Page 129 of The Hunger
We walked into the room, hand in hand, and Raiden crossed his arms to glare at Fenris.
“If you derail this conversation with trivial issues concerning Fenris and Eliana’s sex life, I will teleport them both to the other side of the globe where your little tracking spell won’t do you any good.” Megan looked at me and grinned wider. “Glad you took your time. Turns out, demanding confessions isn’t reserved for only the wicked. Good job brainwashing Adira so she can never touch Fenris again.” Her gaze shifted to Fenris. “You should have never agreed to the tracking spell. If your dad had tried sending you away, I would have just found you and brought you right back.”
Raiden’s face looked positively purple.
“The Kraken,” he bit out, “so we can go home already.”
“It took far longer than either of us would have liked,” Megan said with a nod to Adira. “But we managed to get what we needed from the Kraken. The gods had an earthly home on Cyprus. Turns out Mount Olympus truly was where they chilled. There are invisible palaces all over the place there. If any of the Greek gods were awake and causing trouble, that’s where they’d be.”
“While Megan monitored the mermaids, I returned home,” Adira said. “The nine realms remain quiet. No disturbances there or rumors of any god’s return.”
“Saturday, I’ll check out all the earthly leads,” Megan said.
“And I will do a more thorough search within the nine realms,” Adira added.
“Why not tomorrow?” Mrs. Quill asked.
“We need to do some more digging for information before we go guns blazing into places we know nothing about,” Megan admitted, and I could feel how much that rankled. “According to the Kraken, the remaining gods should continue to sleep unless something disturbs them. Which we don’t want to do. Adira and I are both going to spend the day researching. Given the enormity of what we’re looking for, it’s going to take time and help. I could use Fenris if you can spare him.”
Raiden’s gaze flicked between Megan and me. I could sense the man’s frustration and Fenris’s growing humor. Adira remained an eerily quiet void of emotion, watching us all.
“Adira, what do you think is most important? Controlling the youth or looking for answers,” I asked.
For a brief moment, her fear surged before she managed to smother it.
“Both determine our future.”
“A suitably vague answer,” I said, my vision sharpening.
“Fine. Fenris can join you, Megan,” Raiden said. “But he needs to return to pack territory by midnight. There are people he needs to meet.”
“Perfect.” She glanced at the pair of us. “I’ll see you both at my place at seven. Don’t be late. We have a lot to do.”
In a burst of heat and flames, she evaporated with Oanen.
“Is this what we’ve become?” Raiden demanded. “Lackeys to a teen fury who barely has her wings? She’s going to lead us down a path of destruction. We need to—”
“Hold your tongue, Raiden,” Adira said sharply.
“Yeah, Dad. The kids are listening,” Fenris said with a smirk. “Wouldn’t want us tattling to Megan about how you really feel.”
“Do you honestly believe that Megan will do a worse job than you all have been doing?” I asked Raiden. “Humans die and go missing on your watch, and now gods are waking. Things need to change.”
“Maybe all the changes that have been happening are the cause of the problems here. We didn’t have issues before Megan,” he said.
“Trammer was killing people well before she arrived because of this Council’s misguided attempts to lead. You should be thanking Megan for stepping up to try to fix the problems the leaders in Uttira have caused, either through direct inaction or gross abuse of power.” I knew very well my eyes had gone fully black. Raiden’s next words showed how little he feared it. How little he feared me.
“Let’s talk about this gross abuse of power. Do you mean making people do things they don’t want to do?”
I knew he was talking about me and wasn’t seeing how the Council had been doing the same thing. Only, unlike me, they’d been doing so purposely.
“Let go of your stubborn refusal to see the truth, Raiden,” I said.
“And what’s the truth?”
“That we all make mistakes. If we want to survive, we need to own up to them and work together to fix them. This division between us serves no purpose other than endangering the people we care about. I’m not sorry I told you to step aside. Just like I’m not sorry I’ve made it impossible for Adira to touch Fenris. However, I am sorry for unintentionally manipulating Anwen. That won’t happen again. But if you continue to push for separation between me and Fenris after today, I will take issue with that, and I will not hesitate to use my newly discovered gifts. The choice is yours.”
Raiden considered me for a long moment, and I felt some of his anger fade.
