“Okay, you’re a god. The god of death.” I repeated that in my head a couple more times and tried to maintain eye contact. “Your brother, is he a god?” I asked slowly. “And Bianca?”
Grim nodded.
I blanched. “Timothy?”
He nodded a second time.
“Your ex?” When had my voice gotten so quiet?
Grim fixed me with that penetrating stare. There was no need for him to nod again. I got the picture. I was in the midst of literal gods. My pea-sized brain was likely to explode if I thought too hard about it, so I silently named the Kardashians to keep from melting down.
A god. A god? Sure. It checked out. Because right now, I was one thousand percent convinced Grim was a sex god.
Every cell of my body vibrated in awareness at being near the half-naked master of death. Excuse me, god of death.
The suspicions I’d had about what he was hiding under those suits were confirmed. He had lickable, cut abs, and the most perfect, muscled arms. A tattoo covered his left shoulder and dipped down over his bicep. It was a skull in a pharaoh’s headdress. His torso V-eed down into what remained of his pants, which rode dangerously low on his hips. Grim’s state of undress didn’t help my processing abilities one bit.
And Jenkins accidently pulled the drool lever. I bit my lip to keep it at bay.
“Your brother called you Anu,” I said, sucking back saliva and trying to make sense of it all. It was the pieces to a story I’d once heard but couldn’t remember.
Grim pressed a hand on the door jamb over my head, leaning in close. Chlorine and Grim’s masculine scent invaded my space. “I am the god of the dead, also known as Anubis.”
“The Egyptian god,” I whispered. Things snapped into place. How had I not seen it before? His reapers were jackals. The form he’d taken by the pool resembled a giant, monstrous jackal. Hell, even his décor screamed a blend of modern and ancient Egyptian. The antechamber was something right out of a Mummy movie. The guy lived in a literal pyramid. How had I missed it?
I mean, you were turned into a vampire and forgot your own name. Maybe you get a break for not recognizing ancient mythology come to life.
Digesting the idea I was running around town with Death had already been a huge leap. I liked to think I handled that news shockingly well. But information was piling on in layers and I was struggling to keep up.
Despite the newfound revelation, a hundred more questions swirled around me. Any other person probably would have thought through their questions to pick out the most pertinent ones, but I blurted the first one that came to mind.
“What are you doing out of Egypt?”
Grim’s dark, brooding expression gave way to surprise as he dropped his arm and straightened. “That’s your first question?” Just like that, the edge of his beast melted away, and Grim was somewhere in between the wild and the restrained.
Oh blood clots. That was the dumbest first question. Why couldn’t I have asked something else. But now that I’d asked it, I couldn’t think of anything else.
He stepped back. “As the world has expanded, the gods have spread far and wide, spending a great deal of time on different parts of the globe.”
“Is that why Bianca more resembles a barbie than an Egyptian?” I asked.
Grim pulled on the ends of the towel around his neck, causing his arms to flex. My stomach leapt then dropped in a fantastic somersault. All my parts screamed yay, while throwing their arms in the air as if at a concert, screaming for an encore. Again, I became incredibly aware I was wearing nothing but a bikini. My hair dripped on his carpet.
Focus. You are in way over your head without layering in the intense fiery attraction you feel toward him.
“Because,” Grim explained, “Bianca spent centuries in Europe and the Netherlands. We adapt to our environment over time, which includes our appearance and names.”
I shot him a suspicious look. “So you chose an Italian gangster name because you hung out with the mob for a long time?”
His brows drew together.
Maybe not.
I needed to ask better questions. “Why don’t gods like sekhors? You said immortality corrupts absolutely. If the gods are also immortal, then why is it okay for you to live forever, but not for me?” First came pride, followed by indignance once I realized how good my question was. I stuck my hands on my hips.
Grim’s fingers flexed around the towel. “It is exactly as I told you. Humanity can be corrupted. As gods, we never had humanity to begin with.”
I pointed a finger at him. “Aha! You are the one who is soulless, then.”
