by Leia Stone
The boat driver’s eyebrows hit his hairline as he caught the question, but he stayed silent.
Smart man.
“Yep and if I wanted to tan topless, that would be okay too,” I shot back.
Both men cleared their throats and I couldn’t help it. I really wanted a selfie with Cronus. It would get so many likes. He was fucking delicious. Even if he was a dick who kept calling me a prostitute.
I stalked towards the god and flipped on my forward-facing camera. “For that comment, you owe me a selfie,” I declared.
Lifting my arm up high, I tried to get my cleavage and his amazing abs all in the same shot, but my arm wasn’t long enough, not to mention he was scowling at me, which wasn’t going to go over well with my followers.
“Use your giant arm and try to look like you’re enjoying life,” I snipped at him and dropped the phone in his palm.
“This is your first and last photo of me, understood?” His voice was low and unreadable.
What a freaking buzzkill.
“Fine,” I grumbled.
He pulled his arm back. His attempt at a smile was more like a smoldering pout, because the dude had luscious full lips that made my knees go a bit weak. The second he snapped the photo, he dropped my phone in my hand and stepped away from me, taking the heat of his body with him.
I uploaded the photo quickly to my Insta wall with the hashtags #Greece #CalvinKlein #HotGreekGod #LovingLife #BlondesHaveMoreFun and then slipped my phone back into my backpack. I was hoping that upload didn’t just cost me a million dollars on my phone plan, because I had no international package set up.
“Welcome to the beaches of Agassi!” our captain shouted and spread his arms wide.
Holy shit!
White sands stretched out for miles around us and I wondered if it would be a terrible thing to just live here forever. “Come on, human,” Cronus said, leaping onto the dock in one smooth motion. Of course, that strained our bond and I almost screamed as the pain ripped along one side of me. It had the desired effect though, as I hurried my bikini-clad ass off the boat in an instant.
The driver looked like he wanted to say something, but I didn’t have time to worry about that. Trying to keep up with the long-legged stride of one asshole Titan was taking all of my concentration.
“Wait up,” I groused. “Not all of us have six-foot-long legs.”
He shot a sneer at me. “Maybe you should consider upping your cardio from selfie to jogging.”
I almost ground to a halt. If I hadn’t had very recent knowledge of the pain that would cause, I definitely would have.
“Was that sarcasm?” I asked, trying not to sound smug. “Thought that was beneath you, oh great one.”
He raised one of those impressive eyebrows in my direction and I was thankful that he slowed slightly so I could finally catch up. “If the truth is considered sarcasm, then I guess so.”
Asshole. I jogged … I’d done it at least five times in the last five years. #JoggingIsGoodForTheSoul.
Before I could argue my point further, there was a flash of light from nearby and I shrieked as my feet tangled and I almost plunged into some sandy shrubs around a palm tree. His large hand wrapped around my shoulder, stopping my fall, then he threw me over his shoulder and started to run.
“Cronus!” I yelled, slamming my hand into his solid back. Ouch. “What the fuck are you doing? You’re hurting me.”
“Gods,” he hissed back at me, and I immediately shut my mouth. “They’ve decided to stop attacking from a distance, and while my power is drained and I have no weapons, we’re at a distinct disadvantage.”
They’re here? Was that what that flash of light was? Shit.
He picked up the pace and I looked over his shoulder to find two, tall, delicious, heavily-tatted men chasing after us.
#Dead.
“They’re really hot,” I said, sounding a little dazed. Fucking gods with their perfect bodies and snarly attitudes. How had I gone my entire life never seeing men like this before, and now I had three around me.
Of course, all three wanted to kill me, but that was really beside the point.
“The blond is Heracles, and he enjoys crushing his victims alive,” Cronus said conversationally, reminding me that I was a moron for lusting after deities that were evil as hell.
“And the redhead?” I asked hesitantly.
Cronus’ huge shoulders lifted as he leaped over a fallen tree branch. “Ares. As the god of war, he can completely ruin your life, tear you limb from limb, and he’ll do that just for fun.”
Well, great. Why couldn’t these bastards have some sort of flowers and rainbow powers? I could use a nice rainbow right about now. And the pot of gold at the end of it.
“I don’t want to alarm you,” I said softly, “but they’re gaining on us.”
“If I didn’t have to carry my burden,” he muttered, “I could move faster.”
I scowled. “I’m a hundred and twenty pounds dripping wet. Basically the weight of one of your arms. Move faster.”
Okay, it was more like a hundred and forty because of the boobs, but he couldn’t tell that. Insulting asshole.
“How come they’re chasing us in the human way?” I said, finally realizing that was weird. “I know you’re running because of low power, but they just flashed themselves here.”
Like a freaking light portal or some shit. I wish I’d caught that on camera.
Cronus snorted. “They’ll be conserving their energy for the fight. Flashing takes a decent amount of power, and neither of these assholes are particularly good at it.”
His tone indicated he was exceptionally good at it, which kind of turned me on in a weird way. I opened my mouth to ask another question, because it was a good distraction against my impending doom, but Cronus growled and shut me right the hell up.
He dodged through the trees and I just hung on to his half-naked muscular body, watching these two hotties beeline it for us.
“Umm, something blue and glowy is growing up one of the guy’s arms,” I told my chariot.
He growled louder and stopped suddenly, slipping me down his body, letting my chest rub down the front of his—#BasketballShortsHideNothing
“Down!” he shouted.
I ducked between his legs like a little kid, and a flash of blue light shot from Cronus. A crack rang out and then I was being hauled up again, this time into his arms. Cradled against his chest, he looked down at me.
“You’re good with people, right? You like chatting and smiling and all that?” he asked.
What the hell?
“Umm yeah. Sure.”
Some might call me a social butterfly. I was a glass-half-full kind of person who could always make friends with anyone, no matter our differences.
He nodded. “Good. I’m going to need your help when we get to the crone’s house.”
My head snapped back. “I’m sorry, did you say crone? Like, as in … a witch?” Maybe I had more fantasy knowledge than I realized.
He ran faster, and a peek over his shoulder told me we’d ditched the angry gods. For now. “Yes. The only witch who can make me a weapon of power that I can wield. We have history and she won’t like seeing me again. I need you to talk her into it.”
Oh God.
“You slept with her!” I shouted. “Now you want me to smooth things over?”
Wait, if they had history, that meant the crone was like … super old too. For some reason it bothered me that these bastards were all old as hell but still looked mid-twenties.
#NotFair
He looked down at me with a glare. “No. I slept with her sister, but that’s not the problem. I … accidentally killed her father.”
My stomach sank. “You what? How do you accidentally kill 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 t
otally 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.”
Get to one million Insta followers, buy a mansion on the beach, have sex with a god—ya know, important stuff. And I wouldn’t forget my vow to stop whaling and save the dolphins, because that shit mattered too. Suffice it to say, I still had a lot of life left to live.
“He killed my father, slept with my sister, and left in the middle of the night!” she growled at me.
Cronus opened his mouth to speak but I shoved my hand in his face, palm out. I knew the sister thing would come up. This guy was clueless.
“I know! He’s a total dick. The father thing was an accident. Your pops was in the way of the person Cronus really wanted to kill. But he totally should have left your sister flowers or something.”
The witch crossed her arms and looked at me. “There’s nothing either of you could give me that I need. I have money, power, and love.” She jutted her chin out and all my hopes of using that gold bar to woo her were dashed.
“I’ll give you a blood offering,” Cronus said, low and steady, behind me. “And I’ll leave a little note for your sister next time, to make it all better.”
The witch’s mouth popped open. “Was that sarcasm? Gods don’t do sarcasm.”
I grinned. “I taught him that.”
“Do we have a deal or not?” Cronus growled.
Testy, testy.
“A willing blood offering from the Titan of time itself? You’ve got a deal.” The crone grinned.
Whoa. That was easy. Which definitely meant that his blood probably did very bad things when mixed with this witch’s magic.
Future Maisey’s problem.
“How long will this weapon take?” I asked, hopping from foot to foot as nerves got the best of me. “There are two insanely hot, completely psycho gods chasing us…” Speaking of … why the hell were they not banging down the door right now? They hadn’t been that far behind us.
The crone grinned, and her teeth were possibly even more perfect than mine.
#INeedMagic.
“No one enters unless I allow them. The gods will remain outside. For now.”
Cronus narrowed his eyes on her, crossing huge beefy arms. “How did we get to your door, then?”
She shot him a snarly glare. “My magic has never worked on you, Cronus, you bastard. You know that.”
He almost smiled at that. Almost. “I still like to remind you,” he said, sounding just like the arrogant and smug god-slash-Titan that he was.
The crone muttered under her breath, and just in case she was casting a spell, I blurted out: “How long have you lived here? It’s gorgeous.”
It really wasn’t. The single room was sparse and dusty, with a couch, a bed—both in shades of brown—and a cliché “magic cauldron” in the corner surrounded by a bunch of jars and bottles. “Really love what you’ve done with the place…” I trailed off. My ability to lie only went so far.
She shot a glance at Cronus. “Bet you’re regretting tying yourself to such an annoying human…”
He didn’t say anything, which was a step in the right direction for our relationship. “Follow me,” the crone said as she turned and walked back into the corner where the cauldron was.
I stayed close to Cronus, all the while keeping an eye on the woman. She led us to the corner, pressed her hand to multiple jars, almost like she was straightening them, and then murmured something that sounded like, “Alensora.” A puff of dust flew up, and the floor started to shake slightly, followed by the walls. I expected the jars to move about and clink together as the wall shifted open, but they didn’t.
“Stay close. This is my private quarters, and it’s not safe to wander about.”
Right, okay, then.
#We’reFucked
Chapter 5
The front room was a decoy. Which explained why a hot witch who was apparently hundreds—thousands?—of years old, and immortal, would leave it as such a shithole. The real gem lay behind the wall, and I was pretty sure I could spend an eternity here.
“If one picture ends up on the ‘Gram,” the crone said, snapping her fingers in my dreamy face, “I will make you suffer for an eternity. Do not push me.”
I held both hands up, somehow dropping my phone into my bag at the same time. “Wait, how do you know about Instagram?”
The witch snorted. “Girl, I have like a hundred thousand followers on there. Islandwitch201, all one word. Look me up.”
A hundred thousand. Motherfucker!
“Yeah, sure, I’ll totally look you up.”
#NeverHappening.
“I’m CaliBlonde414 if you want to follow me,” I added.
She gave me a fake smile and we both knew that neither would be following the other.
> Pissed off, I couldn’t stand to look at her any longer, so I decided to take in more of the gorgeous room. There were no windows, seeing as this was her secret lair and all, but she must have used magic to give one of the far walls a perfect beach scene. It looked real. I could almost feel the sunlight and hear the birds as I stared out across the blue water.
“It’s a memory of mine. Maui,” she said, noticing my focus. “The water is about the only good thing in this godsforsaken world.”
Cronus’ chest rumbled. “We didn’t forsake it. We’ve been trying to bring it back under control. Humans are like a fungus. You get rid of one and another ten pop up.”
Okay, not creepy at all. And yet vaguely accurate.
The crone made her way back to a small room off to the side, sliding open the barn doors to present us with what looked like a weapons forge. “It will take me a day and night to complete your weapon. You will remain here. You will not use your power and bring more gods to my door. You will not have sex on my bed.”
Cronus and I just stared at her blankly, then she shut the barn door silently. Shaking my head, I turned and took in the room. Light wood floors, almost whitewashed, with paneled white walls, gave it a very coastal Hampton’s vibe. Her couches were the big, squishy variety, somehow still looking elegant and refined—white—of course—with thin blue piping across the cushions. There were rugs scattered everywhere, and they were thick and expensive, my feet sinking into the weave as I crossed to sit gingerly on the couch. I was probably covered in sand from our run here, and I wondered how she would react to me accidentally messing up some of the sterile cleanliness of this place.
“What is she going to do with your blood?” I asked Cronus, who had not moved, still staring at the now closed door she’d shut. “She’s clearly willing to put up with a lot, so … it must be powerful.”
He shot me a disparaging stare. “Human, have you not been paying attention at all? I’m the strongest of the Titans. Their leader. My family feared me so much they locked me away for a thousand years because they couldn’t kill me. I’m probably the only god that Narida doesn’t have blood from. She’s a collector of powerful energy. I have no idea what she plans to do with all of her collections—so far she’s done nothing.”