Page 25 of For the Love of the Gods

Dominic’s steps hitched slightly, his head turning down to look at me. “I would have hoped. Especially since your seat of power is so important to you.”

My instincts were screaming at me to defend myself, to fight back. But he didn’t deserve that. “That it is.”

Dominic considered for a moment, and then, “We might be able to find a common ground, then.”

“Oh?” The question was involuntary, my shock pushing the word out.

“We both…care. About this transition going smoothly, at least,” Dominic said, the words coming out like each one required a great deal of thought. “We could work together.”

“You want to willingly spend time together?” There was doubt clear in my voice. “What’s next, being friends?”

Dominic’s expression sobered immediately. “I have zero intention of being your friend.”

“A partnership, then?” I could play semantics if that’s what a normal conversation with Dominic was.

The tiniest muscle at the corner of Dominic’s mouth twitched. The closest I would get to a smile from him. “That is what marriage is, is it not?”

“Dominic.”

That warning got him back on track. “I presume most people will be in support of our houses merging. Some loyalists might raise an issue, but that will be easy to track.”

“Not necessarily,” I argued, before I could stop myself. I wassupposedto be playing into the thoughtless, apathetic role he expected of me. But it was too late now. “Everything we do is under a microscope after Adrian.”

I continued before he could defend his friend. “If humans think we are subjecting them to our every whim and desire, they will push back. You know full well we are still suffering the consequences.”

Dominic reluctantly nodded his head. “So we make sure no one suffers from this. Then they will have no argument against this marriage.”

My stomach dropped slightly, remembering the young man whose life was just lost. It didn’t matter that it was entirely a product of his own recklessness, attempting a feat that no one had succeeded in the last millennium.

But the media could run with a story like that. Posturing that he could have been the one to do it, if only the layout of the Underworld hadn’t changed without warning.

Not that any of that was true. When the Roman line manifested, they simply ruled alongside the Greek line in the Underworld. Our landscape hadn’t changed drastically since before any conscious mind could remember.

Even now, the only shift that I could tell was the expansion of fields barely half an acre.

But I didn’t dare bring it up, not now. “How do you propose we do that?”

“We need to put on a united front, for the humans and the other gods.”

“That’s a stretch.”

“Fine, the humans at least,” Dominic grumbled, lifting an arm up to squeeze his brows together. My face had been tipped up, trained on his or the mossy ground in front of my feet, since he’d lifted me off the wall. And even then, I had been too focused on the way his hand felt wrapped around my wrist.

Now, as he was pausing in a moment of pained frustration, I had the chance to see what he was wearing. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him this disheveled.

But now, he looked haggard. Not bad. Not even close. But a little haggard.

A few strands of his hair were falling over his forehead, practically screaming at me to push them back. He was insweatsand a long sleeve shirt that looked slightly wrinkled from a long day’s use.

It humanized him in a way, creating a new facet to the stone cold image I’d had of him before this.

“Alright,” I conceded, and then because my curiosity was never satiated, “If that makes your day any better.”

Dominic’s gaze fell down to me, his hand returning to his side, but his brows still pinched together as if his fingers were still there. “What makes you think my day needs to be improved?”

“You look…” I trailed off, settling for just waving my hand over him.

“Rose.”

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