Chapter 8 Timothy
TIMOTHY
Standing before the mirror, I adjusted the collar of my tailored suit.
It shimmered, a star map of constellations embedded directly into the fabric, shifting subtly as I moved.
A faint blue glow pulsed at my back, a sigil of my recordkeeping and cosmic order, and unmistakably divine.
It was a perfect nod to the celestial theme of the night.
Tonight was the Convergence. Expectation pressed down on me like the ancient stones of the pyramids themselves, looming and heavy. I took a deep breath, reminding myself that tonight was about order, about power.
It was not about snogging with a vampire who had driven me to distraction.
I ran my fingers through my hair, tweaking small pieces, making sure they looked just right. Perhaps it would distract from the deep circles that hung beneath my eyes.
Sleep had eluded me for the last week and a half. It had since I cracked under Aaron’s mouth, and my focus had been fracturing like glass underfoot ever since.
Every time I got near the man, I found myself battling a storm of impulses, selfish desires, and a reckless urge to seize what I couldn’t allow myself to have.
My eyes fluttered shut as it rushed back to me in high-def, technicolor.
The turquoise of his eyes receding into thin bands around the expanding dark pools of his hungry pupils as he kissed me.
The heady scent of him saturating my entire body with a mixture of the ocean, something clean, and deeply sensual.
And his taste...oh gods, his taste. The salty, masculine play of his tongue drove sense from me in tandem with the rough scratch of the scruff on his face. All my blood had evacuated to my cock with painful insistence while my heart had lodged its way up into my throat, beating only for him. Aaron.
A shiver rolled through my body.
“You cold?” A voice pulled me from my trance. I opened my eyes to find Miranda standing at the door.
Her gown was deep indigo, sleek and lethal in its simplicity, the fabric flowing like liquid night. The bejeweled headdress and jewelry glinted with more than glitz. They were captured stars, encased in little jeweled fittings.
I picked it all out for her personally. The gods wouldn’t like having a human present, but at least she’d somewhat blend in.
Slits in the skirt showed off her muscular legs, though they were more for function, in case she needed to, as she put it, “kick some ass.” To prove the point that she was willing and ready to do so, Bob sat at her hip in an equally ornate scabbard.
“Bob says thank you for the new sheath,” Miranda said, catching where my gaze went. “He says, ‘Je me sens ravissante.’” I feel ravishing.
Miranda’s French had improved noticeably over the years. The Blade of Bane had spent many centuries inert and waiting in France, from the Middle Ages to the Napoleonic era, and from what she’d told me, spoke with the accent.
Bob was also of discerning taste, so that was quite the compliment.
I straightened my shoulders, deliberately calming my body. I needed to be steady, to project control. The weight of my responsibilities pressed down like the centuries I had walked this earth.
“I’m still not sure your presence is a good idea,” I said to her.
Before I could answer, the tap-tap-tap of claws striking the marble floor brought my attention down to Assirak. He sat dutifully at my side and looked up at me.
“Alright, if you say so,” I answered the reaper.
Miranda’s brows quirked.
“Assirak says I need all the backup I can get tonight.” I gave Assirak a little scratch behind the ears, more for me than him.
Miranda stared down at what must have looked like empty space underneath my hand. “Smart pooch.”
I would have corrected her underestimation of the reaper, but Assirak simply opened his mouth in a happy grin, his tongue lolling out. The reapers seemed to find it a joyful lark to play “dog,” as it were.
I extended an arm to Miranda, leading her out of the private suite and to the main room. We were just below the lobby of the hotel, on a private floor.
Dark onyx marble floors and airy, bright ceilings with palms that thrived without access to the sun echoed the design of Sinopolis’s decor. At the center of the room was a large silver pool of water, sunken into the floor.
We ascended the few short steps to the edge of the pool. Miranda eyed the water suspiciously. “If my dress gets wet, these gods will get more than an eyeful of what I got underneath.”
“Isn’t your significant other a water god?” I asked pointedly.
She smacked my arm. “Was. Was a water god.” Then she murmured as she skeptically examined the pool, “But he does know his way around a pulsating showerhead with what seems like inhuman dexterity.”
Assirak let out a small, curious woof at my side.
“Don’t ask,” I cautioned, then turned back to Miranda. “Trust,” I said simply.
I stepped forward.
The water closed over my shoes, cool and electric, climbing my calves, my knees, my waist without getting me wet. For a moment, the world inverted. The ceiling became a lake of light. The chandeliers stretched and elongated, turning into distant stars.
I felt the old pull, the one that existed long before elevators and hallways and discreet entrances for gods who no longer wished to be worshipped openly.
Then gravity corrected itself.
I emerged at the top of the staircase of the ballroom that I had created on a different plane of reality earlier today. A tiny pocket of time and space so the immortals could meet in assured privacy.
I released Miranda’s arm now that she was on firm footing.
The Convergence unfurled beneath me in a vast, breathtaking sweep of space and power.
The ballroom stretched impossibly long, its ceiling lost to a night sky threaded with slow-moving constellations.
Chandeliers floated untethered, massive rings of gold and crystal rotating lazily, each a different planetary body.
They all aligned, mimicking the universal order in space.
Thick columns rose in clean, deliberate rows, pale stone etched with hieroglyphs that glowed faintly blue along their grooves. Carved lotus flowers bloomed at the tops of the pillars.
The walls were carved with overlapping symbols of gods, stars, and planetary paths, our stories layered into the stone. Small points of light were set into the walls, mimicking the pattern of stars.
It was ancient design dressed in excess. I allowed a small moment of pride for what I had created. Grim never cared for the frills, but I always felt there was power in ambience, embellishment, and design.
This was undoubtedly my turf, my style, and I intended for every immortal present to feel my power.
As I descended the first few stairs, the guests turned as one.
Every god. Every goddess. Every demigod who had been summoned by the alignment and the oaths it demanded.
Their attire bent reality at the edges. Fabric orbited bodies instead of clinging to them.
Veils, like cosmic black holes, absorbed all light that touched them.
Jewelry pulsed faintly with living magic.
Some bore their true features, eyes reflecting galaxies, skin traced with sigils that shifted when looked at directly. Several had no faces at all.
The sheer density of power in the room pressed against my senses, familiar and heavy, with the weight of memory.
For a heartbeat, I was back in Egypt.
Back when we did not hide. When temples rose in our honor, and prayers were spoken aloud. When humans knelt and believed with a fervor that burned cities to the ground. I remembered the wars that followed. The blood that filled the Nile until it became necessary to retreat into myth and shadow.
That was why this place existed.
Why even now, when the humans believed in us again, we remained restrained.
Miranda fell into step, several paces behind me. I felt more than saw her posture shift smoothly into that of a predator on alert. Despite being a mortal in an elegant gown with a sword at her hip, to the room, she read as a statement. A reminder. I had the favor of a fae blade and its wielder.
Assirak paced at her side, head high, eyes glowing softly. Miranda could not see him, but she adjusted her stride unconsciously to accommodate him anyway.
Good.
I let my power rise.
Not unleashed. Never that. Just enough to be felt. Enough to settle into the marble beneath my feet, into the air, into the chests of every being watching me descend. The murmurs died. The chandeliers slowed their rotation.
The swirling galaxy of light that hovered over my right shoulder pulsated as blue hieroglyphics shed from my skin in faint embers.
If the gods did not respect my authority, if they did not find me worthy to take up Grim’s mantle and lead in his absence, this could all break into bloodshed and chaos.
Grim once said a third of the gods didn’t give a shit who was in power as long as it didn’t interfere with their business, and another third were looking for someone to blame and break for why we did not live by the old ways.
The last third was the most dangerous. These gods and demigods were hungry, foaming at the mouth to break down the barriers to the new ways they wanted to live.
Even now, I could spot the different hungers simmering, barely restrained by certain figures in the crowd. They were waiting for me to slip up. To show any glimpse of a soft underbelly so they could leap and rip it out with their teeth and claws.
I was the thing standing between all the chaos and the modern world. If they didn’t buy my authority, if they didn’t see me fit...
I made myself hard inside, locking down every stray thought, every fracture that had formed in the last two days.
At least I wouldn’t see Aaron here.
The relief was quickly cannibalized by disappointment. Despite everything, Aaron made me feel powerful in a way that had nothing to do with fear or control. He made me feel like myself, and like that was more than enough. Unfortunately, I had to be far more than that today.
I buried thoughts of Aaron for the hundredth time today and continued down the steps.
This was my Convergence. My watch. My responsibility.
I reached the floor of the ballroom and stopped.
The silence held.
I lifted my chin and owned it.
“Welcome.” My voice didn’t boom, yet it broadcasted to everyone present as clearly as if I stood next to them. “Eat, drink, and let us revel in the alignment, not only of the stars, but of our great forces—”
The hairs on the back of my neck all rose at once as my eyes caught on something across the room. My stomach clenched in tandem with my heart.
Not something. Someone.
Behind me, I felt Miranda and Assirak tense. They saw him too. It wasn’t my wishful thinking.
Aaron was here.