“I t-told you—I told you even a vampire couldn’t pull that stunt off.” Anger and grief shook every fiber in my being. “Tony didn’t have to die if you just listened to me!” I was yelling now. Maybe not a wise call since the god I was currently shouting down controlled my very will, but I couldn’t hold back.
“Tony?” Miranda asked, looking between us.
“A vampire stunt double,” Timothy supplied before I could. His voice was flat, but with one look I knew he was anything but. It was in his eyes. He’d been shaken to his core thinking it had been me that went up in flames.
I swallowed down the near irresistible urge to go to him, to hold him and remind him I was here. I was whole.
“And what did I tell you?” Seth said, unbothered to the point of boredom. “The crowd loved it. You just skyrocketed to themost followers on social media ever in the history of, well, ever.” He chuckled as he lifted his phone to show me the staggering numbers.
I didn’t care, and I didn’t want to be some idol.
The only reason I ever fell in love with stunts and extreme sports was because of how it made me feel. Because of the rush, the endorphins, the pride in achieving something that pushed my mind and body past its limits.
That was never what this was about for Seth. I felt so used and stupid for letting myself be used.
Looking at the numbers himself, Seth said, “The video is still flooding with views to see a vampire defy death. You’re more than just a daredevil, a handsome rogue. I just made you a god.” He was always a smug bastard, but there was a new edge to it.
“B-but a vamp—” I stopped, jaw tightening. “A vampire didn’t d-defy death.” Part of me was trapped in the moment. The other part was counting how long I’d been stuck.
I fought the stutter, but my emotions were white hot, and my P’s and D’s were caught up in an unforgivable web my brain and my tongue couldn’t bypass. The harder I fought it, the worse it got.
Seth rolled his eyes. “Well, this is just too pathetic. Andexactlywhy I don’t let you open your mouth to do crowd work. We certainly can’t have everyone knowing what a dunce you actually are.”
The words slammed into my chest, striking parts of me I’d thought had healed years ago. My insides curled and blackened, transporting me to that dark place I’d visited on so many occasions after that surfboard slammed into my throat, leaving neurological damage in its wake.
Pathetic.
Weak.
Frustration built inside me, a red-hot backlog I couldn’t purge because the words refused to come. My eyes burned with unshed tears as my tongue failed to shape what I wanted to say. My voice caught behind a locked throat. My thoughts looped uselessly, tangling tighter every second as I failed to get them out.
They ricocheted through my head, clogging everything further until my face twitched and my speech broke into short, fractured bursts. My hands curled into fists so tight my fingers went numb.
“What the hell did you just say?” a dangerously quiet voice asked.
Through my blurred, watery vision, I caught Timothy’s face. His eyes darkened, and he was deathly still. For the first time, even as I continued to tic and stutter in painful humiliation, it registered that Timothy was the God of the Dead. And right now, he looked like impending death.
Seth didn’t even pause to consider the danger he might be in, articulating louder. “I said he’s?—”
Power surged out of Timothy in a violent expansion, muscle and glowing blue energy flaring at once. Ribbons of hieroglyphs shuddered into existence around his body, vibrating with barely contained force, like live, wicked snakes ready to tear into the closest person nearby.
Timothy’s hand closed around the other god’s throat. Feet left the floor. Seth’s face flushed deep red as Timothy lifted him effortlessly, grip tightening with lethal intent.
Timothy’s eyes rounded as they turned to black marbles—inhuman, the same way they had when he took his ibis form.
“Never. Call. Him. Pathetic.”The words ground out of Timothy, heavy with dark, dangerous magic.
It was then I realized what this was really all about.
Sethmeantfor Tony to die, and he meant for Timothy to see it. He wanted Timothy to believe it was me and watch him lose control. With a quick glance around, I saw all the attending gods were watching the outburst too.
I was an idiot.
I tried to call Timothy’s name, to calm him down, but my throat locked again, breath stalling mid-chest. From the outside, I knew I must have looked like I was ticing, my jaw jerking as I fought for the word.
Even as he clawed at Timothy’s grip around his throat and his face turned red, then purple, Seth never stopped grinning.
Miranda unsheathed Bob, her teeth a feral grimace. She was waiting for Timothy to give her the go-ahead to end Seth. He’d be trapped in the blade again, for eternity this time.
