It tilted its head ever so slightly, eyes glowing a faint gold. A strong sense of reassurance from the reaper flowed into me. He saw me and acknowledged my predicament. He twisted his head, and I followed his gaze to see Timothy across the room. He was engaged in conversation with a small group of gods, his hands tucked behind his back. He needed to stop that. If he was so hot to exude power, he needed to stand with his arms at his sides. Hands behind his back made it look as if he was hiding something or waiting to serve someone else.
Huh. And here I thought I never benefited from that communications course at the community college I dropped out of.
Timothy’s eyes slid to the side, meeting mine for just a moment. His intensity, his longing barreled into me—a physical force. Every muscle in my body tensed as a wash of tingles swept through me. I was suddenly panting, though I didn’t even need to breathe.
It had been like this since the first time I met him at Sinopolis. I’d burned through one city after another, chasing bigger drops and sharper adrenaline, until the desert felt like the next logical mistake.
I was in the middle of receiving my orientation to work at Perkatory from an older woman named Angela when Timothy approached. Nose stuck in his tablet, fingers flying, I could practically see calculations churning off his brain in wisps of steam.
“Sir,” Angela had greeted the man with unexpected enthusiasm for someone who slung cappuccinos to make ends meet. “You caught me training the new guy.”
“Excellent, Angela, we would be lost without you,” he’d said, digits still tapping away at whatever he was working on while somehow giving the impression he was completely present and engaged with the woman he was speaking to.
Then he looked up, and my heart dropped. It fell right out through my ass and careened toward the molten core of the earth.
I never really had a type. I met interesting men of all kinds who I enjoyed getting to know and spending time with, but suddenly I knew I would only ever want this. Someone likehim. A kind of man who had intense dark eyes that broadcasted an arresting intelligence. I could tell in an instant I would never be bored with him.
From the tight line of his lips, I’d spend most my days coaxing them into yielding and softening under mine. And his hands. I can’t say I’d ever been turned on by a man’s cuticles, but there was something so precise and appealing about them. My fingers itched to run through his charcoal black hair, perfectly set, the texture sharp and intentional.
Then he smiled at me. My heart rocketed back up from the core of the earth reentering my body with extreme violence before blasting my ribcage into one of those deep-fried blooming onions dishes. I was cooked.
In the present, Timothy’s attention returned to who he was speaking to, and the moment was over.
“Interesting.” The word slid into my ear—a poisonous snake.
Seth stood next to me, looking on at Timothy, stirring the dark blue of his cocktail with a toothpick adorned in a garnish that wasn’t a food item I was familiar with.
Something in my chest pinched tight, with sudden fear. “What?”
Seth then grinned at me with all the menace and promise of a cartoon villain, and my stomach churned in sick anticipation.
“Oh, nothing,” he said without meaning it, “I just continue to be impressed by your usefulness.”
The urge to chew my arm off to escape the trap he’d set on me was strong. But there was no way out of this. My heart squeezed so violently with every glimpse I’d catch of Timothy across the room, I could have sworn it almost started beating again.
The lights dimmed in the ballroom as a hush fell. Everyone’s attention turned to Timothy as he strode through the crowd and toward a dais.
The blood in my veins came to a halt.
No longer in a suit, he wore ancient Egyptian garb.
Gold and lapis crossed his chest in deliberate lines, the ceremonial collar broad on his shoulders. White linen wrapped his waist in sharp folds, secured with a belt etched in hieroglyphs older than language.
Bands of gold circled his arms and wrists, snug against warm skin. In his hand, he held a staff capped in gold.
I wiped drool from my mouth. Timothy in a suit was devastating, but this was a god. His biceps flexed under the straps, his abdomen carved marble under the chandeliers. And then the air shimmered.
His head shifted.
One blink and the man was gone, replaced by the sleek, inhuman elegance of an ibis: long, curved beak, feathers edged in moonlight, the divine intellect of Thoth staring out from an avian gaze. A god’s body with a beast’s head, regal and unreal, power radiating in quiet waves.
It should have been unsettling. Instead, my stomach tightened and heat rushed through me. He wasn’t just beautiful. He was magnificent.
He stood at the center of the ballroom, the point everything else orbited. Gods in silks and armor filled the space, their power thickening the air. Ceremonial music throbbed low.
My heart cracked as I took in his perfect stillness. Whether faced or feathered, he radiated responsibility, composure, and centuries of watching the world turn. His shoulders carried the room. His eyes, human or ibis, never rested. Duty wrapped him like a second skin.
And it only made him more breathtaking.
