It’s not his fault. Pain is the one thing I’ve never been able to hide from Seth, and it’s not just the physical hurts that he feels he has to save me from. It’s the ones that drive me to the edge of a cliff and make me want to leap.
The loose snow shifts and crunches, and I tense as someone moves behind me, inching closer. I assume it’s Khalil until I hear him speak.
“Aurelia…wait.”
Aurelia…
Who the hell is Aurelia?
I feel an insistent hand on my shoulder a moment later, too small to belong to Khalil, turning me around, and I don’t fight it.
I barely get a glimpse of her.
No more than a glance at her brown eyes, long lashes, tear-tracked cheeks, and golden curls before she presses her full lips against mine. A charge voltaic enough to power a small city jolts through me and instinct has me reaching for her.
Suddenly ivory skin replaces brown, those golden curls lengthen and straighten to a curtain of raven black, and though her eyes are closed, I’m suddenly dreading seeing blue surrounding black pupils that I once mistook for warm and inviting like the waters in a tropical paradise.
Except this is hell, and Tatum isn’t either of those things.
My heart rate spikes, and I feel Bane pressing against my skin the moment my mind speaks her name. The edges of my vision darken, and I know that I’m seconds from blacking out when I only just returned.
Confident that shit is about to go all the way left, I curl my fingers around the girl’s arms and shove her away and into the snow. I watch her shock at my violent rejection and then her eyes raking over me, taking in every detail as if she’s seeing me for the first time.
“Seth…” My gaze narrows at the name. The voice isn’t the sharp whip of Tatum’s either but rather soft and cajoling. “Baby, it’s me. What’s wrong?”
Suddenly, the image of Tatum fades away like it was never there, and I’m met with the face of the girl I’d mistaken for an angel.Get a grip, Zeke. Thanatos isn’t real, and she isn’t one of his.
“Goldilocks, don’t. That’s not—”
She’s impatient and doesn’t listen to Khalil, reaching out for me with lips chapped and blue from the cold. Or is it worry?
For me?
No.
ForSeth.
I scramble away even as I ask through clenched teeth, “Who the fuck are you?”
The girl snatches back her hand with a blink of confusion. Her brown eyes once again scan my face and demeanor, but this time she doesn’t dismiss the changes she sees, and understanding dawns.
The girl Thorin called Aurelia sighs. Her shoulders and the hand reaching out for me drop as if she’s defeated, but my chest is still pinched tight as if she’ll strike at any minute.
Does she have to be so close?
“You’re not Seth,” she surmises with no emotion. The gentle tone is gone, and I feel a spark of something green like envy.
What the fuck?“No. I’m not.”
“Oh.” Aurelia nods curtly and then avoids my gaze as she dusts off her hands and stands. “My mistake.”
Her…mistake? Is that all finding out that I’m suddenly someone else is to her? If so, I say again… Whatthe fuck?Exactly how much does she know?
I stand as well, but I still don’t feel like I have the upper hand once I’m towering over her. Not with the way she’s watching me closely like she’s assessing and seeing if I measure up. What the hell did the others tell her about me?
“I’m Aurelia,” she finally says. “You must be Ezekiel.”
She starts to offer me her hand—a perfectly normal reaction between strangers meeting for the first time—but then Khalil intercepts, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her safely out of my reach.
