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on the antique rug beneath his boots, feeling jumpy and eager to leave. That same burst of electric energy that he’d sensed the moment he entered the hallway kept buzzing all over his body, wrapping about him, working to burrow beneath his skin. Which wasn’t just disconcerting, but annoying as hell, too, because the fiery sensations were affecting him intimately. Far too intimately. Arousal speared him low in the groin as if someone were actually touching him there, and he felt his cock stir and twitch in reaction.
    Was it Juliana seducing him that way? Hell, was she with them even now, having a laugh by pleasuring him while none of the others could see?
    With a rough, commanding growl, he shifted on the sofa, moving his legs so he could subtly adjust himself. It’s not like you ever touched me there while you were alive , he thought, speaking to Juliana inside the privacy of his own mind. We never wound up getting anywhere near that close.
    Although they’d planned to, he thought, shivering—and very aware of another tantalizing, slow stroke between his legs. Why would she be teasing him sexually now? Maybe she was out to prove a point: that she could still turn him on, make his whole body come alive with yearning for her.
    Stop manhandling the goods and leave me alone , he warned mentally, not sure whether mandates worked with ghosts, or whether the spirits could read minds and thoughts at all.
    “She’s here,” Emma said suddenly.
    Yeah, no fucking kidding , he almost replied, shifting his long legs again and willing his full-gun salute to sag before anyone else noticed.
    “I feel her spirit moving about the room.” Emma looked up toward the ceiling, and then her gaze tracked back and forth, almost as if following a flittering butterfly.
    Like her mother, Emma was a highly gifted medium, one with the ability to hear the spirits, as well as sometimes see and smell demons or specters from the spiritual realm.
    “I sense her, too,” Cecilia agreed, her voice trilling with enthusiasm.
    Ari glanced up and found both women staring at him, but he hadn’t expected the slightly wide-eyed expression on Emma’s face. She appeared panicked, threatened. He’d seen a similar look in her eyes during their recent show-down with Ares by the River Styx.
    River picked up on her reaction, turning toward her in concern. “What is it, Em?” He slid an arm about her shoulders, drawing her against his side. “Are you all right?”
    Emma swallowed visibly, nodding. “Juliana says . . . she’s glad that Ari has us as his friends.” She glanced up at River. “That you, especially, are a true, kind friend, and he deserves that . . . needs that.” Emma’s voice had a distant, slow quality to it, as if she were on the telephone, repeating what the person on the other end of the receiver was saying. In a sense, that was exactly what she was doing, only in this case she was listening in on a party line from the other side.
    Ari tensed against the sofa, torn between wanting to bolt and needing to move closer to Emma as she spoke.
    Emma locked gazes with him, her pale eyes blazing with otherworldly energy. “Juliana says that she waited for you. That you never came back to her.” She tilted her head, eyebrows lowering as if she was straining to hear the words. “Juliana says she kept waiting here, but you were gone.” Emma’s gaze focused on him, eyes brimming brightly.
    Panicked at the sudden change in inflection and tone that Emma had assumed, Ari stood. “What’s going on, Em?”
    She pressed both hands against her temples as if in pain. “I believed you loved me, Aristos. That you understood how deeply I loved you . Surely you knew my heart; I was very clear about my feelings. Why did you wait such a very long time to return to me?”
    Oh, shit. Juliana realized she was dead, didn’t she?
    He began to tremble like crazy, feeling that fiery energy blaze all over his body. His face flushed, his arousal magnifying