Page 51 of Fallen Gods

It’s Reeve. He’s holding a paper cup and shaking his head like I’m a disappointment. “Almost sent out a search party.” He pitches his voice low as two other students walk past us. “And I got you a tea. I skipped on coffee, since I didn’t want you to shit your pants again.”

I glare. “I didn’t shit my pants, you ass.”

I reach for the cup, too exhausted to argue. But before I can touch it, another hand intercepts—Ziva’s.

She steps between us like a curtain dropping mid-scene, her fingers curling gently but firmly around my wrist as she steers it away from the offering.

“Don’t take anything from this one,” she says, not looking at me. Her voice is calm, but there’s steel under it. “He smiles while he cuts.”

Reeve opens his mouth. Closes it. Blinks. Tries again.

But nothing comes out.

No teasing. No careless smile. Just the guy who never shuts up blinking like his soul depends on finding the exact right word to say next. And failing.

My eyebrows shoot up. “Holy hell,” I whisper. “You broke an Erikson.”

I turn to share the joke with Ziva, but what I see on her face freezes the words in my throat. Not triumph. Not sass.

Hurt. Quiet and buried but unmistakable.

And I know that look. I’ve worn that look. I’ve carried it.

I shift slightly, hand sliding into my rucksack to reach for the knife…that is tucked beneath my bed. Right. Blades not welcome on a college campus.

It’s just…instinct that I always have it with me.

My hand comes back empty. No knife.

Ziva slips her arm through mine, eyes still forward. “Come on,” she says softly. “He’s not worth the bruise.”

She doesn’t know what I almost did. But she pulls me away like she does, and I’m thankful for it. For now.

We move through rows of white folding chairs toward the stage, where an old man in full school regalia is fiddling with a microphone.

“Sigurd,” I mutter.

Ziva makes a face. “Why do all evil men dress like they’ve beenshopping drunk on Etsy?”

I half laugh, half wince as feedback screams across the auditorium.

Sigurd taps the mic again, causing more feedback. He looks to be in his mid-sixties, dressed head to toe in the school colors of crimson and gold. How…cliché. And yet, he almost looks cheerful. I’ve been told my entire life that the only person more dangerous than Aric and Reeve is Sigurd, and yet he just seems like some eccentric old grandpa with too much money and time on his hands.

Sigurd’s dark brown eyes lock on mine with keen interest. His stare isn’t threatening. It’s more of a knowing gaze, which still has me wanting to sink down into my chair. I don’t like the intensity of it.

I make a mental note: his smoke screens are the school, his clothes, the mild way he carries himself. But the way others perceive him matters—approachable to some, untouchable to others.

Deadly to me.

Aric joins him on the dais, and Sigurd turns to shake his hand, then gestures for his grandson to take a seat in one of two empty chairs to the side of the podium.

Aric nods and, somehow, manages to fold his six-foot-six frame gracefully into the rickety chair, kicking his legs out and crossing his ankles. Crossing his arms next, he leans back, and our gazes collide.

My heart rate picks up, my breath catching in the back of my throat as neither of us looks away. Images flicker in my mind. Tongues. Lips. Bodies sliding against each other with hunger.

Heat stains my cheeks, the moment stretching between us, but I can’t look away. I’m drowning in his mahogany gaze and the memories of a moment we never should have shared. The corner of his mouth kicks up like he knows it, too, and something aboutit shatters the hold he has over me.

I shake my head, drag a heavy breath into my lungs, and stare at my knees like they’re the most important thing in the world.