His smile hit me like a punch to the sternum.
Miranda leaned in. “Yeah. Real distant of you.”
I tightened my jaw, but I did not look away from him.
“I’m just here to make sure Seth isn’t up to anything,” I said to Miranda. “I can’t afford to have him undermine me right now.”
It had nothing to do with the fact that shivers flooded my body and hot goose pimples covered my flesh, my power rising to the surface with a desire to claim Aaron as mine. To whiskhim away from this frenzied crowd where I could peel off that ridiculous outfit until I could trace his bare flesh to my heart’s content.
Aaron reached out to grip a metal bar on one of the tower rigs. After throwing a saucy grin to the audience, he pulled himself up and began to climb. With every rung he ascended, my stomach twisted tighter. Then, as he reached the top, spotlights snapped upward to illuminate a wire. A single shining thread stretched between the two metal towers.
Anyone stepping onto that line would have nothing beneath them but a plunge straight past the Menaggio’s glimmering facade and down to the Strip below.
Not anyone. Aaron.
He stepped onto the wire, barefoot. He tested the tension with one bounce that sent the line shivering through the air. Then he grinned at the crowd and began to run.
The twisted bits in my stomach plummeted so fast the blood rushed from my head with dizzying force. His silhouette sharpened under the beams, tank top clinging to his torso, hair ruffled by the wind.
I was going to be sick.
Miranda’s hand set on my arm. “Aaron has scaled mountains and cliffs. He hooked himself up to all kinds of wires and shit at scary heights when he was human. He dabbled in acrobatics for funsies. If he weren’t such a chaotic gremlin, he would have worked in one of the circus shows no doubt. Have some trust.”
The wire thrummed under Aaron. Every step was a calculation, a gamble. He planted his feet lightly, arms loose, posture easy. Too easy. He turned, jogged backward, then flipped. The fans detonated. Someone behind me cried from excitement.
“He’s crazy,” breathed someone nearby.
“He'sgorgeous.”
“He’s a motherfucking vampire,” another said with a fist pump.
Phones flashed mercilessly and I had to bite down on the sudden violent urge to use my magic and rip them out from the hands of all the onlookers and smash them into a giant ball of inert metal and plastic so they couldn’t distract Aaron from this ridiculously dangerous stunt.
My nails dug into my palms so hard they cut deep into the skin. The pain barely took the edge off the tension and fear roiling inside of me.
The humans couldn’t see his glow the way I could. To me, he was incandescent. His soul had crystallized into something dense and enduring, light packed tight until it glowed with steady force. Gods were made to feel the warmth of souls, to feed on their potential, and his radiated it in abundance. As if he wasn’t tempting enough before.
My heart hammered against my ribs, unnatural for a god who should be steady for all. Yet here I was, pulse racing like I had been thrown into a furnace. I burned with the urge to reach up, to steady him from a distance, to command the wind to behave.
Power pulsated just under my skin.
Take him. Save him. Do something.
A whine came from my side. Assirak had arrived, sensing my distress. I released my right hand’s death grip to pat the reaper dog’s head a few times, with false reassurance I was fine.
Halfway across, a gust slammed into him.
The wire snapped upward with a violent shiver. Aaron’s foot skidded. His whole body pitched sideways. The crowd screamed. My breath stopped entirely as he slipped, fingers clawing at thin air.
He dropped.
Miranda’s reassuring hand on my arm tightened into a death grip.
Aaron reached to grab the wire at the last moment, but his fingers slipped, missing the target.
The world tilted out of focus, and when the blackness in my vision receded, I saw he was still there. Hanging by one hand, legs swinging out over open air. His arm muscles trembled from the sudden load. The wind tore at him. My brain blanked as I lost seconds or maybe minutes to panic, swallowing any rational thought. A feeling so foreign it sent another freezing chill of fear through me.
“Is he going to do something?” Miranda hissed under her breath.
