Page 34 of Tangled Threads Of Fate

Except Erus.

“Uh, not really. She’s in Teron’s rooms. Or at least, she should be by now.”

Demke’s spine stiffened like he’d been electrocuted. “What?Why?” he growled.

I winced, because I was about to throw Erus under the bus and knew he wouldn’t let me forget it. “Uh, the woman fainted, and then she was kind of incoherent, and you know Erus. He’s such a softie for humans.”

Demke stepped around me and strode down the hallway. “Find Milonos and meet me in Teron’s rooms.”

“Who the fuck do you guys think I am? Hermes?” I called after him. Normally, he’d come back and punch me for even mentioning the messenger God, but clearly, the fact that there was a snake in our hen house had him preoccupied.

Who the fuck even knew where Milo was? I headed down to the kitchen first. It was after lunch, so that meant it was drinking time for one of my oldest friends. He’d been slowly getting more and more listless for the last two hundred years, and I knew I was losing my friend to the ennui. He’d be two bottles of rakí deep by now, but hopefully, the draw of the unknown might give him some relief from the boredom of time.

He wasn’t in the kitchen, but when I skidded to a stop in the courtyard, there was no gratification in knowing I’d been correct about him drinking. I stopped in front of him, my eyebrows raised.

“Finish your drink, Milo. We’ve got drama.”

He raised a single brow. “Oh?”

“Yes. Strangers in the compound.”

He stretched out his long legs. “Not for the first time, Tryp. Are you being dramatic?”

I leaned forward until I was close enough to breathe in the fumes of alcohol on his breath. He must’ve started a little earlytoday. “One of them is a pregnant female who fainted at the door.”

He reared back, his brow furrowing. “What?”

Oh, I had him. I had himsogood. “Yep. Big belly like this and just fell over like a sack of shit, right there at the base of the stairs.”

That was all Milo needed. He was on his feet, stepping around me and charging down the hallway like, well, a bull. Or a Minotaur, anyway. I danced along behind him, and despite the unknown, despite the fact that the guy with her was some kind of Mythic not from our Pantheon, this was the most excitement we’d seen in a century, maybe longer.

He got all the way to the front wall before he realized he hadn’t actually asked me where the strangers were now. He whirled back around, and I smirked at him.

“Well?”

“They’re all in Teron’s rooms. Erus wanted to get her checked out.”

He snorted an annoyed sound as he spun on his heel and walked down another hall in the maze of rooms that made up our compound.

When I got to Teron’s room, the large Gryphon was standing with his hands raised, and the girl was lying on his bed, still seemingly out of it. The big guy was blocking Teron, and if I hadn’t realized he was a God before, I knew it now. He’d grown even taller, his body covered in runes, and his big ax glowing. Definitely an enchanted weapon.

Demke looked like he was one threatening swing away from throwing the guy back into the great abyss, but Erus and Teron stood between the two Gods. Demke wouldn’t do anything that might hurt them, even as collateral.

Still, I edged around them all to stand beside Erus, subtly putting my body between the guy and my other half. Despitewhat Milo said, I wasn’t prone to dramatics, so when I said Erus was my soulmate, I literally meant it. We were two halves of a single soul. Not two souls meant to be together, or anything so romantic. There literally could not be an Erus without me, and vice versa.

But over the years—thousands of them, in fact—I’d come to love him so much that if we had to die, I would want to go first, because the pain of losing him would be unimaginable. Even if it was for mere seconds before I followed him into the great abyss.

The big guy seemed to take in the presence of Milo, who easily rivaled him in size, and gritted his teeth. Teron, ever the level-headed one, waved Milo back. “Stay there please, Milonos.” He didn’t take his eyes from the guy. “I want to help. If I can just examine the girl, we can figure out if she needs to go to a human hospital. There may be issues with the child.”

“Children,” the big guy grunted, like it pained him, and Teron’s face got even more concerned. Even I knew enough about human medicine to know that multiple births were more dangerous for the mothers. “Fine, but theyallhave to leave.” He waved his ax at us all standing around like spectators at a tennis match.

Demke shook his head immediately, which I knew he would. There was no way he was leaving Teron alone, unprotected, with an unknown Mythic. Especially one with a weapon. “No.”

Teron threw him an exasperated look over his shoulder, but Demke’s expression never changed. They had one of those silent conversations, and eventually, Demke relented. I could tell, because his upper lip twitched infinitesimally.

“Milonos will stay,” Demke ordered. “If you make a move to hurt Teron, Milo will break you like your bones were made from chalk.”

I didn’t want to contradict our leader in front of strangers, but given the look of the big guy, if it came down to it, I wasn’t sure Milo could take him quite so easily.

---