Page 16 of Releasing the Gods
My stomach sank. “You what? How do youaccidentallykill someone's father?”
Cronus shrugged. “He was on the wrong side of the war and he got in the way of my intended target.”
For fuck’s sake.
“But the sleeping with the sister thing is totally fine? She won’t bring that up?” I snorted.
He grit his jaw and ignored me. “I should kill humanity just to end sarcasm.”
My eyes widened. “Whoa, anger management much?”
We reached a cobblestone path and he finally set me down and let me walk. Grabbing my hand, he dragged me behind him as we passed door after door of small cottages. When we reached one with a blue glass evil eye pendant, he stopped and looked at me. “This is serious. Life or death. You need to convince her to make me a weapon.”
It was almost like begging, maybe. I didn’t want to die, and I was tethered to this sexy asshole until we could figure it out, so I nodded. “I will give it the old college try.”
Confusion crossed his features and I knocked on the door.
“You have three seconds to go away or I’ll kill you, Barbie,” a raspy voice called from the other side. My eyes widened as I looked at Cronus, who was hiding off to the side. He made a motion for me to keep going. How the hell did this woman know I looked like a Barbie? A very natural looking and cool surfer Barbie, body positive with a big brain, obviously.
“I have news about your father,” I blurted out.
Cronus face-palmed and I grinned because it was a funny thing to see a thousands-year-old god do.
The next thing I knew, the door yanked open and two hands were around my shoulders.
“What did you say?” a beautiful black-haired woman in her thirties asked me.
“Let us inside and I’ll tell you.” I grinned, hoping my straight white teeth would get me in the door. This Insta smile was worth 10k likes. It should buy me ten seconds with a grumpy witch.
“Us?” She growled and looked to the left.
Busted.
“Cronus,” she seethed, and the hands on my shoulders suddenly turned vise-like.
“Oww. Human here,” I screeched.
Cronus ran forward and shoved the both of us inside, slamming the door behind him. “Narida! Greetings. It’s been so long.”
Her eyes glowed red for the slightest second and she released me, pointing her finger at him. A fine red …magic? … crawled from her finger and across the air like slow lightning, making its way right to Cronus.
He didn’t look fazed, probably because he knew it wouldn’t kill him … but it might kill me.
“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.”
