The Mercedes-Benz dealership was a cathedral of glass and steel, a shrine to German precision where marble floors reflected vehicles displayed as objets d'art. The Saturday sun, fractured by the vast panes, fell in shafts of liquid gold.
When Eros passed through the automatic doors, the ambient hum of commerce ceased. It wasn't a sudden stop, but a quick and thorough deceleration, a world grinding to a halt on his axis.
He wore his enhanced form the way a king wore a crown: as a simple, irrefutable fact. Standing a shade over six feet, he was a study in monochrome and intensity—charcoal wool, dark hair swept from a brow that suggested centuries of thought. His eyes, the green of a sea before a storm, seemed to absorb the California light and hold it.
