What if all I'd ever known was how it had been for the past three years - me being an unwanted outsider in my own family? I might have turned out like Aphrodite, and I might still be letting my parents control me because I was hoping desperately that I would be good enough, make them proud, so that some day they would really love me.

Your way of life is sinful and wrong," he said fiercely. Thus says a man who admits to worshipping a God who vilifies pleasure, relegates women to roles that are little more than servants and broodmares, though they are the backbone of your church, and seeks to control his worshippers through guilt and fear.

Hades was the personification of dark and dangerous--a living, breathing Batman.

What more could you want? How about dominion over this 'beautiful place'? Beauty doesn't last. Friends and family decay. Power is the only thing that goes on forever." Jack answered with his gut. "No, love goes on forever.

Like at the DMV when you've passed your driver's test and had a really bad picture taken and you're waiting for them to bring you your license?" Jack said. "Exactly, only without the filth and peasants," Aphrodite said.

You can borrow my two-carat diamond stud earrings," Aphrodite said. I stopped and looked back at her. "Huh?" She shrugged. "That's as close to a declaration of love as you're gonna get from me.

And then something truly bizarre happened. I could feel his touch through our eyes. I couldn't look away from him. The girl in front of him seemed to disappear, and all there was in the hallway was him and the sweet, beautiful smell of his blood.