Zee runs a hand over his head. “Sure.”
“I think that was the first time I ended up accidentally naked. Slaying demons whilst naked is tricky business. That demon’s last view was of my vagina as I kicked his face. Then you lodged one of your fireballs in his gut, and he went kabam.” She smacks her hands together. “Messy business cleaning Rufuson demon blood from your skin. It burns.” She widens her eyes. “Everywhere.”
Zee nods along, cutting a pleading look my way. She offers Nathan her arm and he explores the curse mark, glancing at the open book and back to her wrist, his face contorting with frustration.
I move next to him, glancing between the diagram and Natia’s arm. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Do you know what it is?” Natia asks, tilting her head at the diagram.
“It’s the Adam curse,” Nathan states, tapping on the book. “The snake and the apple are present. But there’s that bone that the snake is wrapped around. It’s an alteration, and I’m not sure what that means.”
“What’s the Adam curse?” Natia asks.
“It turns an immortal, mortal. It will strip you of your powers and make you human.”
Natia blinks at the curse mark, then folds her arms to hide it. I grip her shoulder and spin her towards me. “Once you are human, you are vulnerable and it will be open season on you. The laws that protect you as a goddess won’t apply.”
“But I’ll be human?” she checks.
I take a step back and study her face. “You don’t want to be a goddess?”
She scrunches up her nose. “It’s not that, it’s what I’ve given up to return.”
Silence settles around us as everyone tunes into her. “What did you give up?” Zee asks.
Comprehension dawns. “You want children?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t think I ever wanted children. My line of work doesn’t exactly make way for a family.”
I tilt my head as I mull over the different demands made upon her as a deity. “You will watch everyone you love die.” I drag her to me and wrap my arms around her. “The first hundred years are hard, but you have a new family; me, Jed, Nathan, hell, even Zac.” He snorts somewhere to my left.
She nods and steps back. “Okay, so they want to make me mortal, then kill me?” she states. Her hands shake as she brushes invisible lint from her pants. She’s hiding whatever troubles her.
Aaden leans forward. “For what purpose? Why go to all this trouble to kill you? You no longer hold the hope they coveted. What’s in it for them?”
“It would weaken me,” I offer as I slide into the chair at the head of the table and pull Natia onto my lap. She stiffens, then relaxes into my touch as I draw soothing circles on the back of her hand with my thumb.
“How?” she asks.
Emi leans into Aaden. “Love is a weakness and a strength. You might not hold the hope for the world, but you are a beacon for those of us that exist in the darkness.” Emi glances at me with a tilt of her lips.
“How do we fix it?” Natia asks as everyone settles in around the table.
“The only person who can remove an Adam’s curse is the person who put it there.”
She frowns. “The Prince of Gluttony?”
I shake my head. “That curse was made by the gods, and can only be placed by one.”
“Zeus?” she guesses.
“Too eloquent for him,” Zac states.
Lucifer’s head tilts back as he studies the ceiling. “The Duchess,” he growls.
“And she’s the goddess of what?”
Lucifer snaps his head towards Natia. “The Duchess was the mate of Typhon. Together they bore some of the most feared creatures in mythology, most of which ended up sealed in Tartarus. The Duchess is the Goddess of Serpents, mate to the King of Monsters, and mother to the horrors which plague nightmares. The army of creatures that rampage their way through Hell will heel on her command, and her command alone.”
