The Iron Queen (Daughters of Zeus) - By Kaitlin Bevis Page 0,14
talk to you some more and because you’re stuck with me, you’re going to listen.” Giving Melissa a malicious grin, I set the magazine on the desk. My smile faded and my voice went serious as anger I hadn’t allowed myself to feel came simmering to the surface. “I am so sick of the whole lot of you whining about how bad you have it. It’s a bit of a blow to the ego knowing that the world would actually be a better place if I didn’t exist. But I manage. Every single person I know by name on this planet wishes I’d never been created. That Zeus could ask me to drop dead at any minute and I would have to comply is more than a little terrifying. Have I sat around moping about it? Nope. I’ve been doing something constructive with my time.”
“Constructive?” Melissa snorted.
I threw the magazine at her. It hit her knees and flopped down on the bed. Melissa snatched it and held it up like she was about to throw it right back at me, but stopped when she noticed the pictures I’d circled.
“Look familiar?”
Melissa flipped the page and studied a picture of a completely hot guy modeling preppy clothes. He was the ultimate golden boy with his blond hair, tan skin, and golden eyes. All the markings of a demigod.
I walked to the door. Before my hand could so much as touch the doorknob, Melissa sprang up from the bed. “Where do you think you’re going?”
I smirked, swinging the door open. “You wanted to do something so badly?”
“You’re supposed to stay here.”
“And you’re supposed to babysit. Coming?”
Chapter XI
Hades
After my discouraging chat with Cassandra, I teleported to the Elysium Fields. I didn’t spend a lot of time here. For the most part, Elysium was filled with the best of the souls. Those who had done great good in their lives. But it was also home to deceased deities. Olympus stood over the bright sunny fields and meadows. Most souls felt the vibrant purple mountain added beauty to the perfect landscape. I disagreed.
Olympus cut a dark shadow across perfection, serving as a reminder that there was no place untouched by evil in all of creation. I loathed Olympus. Everything changed the moment this mountain towered over my life. We had become what we’d worked so hard to defeat, perhaps not as bad as the Titans, but this mountain elevated us to gods, scowling down at all of creation.
Yet it was in my Underworld. The fall of Olympus had been the final harbinger of the death of the gods. I could have incinerated the blasted mountain the moment it came down or left it to rot in Demeter’s realm. But it meant something to them, and they’d lost enough.
Gods, nymphs, and dozens of other extinct creatures stopped what they were doing to watch me approach the palace. I didn’t come here often. Still, I didn’t hesitate when I walked through the columns. This was my realm.
“Wow, two visits in one century.” Hera moved between the sand-colored columns with an inhuman grace. There were no walls here, only columns stretching an impossible distance into the air, holding up a very tall, very flat slab of stone ceiling. It couldn’t have been more different from my palace. That wasn’t a coincidence.
“I’m almost flattered.” Hera’s curly brown hair was piled on the top of her head in an archaic Roman style. She wore a violet chiton. I hadn’t seen one of those shift-like dresses since the hydra last plagued Ancient Greece. Some people didn’t know how to move on.
“Thinks the man in the cape.” Hera let out a throaty chuckle at my surprised look. “I can always tell what you’re thinking, Hades. Such an open book.”
“You’re the only one who ever thought so.” I sat on one of the tall backless couches.
Her lips turned up in a mysterious smile. “Maybe it’s not so much an open book as a mirror. Perhaps we’re both just damaged beyond repair.” She sat beside me on the couch, fingers trailing over the narrow strip of white upholstery between us. “What can I do for you?”
“Your husband has taken my wife. Do you have any idea where?”
She tilted her head and put a hand on my shoulder. “Poor Hades, will you ever find someone who deserves you?”
I removed her hand from my shoulder with a bit more force than necessary. “It wasn’t consensual.”
“Isn’t that your working theory on what happened to me? That I was