Page 90 of Blood

He preens under my attention.

“But we’re not going to be eating Zeus,” Frankie chimes in, sounding entirely bored with the entirety of this conversation. He pushes his glasses farther up his nose with his middle finger. “That’s completely illogical.”

“Thank you!” I give him a soft smile...but then he continues speaking.

“How would we even get rope strong enough to hold him while we roast him over the fire?” Frankie continues in his no-nonsense, clinical voice. He taps a finger to his chin as he contemplates his own question. “Perhaps if the rope was god-blessed—”

“We’re not eating Zeus, dammit!” I slam both of my fists against the table to emphasize my point.

The entire table immediately turns to stare at me.

On one side sits my mates—sans Dimitri, who’s still attempting to uncover my parents’ location—and Vanessa. Across from me, the Fomorians rest, headed by Athena, who looks like an avenging angel with her silver-blonde hair and ethereal gray eyes. The White Stag, Dorian Gray, and Frankenstein complete the Island of Misfit Monsters.

This is it.

Our war council.

And considering the fact that one of our esteemed members is having a demon quite literally mop up his sweat—cough, Dorian, cough—I’m not entirely certain we’re working with the A-team, if you know what I mean. More like the F-U-team.

My ribs seem to press against my lungs, and it’s suddenly difficult to breathe. All of our talks, all of our training, all of it stems back to one thing and one thing alone—destroying Zeus. Fear weaves its way around my neck like a noose. I’ve never been a fearful person, but back then, I didn’t have people to worry about. Now, I have my mates and my family relying on me, and the weight of that settles heavily on my shoulders like a cloak. Somehow, someway, they’ve taken a hammer to the walls I systematically built around my heart and are smashing them down.

“Do you even have a solution for our Zeus problem?” Athena asks, drawing my attention back to the matter at hand, a.k.a. cannibalism.

I exchange a glance with Frankie, who shakes his head nearly imperceptibly.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been working on imbuing my magic into various weapons that my mates will use in the battle to come. We’re hoping they’ll become god-blessed weapons, but we have no way to know for sure without testing it on someone. And since the only way to test a god-blessed dagger is to stab it into an immortal being’s heart and see if they die...

Well...

Considering I’m one of the few immortal beings here, I can say with unwavering certainty that I’m not in the mood to be stabbed experimentally, thank you very much. I’ll only be pierced by cocks.

Still, if these weapons prove to work...

“We have some ideas,” I tell Athena curtly, and her lips thin, the first sign of displeasure I’ve seen so far sliding across her face like a sagging storm cloud.

“Some ideas,” Balor scoffs. “That means you have nothing, doesn’t it?”

Acrimonious tension saturates the room as I narrow my eyes at the douche canoe. The silence that follows is fraught with tension.

“Don’t you worry your ugly little head about a thing,” I taunt in a singsong voice. He immediately jumps to his feet, his temper igniting, but Athena places a hand on his shoulder to force him back into his seat. I have to stifle my grin and the retort that threatens to break free about Mommy Dearest being a top in that relationship. I’m pretty sure Balor would quite literally strangle me if I let it fly.

“What you’re suggesting—” Athena begins, but she cuts off when music reverberates through the room.

I frown, glancing from face to face in alarm, before realizing that the noise is coming from my own cell phone.

Oh god.

How awkward.

In my own war meeting, no less.

Vanessa, who’s sitting beside her brother at the table, quirks an eyebrow, amusement glimmering in her brown-green eyes. “You going to get that?”

“Barbie Girl” begins to play as I wince and fumble for my phone.

Balor blinks at me, seemingly unsurprised by my choice of ringtone.

“Why is this doll singing about the benefits of being plastic?” Ares whispers to Athena, confusion creasing his face.

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