Page 28 of Fallen Gods

Be anyone but him.

Seriously.

Anyone.

Chapter Thirteen

Rey

“Rough morning?” he asks, not even pretending to hide his focus on the small nation of fries occupying most of my tray.

I glare at him. He just got done saying I needed to stay away from him and, while there are only a few empty seats, I figured he’d rather sit on the ground than across from me. So what’s his deal? Does he suspect that I was in his room? Or is he playing at his own game now?

I dip a fry into my ketchup. “Just trying to get adjusted.”

His eyes—sharp, dark, deliberate—drag over me, from my ballet flats to the edge of my hoodie. When they finally lift to land on mine, the weight of his gazescorches.

And he hasn’t even sat down yet.

No, he’s choosing to tower over me like a complete jackass.

Everything Aric does is calculated, even the way he watches me. This is a ploy to exert dominance. “From the looks of it,” he murmurs, his lips tipping up in a sexy smirk I itch to smack right off his face, “that might take some time.”

I force my fingers to unclench and casually drop my fry onto the tray, despite the fact that my heart’s ready to hammer out of my chest. It’s almost cruel, how pretty he is.

I shrug, masking my nerves and increasingly rapid heartbeat. I blurt out the first thing I can think of from my perusal of his closet. “I like to hike. Makes me hungry.”

“Hmm,” he says, assessing me with a slight cock of his head. “Same. There are a lot of trails around here, but”—he sets his tray down next to mine as he takes the empty seat—“you don’t seem like the hiking type.”

“That’s borderline insulting.” I grab another fry and shoveit into my mouth. “Though not as insulting as what you said earlier.”

He shrugs. “If the hiking shoe fits…”

“So why are you here, Aric?” I ask, genuinely curious. “Didn’t you just tell me to stay the hell away from you?”

He shrugs. “Know thy enemy.”

“Ah,” I say. “Okay, then. So how is your day going, enemy?” I lean in. “Eventful?”

His eyes narrow, and then he completely shuts down. “No. I’ve been reading.”

Liar.

“What’re you reading?” I prod.

“‘The Epic of Gilgamesh.’”

I try to look unimpressed, but admittedly, that’s not what I expected. Although a poem about immortality and doomed gods—an echo of their world—tracks as something he’d be drawn to. “Is that required reading? I haven’t had a chance to look at my syllabus yet, with all the hiking I’ve been doing.”

“Reading should never be required.” He leans back, the fabric of his black T-shirt pulling tight across his chest. His voice drops, and yet again I’m reminded that the sound of it can be as hypnotic as a siren’s call. “It should be forpleasure. Don’t you think?”

His gaze flicks to mine, a slow, deliberate challenge.

I swallow. Hard. But I don’t answer.

“The right book can consume you. Make you forget to eat, to sleep.” A smirk tugs at his lips again. “Make you ache for just one more page even when you know you shouldn’t.” He leans in, close enough that my breath stutters. “It can be temptation itself.”

I keep eating—not because I’m hungry, but because if I look at him any longer, I might do something reckless. The way he said that… It’s not fair.