by Sierra Dean
I found I didn’t want to destroy it at all.
“If the hotel belongs to the wife, aren’t we punishing her more than him?” I drummed my nails against my jean-clad thigh, searching for any reason to avoid unleashing an act of the gods on this place.
Couldn’t I just blow up his car instead? I loved smashing luxury sedans, as my evening’s earlier adventures indicated.
“She’s the one who asked. Several dozen times. And the offerings she’s making don’t come cheap.”
I let out a little grunt. The clouds overhead were getting fatter and darker by the second. “We’re going to need to make this fast.”
“Did you make Daddy mad?”
“Ha ha ha,” I mocked. “Let’s get this out of the way. I think the Chinese place closes in an hour, and I’m going to need more MSG when this is all said and done.” And, like, a four-year nap.
“I’ll buy you all the Kung Pao your stomach can handle.”
“Sweet talker.” Wind picked up, swirling across the parking lot and whipping my black hair into my eyes and momentarily obscuring my vision of the main house. I pulled my hair into a high, messy ponytail, securing it with the elastic I kept around my wrist. Cade had apparently been watching this whole process, because once I could see again, I noticed the look of amusement he was wearing.
“That’s why I keep mine short.” He rubbed his own head, ruffling the short wisps of curl that were coming in on top. I wondered if his hair was coarse and wiry or soft.
If it was anything like him, it probably felt like a metal scrubby sponge, rough and unapproachable.
We crossed the parking lot in mutual silence. Each new step we took it felt like the temperature dropped a few degrees, until we reached the front steps of the building and I could see my breath in each exhale.
A low rumble of thunder echoed across the water. It wasn’t exactly threatening, more like an announcement, but it was all I needed to hear. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I grabbed Cade’s arm, pulling him to a stop.
“Wait.”
He looked peevish, annoyed I’d stopped us on the threshold, but he couldn’t possibly understand the nuances of the coming storm. He didn’t speak the language of wind and rain and thunder.
“What?” he asked, evidently seeing how serious my expression was.
“He’s here.”
Cade knew I wasn’t talking about the man inside.
Overhead, the clouds, bloated and menacing, opened up, and within seconds the parking lot was drenched. Under the eaves of the main deck we were protected, but this was no mere rain, and what it promised was something I couldn’t hide from.
Seth was here, and he was pissed.
Chapter Six
The rain was falling so hard I couldn’t see Cade’s car across the lot. The sheets were dense enough to look solid, as if the cascading droplets had real form.
And suddenly they did have form.
A few yards away the downpour began to take shape, first in the ghostly silhouette of a man, and then mere seconds later an actual man stood where there had only been rain before.
He cut a majestic figure, straightening the cuffs of his cloud-gray suit jacket. Beneath the blazer he wore no other shirt, giving Cade and me a clear look at his magnificent abs and rich, deep, dark-brown skin with a cool silver-blue undertone that made him appear to be shimmering. His head was shaved perfectly bald, so smooth it shone under the parking lot’s overhead light.
Seth stayed completely dry in spite of the deluge. I often wished this particular gift was one he shared with his Rain Chasers, because I wasn’t a huge fan of getting soaked to the bone what felt like every other evening when I did his chores for him.
He approached us, moving as smoothly as a liquid, crossing the parking lot like smoke. It was as if he didn’t move his limbs at all, just oozed through time and space to get where he was going. It was eerie.
Up close he was almost too beautiful to look at directly. His skin was impossibly smooth and suffered from no scars or blemishes. He didn’t even have pores. His eyes were brown, the color of fresh-turned earth wet with rain. I’d seen his eyes many colors, from the light gray of an early building storm, all the way to the deep green-black of tornado clouds.
Inside his eyes, a storm raged. Lightning flashed and clouds roiled. It wasn’t a reflection of the storm overhead, but rather its own little tempest, one you could only see when you were bold enough to meet his gaze. The same thing happened to my eyes whenever I channeled the power of the storm. I rarely got to catch a glimpse of it in my irises—it was usually long gone by the time I had a chance to check. But I was told it was a ferocious sight to behold.
If onlookers felt half as pants-wettingly nervous as I did right then, I must have made some folks awfully scared.
Seth, who wore a stern countenance on his best days, looked ready to rend the sky in two he was so mad right now.
Surely he couldn’t be this irate over my little tussle with Prescott.
Right?
“Tallulah Corentine.” His voice boomed, rattling the glass of every window in the resort. If the owner inside hadn’t known he was in the presence of a god before, he had a good idea now.
Gods didn’t have indoor voices. Everything they said was meant to be shouted from the rooftops. If they bothered lowering themselves to the earthly plane and assuming a human guise, then by George you were going to listen to whatever it was they had to say.
Seth glowered at me.
“My god,” I whispered, bowing my head in an obsequious gesture I hoped he’d read as apologetic. I still wasn’t sure why he was mad, but I wanted to soothe the savage beast as quickly and painlessly as possible. Cade, standing next to me in perfect silence, bowed his head and kept his eyes lowered.
As the disciple to another god, Cade wouldn’t be expected to genuflect, but it was always smart to show respect. And Cade knew his place, at least in this scenario. He’d been at this game longer than I had.
“Kneel.”
I didn’t think twice. I dropped to the sidewalk in front of Seth, the pooling rainwater soaking the knees of my jeans instantly. He cupped my chin and tilted my head upward so I was forced to meet his eyes. They were narrowed into slits, making it hard to see the storm within, but the anger was still easy to spot.
“Seth.” I kept my voice low but did not look away. “You’re angry.”
He seemed to find the obviousness of my statement amusing because he graced me with a thin smile, his dark lips curving up at the corners. Moments like this I forgot how terrifying he was and could understand the ease with which he seduced mortal women. I was typically too scared of enraging him to think of him as attractive.
“You tremble.”
Well, if we were playing the game of stating the apparent, we were both winning. “Yes.”
“You are afraid. Good.” His smile got broader now, showing a flash of white teeth. “I was beginning to worry you didn’t take me seriously.” Seth released my chin, but I continued to look at him, still unsure what he was doing here.
“I take you very seriously.”
He grunted and looked briefly at Cade, as if hoping to catch him doing something he shouldn’t. I darted a glance from the corner of my eye and was relieved to see Cade’s head remained lowered. Being in the presence of a god was a lot like being confronted by a predator in the wild. Sometimes you just held still and hoped they wouldn’t notice you. We all learned our own survival techniques over time, because each and every one of us could be replaced.
Returning his attention to me, Seth spoke again, each word making my bones vibrate and setting my teeth on edge. “Why is Manea angry with me, little one?”
Uh, was he being serious? He had to know that getting the idol was going to put her in an irate mood, at the very least. Goddesses don’t like losing their treasures to mere mortals, and they like it a whole lot less when another god ends up with them.
Don’t be sarcastic, don’t be s
arcastic, don’t be sarcastic. “I believe she’s upset about the loss of the idol I…collected for you.”
Seth considered my statement while I replayed it in my head, wondering if I’d said anything he might kill me for. I thought I was okay, but it was often hard to tell.
“She has promised to make me feel the loss.” He was standing closer to me now, so I was looking directly at his abs, no longer able to read his expression. Seth touched the place at the back of my neck that bore his mark. He scraped his nail against the thin skin, sending an ice-cold shock down my spine.
Being touched by a deity was not the same as being touched by a mortal. You felt it to your very core in a way that was unlike anything a human could do. The simplest brush of fingers could convey pleasure or unhappiness without a word, and it didn’t take an expert to know what you were being told.
Suddenly his fingers were around my ponytail, using it as a grip. He hauled me up from the concrete so he was holding me only by my hair. I scrambled to get a foothold, yelping as I grabbed his wrists, trying to keep him from pulling my hair out by the root.
Cade, who had been silent and still up until this point, twitched as if he might intervene. I risked looking at him only so I could give him a stare that said stand down. Though I could barely think through the pain in my scalp, Cade read my meaning loud and clear. He didn’t move, but the tight set of his jaw told me he wanted to.
Seth rattled me to get my attention and then lowered me enough I could stand on my own, though he still held my hair, making it impossible for me to step clear of him.
“Do you know how Manea shows displeasure, little one?”
If it was anything like this, I had a new kind of sympathy for Prescott. “No.”
“She has told me if I take something of hers, she will take something of mine. She will take something that matters to me.”
Up until that last part I’d been afraid he was talking about me, that Manea wanted my death in return for the idol. But Seth didn’t care enough about me for that kind of threat to have a huge impact. He’d simply call up Sido and have the next girl prepared to step into my shoes.
No, if Manea was threatening to take something important to Seth, then she’d picked a target I was unaware of.
“I have the idol, I can return it.”
Seth twisted my ponytail around his wrist, and I let out a squeak of pain. I guess giving back his new prize wasn’t on the list of possible solutions.
“She cannot take what is mine.”
This time I said nothing. My last suggestion had displeased him, and I was fresh out of ideas for what he wanted done. He pulled me in close, so we were face-to-face. His breath smelled of ozone, and the flashing light in his eyes was especially unnerving this close up.
“You will protect what she has threatened.”
I nodded. I’d do whatever he told me anyway, better to agree with it right off the bat. Maybe then he’d let me go. “Yes. What does she want?”
He released me without warning, and I stumbled, almost falling. Cade was there so quickly I didn’t even hear him move. His arms encircled my waist, and he held me up. The human warmth of his body was like being doused in pure relief. I wanted him to hold on to me until this was over, but I didn’t dare let him. The comfort of his arms wasn’t worth the annoyance it would cause Seth. And I didn’t want Seth paying any more attention to Cade than he already had.
“What does she want?” I asked again, wanting him to know I was listening.
Seth was looking at his hand as if touching me had made it dirty. “She wants my son.”
Chapter Seven
Deities are slutty.
Mortals were totally enamored with the idea of bedding a god, and in turn, the gods usually had their pick of the crop. Imagine if you will, if you were sitting in a bar and Eros himself walked up to say, “Damn you’re looking good tonight, want to get out of here?”
There aren’t many humans of either sex who would pass up an offer like that.
Deities were also, as it turns out, not huge on using protection. This resulted in hundreds of demigod babies being born every year to mothers who would probably never see their child’s father again. Babies born to goddesses—rarer, but not altogether unheard of—had it a bit better. They became temple-minders, like Sido.
Of course Seth had children. It wasn’t all that unusual for a job to make me cross paths with one of them. While he was by no means a typical parent, he still showed some absentee concern for the fruit of his loins. Their mothers were provided for, the children had whatever they needed.
Unless what they needed was a reliable father figure, in which case they were looking in the wrong place.
When Seth said Manea wanted his son, a slideshow of faces flitted through my mind, and I tried to imagine which of them she’d find most interesting. I’d met two of them, Nev and Zephyr, but neither of them struck me as an obvious target for the death goddess.
Though who could tell where her mind was aimed when revenge was the goal. I was honestly surprised she was threatening one of his sons. Seth tended to show much more interest in his daughters.
“Who?” I asked.
“Leo.”
The way he said the name was familiar, almost warm, yet it was a name I had never heard him say in the twenty years I’d known him. Whoever Leo was, he was so important that Seth had kept him secret even from me.
That stung a little.
Cade was still standing close to me, near enough his jacket brushed against my sleeve. I leaned the slightest bit so my arm bumped into his chest. That same grounded, safe feeling I’d experienced when he picked me up flooded through me again. I didn’t take time to dwell on why Cade’s presence made me all warm and comforted, because that would be a whole suitcase of issues I wasn’t prepared to unpack. For the meantime I just wanted whatever human connection I could find.
The longer I was around Seth for any given time the more unmoored I felt from my own world. It was a very discombobulating feeling to be caught up in the magic that surrounded an immortal being.
With Cade close, I was able to keep my head clear enough to ask the necessary questions. “What do you need me to do?”
Not what do you want me to do.
It was an important distinction. Want implied I had some say in the matter when it came to fulfilling his request. He and I both knew that no matter what he asked, I’d do it. That was simply how this relationship worked. So it became a matter of needs, not wants.
“You will get him and bring him to the temple.”
Easy enough. Find the kid, bring him back to Seattle. I was expecting something trickier.
“Where is he?”
Seth shrugged. The rain had begun to taper off, more of a fine mist now, as opposed to a deluge. His mood must be improving. Thunder still rumbled at irregular intervals, but that was merely how the storm spoke to him. There was no threat in the air anymore.
“I bedded his mother in Louisiana a few years ago. I imagine they’re still there.”
Some favorite this Leo kid was if Seth didn’t even know where he lived. What was I supposed to do, go through all the schools and daycares in Louisiana and ask, “Pardon me, do you have any children named Leo who exhibit demigod tendencies?”
I restrained myself from sighing. I’d have plenty of bitching to get out of my system as soon as he was gone, though.
“Do you remember her name?” I hoped he wouldn’t take offense to this question. Honestly, I was just hoping he could give me a little something more to go on than Leo.
“Jacqueline. Jacqueline Marquette.”
All right, that was a start. If only a few years had passed, Jacqueline and the child probably hadn’t moved anywhere. I would haul ass down to Louisiana before Prescott or any of Manea’s other goons got wind of where the boy was. That she’d be willing to kill a child to punish Seth wasn’t surprising per se, but it wasn’t how things should be done. The kid’s only crime was having the bad luck of
being sired by a god. Should he die for that?
No.
Granted, Seth had said Manea wanted to take the child, not kill him. But she was the goddess of death. It didn’t take much of a logical leap to assume she would punish Seth by taking the child’s life.
This could have all ended if Seth was simply willing to return the idol I’d won from Manea, but his pride and his greed outweighed everything else. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place once again, knowing I was on my own when it came to protecting Leo.
“You will accompany her.” This Seth said directly to Cade, surprising us both.
I jumped away from Cade self-consciously, hoping to keep him out of it. If I could wave my hands and shout Nothing to see here in order to get Cade free of this situation unscathed, I would. But inattention didn’t mean Seth was actually oblivious. His focus was set on the man behind me, and there was nothing I could do to deter him now, so I watched as they made eye contact.
“Pardon?” Cade was looking directly at Seth with a ponderous, if somewhat irritated expression on his face.
I understood why he was annoyed. Seth was not his liege god. Whereas most other humans were at the whims and fancy of all gods, those of us chosen to serve were just beholden to our own. Technically Seth couldn’t command Cade to do anything, Cade only answered to Ardra.
“You will accompany her.” Seth’s tone seemed to ask, Are you simple, boy?
Cade’s jaw tightened again, only this time Seth could see it happen. I reached over, wrapping my hand around Cade’s wrist. I gave him a firm squeeze, hoping we could keep each other from making too big a mess of this.
“I answer to the goddess Ardra.”
“I have asked for Ardra’s assistance. You will go. She has agreed.”
If it were me in this situation, I would nod politely and then confirm with my temple after the fact. Cade and I must have been on the same wavelength because he gave a slight nod and said, “If the goddess wills it, so it will be done.”
It wouldn’t be that cut and dry, but Cade and I would have our own discussion about it once Seth was gone.
