Page 4 of Hera

She turned her attention back to Odin. “Of course you know me. We met at Chloe and Lucifer’s wedding. Chloe must have mentioned me and how it’s my first time here. Now, tell me all about this fight club you initiated.” She was suddenly quite interested in the fight.

CHAPTER2

Augustine flew into the boards,and, since he was not shifted into his dragon form, crashed to the ground. He got to his feet and swiped a thumb across his lower lip, noting the blood that smeared across it. He spat into the sand that covered the fight ring and sneered at his opponent; a troll—literally. “Is that the best you have, you ructabunde?”

The insult made the crowd go wild, just as Augustine had intended. He was known as the Gentleman Fighter, always one with a quick insult that almost nobody understood. Today, he’d decided to utilize some of the lesser-known Greek insults. In this case, he’d called his opponent a gasbag.

“What did you call me?” growled the troll, his knuckles dragging on the ground as he readied to launch himself at Augustine.

“Would you prefer that I call you a quisquilian?” Augustine said, pretending to ignore the troll’s attack cues. He sighed inwardly. Being brash wasn’t really his style. He could put on a performance for the audience during a fight, but it was all an act.

The troll roared and charged at him, picking him up by his thighs and dropping him over his back onto his head.

“Did not like that one either, huh?” Augustine gasped out. He’d called the troll worthless this time. He rolled out of the way, barely, as the troll attempted to throw himself elbow first toward Augustine’s ribs. “That was rude.”

The audience roared its approval as Augustine flipped onto his feet. He glanced at the clock. Only a few more minutes before the Ref would call the match. He knew what he had to do.

He caught sight of a stunning lady in purple high up in the audience sitting next to Odin. He wished she was closer so he could flirt with her. Instead, he leaned on the wall next to a pretty woman, all angular bones. Normally, she wouldn’t draw his attention—he much preferred his women full-figured—but this wasn’t about who turned him on. This was a way of flirting with the entire audience.

“My lady, that red compliments the crimson of your cheek,” he said, winking at her. “I would wish that your cheeks blushed because of me.” Augustine winced internally, hearing the double-entendre in his words after the fact.

The lady tittered, making his teeth ache, and offered her hand.

He kissed the back of it and smirked as the skin of her neck reddened. “If all your skin is this soft, I would have difficulty keeping my hands off of it.”

The lady gasped and the back of Augustine’s neck prickled. I instincts told him the troll was going to attack him while his back was turned.

His stomach churned as he ignored every instinct screaming at him to reactrightnow!

Large arms tackled him around the waist, smashing him against the boards and jarring every bone in his body.

He pushed off the wall sharply, the momentum toppling the two men backward. Augustine scrambled around, making a show of trying to get on top of the troll to pin him to the sandy ground. Ultimately, he failed and ended up underneath the troll when the Ref called an end to the match.

Augustine dragged his body down the long stone hallway and pushed the large, solid wood door that opened into the lush individual room set aside for him and his brothers on nights they fought.

He shrugged off his clothes, letting them fall haphazardly onto the immaculate white bathroom floor and dragged a hand down his face, grimacing as he felt sand get into the abrasions in his skin.

Shower first.

Then I’ll call them.

The hot water was a balm to his skin and he could already feel the smaller cuts knitting themselves back together. He dried himself with one of the big fluffy towels and then put Band-Aids over the two or three larger scrapes, mostly to avoid getting any lotion into them. That hurt like a... Well, it hurt a lot.

He dialed his brothers and put his phone on the desk, on speaker. It rang while he dug the bottle of lotion out of his bag. His pale skin already shone with a slight purple sheen in the bright white light over the mirror and the backs of his hands looked dry, the first indication that his scales were going to appear.

“Hey brother!” Finley’s voice came over the phone. “How did your fight go tonight?”

Augustine grimaced. “I rolled a one before I went out.”

In order to hide their strength, the three brothers would roll a dice before a match. If it landed on a one, they were to lose. Augustine hated those nights. It wasn’t the pain; he healed quickly. It was the feigning ignorance of fighting techniques. He had years of fighting under his belt, not just here at Valhalla’s Throne, and to have to act as though he didn’t know how...

“Had to happen sooner or later!” That was Jaden’s voice. He sounded like he was trying not to laugh. He’d rolled a one before his last two fights.

Augustine stuck his tongue out at the phone. “It is not my fault the dice likes me.” He groaned as he rubbed the lotion into his thigh muscle. “Ouch. I hate losing.”

“Too bad!” Finley said, andhewas definitely laughing.

“I saw a woman here tonight...” Augustine trailed off, not sure why he mentioned her. He let a large dollop fall onto his palm and started working the lotion into his opposite shoulder. “How much lotion do we have left in storage?” he asked.

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