The King Of Death | Hades + Fae

Chapter Twelve

Hades

Mate.

Mate. Mate Mate.

The words rang as loudly in my head as I watched Tallulah leave the training room as they do now. What the fuck is a mate? Despite being given some semblance of freedom around the castle, I hadn't left my room since I watched her walk so gracefully away from me with blood falling in her wake. She was fucking insane, stepping between my blade and my enemy. It filled me with more rage than I had experienced before and my room had since become my outlet.

The chaise where she'd sat the day she'd visited me was nothing but splinters of wood against the wall. Vines were torn from cracks and lay strewn across the floor and the small bar cart was smashed to so many pieces that no one would be able to decern it's original purpose. Over a millennia I had spent honing my emotions only for some gorgeous fae queen to send me into a rageful fury. I had just turn my attention towards the bookshelf when my door swung open.

Pilos stands in the doorway, bathed in light that makes his golden armour look godlike. I hadn't spoken a word to the golden guards since returning to my room and I'd thought the feeling mutual until he leans against the frame with his arms crossed in the same condescending manor as the day before. 

"What?" I growl between clenched teeth. Why was I still here? I could leave and be done with these infuriating fae and yet I find myself confined to their rules by a power stronger than my own. Why does the thought of leaving cleave into my chest like an axe?

"It's petition day, I thought it would be good for you to see how we do things around here." As Pilos speaks, he glances down at his nails like he has a thousand better things to do which only stokes the flames of my anger. I swallow back my cursed retort knowing that fae hate swearing. Fae hate swearing. Something else overtakes my anger as I recall Tallulah's free use of a curse the day before.

"Do you swear?" I find myself asking before I can stop. Pilos' deep brown eyes lift from his nails and meet mine, no doubt the colour of a raging dark sea with the warring emotions around me.

"What?" His head tilts and I huff.

"I thought fae didn't swear." As my words reach him, Pilos moves to tuck his hands behind his back and rocks on his feet. His confidence grating at me as much as it begs my respect. If only he knew who he was dealing with.

"We don't." I hold back a growl but the sound still rumbles deep in my chest. Pilos' eyes widen for a moment, and then he laughs. He fucking laughs. His head tilts back and the back of his buzzed head knocking against my door. 

"If you are referring to our queen, she was raised among our soldiers. Hard to have the vocabulary of the court when you have people shouting fuck left right and centre." An image pops into my head before I can stop it of the first time I laid eyes on the pink haired queen. Dressed in leathers going sword to sword with one of her golden guards like she had been molded by Athena herself, sweat coating her skin in a glorious glow and her body trembling from hours of fighting. I had never seen a queen spar with her guards, not in all the years I'd walked the earth. 

"Do you want to come, or are you intent on wallowing in your own self pity all day?" Pilos pulls me from my thoughts and I realise quickly that he doesn't care whether I stay or not, he wants to be there. He wants to be close to his queen and within reach if she needs. Some of the animosity that brewed inside me dissipates and I nod curtly. If Tallulah cultivates this much respect from her subjects, I want to know why.