Page 38 of Beggars, Sin, and Wine

I was trying to make her smile because she was clearly upset. Inside, I was crossing my fingers this would work. It should. Stone was like any other substance and witches were who you went to when you wanted to undo a curse. This was a god curse.

Di did lie about a few things. We weren’t heroes in one of Athena’s quests unless she’d changed her mind about Medusa. I highly doubted it if we were breaking her out.

I took the necklaces off and slipped them around Benji and Cas’s necks. I placed my hands over their hearts and concentrated. Please let this work. I felt them turn from stone to a beating heart. They both stumbled into me.

I could tell Medusa was worried about how we would react to her, but we didn’t care. Cas pushed me out of the way and scooped her up.

“Mine,” he growled.

And then Cas kissed the shit out of her, threw her over his shoulder, and went marching out of the cell.

“Let’s get out of here.”

I should have done that. Show off.

Iwas actually in a good mood. After Pax turned Cas and Benji back, Cas swooped me up and flung me over his shoulder. That was only sexy if the guy was a six-foot-six polar bear shifter with white hair and ice-blue eyes and he was doing it because he cared about you.

“You’re going to have to put her down for a minute,” Pax said.

“Fuck off. She can barely stand,” Cas snarled.

“He knows that, big guy. He’s probably got an idea.”

I’d barely had a chance to get a good look at all of them now that it was safe since Cas threw me over his shoulder. Pax was tall and muscular with long, black hair he had tied back. His eyes were milky white and scarred, but his face was beautiful. He looked like some kind of artist who really liked to work out.

Cas grumped, but set me down. Benji shoved his way over and booped my nose.

“Hey, lil monster,” he said.

He looked giddy and utterly embarrassed. A set of curved horns erupted from his forehead and a wolf tail exploded out his rear. Did I mention Benji was totally naked and covered in gore? He also looked like a Korean model. His tail was wagging, and he ran his hands over his horns.

“Sorry, they come out sometimes when I get excited.”

“I’d touch them, but I think you have someone’s intestines on your ear,” I smiled.

His tail just wagged harder.

“If I’d known you couldn’t see outside your door, I wouldn’t have shown off until you could see me.”

“Enough,” Pax said. “The mysterious bearded guy also gave me these. I’ve been keeping them safe. They finally made sense.”

My glasses! Pax slid them over my face. That mysterious bearded guy was more of a dad to me than my own father. My father shunned me after Poseidon raped me and acted like it was my fault. I wouldn’t reveal his secret since I knew he thought it was amusing to let people figure it out on their own, but he wouldn’t have sent anyone for me without making it safe.

Just then, the dizziness from lack of food came back, and I swayed on my feet. I had all these feminist ideas of proudly walking out of here and dropping this place in a sinkhole on my way out, but honestly, I didn’t have the strength.

Cas swooped me up again but didn’t throw me over his shoulder. He cradled me in his arms like I was breakable.

“Where is Di anyway?”

“Oops. I forgot to break the ward,” Benji said, poofing out of my cell.

Cas carried me out and I finally saw Jezebel. She was cuddling Calamity with a pretty intense and very old vampire with short hair and high cheekbones. Jezebel looked up and saw my glasses. She smiled at me.

“Drinks?” I said weakly.

“Do you have a place we can regroup?” the tall vampire asked. “We still need to catch Hannibal and everyone needs to heal.”

Just then, Benji broke the ward keeping Di and my friends out. They appeared in the basement.

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