Page 45 of The Goddess is Angry
“Oh, then I don’t like her, either.”
“That’s my witch,” Drake said, smacking her on the ass.
Ketura and I shared a glance. What was that about? She seemed to like it, but it was very much not Drake. Or maybe it was, and I just hadn’t seen him around a girl he was into before. George would have corrected him if she didn’t like it. And based on that blush on her cheeks, she did.
Dinner was going to be interesting.
george
Azren’s realm was beautiful and Drake’s mom was amazing. Azren put a lot of care into their realm. The colors were so different from the realm I grew up in and the stars and moon were bigger and brighter. The greenery wasn’t all that green. Back home, we had evergreen branches decorating our place. Ketura had branches all over her living room and theysmelledsimilar to evergreen, but they were silver.
Yule was a special holiday for supernaturals. When the humans turned on them, Yule was the only one they didn’t have to celebrate in secret because humans had coopted some of the traditions for their own holiday.
But we were like humans in a lot of ways. Some people hated the holidays for legitimate reasons. Having magic didn’t guarantee a great childhood or a happy family as an adult. It was common to meet people who hated Yule on Earth.
It didn’t seem to be like that in the Netherworld. Ketura and Azren didn’t like her neighbor because she had been terrible to Drake when he was younger, but even the neighbor seemed to have the Yule spirit.
I had a great time meeting Drake’s mom. I knew he was hyper focused on trying to figure out who murdered his parents, but he adored Ketura and she wassoproud of him. I found out everyone in Azren’s realm had to reap for five years, then they were free to take whatever job they wanted or continue reaping.
Ketura was on her last year reaping when she found a baby stashed under the sink at a brutal murder scene.
“It was fate,” Ketura said. “Drake never made a sound. His parent’s ghosts told me where he was and what his name was. His mom said her parents died in a car accident and his dad said his parents were bad people who made their money selling black market Basilisk parts to dark witches. They didn’t want Drake near that and wanted me to bring him somewhere they couldn’t get custody.
“Drake was an adorable baby. He had that red hair back then, and he was a little chonker. He smiled at me and I was a goner. With his parent’s blessing, I took him back to the Netherworld.”
“You can’t tell my girlfriend I was a fat baby,” Drake groaned.
“Pics or it didn’t happen,” I laughed.
“She’s going to whip out all my mortifying baby pictures now and my revenge is going to be epic for asking.”
“My parents told some pretty mortifying stories about when we were kids when you met them. My mom also decided to dissuade you of the notion that every witch on our realm was after your toenails by whipping out the Library of the Profane’s collection of Basilisk smut.”
Azren started giggling.
“I wish I could have taken a photo of your face when Ripley dropped that on you.”
“Someone should have told me about that before I got blindsided by a kinky librarian!”
“Well, we thought about it, but a lot of them are more about fetishizing how venomous you are than being accurate. Most of these writers are writing about what theythinkbeing with a Basilisk is like. None of them have actually been with a Basilisk before. I have, thousands of years ago. You only need to worry about dying if you don’t listen when they say stop or you’ve got some weird kinks that involve eating hair or toenails. Sexual fluids are only venomous if they want them to be.”
I had a feeling a lot of that was for me, but it was too late. I’d already been thoroughly fucked by Drake, had no problem with consent, and I wasn’t into eating hair and toenails.
“We thought it would upset you,” Ketura said. “You kind of ran with the whole hatred of witches thing.”
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
“Now, you two have presents for her back at Azren’s place. You two had better treat this one right.”
Ketura knew about Azren and me. I dropped hints, but I hadn’t told my parents yet. I wasn’t ashamed of Azren, but my dad and Azren went way back and I was worried about ruining their friendship. I needed to do that.
Azren held out their arm.
“I live a few blocks from Ketura. We’ll take the long way and walk.”
I didn’t mind walking. Icouldportal and I did sometimes, but I also enjoyed walking. My dad had taken me hiking at some of his old haunts around the globe and told me stories. Bram had done the same in Hell. It meant a lot I was getting to do the same with Azren and Drake.
Drake pointed out the park he played at when he was a kid. I’ll say this for Netherworld playground equipment. It didn’t look like it was designed by someone who hated kids. It looked fun, but no one was going to break an arm and no kindergartner was going to burn their ass on that slide in summer because they didn’t make it out of material you could fry an egg on.
