Page 15 of For the Love of the Gods

Max must have thought it was odd as well, because they placed a hand on Rose’s forearm. When her attention reached them, they shook their head slowly, as if chastising her for bringing it up.

Rose’s eyebrows pinched together and then she turned back to me. “I’m just saying that I don’t want you to think that you control me.”

“Trust me,” I said with a laugh in my voice. “I have no illusions that I do.”

Whatever she heard in that response eased her a little, but it did absolutely nothing to satisfy my curiosity. Was that what she thought marriage was? Overbearing control with no autonomy?

“Okay, now that I’ve conceded to two of your requests, let’s return to mine,” I said, grabbing my control of this conversation back.

Rose huffed. “I don’t want to live with you.”

“Do you have anyactualreasons why you must live alone?”

She opened her mouth, but I cut her off. “Besides pure stubbornness or preference? You know it will be easier to handle breaches if there are issues merging our Houses.”

Smaller power lines had merged in the years since Adrian’s birth, either through marriage or from one deciding to end their line, but our marriage was dealing with a lot more power. The structure of the Underworld was changing, and it would only go off without a hitch in a perfect world. And this world was nowhere near.

“No.” The word looked like it took a great deal of strength to get out. “I have no good reason.”

“It’s settled then.”

I gave into the urge in the back of my mind. It didn’t require any conscious use of my power, so it must have been a residual effect of our marriage. If our Houses combined, it only made sense for our literal houses to combine as well.

The ground started to rumble, and the walls began to shake. And then, almost without me realizing it, the entire sitting room changed. There were pieces of Rose’s furniture that I recognized from last night mixed in with my own. It looked like a pretty even 50/50 split.

Even my black leather couch seemed to combine with her light brown one to create a deep brown color.

“Great, now my furniture went to shit.” Rose had risen and was running a hand along the back of a chair that seemed to get the same treatment as the couch. She was petting it like a tiny dog.

“Redecorate, I don’t care,” I said, even though Rose speaking to furniture was tugging at the corners of my mouth.

Rose’s head popped up, some idea lighting up her eyes in worry.

“What do you think happened to the bedrooms?”

“Shit.” I needed Rose under my thumb, but notthatunder my thumb.

Rose took a running start towards the hallway, despite not knowing where the hell she was going. I grabbed her around the waist before she could get too far. It stopped her, but it also earned me an elbow to the gut. For that, I squeezed a little tighter, bringing her flush against my chest and legs.

Bad idea.

Her dress was so thin it felt nonexistent. My body broke away from my brain and could only process that there was this gorgeous thing wiggling her ass against my crotch. I released her before certain body parts could make their presence very known, but moved my hand up to her arm.

“I will show you.” I grumbled. “It’s getting late anyways.”

“It’s barely nine!”

I didn’t bother to bring up that Rose was whining like a child at bedtime. “Stay up and stare at the wall for all I care. Butyou”–I said, waving my finger in a circle near her face–"are in for the night, you little flight risk.”

Rose huffed again, but didn’t fight me further.

“Find Mary and have her send food up, please,” I told Max and Marcus, then directed them to go find Raiden, my own director of security, with a stiff instruction to discuss the logistics of combining our guards and staff. There would be no breaches on my watch.

With Rose in tow, sighing and muttering curses she thought I couldn’t hear under her breath, I led us out of the sitting room and down the left hallway.

The structure seemed to be the same as my house before the merge. The location too, I could spot the moonlight reflecting off the bay my house sat on the shore of.

Where that left the bedroom would be a mystery solved soon. I spotted the familiar oak door of my suite after a staircase and two more turns down hallways. It sat in the middle of my–our–home on the very top level.

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