“Hey! Hey! Whoa there. Let’s talk.” I jumped in front of the red magic beam.
I was in a witch’s house in Greece, wearing a Calvin Klein bikini. No big deal.
“So, I’m human, and I’m tethered to this guy. We can’t go more than five feet from each other or it hurts. So if you hurt him, it might kill me, and I don’t want to die.”
She looked between the two of us, as if she could see something between us. Then she burst out laughing. “He owes you a life debt?” she asked incredulously.
Yeah. Kinda. I guess. “He totally does. So yeah. Please don’t hurt us. We need your help.”
She sucked the red magic back into her finger and took a long sniff. “You don’t smell human,” she told me.
These magical people needed to get out more. Seriously.
“I probably need a shower, but the point is, he needs a weapon or the gods that hate him, and there are a lot, will kill us. I’m only twenty-one, I still have to do stuff.”
Get to one million Insta followers, buy a mansion on the beach, have sex with a god—ya know, important stuff. And I wouldn’t forget my vow to stop whaling and save the dolphins, because that shit mattered too. Suffice it to say, I still had a lot of life left to live.
“He killed my father, slept with my sister, and left in the middle of the night!” she growled at me.
Cronus opened his mouth to speak but I shoved my hand in his face, palm out. I knew the sister thing would come up. This guy was clueless.
“I know! He’s atotaldick. The father thing was an accident. Your pops was in the way of the person Cronus really wanted to kill. But he totally should have left your sister flowers or something.”
The witch crossed her arms and looked at me. “There’s nothing either of you could give me that I need. I have money, power,andlove.” She jutted her chin out and all my hopes of using that gold bar to woo her were dashed.
“I’ll give you a blood offering,” Cronus said, low and steady, behind me. “And I’ll leave a little note for your sister next time, to make it all better.”
The witch’s mouth popped open. “Was that sarcasm? Gods don’t do sarcasm.”
I grinned. “I taught him that.”
“Do we have a deal or not?” Cronus growled.
Testy, testy.
“A willing blood offering from the Titan of time itself? You’ve got a deal.” The crone grinned.
Whoa. That was easy. Which definitely meant that his blood probably did very bad things when mixed with this witch’s magic.
Future Maisey’s problem.
“How long will this weapon take?” I asked, hopping from foot to foot as nerves got the best of me. “There are two insanely hot, completely psycho gods chasing us…” Speaking of … why the hell were they not banging down the door right now? They hadn’t been that far behind us.
The crone grinned, and her teeth were possibly even more perfect than mine.
#INeedMagic.
“No one enters unless I allow them. The gods will remain outside. For now.”
Cronus narrowed his eyes on her, crossing huge beefy arms. “How did we get to your door, then?”
She shot him a snarly glare. “My magic has never worked on you, Cronus, you bastard. You know that.”
He almost smiled at that. Almost. “I still like to remind you,” he said, sounding just like the arrogant and smug god-slash-Titan that he was.
The crone muttered under her breath, and just in case she was casting a spell, I blurted out: “How long have you lived here? It’s gorgeous.”
It really wasn’t. The single room was sparse and dusty, with a couch, a bed—both in shades of brown—and a cliché “magic cauldron” in the corner surrounded by a bunch of jars and bottles. “Really love what you’ve done with the place…” I trailed off. My ability to lie only went so far.
She shot a glance at Cronus. “Bet you’re regretting tying yourself to such an annoying human…”
He didn’t say anything, which was a step in the right direction for our relationship. “Follow me,” the crone said as she turned and walked back into the corner where the cauldron was.
I stayed close to Cronus, all the while keeping an eye on the woman. She led us to the corner, pressed her hand to multiple jars, almost like she was straightening them, and then murmured something that sounded like, “Alensora.”A puff of dust flew up, and the floor started to shake slightly, followed by the walls. I expected the jars to move about and clink together as the wall shifted open, but they didn’t.
“Stay close. This is my private quarters, and it’s not safe to wander about.”
Right, okay, then.
#We’reFucked
