Page 78 of Gods of Prey
“Don’t I?” He takes a step toward me, closing the gap I tried to create. “I’ve seen you fight for your brother. I’ve seen you protect Jovie. I’ve seen you defy the Divine Council and risk everything for what you believe is right.” His voice drops lower. “I’ve seen the real you, Sienna, not just the Goddess of Death everyone fears.”
“And who do you think that is?” The question escapes before I can stop it.
“Someone who pretends to be cold but burns hotter than anyone I’ve ever known.” He reaches out as if to touch my face, his hand pressing against the illusion of my skin. I feel the warmth of him, like sunlight through water. “Someone who claims to serve duty but really serves love. Someone who’s endured more suffering than anyone should have to, and still hasn’t lost her compassion.”
His words pierce through defenses I didn’t know I still had. “Stop,” I whisper.
But he doesn’t. “Someone beautiful and fierce and so damn stubborn.” He laughs softly. “Someone I can’t get out of my head, no matter how hard I try.”
“Revel, please.” My voice breaks. “This can’t happen. We can’t happen.”
“Life and Death,” he murmurs. “Always intertwined.”
“Always opposed,” I correct him.
“Are we?” He’s too close now, his eyes searching mine. “Or are we just two parts of the same cycle? Neither can exist without the other.”
I want to drift away, to escape this conversation and the feelings it’s stirring in me. Feelings I’ve spent millennia avoiding. As Goddess of Death, I’ve learned to keep others at a distance. Attachment only leads to pain.
But I stay, frozen by something stronger than fear.
“It wouldn’t work,” I say finally.
“Probably not.” His smile is sad. “But I can’t stop wondering what if.”
“What ifwhat?”
“What if we weren’t who we are? What if Sebastian takes his rightful role back and I become a free agent? What if we were just Sienna and Revel, two people who found each other?”
The longing in his voice mirrors something deep inside me. Something I’ve been denying since the moment I saw him standing in Sebastian’s chambers in Aurelys beside that trembling maid, looking so out of place among the vibrant, growing things my brother surrounds himself with.
“But we are who we are and the situation is the same,” I remind him gently.
“Tonight, I don’t want to be.” He reaches for the bottle again, and this time I let him take it. “Tonight, I just want to forget all of this. The Divine Council, the balance, our duty.” He takes another drink, grimacing as it goes down. “I want to forget that I’m falling for someone I can never have.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. Falling for someone. Forme.
I scowl at the absurdity of it: the God of Life falling for the Goddess of Death. The son of the woman who will punt me out of existence the first chance she gets. It would be laughable if it didn’t make my heart ache.
“You’ll regret saying this in the morning,” I tell him.
“Probably.” He sits back down heavily, legs dangling over the edge again. “But at least I’ll have said it once.”
I settle beside him, close enough that if I were corporeal, our shoulders would touch. We sit in silence for a long time, watching the lights of Seattle shimmer below us.
“What would you do?” I ask, my voice barely more than a whisper. “If things were different, what would you do?”
His brows lift, eyes openly roaming my face as he considers the questions. Until finally, his expression falls into something more mischievous, a smirk playing at the sides of his lips. And I know I’m going to regret opening this door.
But he surprises me by saying, “It wouldn’t be gentlemanly to speak to a goddess in that way.”
“You’d be surprised how some people speak to me. I want to hear it.” My mouth is somehow disconnected from my brain. I know that whatever fantasies he’s conjured up in his mind will have me blushing for days. But I want to hear them still. I want to know that he desires me outside of the dreams I’ve manipulated.
I want to compare them to my own.
“First, I’d wrap all that beautiful, shimmering hair around my fist and tug it back until you had no choice but to open up for me.”
I frown, reaching around to run my fingers through my hair protectively. Without being too obvious, I gently pull a few strands to simulate what he’s describing.
