Page 86 of Zeus' Spark
I groan. “Why does it always have to be fucking lions?”
“Lions and tigers and bears, oh my.” Raven giggles just as a jaguar roars.
It lunges for us on the other side of its enclosure.
Humans scream and back away.
“What is happening with all the animals today?” a woman yells from behind us.
I flinch. “C’mon. We need to hurry to the lion enclosure. I have a gut feeling whoever is meeting us is there.”
We make a wrong turn to the giraffe enclosure’s feeding platform, but no one there looks out of place. The giraffes all abandon the food kids are feeding them and run away.
Kids start crying, and there’s a huge fuss.
“Fuck, man, we can’t take you anywhere,” I whisper to Greyson.
He looks completely miserable, staring at all the kids who are crying and wondering why the giraffes don’t want to eat.
“Sorry,” I say as Raven glares at me. “That was mean.”
“We need to go back. This is a dead end.” Raven loops her arm through mine as we rush away from the giraffes and back the way we came.
“Bears,” Greyson grumbles, his spine straightening as we walk through the bear entrance.
A grizzly stands up on his back legs, bellowing, and we just keep walking.
Do not engage the giant grizzly bear that is currently snarling at us.
Something rams the wall, making people scream and run in the opposite direction.
I sigh. This is going to be a strange day. It’s already shaping up to be a weird one.
When we get to the lion enclosure, the cats snarl and bellow out their rage at the new predator in their territory.
A woman stands next to a huge lion, rubbing at its mane, and I cock my head to the side.
She doesn’t actually look like a woman but a teenage girl with long silver hair and eyes so light gray they almost look white.
Power pours off her in waves, and I instinctually know she’s the one we are meant to talk to.
“Who are you?” I ask softly.
I’m not trying to be rude, but her eyes flash with what looks like annoyance.
“Bethany, daughter of Zeus, you don’t recognize your sister?” She giggles softly and coos at the lion who has started to shift, distressed by Greyson’s presence.
I shrug. “I’m sorry. I seem to have a lot of sisters on my father’s side.”
Raven elbows me in the side, and when I turn to glare at her, she mouths, “Artemis.”
Then it clicks. The goddess of the hunt and the moon.
Well, shit.
“It’s okay. I know you are new to this world, and we haven’t exactly met before. You have something that belongs to me, though.” She looks pointedly at my bag over my shoulder. “I want to thank you for keeping it safe and bringing it to me.”
She smiles softly, still scratching the giant-ass predator behind the ears like a damn house cat.
