She took his head between her hands. She thought to keep him from distracting her with his mouth, but his hands were moving under her shirt, over her skin, making her shiver.

“That look,” she said, as if it explained everything. “The one you have now. Your eyes are dark but there’s something...alive behind them. Sometimes I think it’s passion, sometimes I think it’s violence. Sometimes I think it’s all of your lifetimes.”

His eyes glittered and his hands fell to her thighs.

“Hades,” she hissed his name, and he covered her mouth with his, shifting so that she was beneath him. His tongue slipped into her mouth. She’d been right about how he would taste, smokey and sweet. She wanted more and twined her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist. His lips left hers to explore the contours of her neck and breasts.

Persephone tightened her hold around his waist to keep him from shifting lower.

“Hades,” she breathed. “I said I wanted to talk.”

“Talk,” he said again.

“About Apollo,” she breathed.

Hades froze and he growled—it was an unnatural sound, and it sent a shiver down her spine. He pulled away completely, no longer touching her.

“Tell me why the name of my nephew is upon your lips?”

“He’s my next project.”

Hades blinked and she was certain she saw violence in his eyes.

She hurried to continue. “He fired Sybil, Hades. For refusing to be his lover.”

He stared, and his silence was angry. His lips were set tight and a vein pulsed in his forehead. He left the bed completely naked. For a moment, she watched him walk away—well-muscled ass and all.

“Where are you going?” she demanded.

“I can’t stay in our bed while you talk about Apollo.”

She didn’t miss that he had called his bed our bed. That made her feel warm inside, except that she’d fucked it up by mentioning Apollo.

She scrambled after him.

“I’m only talking about him because I want to help Sybil!”

Hades poured himself a drink.

“What he’s doing is wrong, Hades. Apollo can’t punish Sybil because she rejected him.”

“Apparently he can,” Hades said, taking a slow sip from his glass.

“He has taken away her livelihood! She has nothing and will have nothing unless Apollo is exposed!”

Hades drained his glass and poured another. After a stretch of tense silence, he said, “You cannot write about Apollo, Persephone.”

“I’ve told you before, you can’t tell me who to write about, Hades.”

The God of the Underworld sat his glass down with an audible click.

“Then you should not have told me your plans,” he said.

She guessed his next thought: You shouldn’t have mentioned Apollo in my bedchamber, either.

His words fueled her anger, and she felt her power moving in her veins.

“He won’t get away with this, Hades!”