“That’s unsanitary,” Lucian moaned.
“Headmaster Mykene is a fully trained god. I wouldn’t risk pissing her off getting naked in her kitchens,” Khalid said.
I barely knew Liam. The church I was raised in did alotof sex shaming, even though Jesus technically told that guy to just not look and if he couldn’t control himself to rip his eyes out. I didn’t really have a problem with Only Fans. I think what bothered me was people looking at Liam like that, but that was my issue, not his. I wasn’t going to say anything about how he made his money.
“Horns could be sexy. It might bring you new subscribers. And I’d definitely do your content in your dorm room with sheets up so Headmaster Mykene doesn’tknowit’s your dorm room. I wouldn’t piss her off,” I said.
“Nah, she’s a softy. I can tell.”
“She’s not,” Khalid said. “The original Athena took her curses to the next level. She splashed a man with water and blinded him for surprising her while she was bathing. Turned a girl into a spider. Everyone knows about Medusa.”
“Do you hear that?” Lucian asked.
“The sound of your arsehole gurgling and trying not to shart out all our food?” Liam snapped.
Liam was angrier about it than I was. I got that he couldn’t help it and between Khalid and the wild animals, Imightbe able to complete the trials. I wouldn’t know until I did it and I’d be able to tell before it got bad if I needed to drop out. So, I was only slightly pissed at him and had half forgiven him.
“No, there are people outside. You can’t hear that? I can smell them, too.”
“I don’t hear anything and I don’t smell any funky BO,” I said.
“No, it’s new. It’s not body odor. Like, you smellamazing.Liam and Khalid smell good, too. I can’t even describe what the scent is because it’s not perfume. The people outside smell different, but similar, so I think they are all the samekindof supernatural. Except this just kicked in and I don’t know what kind.”
That was pretty neat. Khalid already knew he was Anubis. Liam was having conversations with the wildlife. Lucian was hangry and ate all our food, but he also got some new senses.
I had nothing, and I didn’t really feel all that different.
Lucian was certainly complicating things. I completely understood he was probably in a trance when he ate all our food, but I was starting to worry about what he actually wanted to eat and why the wildlife were worried about him.
And now that I was thinking about it, I had some extra senses, too. I saw a jackal, so that clued me in I was Anubis, but Anubis was always depicted with the head of a jackal. I appeared to also have thesensesof a jackal. My hearing was a lot more sensitive and so was my sense of smell.
Liam looked like he was the only one who didn’t believe Lucian and was about to start beating on him again. Lucian wasn’t just going to have to make it up to Sage. Liam took itpersonally if anyone looked at her wrong. That probably meant something. We also all requested Sage for a reason, so even if we were all mad at Lucian at the moment, he wassupposedto be with us.
“No, I have extra senses, too. Sage smells good, but the rest of you are a bit ripe without a shower. Therearepeople outside the tent waiting to ambush us and I’m pretty sure they are all the same type of supernatural, like Lucian says.”
“Fuck that,” Liam said, storming out the tent.
Ugh. We were all pretty cranky without breakfast, but Liam was about to charge out there and take on an unknown amount of supernaturals who’d had their magic their entire life. All Lucian and I had was super smell. The forest animals might have communicated with Liam because he was an original shifter, but they might have the same loyalty toothershifters and might not protect us.
I grabbed Sage and hit the ground as soon as we exited the tent. I couldn’tseethem, but they were shooting arrows at us. And they could move faster than I could see because I could make out a blur zip across and knock Liam off of his feet.
Liam was spitting mad, and he was probably the only one of us who’d actually been in a brawl before. My Baba enrolled me in boxing and taught me how to finish it, but there were rules in the ring. I’d never actually fought anyone outside of the ring before.
Someone darted to me and the next thing I knew, Sage was ripped from my arms and disappeared. Liam hadn’t noticed yet or he would lose it. Don’t ask mehowhe did this because I didn’t think he had it in him, but someone tried to rush Lucian and he just…snatchedthem out of the air and dangled them by their neck.
Lucian hissed at them and I realized his eyes were glowing red. The man he was holding was ethereally beautiful with largepointed ears, so I was guessing fairy or elf. And he looked absolutely terrified of Lucian.
Lucian dropped him when an arrow buried itself in his thigh. The fairy was off in a blur and so were the rest of them. Whatever Lucian was, the fairies recognized some of it and they didn’t like it anymore than the wildlife did.
Once we figured out where Sage was, we really needed to figure out who or what Lucian was because we might be in danger from him, too.
It all happened so fast. Some psychos were shootingarrowsat us and then the entire world was spinning. When it stopped, I was set on my feet away from our camp and realized I was standing before a woman about my age.
“Holy shit, you’re gorgeous,” I blurted out.
She just shrugged.
“Most people say that when they meet one of us for the first time, but I’m actually pretty plain for a fairy.”
