Dozens of gods were staring at me.
Neat.
More than half of them looked like they could read my mind and knew exactly all the things I was thinking about Ryder. How much I still cared for him even though he dumped me. How much I wanted to be his friend–no, how much I wanted to be more than that. How much my heart would jump at the chance to have him again, even though my mind knew that could never happen.
He had dumped me while I was lying in a hospital bed, shot. There was no chance for us, he’d made that clear. And I wouldn’t let him hurt me again. I was done being burned by the men I thought loved me. I was fine being alone and didn’t need to share my crazy life with anyone.
Then why did the sound of Ryder’s voice make me so lonely?
I pocketed my cell and tipped my chin up, the drip of rain slithering from my long braid down my back. “All right. Where’s the emergency?”
I did a quick head count. Twenty-five deities in the room. I knew them all, from Athena to Zeus. As per the rules of vacationing in Ordinary, they all had regular mortal jobs and gave back to the community in some way.
Death, who went by the name, Than, was the newest god to give this vacation thing a whirl and had been in Ordinary for the last three months. He stood off to the right of the room, close to the glass blowing furnaces Crow used to make his glass art, and where Crow taught tourists how to make their own fragile, molten treasures.
Than was tall, thin to the point of gauntness, and austere in his manners. Today’s outfit was a bright pink shirt with the outline of Bigfoot centered above words that said: UNBELIEVABLYORDINARY. Over that, he wore a black Hawaiian shirt with what I hoped were oddly phallic geoducks. If not, then he needed an X-rating on that shirt.
His black hair was shaved close to his skull, and his eyes missed nothing as he silently considered each and every deity in the room. When he met my gaze, his expression was quiet and intense, studying me. He blinked once, a slow closing of that invasive gaze, and I found it suddenly easier to breathe.
He didn’t smile—he never smiled—but there was the glimmer of wry humor in the angle of his eyebrow. He was enjoying this turn of events, this new, ordinary life he was living.
The gods could live, work, and even fall in love in Ordinary. However, procreating while in Ordinary was not allowed.
So far, none of the gods had wanted to have kids during their vacation time which meant, so far, I hadn’t had to ban any of them from Ordinary.
The other deities shuffled and shoved Crow forward into the center of the room. They formed a half ring around him. None of them seemed happy to have been dragged away from their jobs and lives for the man who now stood in the middle of the room.
“Crow,” I said.
“Delaney Reed.” He gave me a smile that looked like he’d just swallowed needles. “Good of you to come.”
“You called. We’re here. What’s the emergency?”
He wore a white T-shirt under a flannel hoodie. The white shirt brought out the coppery darkness of his skin and made his brown eyes glow beneath artistically messy black hair. He stuck his hands in the front pockets of his jeans.
“There’s a...situation.”
I waited for him to continue. We all waited. It was uncomfortable.
“Get on with it!” Odin yelled.
So much for order. A crack of thunder rattled windows and made the blown glass items shelved around the room shiver.
“The...uh...there’s a problem.” Crow’s gaze fixed on me. He was sweating, a sheen across his forehead and upper lip. His eyes held an emotion I was pretty sure was fear.
I’d never seen him look this way before.
Never.
“It’s okay.” My instincts went red alert. “We’ll figure it out. What’s the problem?”
“The...uh...the...powers?”
I didn’t know why he was asking me something about the powers. He had them. Locked up in the old furnace in the back corner of his shop. Once a year, all the god powers got moved to a new keeper. That person was always a god, and since the stored powers moved around, even the strongest rivals couldn’t complain about some god unfairly having say over where their power was, and how it was being guarded.
“I know of them,” I said dryly.
“They’re sort of...” he shrugged.
