Undercover Truths - Undercover Lies
Page 5
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“I claim my place among you,” Stacy said, her words ringing defiantly around the great chamber of the gods. She strode, chin jutting upward, toward the chair occupied by Matthew, who in the absence of the father and the mother was the highest-ranking of the eleven deities who were assembled. Her former husband met her stare coldly, locking gazes for several long moments before nodding and searching the faces of the other deities for the approval, or at least acquiescence, that she knew must be there. She heard Michael’s snort from his chair as Matt’s gaze swept past it, but Stacy kept her eyes stoically locked on Matthew’s.
Finally, Matthew completed the circuit and returned his cold expression to Stacy. “Fine. Take your place,” he said, his voice full of steel.
“First, I claim my prize as victor,” Stacy said. Folding ka around her, she vanished and then reappeared a moment later, a pair of humans at her side. Another snort, this one bearing a touch of humor, came from Michael moments before she heard the outraged “No!” she had expected from Ben’thra.
Stacy turned slowly, arrogantly meeting Ben’thra’s enraged expression with a faux surprised one of her own. Coolly she said, “Do you have something to say, Benny?”
Stacy let the moment expand as long as it would allow, cherishing the feeling. As she’d trained, groveling at the feet of the current deities to learn what she needed to in order to ascend to the pantheon herself, she had also slipped in occasionally to see what Ben’thra was up to. Oh, she’d known he was aware that she was visiting, but she counted on his arrogance in assuming she was just after stealing the petty magic baubles whose hiding places she always managed to find her way nearly into.
She wasn’t, though. Instead, she spent most of her visits using every trick she’d ever learned of the game she’d played her whole life to beguile the humans to whom Ben’thra was closest. Ever so slowly and extremely cautiously, she diverted the young man’s attention away from his current master and into her own loving embrace, all while convincing him to maintain an appearance of loyalty. She’d promised him all sorts of stupid things, but a lifetime of experience had taught her how and when to make even the dumbest of promises so that they sounded entirely sincere.
The woman Stacy considered an even greater prize. She was Ben’thra’s chief concubine. The trickster god enjoyed sexual pleasure with all sorts, including his head mage. The girl, though, was Ben’thra’s favorite playmate. She had never been one to enjoy the company of other women, until Stacy had convinced her otherwise. Stacy, herself, wasn’t really into women much either, but she’d found the pretending to be fun.
She stood, then, in the circular arena where she’d bested a goddess in battle, looking smugly at the god she’d just bested in another, less overt battle. “I told you I would,” she said quietly, using tendrils of air to tunnel the words directly to Ben’thra.
The god snorted once in disgust and then managed to regain his composure. He looked from Stacy to the adoring expressions plastered across the faces of his former head mage and head concubine and then snorted once again. With a final snort, he vanished.
“Time to go home with the newest goddess in the universe, my pets,” Stacy cooed. As she wove the flows of ka around her to take her and her mortal companions back to her new estate, she heard Matthew and Michael’s voices joining together in deep, hearty laughter. Meanwhile, the other deities around the circle just looked confused.
Come to think of it, she didn’t really know how much they all knew of the enmity between her and Benny.
Come to think of it, she didn’t really care.
It was over. She’d gotten back at him.