Page 135 of The Wolf and the Chimera
Elle
Death howled in the wind. I crouched beside Anassa behind a thick shrub and grappled with my surroundings. Half the sky was a blanket of darkness, interrupted only by distant, twinkling stars, and the dim glow of a crescent moon. To the east, the sun crested the mountainous skyline. Its rays stretched and blended with the vastness of the night.
Beside me, the warrior queen squatted with a predator’s stillness. Dressed in a creamy tunic and wearing her simple, golden crown, her bright gaze was fixed on the temple before us.
The building sprawled across the mountaintop like a lazy beast. Its white pillars were pearlescent, and its marble floors gleamed, but the beings who stood inside it were whatmade my breath catch.
Power like nothing I had ever tasted emanated from their lovely forms.
Seven of them were gathered, though one gripped my attention. His curly hair cascaded down his umber back in golden, orange, and red waves. His eyes blazed red with power.
Anassa swallowed and muttered to herself, “Even you, Helios?”
A woman with inky black sheets of hair and brilliant, hazel eyes stood behind him. Though I had never seen her lovely face, her cunning expression was familiar. She stood with her chin dipped in deference, but she moved with an innate swagger that failed to sell her demure act. A man with chestnut hair and a heroic smile stood at her side, close enough that their hands brushed.
“Where is Hermod?” the red-eyed god, Helios, demanded. “I am eager for this to be done.”
Hermod,I recalled.Themessenger-god.
“Patience,” a goddess with iris-less, opal eyes and a buttery smooth voice replied. “He will come.”
Aset,I recognized.
Even the Queen of the Gods had been involved in this attempt to bind shifters?
Though her dark waves of hair and tawny skin were beautiful, her involvement in this coup for power chipped away at her loveliness. Another goddess sighed and threw herself into one of the gathered plush thrones. Her golden hair trailed down her lush form and framed her pale, ethereal face like a halo.
Venus.
“Must we wait on him?” the goddess of love and beauty whined. “I’m ready to receive my new form—don’t forget I’ve already claimed the tigers as mine.”
A goddess with blue-black hair and shining gray eyes scoffed. “We haven’t even acquired them, and you’re already becoming possessive of the doppelgängers.”
“Hush, Selene,” Venus rebuked the moon goddess. “Don’t pretend you don’t have your eye on the wolves.”
Anger heated my veins. They spoke about shifters like we were toys to be traded.
“I’m still not sure we should do this,” Aset murmured and eyed the dark-haired woman behind Helios. “Perhaps we should try again to persuade Hecate to our cause, so she could perform the binding spell.”
“You worry too much,” a white-haired man grumbled.
His eyes were sea green, and his beard was full. He carried a golden triton that radiated its own unique magic. Its power roiled like never-ceasing waves.
Neptune.
“If Helios says his granddaughter can do it,” the sea god continued, “then she can do it.”
His granddaughter?
My gaze shot to the dark-haired beauty. Circe was related to Helios, and she had called the sorceress her niece…
No wonder her power blends so well with mine.
We were both connected to the Sun god.
I stared and stared at the sorceress’s true form. The man beside her whispered something in her ear, too low for even my chimera’s ears to catch, and the sorceress’s lips twitched.
Her Anchor,I realized.
