I owe you guys one more chapter.
Looking around the room, I ask Hecate, “Do we seriously have to do this here?” My best friend rolls her eyes at me, as she lights the frankincense and cedar incense. We are standing in a freaking cave deep under the peaks of Mt. Olympus. It’s cold and dark and damp and somehow humid all at the same time. And it’s creepy as all hell. I know that’s a weird thing for a powerful goddess to say, but the caves under Mt. Olympus aren’t filled with the creepy crawlies from the human world. These things hold baby hydras, manticores, gorgons, and other nasties. No, they won’t kill me, but they’re a pain in the ass to have to deal with. And having to break out of a stone shell would ruin my manicure. “I swear to you that we have scoured all of the tunnels and ousted any of the nasties that used to live here,” Loki says, smiling at me. But, like always, there is this hint of mischievousness to his smile that makes me not trust him.
OK, yeah. This mission isn’t the most in line with what I told Nathan and Freya about keeping me safe. But we’re headed to Tartarus. Other than Persephone and Hades’s palace, it is now the safest place in the Underworld. Since the gods took back their power from the evil army, we were able to put the Tartaruchi in charge of everything in Tartarus. A collective consciousness, the Tartaruchi are four separate primordial Titans. They had helped Zeus and his siblings in the war against the Titans, just like Hecate and I had. They have taken a lot of pleasure in torturing the prisoners there. The only ones that they have left alone are the gods that are imprisoned there and those that were able to free themselves. Some, like Lilith, have chosen to stay in Tartarus, even though they have freed themselves from their prisons. They feel like there’s just nothing left for them in the world above. So they wonder around the levels of Tartarus for etern
“I can’t believe my little girl is going to a human college!” Mama says with tears shining in her eyes. She’s got my face between her hands, looking at me and nearly refusing to let go. “And so far away!” I can’t help but try to comfort her, even though we’ve talked about this ad nauseum. “Mama, I’m only three hours away. I can be home whenever and you can visit,” I remind her. “Once a month,” Ba adds putting his arm around Mama’s shoulder, helping to extricate my face from her hands. Papá moves up beside me and pulls me into a hug. “Mi hija, (My daughter),” he says into my ear. “Entiendo por qué tienes que dejarnos. Lamento que tenga que suceder. (I understand why you have to leave us. I am just sorry that it has to happen.)” I have to bite my lip and squeeze my eyes tight against the tears that come unbidden to my eyes. He’s talking about Caleb. The last week has been awful. Our friends don’t know how to deal with i
Fati left with her parents to head to college today. I haven’t seen her in week. Hadn’t talked to her for weeks before that. It’s been less than a month, but it feels like forever. And now she’s gone. There’s nothing that I can do about it. I’m sitting in my apartment, mindlessly flipping through the channels on the TV that I rarely use. I rarely have the time to watch TV, but now I can’t seem to muster enough energy to do anything else. Suddenly, there’s a knock at the door and I can scent my two best friends. “Go away!” I call out from the couch, knowing that they’ll be able to hear me. “No chance!” Ethan calls back. “You’re not wallowing tonight. We’re going out!” “Fuck that shit!” I call back, but I still push myself up and off the couch. I walk over to the door and unlock it, not even bothering to open the door before I turn back to the couch. They both walk in, Finnegan huffing out a lau
Come on, Fati! We can’t be late for the first day of classes,” Ollie calls to me from the foot of the stairs. I have my door open and thank the Goddess Above that everyone was already up and down at breakfast this morning for the first day of classes frenzy. Angela had told me that as the days wore on and people got more settled in, that wouldn’t be the case anymore. But for now, the school year was new, there were new wolves in the packhouse, and life was bright and shiny. Our wolves wanted to make a good first impression.“Give me five minutes!” I call down to Ollie as I loop a hair tie around my long French braid. I never wear my hair down, usually pulling it into a long ponytail. But, again, since today is the first day of school, I wanted to put in an extra effort. I had done two long French braids down either side of my head and wanted to curl the front pieces that I had pulled out to frame my face. Problem was, I have an impatient wolf at the foot of the stai
“I need a fish special, 86 the pine nuts for allergies!” I call out. “Yes, chef!” is called out by the men on the line. “Go ahead and start course two on table five. Jorge, I need a well done filet. Give me a two minute count to start the rest,” I yell again, turning sticking my hand out to grab the ticket from the waiter that has just walked into the kitchen. “Yes, chef!” echoes through the room as I read through the ticket. “We’ve got a VIP four top walking in on table two. I need an off menu amuse. Two vegans, one nut allergy. VIP prefers earthy, savory foods,” I alert the kitchen. “Yes, chef!” “Hands!” I call, summoning two different servers to take food into the dining room. “Walking tables ten, three, and fifteen.” “Chef, two minute count,” I hear from Jorge. “Heard, Chef. Fire the rest of table 12. And where is my fish for table six? Everything else is dying in the pass,” I a
“It’s been a week, Fati. Are you just going to stare at him or are you going to make a move? He’s your mate. You’ve got to make a move. He’ll want you, it’s just the way that mates work,” Ollie says as she sees me staring at my mate during the break for our class. He laid his head down on his arms about five minutes before the professor called a break for our three hour class and he hasn’t moved since. It doesn’t take werewolf senses to know that he’s sleeping. It also doesn’t take werewolf senses to detect the slight limp in his step or see the bruises on his face. Or the wince when he takes too deep a breath. He’s hurt. I don’t know how he got hurt or who did it. What I do know is that my wolf is rising inside of me, begging to know who hurt my mate so that I can end their miserable life. “I find out his name. Did I tell you that?” I murmur to Ollie. “No,” they say, turning fully to face me. Their eyes
The hour and half that are left in this fucking class seem to fucking crawl by. Normally, I really like this class, but this girl, Fatima, has my head all tangled up in knots. I have to keep myself from turning around to look at her the entire time the professor is walking us through the lab. As it is, I’m already trying to stalk her on social media. But in the surprise of the century, there doesn’t seem to be anything about her. She has no electronic footprint that I can find. Not even a profile that says that it’s set to private. I mean, it’s fucking baffling that someone our age group doesn’t have a digital footprint. Even I have a damn Linked-In page, but there’s nothing for her. How is that possible? But I do find something for the person beside her. Ollie Green, non-binary graphic design major from Arkansas who just moved here. Ollie apparently loves to photo-document everything that ever happens to them and I find that they have a sc