“Arrows ready,” Sabina adds, and the glint of her bow materializes at her shoulder. Artemis’s granddaughter. Her arrows never miss.
“Teeth sharp,” Vanessa grins, and for a moment the dragon flickers beneath her skin. Scales shimmering. Eyes going molten.
“Chaos loaded.” Pepper’s fingers spark purple. “You’re not alone anymore. Got it?”
I nod because I can’t speak.
My throat closed up around something that might be hope. Might be terror. Might be the realization that I have people again. People I could lose again. And that’s the scariest thing I’ve felt in years.
The dream dissolves like hot asphalt in summer, melting away at the edges, taking the golden light and the pretzel smell and the sound of my cousins’ voices.
But the image lingers.
Three women walking on a dream-road. Toward me. Getting closer with every step.
A dragon. A goddess. A chaos witch.
My family.
Coming for me whether I deserve it or not.
38
Ash
The thing about war goddesses?
They give zero fucks. Quite literally, about anything. Including the need for sleep.
One minute I’m wrapped between two furnace-hot bodies, dreaming of pretzels and Green Lane and my cousins walking toward me through summer haze. The next minute I’m sitting on the cold tavern floor, yanked out of sleep like a fish on a hook.
My brain takes a solid three seconds to catch up with my body. Warm bed. Cold floor. Mates. Gone.
Not great.
A salt circle surrounds me. Herbs scattered at the edges, rosemary, by the smell of it. And three goddesses standing at equidistant points like they’re about to summon something unpleasant.
Which, knowing my luck, they probably are.
Oh, and I’m still naked.
“I don’t like where this is going.” I lean back on my heels, glaring at the three of them. “Nope. I don’t like this at all.”
“No one likes the things they’re obligated to do,” Macha states. Her black eyes reflect nothing. Not the firelight, not thecandles, not any sign that she gives a single solitary shit about my opinion.
Morrigan is in front of me. Badb to my right. Macha to my left. Aside from looking eerily alike, Morrigan is the only one whose eyes aren’t pure obsidian. Hers hold that silver-grey that makes her almost approachable.
Almost.
Then they begin to whisper.
The sound isn’t language. Not really. It’s older than language, syllables that scrape against my eardrums. Covering my ears does absolutely nothing.
“Let’s not.” I settle back, resigned to the fact that this is happening whether I want it to or not. “Morrigan.”
But she isn’t listening to me. None of them are. They’re focused inward, on whatever ancient bullshit they’re channeling, not giving a single fuck that they are actually freaking me out.
Never trust a goddess. Even one who claims to be your fairy godmother.
