Releasing the Gods

by Leia Stone

  I stared at him. Was he for real? “Did you not … uh … how do I put this? Maybe think that your blood was the last blood she needed to complete whatever dastardly plan she has in the works?”

  Narida. He’d used that name already, but I’d forgotten until right now. Pulling out my phone, I decided to see if I could Google her.

  Narida, the powerful crone, I typed into the search bar. As usual, about a million hits came up, and I clicked into the first few to find they were mostly cosplayers. “She won’t be on your Google,” Cronus said, taking a seat beside me. I hadn’t even realized how much the distance between us had been straining me, until he sat down.

  Not wanting to, but needing more information, I pulled up her Instagram. Islandwitch201 was a very focused poster. She had a minimum of three posts a day, and they varied around the island life here. A few were her in a bikini, but only from the back. There was not a single face photo in her entire two-thousand-plus posts.

  I took a quick chance to pop over to my Gram and grinned when I saw that I had gained two thousand more followers from the picture with Cronus, and I officially had 12K likes. It looked like the hashtag #INeedaGreekGod was trending.

  “Holy shit,” I breathed.

  Maybe this would be my big break. Get me to 50k likes. I needed more pics of Cronus though. If he’d allow it. One of the comments was from Shauna asking where the hell I was. Oops. I’d have to shoot her an email when things slowed down.

  “When you don’t age, it’s not smart to have your photo out there,” Cronus told me, pulling my concentration back to him. “Gods try to stay off the radar of humans, because if they knew about us, they would start panicking and all hell would break loose.”

  Probably why he allowed one photo and one only.

  “Is that why you hate humans and want to kill them all?” I asked him.

  He shook his head, scowling at me. “We never wanted to kill all of them. We’ve been protecting your primitive species for eons. But now that my brothers and sisters are gone, the gods have been doing whatever they want under Zeus’s rule. That all ends for them now that I’m back.”

  “You’re kinda scary,” I said, not joking.

  He shrugged. “I am what I am. There is no changing that. The last of my kind … alone. The one who will destroy Zeus so that he cannot fuck with humanity anymore. It is my burden to bear.”

  Shivers traced across my spine. “That’s my worst nightmare…”

  The gold in his blue eyes deepened. “What is?”

  Something told me I shouldn’t reveal such a private part of myself to him, but the words spilled out anyway: “To be alone.” I couldn’t imagine all of my siblings slaughtered. What happened to him was awful. Losing my mom had been enough of a loss to haunt me.

  He stilled next to me, like for the first time I’d truly stunned him. The swirling depths of his eyes locked on to mine, and he tilted his head. “I understand so much more now. The reason you’re desperate for followers, likes, love. This is all to fill an empty void in your soul.”

  Jesus. I suddenly felt like I was at a psychic reading or a shrink's office.

  There was a new, heavy mood that hadn’t existed between us before this second. Until now I’d been joking and screaming and running to hide my panic. To not have to deal with the fact that there was a very real god-like creature attached to me. But I could not do that now. We had to stay still, and he was tapping into a part of my wounded soul.

  “You’re wrong.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “It’s the way people make money these days, and since I haven’t found my ‘calling’ anywhere else, I’m going to go with my strengths. Filling out a bikini top is a strength.”

  He was still staring at me, judging me, and it was pissing me off, so I closed my eyes and dropped my head back onto the soft cushions.

  “Beauty can be a strength. That’s true,” he offered.

  My heart knocked in my chest and I kept my eyes pinched shut. Did he just call me beautiful?

  My eyelids popped open. “Wanna take another selfie? I think I can get to fifty thousand followers with your help?”

  Hey, if a girl wanted to be successful, she had to grab opportunities by the balls, right?

  His glare washed ice water through my veins. Mofo could be scary when he wanted. “Put that phone in my face and I’ll break it.”

  I growled. “Fine. I’ll wait tables for the rest of my life. Can I bring you any more ranch dressing?” I yelled from where I sat, ten inches from him.

  He frowned. “What’s happening? Is this the … menstrual time of the month for you?”

  I face-palmed. I never ever wanted to hear the word menstrual come out of his mouth again. “Whatever, moneybags. You wouldn’t understand.” I turned away from him and faced the wall. Must be nice walking around with a fucking brick of gold like it was no big deal. Speaking of, I was hungry and we were broke and out of food.

  Fabulous.

  He chuckled behind me. “You have the hostility of a war god, but your love of prostitution puts you squarely in love goddess territory.”

  I spun around, nearly foaming at the mouth. “Call me a prostitute One. More. Time. I haven't eaten in like … hours. I’ll tear you limb from limb,” I snarled.

  A slow grin pulled at his mouth, not quite making it into a smile before it was washed away. “I’d like to see you try, human.”

  Infuriating fucker! Why did he make me so mad? And why did I like it? I needed therapy.

  He stood. “I’m hungry too. Let’s go.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “What? No, she said we had to wait in this room until the weapon was done. Wait here for twenty-four hours, she said.”

  Cronus gave me a look. “Do I look like I let witches tell me what to do?”

  Oh God. This big asshole was going to get me killed.

  “Are we leaving leaving or…?” I needed to plan this out in my head if he was going to carry me over his shoulder across town again while those gorgeous gods chased us and tried to kill us.

  Cronus shook his head. “Relax. We’re going to go into Narida’s kitchen to make some food.”

  “Really? Without her permission?” I wrung my hands together.

  Without a word, he spread the barn doors wide open and stomped down her hallway in search of food. Jesus, this guy had zero will to live.

  “Narida!” I called out. “It’s just us grabbing some food. We’ll pay you back later!” I wanted to let her know in case she’d spelled the food and it would poison us or something.

  Cronus gave a big grunt and threw open an ornate blue door.

  Charging in, he started to ransack the place. I tiptoed in after him and was impressed that he'd found the kitchen so quickly.

  “How did you know it was here?”

  He shoved a piece of cheese in his mouth. “I can smell food a mile away.”

  My heart skipped a beat. If this guy wasn't such a dickface, he’d be my soul mate.

  “Well, share!” I snapped and grabbed some of the cheese and bread and olives from a cutting board that was sitting out.

  “Don’t eat my special olives!” Narida shouted from down the hall and I dropped the olives back on the counter.

  Was it spelled? I wasn’t going to find out. Avoiding the olives and knowing we had her blessing, Cronus and I ate everything in sight. He was an enabler to my inner foodie. I was pleased to find that Narida didn’t have any meat in the house; it looked like she too was a vegetarian.

  #SaveTheAnimals

  Finally, Cronus sat across from me, staring my bikini body up and down. I was still just chillin' in my Calvin Klein two-piece. He still had no shirt. Both of us vibing the beach life. If only a bunch of Greek gods weren’t trying to kill us, it’d be vacay central up in here.

  “How can you eat like this and look like that? I mean, you clearly don’t work out, so…”

  I think there was a compliment in there. Somewhere. Very, very, deep in there.

  I put a hand on
my hip, and even though I was stuffed, shoved a grape in my mouth. “First of all, I have a fast metabolism. Secondly, I do yoga, which is a very relaxed way of working out that doesn’t build too much muscle, and I’m totally good at it.”

  Okay, full disclosure, I did Yoga like once a month, and mostly just so I could post poses online.

  “Are you really? Totally?” He smirked.

  Fucker with the sarcasm again. I should never have taught him that.

  Before I could retort, he yawned. “I’m tired. I couldn’t sleep on the plane because someone next to me was snoring the entire flight.” He pinned me with a glare.

  I did NOT snore.

  With that, he stood and walked back to the bedroom. “Wait, shouldn't we clean up? It looks like a raccoon has torn the kitchen apart.” I started to pick up some of the cheese crumbles when I felt that yank at my gut, pulling me to him.

  “She’s getting my blood. I’m not cleaning up a damn thing.”

  #CockyMuch

  Running after him so I didn’t get a hernia, we closed ourselves inside the barn door and stood there looking at the bed.

  “I’m not sleeping on the floor. It’s too hard. You can if you want,” he declared and dropped into bed.

  My mouth popped open. I wasn’t sleeping on some cold-ass tile floor either!

  I dropped in next to him, sticking my heel into his back to move him over, but he didn’t budge.

  “You’re taking up the entire bed!” I shoved harder. His eyes flicked up the length of my thigh. “I haven’t been with a woman in a thousand years. You should probably take the couch.”

  My foot stilled midair and my throat went dry.

  Oh.

  There was a couch at the end of the bed, small like a chaise lounge, more for reading, but it would do. And now I couldn’t stop playing his words in my head.

  A thousand years without sex … he must be ready to burst. Then I had the stupid and irrational thought of why he hadn’t propositioned me yet. I mean, I was a prostitute—in his mind.

  I probably wasn’t his type though.

  #TooHot #HeCouldn’tHandleThis

  Pulling my foot from his back, I walked over to the couch and slid onto it. We were on the edge of the distance we could be apart, but I managed to ignore the tension in my body, because I was so tired.

  Closing my eyes, I let the exhaustion of the travel day settle into me.

  Once we got this weapon, I was dragging his ass back to Cali and picking up extra shifts at the Crab Shack to be able to feed my new two-hundred-pound giant baby.

  And with that thought I fell asleep.

  I was awoken to a vigorous shaking. Cronus was in my face.

  “You’ve brought chaos to my beautiful island!” Narida was shouting again. Bitch might look young, but she was a cranky old woman on the inside.

  I bolted upright and realized it was dark out. Had we slept all day? Freaking jet lag. I had no idea what year it was right now; my soul was still trying to find my body.

  “Get dressed,” Cronus snapped at me.

  I scrambled to pull shorts out of my backpack, and slipped them on.

  “What’s happening?” I felt drugged, I was so tired.

  “Can you tie up your hair? The gods from before will remember it,” he said.

  My hair? Crap.

  I pulled a baseball hat that said Vacation Mode On from my bag and shoved my hair up into a top knot, sliding it over.

  “You need to leave before they destroy my beautiful house!” Narida pushed.

  It was then that I noticed the shaking.

  My eyes widened. “Earthquake!” I put my head between my knees and took cover. We had earthquakes all the time back in Cali. But this was a big one.

  Cronus lifted me up by the armpit. “Not an Earthquake. Zeus.”

  My mouth went dry. “Zeus. The god of thunder. Your maybe son. He’s here?”

  Ignoring me, Cronus dragged me down the hall and into a little room full of tinctures and powders. On a table was a wicked-looking blade. “I can give you a five-minute head start,” Narida said, sounding as pissed off as before, but not quite shouting. “But you need to get the hell off my island.”

  Staring at the weapon, we both ignored her. The hilt was thick and strong, made of chunky steel, but the blade … the blade was so big and long it must have been as tall as I was. The edge was serrated, and glowed with a very faint magical blue hue.

  Cronus nodded to the witch. “Thank you for your help.”

  Narida snorted. “Thank you for your blood.”

  I narrowed my eyes, some of my brain faculties coming online. “Don’t use it for evil, okay? Only good spells for that blood.”

  She glared at me like I was a cockroach that had crawled over her leg, but before she could turn me into lint or whatever she was planning, Cronus wrapped an arm around me and pulled me away from her. “Best way to leave?” he asked, distracting the crone.

  She pointed toward the room she’d been sequestered in making the weapon. “There is a secret exit through there. I’m sending your distraction out now. Run and don’t fucking stop.”

  Cronus, still half carrying me with one hand and his weapon with the other, hauled ass toward the room. “What about my bag?” I asked, wishing I’d slung my backpack over my shoulder; I’d been too tired.

  He shook his head. “No time, and we can’t be weighed down by anything extra. You can barely carry all of that hair, let alone anything else.”

  I spluttered. “Absolutely not true. I’m very fit.”

  I wasn’t even sure why I was trying to make this a thing. I wasn't fit. I’d never been fit. I only exercised when forced to—when my jeans didn’t fit, mostly.

  Luckily, I’d clipped on my Coach fanny pack with passport and wallet when I’d pulled on my shorts. Cronus of course didn’t need that because he could daze the check-in desk and they would think he had a passport. He had enough power for that apparently.

  When we entered the dark room, I wondered how Cronus was going to find the exit, but he must have scented the fresh air or something, because he went straight for the panel next to her huge workbench, pushing at a few sections before finding the one that opened to the outside. “Stay close,” he said softly, releasing me so that he could grip his weapon with both hands. “I can fight any of them one on one, even with my powers weakened. But if they kill you, we will both probably die because we are bound.”

  #FML

  “I’ll be right on your ass,” I promised him. Not like I had any choice, but even if I did, I would still be sticking with him. Better the god you knew, especially when he’d given up trying to kill you.

  For now.

  Chapter 6

  Narida’s path led us out into a thick patch of jungle, where it was dark and damp, and it was only through some small glimpses of blue that I knew which direction the ocean was. “We can’t keep doing this,” I said breathlessly, fighting to stay close to Cronus. “If they can track us this easy, then there is nowhere we can run or hide. Eventually they’re going to get to us.”

  He made a rumbling, pissed-off sound, his massive back heaving as he cut down some more bushes that were blocking our path. I ducked my head, narrowly missing a branch that had snapped off near me.

  “I needed the weapon,” Cronus said between swings of his weapon, “to have something strong enough to penetrate the skin of a god.”

  “Uh huh,” I said. #WhereWasHeGoingWithThis

  “Once I regain my full powers, they won’t be able to touch me. That’s why they are trying so hard right now. I just need to hold them off until my powers return, then I can kill Zeus and end this nightmare. Stop complaining that I’m going too fast for you while I try to keep us alive.”

  Going too fast? I’d fucking show him too fast, the arrogant asshole…

  My angry thoughts were cut off when the trees to the right of us basically exploded in our faces. With a shriek, I dove to the side, only to be yanked back by the bond betwee
n us. Apparently I’d gone too far from the god in question.

  Pulling myself up, I pressed close to his back, peering around to see a golden woman standing there. “Athena,” Cronus said. “What are you doing here? This was never your fight.”

  I racked my brain for the small pockets of Greek Mythology I knew. Athena … she was definitely associated with war, I remembered that, and maybe … wisdom ... or painting. Fuck. She was associated with something, and the most important one was war.

  “Zeus called in all of us,” she said, her voice somehow melodic but also filled with powerful undertones. She had long waves of blond hair, big blue eyes, and wore gold and bronze armor that made her arms and legs look strong and muscled. #ProbablyYoga

  “Accept your fate, Cronus. Return to the prison world and we will spare the human.”

  Yeah, right. The human who could apparently release Cronus and now knew all about the existence of gods in the current world. Yep, for sure, they would totally let me live.

  Cronus crossed his huge arms. “You will leave my human alone. I’ll decide when she dies, no one else.”

  That was almost cute. #CoupleGoals

  Athena reached over her shoulder and pulled free a large sword, pointing it right at me. The weak link. It was glowing softly, just like she was, in the same gold and bronze of her armor. “You leave me no choice, Uncle.”

  Uncle. I think they were getting their family tree confused here.

  I shook my head at Cronus. “Maybe don’t defend me anymore,” I said, trying not to punch him in the kidneys. He was still the only one keeping me alive at this point, but I think he’d only made her madder.

  Cronus tucked me behind him, needing more room to swing his weapon. I took a step back, and another, and another, until I could feel that painful tug on our bond. This was as far as I could go, and considering I was pressed against trees that were probably filled with spiders, hopefully it was far enough.