Of course, I don’t have my eyes closed for longer than a moment before Aron speaks again. “Female. Female, wake up.”

I open my eyes and glare at him. He’s propped up on one elbow in the bed. “Two things,” I say, lifting two fingers into the air (instead of just the one I want to shoot in his direction). “One. My name is Faith. Not ‘female.’ Not ‘slave.’ Faith. If you don’t call me by it, I won’t answer. And two, it takes longer to sleep than thirty fucking seconds.”

Aron just arches one of those pale brows at me. “If you will not answer to ‘female,’ then why did you answer me just now?”

I grab my pillow, glare at him, and turn my back. “Goodnight.”

“Female—”

“We just talked about this!” I yell without turning around.

His chuckle sounds as dickish as he is. “Faith, then. I do not know how to sleep.”

I roll onto my back and look over at him. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

“Is there a trick to it? Because I close my eyes and nothing happens. Tell me how to sleep.” He regards me from his reclining position on the bed, amidst the luxury of dozens of pillows and all of the blankets.

“Dude, you seriously have to give this time. You close your eyes and wait—”

“I did that—“

“For longer than a few minutes. Your body will eventually get tired and you’ll go to sleep. I promise.”

He grunts again, the sound pissy and impatient. If I wasn’t so tired, I’d probably lecture him on the fact that he’s still not wearing any clothing and lying around with your junk hanging out makes your company uncomfortable. No matter how appealingly sexy (despite his paleness and douchey attitude) said junk might be.

But I’m too tired to keep talking to Aron, so I point at him, make a gesture for him to turn around, and then go back to my bed.

That lasts for about five minutes. I’m just about to drift off when Aron speaks again. “This is not like I expected.”

His voice is so quiet that it takes me a moment to struggle out of the clutches of sleep and back awake. “Mmm…what?” I rub at my eyes and sit up, because if I don’t, I’m going to fall right back asleep again.

Aron gestures at the room. “All of this. You. I knew this would be punishment, but I had no idea…”

“Punishment for what?”

He says nothing.

“You can’t just leave that out there,” I tell him, annoyed. “What are you being punished for?”

“I do not need to tell you anything, human.” His voice is as cold and dripping with arrogance as it ever was. His momentary vulnerability of a few moments ago is gone.

“We’re gonna add ‘human’ to the list of words Faith won’t answer to,” I tell him, rubbing my eyes again. “Slave,’ ‘servant,’ ‘tart,’ and ‘human.’ Oh, and ‘mortal.’ That one always sounds particularly insulting out of your lips.”

“It is meant to be insulting.”

Yeah, I figured. I press my hand to my forehead and look over at Aron. He’s lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, and I realize I’ve still got all the torches lit. I’m too tired to blow them out—or whatever one does with torches. It’s clear Aron’s not going to let me sleep just yet, so I stifle my yawn and wait for him to continue. When he doesn’t, I decide I’ll do the asking for a bit. “Okay, so what’s your end game here, Aron?”

“End game?” He looks over at me, his cheek brushing against the blankets on his bed, and for a moment, he looks so beautiful and masculine that it makes my heart ache. Was there ever a guy made so perfect? Sure, he’s got the weird two-color eyes—one green and one brown—but I actually find it startlingly attractive. Then there’s the perfect body, covered in scars, sure, but still utterly perfect. Even the scar on his face just adds to his sexiness.

Zero flaws in his appearance…but his personality is pretty shit, I remind myself. “Yup. End game. Like, you’re a god and you’re here on Earth—uh, the mortal plane. What’s the plan? What do you need to do to get back home? Do you even want to get back home?” Maybe he chose to leave and I’ve got this all wrong.

He snorts. “I certainly do not wish to stay here.”

“Okay, so you want to go home.” I decide I’m going to ignore the insults or we won’t get anywhere. “How do we do that?”

“You are my servant. My ears on this earth. My link to this world. Are you not supposed to be the one that knows?”

I sit up and scowl at him. “I’m pretty sure I’m your servant because no one else was beating down your door to volunteer and it was either you or dying, and I’m still not sure I chose correctly.”

He snorts again.

“I’m not from here, in case you didn’t notice. I’m from a place called Earth, thanks for asking. And it’s nothing like this.” I gesture at the room, then at him. “I’m just as clueless as you about a lot of stuff, but I know the basics. You know, eating, drinking, sleeping, basic human shit. So if you want to be completely on your own, just say so and I’ll leave—”

“You cannot leave. You are bound to me.”

“Then work with me, buddy.” I want to throw something over at him on the bed, but there’s nothing but my pillow, and I need that. “I’m happy to help out, because I want to go home, too. We’ll get you home and maybe we’ll figure out how to get me home.” Heck, I figure if anyone knows how to break the time-space continuum and send a girl back to Earth, it’d be a god. “So how do we get you home?”

There’s a long pause. “I am not certain.”

Well, at least we’re getting somewhere other than just insults. “That’s all right. You said this happened to other gods, too, right? Did they get back home?”

“Yes.”

“So someone knows how to get you there. We just have to find that person.”

Aron makes a noise that might be assent, might be annoyance. “I will speak to the prelate in the morning.”

I bite my lip and think of the intense conversation the men were having in the shadows. How they tried to get me to “help” them. “Just between you and me, I don’t think you should trust him. In fact, I think we should get out of here. Like, as soon as possible.”

The god sits up in bed, his long, dark hair spilling around his shoulders. He narrows his eyes at me. “Why?”

“I overheard something.” Quickly, I sketch out the details and then add, “I don’t trust them not to pull something. I don’t like it. They tried to turn me against you.”

“A fool’s task,” he says condescendingly.

I arch an eyebrow. “We’ve really got to talk about your self-confidence. How do you know they wouldn’t turn me?”

“Because they can’t.”

“Why can’t they? For the right price, I think anyone can be bought.”

The look he gives me is downright incredulous. “You are my anchor. My servant on this earth—”

I wave a hand as if brushing aside all that. “And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re not the most huggable and loveable of guys. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m trying to tell you that if they approached me, it stands to reason that they approached other people and we need to be careful.”

He stares at me for so long that I almost wonder if he’s figured out how to sleep with his eyes open. Maybe we should have a conversation about blinking, too. But then he shakes his head slowly. “No. We will speak to the prelate. This is my temple. Aventine is a city dedicated to my name. It is my kingdom to rule over. I see no reason to leave.”

I bite my lip again. Eesh. “See, it’s that whole ‘your kingdom’ thing that the prelate is going to have a problem with. You came in and stole his thunder, no pun intended.”

“What is a pun?”

“It’d take too long to explain. Stay with me.” I shift on my seat, realizing I’ve been giving him a Basic Instinct flash for the last few minutes. Luckily it doesn’t look like Aron is interested in that sort of thing at all. “You swooped in and now he’s not top dog. He’s not in charge, and he has to basically bow and scrape to you, and I get the impression he’s not a bow and scraper. We need to get out of here before he tries something bad—”