Page 16 of Beggars, Sin, and Wine

“If you’re using starvation therapy, we used that, too. We found it to be ineffective and usually fatal if they go too long without food. Either for them or for us.”

“Hrmph. I’ll consider it,” Hannibal said, stalking out.

Benji leaned forward.

“I don’t even know what she looks like, but I can’t wait to meet her. And you. Think we can roleplay you as the sexy Irish priest when we get out of here? I’ve been bad, Father.”

“I love you, Benji, but I think Father Nathan has opinions about me using his frock like that.”

“I don’t think the good Father kink shames like that.”

“Let me go check on Cas. I can apparently release the two of you and we can get to work in twelve hours.”

“I got dibs on killing the Smurf priest.”

“Thank you for putting that visual in my head.”

“What? The fucker is blue from drinking all that colloidal silver so he could join the Coalition and hurt us. Everyone should know that even if they can’t see him.”

“Rest, Benji. Reach out to our mate and let her know we’re here for her. Don’t tell her the plan in case they torture it out of her. Keep her safe.”

“It’s my goal in life now.”

It was. Stopping the Coalition would probably be the most important thing we’d ever done in our life, but now that we knew our mate was here?

This was life or death.

Fuck me. There were three of them here now. This should have been the happiest day of my life. I’d waited for it long enough. Athena took that from me with this curse. I’d only talked to them a little. I didn’t even know what they looked like. I’d only found one of my mates and I couldn’t hurt him. I had to be happy with that.

It hurt like fuck to tell them not to come down here. They seemed intent on breaking out of here and taking me with them, but I knew that talk. We all thought like that at first. We were going to be the one that broke out and stopped these people. Jezebel and I thought that, too. I still had my curse and Jezebel kind of sort of had her magic and we couldn’t do a damned thing.

I mean, I killed a fake nun, and I was helpless against that gas.

Hannibal finally decided to feed me. It was different from the two pieces of white bread with one slice of bologna in the middle. He just gave me bread. It was the butt ends of it and this was the cheapest stuff the grocery store offered. He’d also let it go stale.

The blue bastard expected me to fall over myself thanking him for it. Because I saw his hand again and it was definitely blue. I never really got a full view of anyone in here, but I’d never seen a blue person before. I’d seen blackout tattoos but something told me this wasn’t a tattoo.

I sat in the corner with my two stale pieces of bread and tried to make them last. My brain was buzzing because I could feel my three mates above me and I wanted to go to them. It was miserable because I’d kill them on sight.

“Hey, love. Did the Smurf priest finally feed you?”

I tried not to laugh. That was the wolf-shadow-demon hybrid. He felt like chaos personified, but he called to me. He hadn’t been here long at all, but there was something about him that was damaged just like I was. I was trying to avoid talking to him, but I couldn’t help it.

“Smurf priest?”

“You haven’t noticed the bitch is blue?”

“I’ve only seen his hand.”

“Good. But yeah, there are a bunch of Smurf nuns and priests running around. You haven’t told me if they fed you. Pax tried to make it happen.”

Pax. I loved this name. Pax was the only name I knew. I wanted to ask the rest of them, but then I’d have to tell them mine. I was kind of famous and these guys weren’t humans. They could very well figure out I was that Medusa. This could go several ways. They could think I was a monster like countless others had and try to kill me. They could think I was tainted because of what Poseidon had done to me, which happened before. Or they could not give a shit about any of that, try to come to me anyway, and I would kill them.

“He gave me stale bread, but just the ends.”

“That’s the second worst way to be presented with an ass.”

Should I even ask? Yeah, I was gonna.

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