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want, Queen of Egypt?”
    It was time to take back the power.
    She stepped closer to him, until the fullness of her diaphanous linen dress brushed his robes. “I want us to find a way to work for each other’s benefit, of course.”
    He touched her lips with his forefinger. “And what would such an effort look like?”
    She smiled under his touch. “Your support against our mutual enemies—Malik and the Nabateans. My support of you with Antony.”
    “Hmm. Perhaps for that support I would do better gaining the favor of one of Antony’s wives .”
    She laughed. “Antony’s marriages mean nothing. His latest wife is a step toward power, nothing more. It is I, and our precious twins, who hold sway over his heart.”
    Herod said nothing, and she flicked a glance at the guards at his door. “Perhaps we could consummate our . . . agreement without an audience?”
    With a cool smile, he ran his finger along her jawline, down to the pulse of her throat, then turned his head slowly to the guards and motioned with his chin. “Wait outside until the queen is ready to leave.”
    At their exit, Cleopatra focused on her power, her control. She would not allow him mastery of this night. She breathed a prayer to Mother Isis, Queen of Heaven.
    He turned back to her with an appraisal that was too cold. Too condescending. “It seems to me, my queen, that you have little to offer and much to gain by all your alliances.”
    She drew back, muscles tightening. “Egypt has more grain than Rome will—”
    “But Rome has Egypt.” He shrugged. “Rome has Egypt, and Antony has you, and even your people resent three hundred years of Greek Ptolemies on the throne since Alexander gave them up.”
    She was shaking now, with rage and something worse: fear. But she would not surrender so easily. She pulled him to herself, to the other side of the room, toward the bed surrounded by tightly woven tapestries and piled high with cushions. “Come, Herod, you know there is more at stake. I have Antony’s allegiance, and you would do well to make me your friend—”
    Herod yanked her to his chest, his breath hot on her neck.
    She could feel the pounding of both their hearts between them.
    He inclined his head toward the bed. “And what allegiance of Antony’s would I have, should I take his place there?”
    She tangled both hands in his wavy hair and pulled his mouth to hers. No man had ever refused her, and this grasping governor of an uncivilized province would not be the first.
    He returned her kiss, but his was a kiss of anger, of hatred, of punishment. He wrenched her hands from his head, then pulled away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
    “I will give you ships for Rome”—she was grasping now, and hated herself for it—“you can enjoy the winter here in Alexandria—it is no time for sailing—and in the spring Antony will hear only good reports—”
    “Stop!” His chest was heaving, but not from anger nor represseddesire. No, he was laughing. Laughing! “Antony will hear reports, yes. But they will not be pleasant to his ears.”
    He mocked her? He dared to mock the Queen of the Two Lands of Upper and Lower Egypt?
    His refusal was like a plunge into the cold harbor waters, and it left her pulsing with fury. In this very room she had seduced Gaius Julius Caesar, the most powerful man in Rome. And this upstart Idumean who could not even gain the kingship of a tiny province would laugh at her?
    She grabbed the nearest thing, a gracefully painted pot—one of that worthless Lydia’s creations—and heaved it at his head with a curse.
    He dodged it easily and the pot smashed on the floor.
    The guards were through the door in an instant.
    “Ah yes, good.” Herod waved them in. “Please see the queen safely back to her chambers. We have nothing more to discuss.”
    She resisted the urge to spit upon him as she passed. It would only make her seem weak. Instead, she stalked down the hall with his guards trailing.
    No, she