Page 30 of The Goddess is Angry
I looked when I heard Mina gasp, but she had permission to look. There had definitely been a witch and two warlocks standing there, but now I was looking at a black cat with white fur on his face, a bat, and George’s familiar who was sent away from the academy for pissing on a warlock after he assaulted Matilda.
What.the.fuck?
Mags was a witch. I spent enough time around her with George that there was absolutely no doubt about that. I just met Felix and Killian, but they were definitely warlocks. Everyone knew George’s familiar because it was this massive black dog whose breed no one had ever seen before.
We were all just sitting there questioning our life choices that a witch and two warlocks just turned into animals when West fell out laughing.
“Is that a dick on the cat’s face?”
I turned my head to the side. I should be losing my shit about all of this, but Felix’s cat was all black except for his face. The white fur on his face was definitely in the shape of a dick.
“I gave him that dick shortly before I gave him his body back. Felix, Killian, and Mags started out as familiars. Felix was Ripley’s, Killian was Ravyn’s, and Lilith hand delivered Mags to George and Matilda’s delivery room to be a familiar to both of them. I tried it with Felix because my witch was mad about the dick on his face, but it amused me, so I was never going to remove it. So, I did it again with Killian and later with Mags when the girls were kids.”
“So, what are you?” Mina asked.
“I’m a witch who lived a long time ago and died. Lilith personally asked me if I’d like to stay in the Aether and be reborn with no memories or come back as a familiar and get the chance to mentor twins Lilith wanted looking after. I’ve always been a lesbian, even when I had to hide it the first time I was alive.
“When Reyson gave me my body back, it was ten-year-old me. I had to go through puberty again right alongside my wards. Matilda and I fell in love and have been together for years. I was just going to be at the academy as a dog, but then Azren took over as headmaster and managed to get me on as a student.
“Then, Matilda and I met you and you’re completely perfect. Understand, I didn’t want to keep this from you since you’ve become important to us, but I’m a hybrid now. You’re open minded and I know I’m not in any danger from anyone in this room, but other people aren’t going to react the same way, so I had to find therighttime to tell everyone.”
We were all holding our breath waiting for Mina to answer.Ididn’t think it was a huge deal. Ren was technically a hybrid, it was just that no one called them that because of all the negative connotations with hybrids. Even West hadn’t said anything.
“It doesn’t change anything,” Mina said. “It’s actually badass because you can do totally covert stuff and if you have shifter senses too, you can help stop someone from getting murdered again.”
“Wait, do you have shifter senses?” West asked.
“Yeah, I do,” Mags said.
“Awesome. Next time the God of Death wants someone to sniff a corpse, that’s all you, cupcake. I’m a very sensitive lion.”
Loki started laughing.
“Really, Azren? Azren tried to do that to me once, but I’m going to break some of the God of Death’s mystique. Azren can shapeshift just as well as I can and is perfectly capable of sniffing their own dead bodies.”
“Don’t listen to Loki,” Azren said. “He’s a trickster, and he’s just fucking with me. Time was of the essence and if the Paranormal Investigation Bureau was going to solve this, they would have by now. I knew as soon as they found us, they were going to shoo us away, but they even dismissedmewhen I went back alone. But no, West, you can help in different ways.”
“How do we stop it from happening again?” Mina demanded.
“I’m working on it. I’m not trying to frighten anyone and thiscannotleave this room, but a god appears to be using the Academy of the Profane as a killing ground. The board and the Paranormal Investigation Bureau did such a massive coverup that I can’t even guess how they are choosing their victims or why it suddenly stops. Church’s grandfather said I might be able to piece togethersomethingfrom old paper records in a dusty basement, so I’m having boxes brought up from the years I had this same feeling, but as I said, I don’t have a ton to go on.”
“Why would a god be interested in college students?” Oscar asked. “Like, Kaylee tried to hex George in the back and she and Paris are terrible. Reyson is just trying to get them expelled.”
“Most godsaren’tinterested in college students,” Reyson said. “Most of them aren’t even interested in mortals anymore. They’ve gone back to their realms so they don’t have to deal with them. Even back when there were more of us here, no one was interested in killing them. Creative punishments aremuchmore our style. I couldn’t tell you who would do this and why.”
“And some of us prefer complicated, flawed mortals over the gods in our family,” Loki said.
It was honestly a lot. There was a god brutally murdering people on campus and the other gods didn’t know who.
And my girlfriend was keeping an even bigger secret than Mags being a hybrid and her familiar.
george
Iwasn’t worried about dinner. I knew my guys and my family were going to get along. I wasn’t worried about Dexter or Mina, either. I knew Mags was stressing about telling Mina her secret and she picked a safe space to do it. It was a safe space to reveal mine, too, but I didn’t want to step on Mags's big reveal and make it seem like I was trying to overshadow her.
I was bummed Freya wasn’t there. She told me what she looked like when she was in her true vessel, but I’d only ever spoken to her as a tiny, gray-haired witch. I could talk to her for hours and it wasn’t always curse stuff. She wasn’t just a god who had been around for a long time. Freya was different from the other gods I knew.
She’d lived countlessmortallifetimes in the bodies of witches. Freya lived for eighteen years with no magic, then had to deal with thinking she was insane when her god memories started to come in. Freya did theseamazingthings as a mortal witch and that resonated with me because of my necklace.
