Louis took a step closer to him and held up a hand, palm facing Axl. “May I?”
At Axl’s nod, Louis dropped his hand right onto his chest and a blast of heat rocked through the room—my face felt a little raw.
“Interesting,” Louis said, lips twitching like he wanted to laugh. “I have a few thoughts on how to help you. Let’s talk after this meeting.”
Relief flashed across Axl’s face as he nodded. “Great, thank you.”
The sorcerer examined him for a few minutes longer, before turning back to focus on the rest of us.
“We want to hear everything that’s been happening here,” he said quickly, “but first we’ll tell you what was decided in Romania.”
There weren’t enough seats for us all, so we just moved in closer, letting Louis and Princeps Jones stand on the other side of his desk and face us.
“A task force has been formed from the strongest supes in the world,” Louis started. “They’re already converging on Atlantis, and will set up a home base there in anticipation of the gods releasing. The reason we took longer to get back, was I had to duck to Faerie and procure some ingredients to make spells and potions. They’re not going to stop the gods, but they might give us an advantage.
“Jessa and Braxton are still in Faerie, with the queen of the dragons. She has a plan … something she learned from the ancient ones. She got part of a message to Jessa, but then they lost contact.”
Princeps Jones let out a sigh as he rubbed at his temples. “I stayed behind to get the group together,” he said tiredly. “For what good it might do.”
“Every little thing helps,” Louis said. “Now we just have to hope Jess and Brax get back in time. This disturbance in the balance of gods is causing disturbance in Faerie again, and we only just got the last balance issue over there sorted out.”
I completely understood his frustration and worry. Jessa, and all of the Compasses, were his family. He also had a new member of his family coming into the world soon. Knowing Louis as I did, he would have locked everyone he cared about away if he could, but he happened to care about a ton of supes who did not like to be overprotected.
“So, what do we do now?” I pushed, needing a game plan. This waiting around was frustrating, to say the very least.
There was a knock on the door, and when it opened on its own—magic, bitches—Connor was framed in the doorway.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, strolling in. “Overslept.”
I glared at the supe I’d spent days looking for but who had been nowhere in sight.
He looked like absolute shit, hair disheveled, eyes puffy, and I was wondering how in the fuck a being born of gods could even look like that. When I woke now, it was difficult to tell I’d been asleep. No more puffy face or morning breath.
Gods rarely looked unkempt.
Connor had figured out a way.
“Are you still drunk?” Ilia asked, scowling as she crossed her arms.
Connor tripped, shaking his head. “No. I’m absolutely, totally, not even a little bit drunk. I’ve been sick, okay?”
She snorted. “You’re a god. You don’t get sick.”
He flipped her off, half falling into the wall as he attempted to lean against it. “How do you know? None of us know jack fucking shit about being gods, and if they do, no one is sharing with me. What I do know is that if you mix fairy wine and demon’s brew, and drop some pixie dust in the bitch, gods can get drunk. FYI for future parties.”
He winked at me, and his head dropped back as he slid down the wall, snoring and drooling at the same time. I blinked, staring at him. “I haven’t even seen him since school started. Has he literally been drunk for nearly a month now?”
Asher scowled at the idiot passed out on the floor. “Connor never could handle disappointment or change very well. I’m guessing the last year of his life has gone nothing like he anticipated.”
I snorted, anger slapping me hard. “Are you fucking kidding me.” Connor should be proud at how adept he was at pissing me off. “He’snot handling it very well?Him?That poor fucking guy. Let’s all feel sympathy for the asshole who set most of these events into motion because he was a brainwashed dumbfuck who couldn’t think for himself. All of us are dealing with this shit. All of us. And some of us have suffered much worse thanConnor,the poor little Atlantean god.”
It took more control than I’d admit not to walk over and kick him in the ass. Drinking for a month so he didn’t have to deal with reality. If only all of us could be so irresponsible.
Somewhere deep down, a blooming sliver of sympathy tried to rear its head, to remind me that Connor was clearly struggling and I should be kinder about it. There was some guilt too—I definitely should have tried harder to find him over the last few weeks to make sure he was okay.
The guilt and sympathy were not enough to overtake my anger though. I couldn’t forget everything he’d done and hidden from us. It would take a long time for me to trust and forgive Connor. So, for now, he could sleep on the floor. After all, he made that bed.
“Before we were rudely interrupted,” Ilia said, shooting Connor an even darker look than I was—that girl could hold onto grudges like nobody's business—“Mads asked what we should be doing to prepare…?”
