“Talk to me, Timothy. What the fuck is happening?”
I clasped my hands to keep from grabbing him and helping him stand.
“I couldn’t do it.”
His brows quirked in confusion. “You stopped me somehow? Why?”
I shook my head.Get the words out, man. “It’s been a long time since I’ve known of something like this to happen,” I forced myself to speak, though it hurt. The words hurt before they even hit the air. “But there was an account of a god attempting to forcibly take a Sekhor from their master. He forced the vampire to drink his blood, but the goddess the vampire was bonded to was far stronger. The god could not break their bond, she kept her hold over her slave.”
Aaron shook his head, as if not comprehending. “You didn’t force me to do anything. And you are the God of the Dead. You are the most powerful of them all.”
His words only drove the pain of the truth deeper into me like hot spikes.
“Apparently not.” I met his eyes.
Seth was stronger than me.
Despite having power over all the souls of the undead, that dick pickle had more power than me.
The shame, the disgust was almost too much to bear.
“Timothy, we can fix this?—”
“No!” My voice boomed through the room. “I can’t have you, Aaron. We can’t be together. I’m not strong enough. We failed. Seth owns you, and I can’t save you. We tried to break the rules, and it didn’t work.”
That crack at my center split wide open.
We were stuck like this. Even when I broke down and abandoned all the rules meant to keep things in order, I was forced to face how inadequate I was. To face that I didn’t really possess a lick of control under the circumstances.
“I never wanted you to save me,” he said, his voice low and hoarse. “I wanted you to love me.”
My lungs burned with the need for oxygen, but I couldn't force them to work until the door slammed shut behind him, the sound cracking through me like a gunshot.
I walked to my office on wooden legs—an automatic motion.
What to do in crisis?
Work. Organize. Research.
My eyes landed on the neatly organized pens, tablet set just so, various decorative items of Egypt to remind me who I was.
The numbness inside me made way to a heat that started low and insistent before it flamed through me with a fury I couldn’t control. With a powerful sweep of my hand, everything on my desk went flying. Objects cracked and slammed into the bookcase.
More décor and books shuddered and rocked under the onslaught. The sounds of things breaking gave me a millisecond of relief, so I chased it. I punched into the bookcase, kicked at the desk until wood flipped and crunched under my fury. I followed the outburst until I was standing in the middle of my ruined office, chest heaving and knuckles bleeding.
You’re not strong enough.
You are just playing like you have control.
Seth’s deplorable words slithered around between my ears, biting relentlessly at my gray matter.
Yet I couldn’t deny that the one time I broke the rules, it didn’t even matter.
Suddenly, the rules I relied on to keep order in the world became a noose that tightened around my neck. Falling to myknees, I dropped my head into my hands and screamed in frustration.
Steam waftedoff the mug of coffee Miranda set in front of me.
“I’m sorry to bother you so early,” I said without looking up from the twisting vapors. My words were flat, emotionless, though I was anything but.
