Bold, brainy, and dangerously sexy Gloria VanDeen is back to face another challenge, as the Empire's favorite bureaucrat battles to survive amid political chaos at DEXTA and a civil war between a fascist tyrant and a religious zealot with a strange power over his people. In this fifth volume of C. J. Ryan's popular DEXTA series, Gloria is tested to -- and beyond -- the limits of human power and desire, and the fate of the Empire will be decided by a single kiss -- the Kiss of the Gods!