APEX

Ch. 12: Aamonatics

Calla

Pleasure boats filled with sightseers floated along the river at regular intervals. More than a few passengers' heads turned in our direction when they came in sight of us. From my vantage point off to the side of the photoshoot at Garnier Wharf, I couldn't help but blush at the way Rhys's brother shamelessly flaunted his washboard abs and flirted with the photographer as she burned provocative images of him into her camera's memory card. The phrase "make love to the camera" seemed to have been made for Aamon Rawlings.

He always paused after she instructed him to pose in a certain way, deciding for himself if that was the right call. "No," he told her when she asked him to turn to the side, instead facing her straight on as he perched on a stool, his legs spread wide. "You'll prefer me from this angle."

He winked and she giggled, taking the shot as he'd framed it. After a while, he simply moved how he wanted, and everyone around him obliged. If they minded, they didn't say so, or act perturbed. I seemed to be the only one who found his behavior off-putting. Maybe it was the awkward, unsettling way the press conference had ended, with a veiled threat from the anti-shifter media, that left me less inclined to put up with Aamon's antics. Everyone else—the photographer, her assistants, Aamon's manager, Sury's Thirty Under Thirty curator—all of them seemed to be enamored with him.

It became clear as the shoot progressed that Aamon wanted more than to enjoy superhero status amongst the citizenry of Sury—he longed to be their sex god as well. And if these photos were any indication, he was well on his way to achieving this goal.

"Well?" he asked me after the session ended. By this point, he was wearing nothing but a towel. If the hand holding it in place were to fall, so would any remaining sense of modesty.

"Well, what?" I said, not in the mood to play a guessing game with him. "Why did you bring me here, Aamon?"

"I thought you'd be happy to have an excuse to get out of that office you're forced to share with my brother. I love him, but the whole Alpha thing makes him a bit insufferable. You must admit, between the two of us, I'm much better company."

In no universe was this true. "It's more of a matter of which one of you sets the bar lower."

He wagged a finger at me, a move startingly reminiscent of Rhys's gesture when he'd caught me in a lie of omission this morning. "A Luna wouldn't be worth her salt if she didn't play coy...but I have faith." He winked at me, just as he'd done to the photographer. "You'll come around. They always do."

I wondered who this "they" was that he referred to, but asking would only prolong the conversation, and I'd been over it for a while already. "Can we go?"

"Sure, but you're coming to the autograph signing with me, right?"

"How could I possibly dream of missing that?"

"Good, because I need you to see."

I didn't like where this was going. "See what?"

"That people still believe in the Apex brand. Children still look up to me. Men are still envious and at the same time, filled with awe. And women still wet their panties when they're around me. Nothing's changed."

God, he was so crass, but I had to hope, for the sake not just of Apex, but of Crown as well, that he was right.

The signing took place in a bookstore, a location Aamon seemed eager about, even though he had confessed to me during the ride to Apex's University District that he hadn't read a single book since high school.

"That can't be true. What about your own book?" I asked, referring to Aamon's memoir Metamorphic Books had stocked for today's event.

The Iconic Life of a Shifter created a stir when it was released last year. I'd read a review and a few quotes, instantly regretting I'd chosen to do so so soon after eating. "An intimate look into the life of one of Sury's most prominent shifters, and it's most enticing eligible bachelor!" one of the reviewers had claimed. Another stated the memoir was the most profound piece of literature of the decade. What it really was, in my opinion, was the masturbatory ramblings of a textbook narcissist. As it turned out, it wasn't even that.