Page 16 of For the Love of the Gods

When it became clear which room I was headed towards, Rose jumped around me and made it to the door first. I cursed, but didn’t stop her as she pushed open the door and walked in.

I tensed up as she entered my room like she had a right to. I didn’t like people in my space. I spent a lot of time alone, and when I wasn’t, it was with people that Iliked.

My friends only ever went as far as the den on the other end of this floor. I rarely brought women back to my room, opting for theirs or literally anywhere else, but on the rare occasion I did, they never stayed over and were always too preoccupied to take in much of their surroundings.

Rose was certainly not a friend and sleeping with her was absolutely not in the cards. And yet here she was, raking her observant eyes over every piece of furniture in my room, from my four poster bed to the chairs and couch next to the old brick fireplace to—

“Nice bookshelf.” The bookshelf.

It covered the wall to the left of my bed, opposite the floor to ceiling windows and entrance to the patio. It was made of the exact wood that covered the walls in my library, but was filled with books I chose instead of the relics and ancestral books that occupied those shelves.

Rose walked over to it, feathering a hand over the row of books in line with her shoulder.

“Don’t steal anything,” I warned from where I stood, leaning back against my now closed door.

Rose tossed me a devilish look over her shoulder. “Now I’m going to.”

“Do it. See what happens.”

“I like that challenge,” Rose decided, moving her hand to pick up a book. I shot off the door and she froze. Then she moved her hand back towards the book. I was in front of her in a second. We stood there, locked in a stare down, with her hand an inch away from a book I had just finished for what felt like an eternity.

She eventually dropped her hand back down and waved it towards me in a shoo-ing motion. “Okay, move. I’ll snoop later.”

I stepped out of her way before she could start hitting me in the chest. “It’s not that sneaky if you tell me you intend to do it.”

“Ah, but you don’t know when. Mystery intact,” Rose said, tapping her finger on her temple.

A laugh got stuck halfway up my throat. If I wasn’t so tense from her walking around my space like she owned it, I might have actually let it out.

She was witty and sarcastic, traits I would have respected on anyone else who didn’t have her track record.

It was somewhat of a surprise. This conversation was lasting longer than our usual exchange of cruel pleasantries and inevitable argument about Underworld decisions for the Council. The latter would surely continue now that we had to show a unanimous vote as one House.

Even though, come to think of it, I couldn’t remember the last time we actually voted in disagreement.

Whatever. She was still a bothersome little killer.

I always knew Rose to be more quiet. Adrian, Pine, Lukas—the Poseidon heir—and I grew up together. It was almost implied as the heirs to the three strongest godly lines. Rose would be around when we would hang out with Pine at their house, normally tucked away in some corner, certainly not slinking around my room, running her perfect fingers over everything like she owned it.

Then again, I was five years older than her, and I’d never really paid that much attention to her beyond acknowledgment as a friend’s sister. That was until she made herselfveryknown by killing him.

I shoved down burgeoning rage, pushing it aside only to make room for curiosity. Her guard seemed slightly lowered.

That didn’t stop me from being an ass. “I plan to do snoop too, once we figure out where your stuff went. Or do you not have anything? I’m sure the grave you sleep in is pretty snug.”

Rose grinned, seemingly in spite of herself. I needed to figure out how to get her to show me a real smile. In preparation. For revenge. “It is surprisingly spacious, but I take up most of the space with solid gold pillows.”

“Comfy.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” she said, pointedly running a hand over the back of a chair. She was really trying to test me.

When it was clear I wasn’t going to tackle her for touching my furniture—even though I had an overwhelming urge to—she went into the bathroom.

The moment she walked inside, she let out a blood-curdling shriek.

I plowed into the bathroom, half expecting Rose to already be dead on the floor with someone in a black mask standing over her. Instead, I found her sitting on the black marble countertop in between two sinks.

“Why the fuck did you yell like that?”

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