“Yes, but you don’t know Seth, not like I do.” I crossed over and moved the miniature pyramid back to its original spot. “He can't be trusted. He’s been looking to usurp Grim since the beginning of time. I have no doubt he is up to something, and I wouldn't put it past him to use you to get what he wants.”
Seth had tried to grab the power for himself over many different lifetimes. I could only assume he was attempting to try again, thinking I’d be the weak link he could tear through to get at what he wanted. Ultimate power so he could run things more to his liking.
I couldn’t help but think he was using Aaron to meet those ends, though I had no idea how that would be possible. There were plenty of vampires in circulation now and their relationships with gods were carefully watched and monitored.
Or they were monitored by Vivian, before she went off with her husband, Grim, merrily into the Afterlife with her reaper companion, Cupcake.
Which meant someone needed to look into this dynamic a bit closer. That someone would have to be me.
Aaron pulled out another book, flipping through it absently. My grip tightened reflexively, then refused to loosen.
“Would it bother you more that Seth wants your throne, or that he might be using me to do it?” he asked.
I wanted to correct him that it was Grim’s mantle, but who knew how long before he was back? I was, in fact, the acting God of the Dead. And I could be for years to come. There was no guarantee Grim would return at all.
With Grim now reporting to Osiris in the Afterlife, he might find himself reassigned to entirely different duties for all eternity—leaving me stuck here weighing the worth of souls until the end of time.
Before I could think too hard about that or before Aaron could move yet another one of my items to the completely wrong spot, I took the book from his hands. “Is that what he’s doing? Using you? How is that possible?”
I needed to know. I had to stop Seth before he started something. My position was too new to believe that Seth wasn’t looking for a way to take advantage of the vulnerability of my position.
Aaron’s face was oddly void of expression. “It was a hypothetical question.”
Oh.
He had been asking me which I cared about more.
Aaron was fishing. He wanted me to say I cared if he were exploited.
Suddenly, I found myself holding the book too tightly.
I carefully reshelved it. Did this mean he wanted me to want him?
Aaron was the one to walk away, not me.
Not that you’d given him a real chance, something in my head whispered with merciless observation.You told him you could never be together so many times. You might as well have told him to leave town.
“I’m bothered by all of it,” I end up saying noncommittally.
Aaron flicked the highly accurate replica of the Nanchang Star Ferris wheel in China. My patience thinned to a wire.
I stopped the turning wheel by covering his hand with my own.
“Could you stop?”
“Stop what?”
“Stop...touchingthings.”
His lips curved up, lined with mischief.
“Oh, I see how it is.” I rolled my eyes, finally catching on. “You are driving me mad on purpose.”
“Only because it’s so easy to rile you up. And you should think of it as a favor. I’m trying to help you loosen up, Timothy.”
All my focus narrowed to where my hand was on his. No longer warm when he was human, his flesh was cold but still strong. I should pull away, but I couldn’t.
Judging by the way Aaron’s pupils expanded outward into dark pools, I wasn’t the only one affected by the touch.
