by Nicole Thorn
Callie put her hand over my mouth. “Thanks, Mom.”
Mrs. Harold smiled and dragged her husband out of the room. When they had vanished, my shoulders slumped. Callie pulled me over to the couch and sat me down. She brushed her hand against my hair. “You can breathe now, they’re gone.”
“Sorry. I just . . . that was like my worst nightmare, having your father walk in while I was touching you inappropriately.”
“It’s okay,” Callie said. “If you want, you can touch me inappropriately some more. Ya know, until you feel better about the entire thing . . . ” She then stared directly into my eyes and waggled her eyebrows at me.
A smile stretched across my face. “Well, I wouldn’t mind . . . ”
She threw herself across my lap and wiggled her butt. I laughed at her while she did this, wishing that she would turn over so that I could kiss her. Instead, I rested on hand one her butt, and used the other one to play with her curls. Callie let out a content sigh, resting her cheek against the couch cushion.
We had been doing this pretty much for three days. Neither of us had the energy to get out of the house. Quite frankly, with Hecate still alive, even if she had been drained of her power briefly, I didn’t feel comfortable leaving. The goddess and proven that she could and would kill us if it came down to it.
Beyond that, Callie said that the seers still had to take care of a mad giant. I didn’t want to know what that meant, but I decided that staying in the house would be better. Things had been changing, and that terrified me. The gods had been running things this way for centuries, and the thought that they would change it up now . . . I didn’t like the implications.
Whatever came next would be a lot to deal with. I just knew it.
“Can you two go even a minute without being all over each other?” Micha said as he walked into the room. “I know that the two of you are in love and everything, but the rest of us have to see it.”
“You’re just jealous,” Callie said, wiggling around some more. “You don’t have a cute boy or girl that will do butt touches with you.”
He sighed. “Thank you for reminding me.”
Micha threw himself against the chair so that he could stare up at the ceiling forlornly. Which he had been doing a lot around us, for reasons that I could not understand.
“Where have you been?” I asked, realizing that he left early that morning and I hadn’t seen him at all since then.
Micha glanced over at me. “Doing what the two of you forgot we’re suppose to do,” he said, sitting forward. “Looking for a house where her parents won’t be in constant danger. It hasn’t been easy, I must admit. Well, actually, that’s not true. I didn’t have to do any of the work.”
I frowned at him.
“How is that possible?” Callie asked. “I thought that buying a house was this hugely stressful thing that really tested a person.”
“Maybe for some people,” Micha said, shrugging. “Not for me. I called a real estate agency a few days ago, and they sent out this guy to help me out. Really gorgeous guy too, and he didn’t mind flirting with me constantly. It was pretty nice, though it did distract me from the house itself.”
“Did you buy a house because a cute guy sold it to you?”
“No,” Micha said, defensively. “I bought a house because it had enough bedrooms, seemed to be in a good neighborhood, and because a cute guy sold it to me. I’m not a complete idiot.”
“You bought a house?” Callie asked incredulously. “You didn’t even take us with you?”
Micha shrugged. “Really, what would you have brought to the table other than trying to tear each other’s clothes off.”
“I would never tear Callie’s clothes. That’s rude.”
Callie nodded her agreement.
“Where is this house?” I asked.
Micha opened his mouth, then got a blank expression on his face. “Hmm . . . well, it was on a street with a bunch of other houses. I can tell you that. And it had everything that we needed . . . ”
Callie pressed her fingers to her eyes. “You . . . don’t know where the house is . . . because the guy selling it to you was cute?”
Micha rubbed the back of his head. “Well . . . ”
“We’re doomed,” I said. “One third of our team can be distracted by good looks and adequate flirting.”
“Amazing flirting,” Micha said in his defense.
“As long as our enemies aren’t cute, then we’re okay,” Callie said.
“Some of our enemies are demigods,” I pointed out.
Callie looked at Micha. She got off the couch, walked over to him, and put her hand on his shoulder. “You have failed us.”
“It really is a good house!” Micha said. “Look, I’ll get the pictures and the brochure, and I’ll prove it to you.” He took off, but Callie shook her head as she came over to sit with me.
“Living with him is going to be interesting,” Callie said.
“Ten bucks says he burns the house down within a month.”
“Deal.”
We shook on it as Micha came back into the room with all the pictures and specs he needed to defend himself.
EPILOGUE:
Under the Sun
Callie
“DON’T TELL THEM,” I hissed a warning to Micha as we knocked on the Nelsons’ door. “I swear to the gods, you better keep your mouth closed.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “I think your friends would be happy that their Oracle is going to be living like two doors down.”
I would have thought that too, if it wasn’t going to be in the house Verin’s mother had been murdered in. I didn’t think the demigod would step foot inside, and I didn’t want the bedroom that she’d had. But of course, we had been put there for a reason. I refused to believe the gods didn’t arrange this.
“Hey, kids!” Medusa greeted as she opened the door. She gave a hug to each of us before we walked inside. Micha handed her the cookies we’d made for the pool party while we walked to the kitchen to see the spread.
“Whoa,” I stated as I saw the snacks. “Neat.”
“Zander’s been at it,” Medusa said. “The kid thinks he can outdo me. Ha!”
She led us outside to find our friends, as well as the hydra Nemo. He swam with his mama in the pool they put in for him. Jasmine swam circles around him, trying to get him to boop the inflatable ball she tossed in the air. Zander watched on from the barbeque with approval.
“It’s not so bad,” Verin cooed at Juniper as she unhappily bobbed in the water. He had a hand on her back. “You get to just float around looking lovely.”
She made herself smile at him. “You’re lucky I love you so much.”
“Yes, I’m aware.”
Medusa slapped Zander’s hand when he started poking at the burgers on the grill. “I told you to get lost. I have this covered. Go play with your mostly naked girlfriend.”
Zander opened his mouth in what looked like protest, but then he cast a glance over at a bikini clad Jasmine. “Hmm, maybe I will.”
I turned to Aster with a smile, about to make a joke. Then I saw that his eyes locked on Nemo, wide as could be.
“You didn’t tell me they had a hydra,” he said. “We . . . we were here yesterday. They didn’t mention a hydra.”
I rubbed his back. “He’s very sweet. I promise.”
“True,” Kizzy called out from her seat at the edge of the pool. She and Jasper ate off a plate on his lap. I grinned again when I saw the wedding bands that glimmered in the rare sunlight.
“He’s never even tried to murder me,” Persephone said as she walked out of the house. “He’s the kindest hydra I’ve ever met. And he purrs when you pet him just right.”
I skipped forward to the pool, intent on getting some cuddle time in with the sweet beast. I stripped off my shirt and shorts, leaving them in the grass by my shoes. My polka dot bathing suit looked adorable as I dove in to the water. Juniper made a face as I surfaced again, but Verin wa
s there to comfort her from the splashes.
“Come pet Nemo!” I called to Aster.
He frowned at me. “Um . . . no, that’s okay. You good with being that close to him?”
I turned to the hydra, who was getting his chest rubbed by Jasmine. I swam over to them, joining in. “Yeah, he’s not going to hurt me.”
Nemo dropped a head closer to me, a silent demand for me to get some pets in behind his ears. I did it, and he closed his eyes to enjoy it even more. Aster kept on staring, looking mostly horrified.
Micha slowly made his way over, cautiously watching Nemo. He had no weapons on him today, since we felt mostly safe. With four gods and a gorgon in one backyard, it was a safe bet that nothing would come for us. If something did, then it would have been very stupid. My unarmed friend bravely approached a hydra, hand out for pets.
Nemo inched a head toward Micha, seemingly realizing his tentativeness. Eventually, the two met in the middle. Micha flinched a bit when Nemo started purring from the attention, but he settled into it.
“Never met one of you before,” he said. “Lots of werewolves, but no hydras.”
“He’s the best hydra,” Jasmine said. “A true angel.”
I swam to the corner of the pool, my eyes on Aster. I cleared my throat to get him to look over. “You gonna swim with me?”
He glanced at Nemo. “You can come out and get something to eat with me.”
“Later,” I said. “In the meantime, I don’t have pants on, and I think you should be close by for that.”
Kizzy laughed, but didn’t comment.
I got Aster to come over, but he wouldn’t get in the pool. The best I could do was get him to dip his feet in the water. I had to cross my fingers that my parents didn’t find out that we’d spent time with a hydra, because that might have been the thing to really push them over the edge. The reaction made no sense to me when Nemo was so obviously nice.
“Get in the pool,” Medusa ordered Zander when he tried taking over for her again. He held his hands up in surrender, but she only growled at him.
“I don’t want you to have to do it all yourself,” he said to her.
Jasper snorted. “Is that what you’re going with?”
“Yes, and I believe in it. It would be rude of me if I made Medusa do all the cooking.”
The gorgon cocked her hip, giving him a look. “Listen here, kiddo. I’ve been cooking since about ten thousand years before you existed, and I’ve been doing it well. Go play with your lady before I have mine kick you in the butt.”
Persephone grinned with her plate of food on her lap. “I’ll do it. I’ll kick you in the butt so hard that you won’t remember how to backseat barbeque.”
With his arms still raised in the air, Zander slowly started backing away from the women. He kept going, not seeing Jasmine as she snuck up on him. I watched, waiting for her to spook him. I wanted to see if Zander would scream.
She grabbed his shoulders, making him jump before he turned around fast, trying to clutch at her. Jasmine moved too fast, beginning to run. “You cannot catch me! For I am a goddess!”
“Watch me!” Zander yelled before he took off after her. Jasmine’s speed was impressive to say the least, and I really didn’t know who would win the race. I would have been surprised if something didn’t get broken.
“That’s terrifying,” Aster said when Jasmine leapt over the small garden, crossing way more distance than she should have been able to.
I patted his knee. “Nah, this is gonna be fun.”
I watched my other friends, making sure they all looked okay. Everyone acted more relaxed than I would have thought, though things had gotten a lot better for them in the last week or so. After the death and all that. Argus was dead now, the demigods didn’t have to worry about the mortality of their loves, and we were all caught up on the tragedy of the war to come. Oh, but I still had good news.
“Guess what!” I shouted, getting everyone’s attention. They looked over at me when I sat up on the edge of the pool. With a big grin, I said, “I forgot to tell you guys that I’m immortal now. So . . . yay!”
Jasmine stopped her running to jump up and clap for me. “You are? When did that happen?”
“Same time as Micha,” I said as I rose up to get some food. I walked toward Medusa, who had to go back to defending her station. “Apollo did it the day I was listening to the gods have their meeting about you. So, I’m the Oracle until the end of time. Neat, huh?”
I ended up stopping in front of Jasmine, who looked genuinely pleased with the news. “Good! I get to keep you forever now. We should celebrate with some kind of sleepover. We can make snacks and stuff.”
“I’ll do it,” Zander offered, showing up behind me.
His sudden appearance startled me, causing me to trip over nothing. When I stumbled toward Jasmine, I prepared myself to get blasted across the yard. Then my skin touched hers and she caught me . . . and nothing.
“Oh, my gods,” I whispered as I clutched at her arms. “Look!”
“Ah!” Jasmine squeaked. “I can touch you without a zap!”
We both jumped up with joy, then hugged each other tightly. “We have so much catching up on hugs to do!” I said.
“All the hugging!”
We were greeted with lots of sweet awes from our friends and family, all happy we didn’t have to worry about the weird magic that couldn’t handle its counterpart. But that was over now, and that meant I could get all the hugs I wanted.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Sarah Hall has been writing since her early teens and plans to continue long past her death, via robot body. She spends her days daydreaming about conversations between fictional characters, and ignoring the condescending looks she gets from her cats when she does so. During her day in the unforgiving Arizona heat, she juggles her pets, writing, and her neurotic sometimes writing partner. She has no problems with said juggling, as the Force is with her.
Nicole “Cappie” Thorn was born in California but, after a stint in Kansas, moved to a suburb of Phoenix. She spends a lot of her free time knitting and reading from her massive book collection. Her eclectic tastes, like Disneyland, Buffy and all things London, carry into her writing. She started writing in her early twenties and finds it wonderfully addictive.
Sarah Hall:
Twitter: @SarahMHall33
Facebook: Facebook.com/SarahHallAuthor
Nicole Thorn:
Twitter: @NicoleThorn
Instagram: @CappieThorn
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NicoleThornAuthor/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/NdThorn
Website: http://www.nicolethornbooks.wordpress.com
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Burning Willow Press was founded in 2014 with the sole purpose of sharing dreams. Based in Spartanburg, South Carolina in the US, we have reached every country in the world in a short time. We do all they can to ensure that the reader is satisfied with the purchase of the story because that is what matters. Our motto is, “It’s all about the story.” Keeping in true of that, we here at BWP have painstakingly done as much as we can to put together stories that the readers will love and share with everyone they know. The process is not flawless as we are still humans, most of the time, and tired a lot of the time, so we make mistakes. If you find one, please let us know so we can take care of it.
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