Half Bad: A Reverse Harem Goddess Romance (Godhunter Book 31)

by Amy Sumida

  Viper's smile faded as he took a good look around and noticed the bodies littering the floor. “Those fucking snakes froze me! Did you get them all?”

  “No, some escaped, but don't worry, they're being hunted as we speak.”

  “You sent the lions after them?”

  “No. The owls.” I grinned.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I incinerated the snake bodies, then we traced home to Pride Palace. It was early morning there and the sound of happy, hungry children filtered out of the dining hall to us. Viper headed toward the hall with my husbands, but I grabbed him and looked pointedly at his nudity.

  He snatched a flower out of a nearby vase and handed it to me.

  I scowled at him. “Is this your idea of romance?”

  “No, this is my way of asking you to whip me up some pants. Although”—he looked down at himself—“I can see how you might mistake it for such. I do present a fetching picture.”

  I rolled my eyes. “The Intare are all going upstairs to get dressed but you want me to magic you up some pants so you don't have to?”

  “The Intare are probably going upstairs to sleep,” Viper countered. “And yes, I want you to magic me up some pants because I'm too hungry to go all the way upstairs for clothing. So, it's either magic flower pants or I eat naked. It's not as if the kids haven't seen a naked man before.”

  Cries of “Daddy!” came from the dining hall and I realized that the other men had left us to our discussion.

  “Fine,” I huffed and used my territory magic to transform the flower into a pair of jeans. “The kids may see naked people all the time but I don't want them thinking it's okay to come to the dining table naked. I'm trying to set some boundaries.”

  “Good luck with that.” He pulled on the jeans and lifted an eyebrow at me. “They're a little tight.”

  “You want magic jeans? I want Magic Mike.”

  Viper's grin turned wicked as he pulled me close. His bangs, cut in that long, billionaire bad boy swoop, fell forward as he leaned down to kiss me. The kiss, instead of getting passionate, turned into a hug. His arms wrapped around me as he buried his face in my hair.

  “I didn't dream,” Viper whispered. “It was as if I were nothing. But my last thoughts, before the cold took me, were of you. Regret for how I'd left things and hope that I'd have a chance to make it right. I love you, Vervain. I have always loved you.”

  “I love you too.”

  “But if you want me to strip later, I think you'd better make these jeans a bit looser,” he teased. “Or I'll look ridiculous shimmying out of them.”

  I laughed and ran my hands over his perfectly rounded ass. Under my fingers, the material expanded—just enough to give his family jewels some room to spread out and relax. Viper sighed in relief and lifted his head.

  “I don't know how guys wear those things,” Viper said as he took my hand. “Every second took me closer to turning into a female.”

  “We don't want that,” I muttered. “I'm strickly dickly.”

  Viper stumbled to a stop and laughed uproariously. When he finally managed to catch his breath, he said, “Thank goodness for that. It's hard enough dealing with a bunch of other men, adding women to the mix would be a level of complication I'm simply unable to deal with.”

  “You and me both, buddy.”

  We walked into the dining hall, then down to the other end of the table where my family was congregated. Fallon, Samantha, Zariel, and Austin were there as well, having their breakfast with my children. I suppose it was dinner for Austin, but I wasn't sure what the hell it was for me. I'd been across time zones and time itself so often recently that I couldn't remember what day it was, much less what I last ate. Not that it mattered, I was too hungry to care. But I needed to do one thing before I ate. I grabbed a napkin from the sideboard and transformed it into a Hermes Birkin handbag in rose gold. I plopped it down in Sam's lap as I passed by her, and she squealed in delight.

  “Thank you for looking after my babies without complaint.” I slid into a seat. “I love you, Sam. I couldn't do this without you.”

  Samantha stroked the buttery leather and grinned at me. “I know you don't think much of the things you make with territory magic, but this is awesome. Thank you, V. And I love you too.”

  “Girl, I'll hook you up,” I promised. “Just tell me what style and color you want. Or better yet, show me a picture.”

  “I'm going to need a bigger closet.” She grinned.

  “You can have that too. Whatever you want, just don't ever leave us.”

  “I feel like a kept woman.” Sam smirked at her husband.

  Fallon lifted a brow at me.

  “I'm paying her for babysitting, that's all.” I held up a placating hand.

  “That's a nice trick,” Austin noted. “You think you can make me a new truck?”

  “Sure, but you'd never get it through the Aether.”

  “Can't blame a guy for trying.”

  “I could make you a new hat,” I offered.

  Austin's eyes went wide in horror and a hand went up to hold his cowboy hat protectively. “Stay away from my hat, woman.”

  “You could keep that one too,” I said slowly, as if speaking to a child.

  “I'm good wit' the one.” He tipped the hat to me. “Thank ya kindly.”

  “Okay.” I cleared my throat and changed the subject. “So, how are you liking your first trip to the God Realm?”

  “I reckon I could get used to this,” Austin drawled. “It ain't too shabby and the coffee's strong enough to walk into your cup.”

  “Good, cause you may be staying awhile.” I poured me some of that walking coffee.

  “Dad gum it!” Austin cursed. “You didn't get 'em?”

  The kids giggled.

  “Dad gum it!” Zariel declared.

  “We're lions, baby girl,” Fallon chided. “We don't gum anything.”

  Zariel laughed harder.

  “We got a lot of them,” I answered Austin. “Then those owls showed up and chased the rest down. I don't know if they got them all or not.”

  “You didn't go with them?”

  “I was a little busy defrosting the snake-stick over here.” I nodded toward Viper.

  “I see where you were going with that.” Trevor squished his face up at me. “At least, I hope you were trying to make a joke about fish sticks, but it sounded naughty, Minn Elska.”

  “Only because your naughty brain heard it that way,” I chided him.

  “Daddy's naughty,” Vero said solemnly.

  “When I'm bad, I'm even better,” Trevor growled at our son, then tickled him.

  Vero burst into laughter and smacked his sticky palms on Trevor's face.

  “Oh, Son! No!” Trevor whined. “Now, Mommy will stick to me when she gives me a kiss.”

  All of the kids laughed as Trevor tried to scrub his face clean with a napkin.

  “Go wash your face at the sink,” I advised. “You know you can't wipe away baby-goo.”

  “I'm not a baby!” Vero declared furiously.

  “Young boy-goo,” I corrected and tickled Vero again.

  “I want to be tickled too!” Lesya whined.

  “Be careful vhat you ask for, Kotyonok,” Kirill warned our daughter as he swooped in and scooped her out of her seat. He pulled Lesya onto his lap and started tickling her mercilessly.

  “She just ate, that may be dangerous,” I cautioned Kirill.

  Kirill widened his eyes at Lesya and she giggled more. But he also stopped tickling her. No one likes to get peed on. Well, some people do, but I'm not getting into that.

  “Who are these owls you keep mentioning?” Viper asked as Trevor returned from the kitchen with a clean face and a couple of plates of food.

  “Here, Minn Elska, eat something.” Trevor put a plate down in front of me and one in front of his seat.

  “You didn't get one for me?” Kirill asked indignantly.

  “There's no meat for the lazy wol
f.” Trevor grinned at Kirill. “Better get in there before it's all gone, Brother.”

  “After all ze times I brought you coffee,” Kirill huffed and got up. “Now, he tosses Froekn sayings at me like cowboy.”

  “To answer your question,” I said to Viper, “we don't know who the owls are. But, we did see one of them in human form and he looked Native American to me.” I glanced at my husbands. “What do you guys think?”

  “Definitely Native American,” Re confirmed. “They must be a type of demigod.”

  “Whoever they are, they helped us out so they can't be all that bad,” I said.

  The men went quiet.

  “Right?” I prompted.

  “Hard to say,” Odin finally spoke. “From what I know about Native American legends, some tribes believe owls to be death omens or the minions of evil shamans while others think they're protectors who can heal the sick and injured.”

  “Myths only tell us what magic they might have,” I argued. “They're not proof of bad or good natures. Luke is the perfect example of that.”

  “True but myths are often based on the behavior of a god or race of demigods,” Odin argued. “Such as the Froekn, who inspired a lot of werewolf myths through their assassin work.”

  “Fair point,” I conceded.

  “But for now, I say we go with them being neutral,” Trevor suggested. “We don't know if they're allies but they haven't acted like enemies either.”

  “What about that big, black, talkin' snake?” Austin asked.

  “What's this now?” Viper asked next. “How much did I miss in deep-freeze?”

  “A lot.” Kirill returned with two plates. “Don't run away again and you von't miss anything.”

  Viper grimaced at Kirill but then Kirill set a plate down in front of him and Viper started smiling. “Thanks... Brother.”

  Kirill lifted a brow at the title, considered Viper a moment, then nodded. “You're velcome, Brother.”

  Aw, look at my guys getting along. I gave them both a tender smile.

  “We think the snake-shifters are ruled by one snake god,” I answered Viper's question. “He tried to blackmail me earlier tonight—today—just earlier. He wanted me to back off of his snakes and in exchange, he wouldn't hurt you.”

  “I never saw a black snake,” Viper spoke around a bite of bacon. “Only green ones.”

  “Those snake-shifters weren't Egyptian, were they, Re?” I asked my husband hesitantly.

  “No, they weren't from my pantheon,” Re denied. “But I think they might be from that area of the world.”

  Viper poured himself a cup of coffee from the carafe sitting in the center of the table. “Those tunnels went on forever. I think we were right about them crawling up from Mexico.”

  “But why would they have to dig their way to Texas?” I scowled. “They didn't trace away tonight either, they ran. Or slithered, rather. But why not simply trace to safety?”

  “Maybe they're cursed,” Austin suggested.

  The gods at the table stopped and looked at each other pensively.

  “Well, slap butter on my butt and call me a biscuit!” Austin declared.

  “Butter on your butt?!” Zariel shrieked with laughter.

  “Eew.” Lesya made a disgusted face. “Butter butt.”

  Vero just looked at his father for verification of the potential butter slapping. Trevor shook his head, and Vero relaxed.

  “Is that possible? Could they be cursed?” Austin went on.

  “Just like Snow White.” Lesya nodded sagely. “But she deserved it.”

  “Snow White deserved to be cursed?” Austin asked in horror.

  “Snow White wasn't cursed, baby,” I corrected Lesya. “She was executed for being evil, remember?”

  “She was what?!” Austin's horror multiplied.

  “Snow White is a true story. A real fairy tale,” I explained. “As in, the Fey.”

  “My mommy's a faerie,” Lesya declared.

  “Wait. I thought you were a lion goddess?” Austin held his hands up as if he could hold back the tide of information.

  “I told you, I'm many things,” I reminded him. “I'm a goddess of Lions, Love, and the Moon. I can shapeshift into a lioness because I'm the Goddess of the Intare, a wolf because of my connection to Trevor, and a dragon because I'm a Dragon-Sidhe.”

  “A dragon she?” Austin asked. “Is that a female dragon?”

  The children giggled again.

  “Okay, no fair laughin' at the ignorant human,” Austin chided them.

  They laughed more.

  “It's Sidhe—spelled S I D H E—as in a race of faeries,” I explained. “You sure you're ready to hear all this?”

  “No, but tell me anyway.” He took a fortifying sip of coffee and nodded.

  “Faeries are real, but they live in another realm. That realm is connected to Earth but not laid over it like the God Realm. My parents were Dragon-Sidhe—Fire Faeries—but my mother fell in love with a human. So, we lived with him on Earth and we were here when humans began to hunt dragons.”

  “Those dragons stories are true? And they were about your people?”

  “Yes. The Dragon-Sidhe were nearly wiped out. Only my husband survived.”

  “But that had to be centuries ago. Are you that old? Wait, only your husband survived? What about you? And what sons? I thought you only had Vero?”

  “I have a husband and twin sons in the Faerie Realm. And yes, Arach was the only Dragon-Sidhe who survived the slaughter. I died, though I wasn't killed as a dragon. I'm talking about another life.”

  “Reincarnation?” Austin gaped at me. “Reincarnation is real? And you have another family? Sweet Jesus, Vervain.”

  “We are all one family, we just live in different realms. And yes, reincarnation is real, but so are the afterlives that gods offer.” I waved it away. “Don't get hung up on that now. Let's get through the faerie thing first. In my last life, my mother cast a spell on me to make me human and hide me from dragon hunters. Unfortunately, she was murdered before she could remove the spell. It's a long story, involving things I don't want to get into, so to sum it up: I was reborn into a human body, then altered by god magic and faerie essence. The result is that I'm human, god, and faerie.”

  I didn't get into the one hundred percent thing with him. That stuff still blew my mind, I didn't think Austin was ready for it.

  “How did you become the star goddess thingy you said nearly ruled the world?”

  “The Dark Star,” I supplied the name.

  “No. I mean, you told me about that all-powerful star inside you going bad, but how did you get that star, in the first place? Were you reincarnated with it?”

  “No, I wasn't born with it. The Trinity Star is a collection of my magic, races, and beasts; I have three types of each. As I gathered them, they formed triangles and when there were three complete triangles, they fused into a nine-pointed star: the Trinity Star. Thus the sparkle hair.” I flicked the lock of starlight in my dark hair. “Technically it's all-powerful but it only helps me when it wants to.”

  “Right, because it's good now.”

  “Because I'm good now.” I winked at him.

  “And I think I'm good with that. Any more and I'll feel dumb enough to screw up an anvil.”

  “O-o-kay,” I drew out the word.

  “But could you just clear up the Snow White thing?” Austin asked. “She was evil?”

  “A sadist.” I nodded sadly. “The evil queen in the human story was actually a faerie—Cora the Kindhearted. She saved the kingdom from their vicious princess and she did mercifully. Cora was advised to publicly torture Snow White to death but instead, she made it quick, out of love for Snow White's father.”

  “Snow White was that bad?”

  “She kept servants in her room to torture when the urge struck her.” I grimaced. “I know; it was hard for me to grasp too.”

  “Not cursed, just evil,” Austin murmured. “Don't that just burn your britches?�
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  “Cursed,” Odin muttered. “I think that story about not looking back involved a curse too.”

  “There are a lot of stories about not looking back,” I said gently. “That's what happened with Kirill, remember?”

  “Right. You couldn't look back after leaving the lake,” Odin said to Kirill.”