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And suddenly they did have form.
A few yards away the downpour began to take shape, first in the ghostly silhouette of a man, and then mere seconds later an actual man stood where there had only been rain before.
He cut a majestic figure, straightening the cuffs of his cloud-gray suit jacket. Beneath the blazer he wore no other shirt, giving Cade and me a clear look at his magnificent abs and rich, deep, dark-brown skin with a cool silver-blue undertone that made him appear to be shimmering. His head was shaved perfectly bald, so smooth it shone under the parking lot’s overhead light.
Seth stayed completely dry in spite of the deluge. I often wished this particular gift was one he shared with his Rain Chasers, because I wasn’t a huge fan of getting soaked to the bone what felt like every other evening when I did his chores for him.
He approached us, moving as smoothly as a liquid, crossing the parking lot like smoke. It was as if he didn’t move his limbs at all, just oozed through time and space to get where he was going. It was eerie.
Up close he was almost too beautiful to look at directly. His skin was impossibly smooth and suffered from no scars or blemishes. He didn’t even have pores. His eyes were brown, the color of fresh-turned earth wet with rain. I’d seen his eyes many colors, from the light gray of an early building storm, all the way to the deep green-black of tornado clouds.
Inside his eyes, a storm raged. Lightning flashed and clouds roiled. It wasn’t a reflection of the storm overhead, but rather its own little tempest, one you could only see when you were bold enough to meet his gaze. The same thing happened to my eyes whenever I channeled the power of the storm. I rarely got to catch a glimpse of it in my irises—it was usually long gone by the time I had a chance to check. But I was told it was a ferocious sight to behold.
If onlookers felt half as pants-wettingly nervous as I did right then, I must have made some folks awfully scared.
Seth, who wore a stern countenance on his best days, looked ready to rend the sky in two he was so mad right now.
Surely he couldn’t be this irate over my little tussle with Prescott.
Right?
“Tallulah Corentine.” His voice boomed, rattling the glass of every window in the resort. If the owner inside hadn’t known he was in the presence of a god before, he had a good idea now.
Gods didn’t have indoor voices. Everything they said was meant to be shouted from the rooftops. If they bothered lowering themselves to the earthly plane and assuming a human guise, then by George you were going to listen to whatever it was they had to say.
Seth glowered at me.
“My god,” I whispered, bowing my head in an obsequious gesture I hoped he’d read as apologetic. I still wasn’t sure why he was mad, but I wanted to soothe the savage beast as quickly and painlessly as possible. Cade, standing next to me in perfect silence, bowed his head and kept his eyes lowered.
As the disciple to another god, Cade wouldn’t be expected to genuflect, but it was always smart to show respect. And Cade knew his place, at least in this scenario. He’d been at this game longer than I had.
“Kneel.”
I didn’t think twice. I dropped to the sidewalk in front of Seth, the pooling rainwater soaking the knees of my jeans instantly. He cupped my chin and tilted my head upward so I was forced to meet his eyes. They were narrowed into slits, making it hard to see the storm within, but the anger was still easy to spot.
“Seth.” I kept my voice low but did not look away. “You’re angry.”
He seemed to find the obviousness of my statement amusing because he graced me with a thin smile, his dark lips curving up at the corners. Moments like this I forgot how terrifying he was and could understand the ease with which he seduced mortal women. I was typically too scared of enraging him to think of him as attractive.
“You tremble.”
Well, if we were playing the game of stating the apparent, we were both winning. “Yes.”
“You are afraid. Good.” His smile got broader now, showing a flash of white teeth. “I was beginning to worry you didn’t take me seriously.” Seth released my chin, but I continued to look at him, still unsure what he was doing here.
“I take you very seriously.”
He grunted and looked briefly at Cade, as if hoping to catch him doing something he shouldn’t. I darted a glance from the corner of my eye and was relieved to see Cade’s head remained lowered. Being in the presence of a god was a lot like being confronted by a predator in the wild. Sometimes you just held still and hoped they wouldn’t notice you. We all learned our own survival techniques over time, because each and every one of us could be replaced.
Returning his attention to me, Seth spoke again, each word making my bones vibrate and setting my teeth on edge. “Why is Manea angry with me, little one?”
Uh, was he being serious? He had to know that getting the idol was going to put her in an irate mood, at the very least. Goddesses don’t like losing their treasures to mere mortals, and they like it a whole lot less when another god ends up with them.
Don’t be sarcastic, don’t be s
arcastic, don’t be sarcastic. “I believe she’s upset about the loss of the idol I…collected for you.”
Seth considered my statement while I replayed it in my head, wondering if I’d said anything he might kill me for. I thought I was okay, but it was often hard to tell.
