"Come live with me in the Underworld, my darling." He pleaded in a way a king never should. 

"Am I to become your mistress?" she asked him. She had always lived in her mother's shadow, and if she followed Hades, she would once again be living in another's shadow. Even though she loved him, she did not think she could stomach it. 

"I do not want you to be my mistress, Persephone. I want you to be my Queen," he confessed to her. She snapped her head up to meet his eyes, searching for any sign he wanted to take his words back, but there was no remorse. And just like that, she fell ever so slightly more in love with him. 

"Your Queen?" she asked; the word had slid off her tongue gracefully as if it had belonged there. 

"Yes, marry me and become my Queen," he told her once again, taking a step closer to her. "Rule beside me as the Goddess of Spring and Queen of the Underworld." 

"You... you want to marry me?" The words don't seem to make sense in her mind. 

"Persephone, how do you not already know this? I've loved you  unconditionally ever since you stumbled into the Underworld. I would have stolen you away long ago if I thought you'd be happy in the Underworld with me. But I can't wait any longer now that I know I might never see you again." Ever so slowly and ever so gracefully, he kissed her again. It nearly brought tears to her eyes. "I've called you my queen countless times, but now I'm asking you. Well, you become my queen. Will you marry me? Say the words, and I'm yours." 

She suddenly understood what it was to be spring - to bloom under care. 

- - - 

This is the real myth of Persephone and Hades, not the myth that has been twisted over time. She was never kidnapped but instead found power and love in the Underworld. Read and find out what the fates have in store for the King and Queen of the Underworld. 

Persephone is the Goddess of Spring, and she has a secret. It is a secret she can never let anyone know, not even her attentive mother. The untold truth is that she is deeply and madly in love with Hades, the God of the Underworld. Although it is an unlikely pairing, prone to wither and die after the attraction begins to dim, the two gods have continued their secret meetings for generations. Being afraid of her mother's wrath, the lovers hid their love from any watchful eyes for centuries.

But everything changed for Persephone and Hades the night of the summer solstice. While hidden in the Olympian gardens, the couple was thrust into turmoil as the plans they had made lay in ashes. That night at the Olympian party the one thing Persephone had been praying wouldn't happen finally did, her mother found them. 

Ever since that night in the gardens, both their fates began to change irreversibly.

"No one is coming to save you. There will be no escape, there will only be you and me, here, for however long it takes for you to answer every one of my questions. If you are waiting for your King to come and save you, you are sadly mistaken, he cannot reach you here." 

That statement might have defeated any other prisoner, but she knew better. She had known and accepted that she would find her death here.

She laughed as loudly as she could, making a show of it, "rescue me? Please don't tell me you think I'm a damsel in distress." 

His smile met her laugh, meeting her challenge with his own. "Distress? No. But we have just gotten started." 

- - -

Adriell did not come here for a prince, she came for his throne. 

Born of the sea, bound by vengeance. Adriell, heir of the merpeople, and warrior, is captured by the humans from the land up above and transformed into the very creature she despises. Captured and transformed, she is a mermaid adrift, a warrior without her sea. Her prison becomes her battleground when she vows to assassinate the Sultan, the man who stole her life. To slaughter the sultan the way he slaughters her people.  

In the heart of the enemy's court, she discovers Allaric, the Sultan's son, a man haunted by his own secrets and a man who yearns for his father's downfall. Forced into a dangerous alliance, they navigate a world of shadows and lies, where enemies become allies, and hatred simmers into a forbidden desire. 

In this dark fantasy retelling, alliances are forged in blood, and the price of freedom is paid in secrets and sacrifice.  A dark, enemies-to-lovers fantasy where the sea meets the sword.

This book has been published on Galatea as an exclusive; to find out what happens to Samantha and Austin, hop over to Galatea.

- - -

Samantha is a girl that has more troubles than she has songs on her playlist. Some days she wished the universe would stop and she could just be alone. But she gets her wish when her mother is murdered by her father and she skips town in search of the thing her mother used to fantasize about. A town with no memories. Somewhere that you can start fresh and where you don't have to think about anything else. Or anyone else. That is until she meets Austin. The man who makes her feel feelings she had thought she could never have.