Page 10 of Bottoms Up
“Not a Strigorii with a good Master Vampire, because they keep track of their coterie, their people. A Lugat might be able to pull it off, but the powers that be would say it’s CGI or something, a prank. The thing is, the process of learning control isn’t easy, and the whole survival-of-the-fittest thing I talked about is a huge deal, something every new shapeshifter or vampire has to learn the hard way. It’s rare for them to dare even contemplate telling. It happens, I’m told. Sometimes you hear of someone who’s enslaved by the ruling council in charge of keepingThe Secret.”
“Would Julian be able to help me write something? I mean, I’d want to run it by Marco before I did anything with it, but I think I can write it so it’ll be fine for the masses.”
“Talk to Marco first. I don’t believe Julian will be able to help you without running it by Marco, so you may as well start at the top.”
“Will wrote about unicorns, and they’re real.”
“But he didn’t know they were real when he wrote about them.”
“So he couldn’t write about them now?”
“Not if he knew they were real and covered by the oath.”
“Well, that bites.” While I was asking questions, I figured maybe Kirsten might have some insight about something I’d wondered. “Do you think humans respond to the name of our band?”
“Mythic Beast?”
I nodded. “We all tossed names in during a brainstorming session. Hailey came up with Mythic Beast, and we all liked it. Now, we know she’s basically a beast from mythology, but…” I tried to narrow in on the question. “Micca says when she was human, there was a snake shifter she avoided at all costs, even though she didn’t know at the time what she was. She says some humans know on a visceral level that she’s dangerous, now thatshe’s a bear. The same with her and the snake shifter — she knew there was danger even if she didn’t know what or why.”
“Ah, I see what you’re saying. It’s possible you’ve had werewolves, vampires, and other beings at your concerts who have no idea Hailey isn’t human. So many people, so many smells — plus they don’t get that close to her. I doubt most of the supernatural world knows what she is, much less the humans.”
“I’m not sure sex with a human will ever be enough again, now that I’ve been with a vampire.”
Kirsten gave a soft laugh. “After being with a lion and an ancient-freaking-god for so long, I’m probably in the same boat. They know when something is working or not without me having to spell it out, and they’ve both had centuries of practice. I mean, Nathan isn’t anywhere near as old as Mordecai, but still, lions fuck a lot, so it’s possible…”
She rolled her eyes. “No, scratch that. Ares is known for fuckingeveryonehe came across who interested him. Shit, do youknowhow many kids he has? Because I don’t think even he could give you an accurate count.”
I tried to picture Mordecai in battle armor, blood on his hands, seducing a pretty maiden in a gauzy dress. Somehow, the image didn’t fit the man who’d handed me a bowl of lasagna an hour earlier, but he’d told me he was no longer the same man he’d been back then, whenever that statue was made, anyway. I tried to remember who his kids are, but couldn’t. “Are they all still alive? Like, you have hundreds or thousands of stepkids?”
She shook her head. “A lot are, but most of the ones he had with human women weren’t immortal, so they lived and died a natural death, but in some cases, he’s kept up with the family line so he knows how his dozens-of-times-great grandkids are. Not all — just a few.”
Her expression softened. “Phobos still lives with him. I used to have a dog, a Newfoundland, and I took him with me toOlympus for a visit. Phobos fell in love with him and wanted to keep my dog. Mordecai had to go find him a Newfie puppy.”
I blinked. “Wait. Your stepson is Phobos. The literal god of fear.”
“Yep.”
I shook my head, but it didn’t help. “It just keeps getting more and more surreal.”
And it did. Not in a whimsical way, either, but in that slow, creeping awareness that this was my life now. That I might be part of this family someday. Julian’s people. Now that I’d tasted something impossible —ageless, telepathic, wildly attuned to my body — I could never go back to fumbling hands and polite questions, men who didn’t know when they spanked too hard — or worse, not hard enough. Men who wouldn’t know much of anything unless I told them. And Julian had clearly spoiled me, justknowingwhat worked and didn’t.
Kirsten nodded and responded to my statement about it being surreal, but it took me a minute to catch up, to remember our conversation.
“It does. Thankfully, most of his kids are off on their own. He brought one of his daughters in to help guard Lauren a while back, and she’s still living with Lauren, still guarding her. I haven’t mentioned to them that they are stepsisters because it’s just weird, right? Ellania was an Amazon General. Like, the race of Amazon women who were known to be warriors.” She sat back. “Technically, Mordecai and I aren’t married, so I guess they aren’t actually stepsisters, but still, our relationship is solid and long-term, so it’s the same.”
“Julian says he’ll live until someone kills him, but he isn’t immortal, just long-lived. Since you’re using the word immortal with Mordecai and the other gods, does that mean they can’t be killed?”
“Yes, but there’s kind of a loophole. As long as at least an iota over fifty percent of their body is in the same basic place, it’ll reform. So, if you cut their head off, a new head will grow back. If you put them in a woodchipper, all the pieces will come back together and reform.But, if you can act fast enough, and separate all the pieces so you get a third of them here, a third way far away, and another third even farther away, they can’t reform. You have to be careful with it, though. The pieces will try to find each other, so even if you put them on different continents, if the rivers wash the pieces into the ocean, they’ll eventually find each other.”
Mathematically, it made sense, so there was no way two or more of a god would grow back.
“Your Shifù, he’s one of them, isn’t he?”
She tilted her head and looked at me a few seconds before she grinned. “You’re smart. Mordecai obviously didn’t want to talk about anyone’s status when he introduced you, but he had to know you’d figure at least a little of it out.”
“I kind of figured out who Mordecai was without him actually telling me.”
“Probably best you don’t do that with the other gods. Unless they tell you who they are, and some of them will, but a whole lot of them feel as if they’re someone else now. They want you to know them for who they are now, rather than who they used to be.”
