Amelia Wilde, visit her online at www.awilderomance.com
