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frenzy of desire, she wanted to do it with him. Not a servant.
    The woman nodded and gestured at the door. “Follow me.”
    Wrapping the silky fabric around her oil-slicked body, Rose did. The hum of desire still throbbed within her body, ever present as they walked down long corridors and dark, twisting hallways. Eventually, they came to a large door and the handmaiden paused. “He is inside, but he is not alone.”
    Well, then, he shouldn’t have kidnapped himself a goddess if he didn’t want to be disturbed.
    “Open the doors,” Rose said. “I wish to see him at once.”
    The doors opened upon a vast cavern.
    Rose took a step forward, surprised at the sight. She stood upon a carved marble ledge of an amphitheater. The steps led downward, and at the bottom of the seating sat Lord Hades upon a jewel-encrusted golden throne. In the seats of the theater, ghostly shades waited for their turn to approach the lord. On the floor before Hades, a line of souls waited to be judged.
    All eyes turned to her as she entered the room, skin gleaming, hair disheveled, her body tense and strumming with need. Silence fell.
    Rose could feel Hades’s eyes on her like a burning brand. She lifted her chin. Let him look.
    Let him guess why she’d come here. For some reason, the heat of his regard made her all the more excited. She liked that he was looking at her with that hot, dark gaze.
    “You cannot be here, my lady.” A guard came to her side, frowning.
    She gave him her best goddess look, dismissing him with a glance. “I wish to see Lord Hades.”
    “He is busy with the judgment of souls. He is not to be disturbed. He—”
    “Leave us.”
    The cold, quiet order came from the center of the room. All eyes turned back to Hades, who had stood from his throne.
    “Leave us. I wish to speak with my bride.” His gaze swept over the crowd. “Privately.”
    She should have corrected him. Pointed out that she wasn’t his bride quite yet. But it was rather pleasing to her ego to have an entire room cleared for her. To have the natural processes of the afterlife stopped for her.
    Her. Someone so very vital to day-to-day operations, she doubted anyone on Olympus had noticed she was missing yet. Someone so unimportant in the scheme of things that Demeter could override all her powers, and Rose could switch bodies with Persephone and have a radically different personality and not a single person had noticed the difference.
    No one, except this man.
    And this man had stopped everything for her. Heady stuff.
    She remained in place as the audience shuffled out of the room through a door on the
    opposite end of the amphitheater. The guards followed them out, ghostly spears rattling. After a long, long minute, the room was emptied.
    Hades gestured for her to come to his side.
    Rose glanced back at the double doors that she’d entered, but the handmaiden had shut them fast behind her. Shrugging her silky wrap closer, Rose descended the steps regally, her eyes on Hades.
    “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
    Was her visit a pleasure, then? That pulse of desire fluttered low in her belly once more, and she moved to stand in front of him, a few feet away. Now that she was here, she had no idea what to say. Or how to ask for what she wanted. “I…”
    He raised a dark eyebrow at her, as if daring her.
    It did the trick. “Your handmaiden was touching me.”
    “I sent her to give you a relaxing massage. She must touch you in order to massage you. I thought you might enjoy it.” Though his tone was innocent, the look in his eyes was anything but. “Was it not to your liking?”
    “She touched me… inappropriately,” Rose said, feeling flustered. Her nipples felt hard against the fabric she clutched to her chest, and when she shifted on her feet, her oiled thighs brushed against each other, the slick motion making a spiral of desire move deep inside her again.
    “And you did not wish this?” Not accusing. Merely assessing. His handsome