Page 51 of The Goddess is Angry
I groaned. I’d been around West long enough to know that was true.
“I didn’t realize he was going to get so butthurt about it.”
“West is a giant orange cat. Seriously?” Drake said.
I started giggling. That was true. I took the muffins out of the oven and Drake showed me how George liked her coffee. We put it on a tray and when we went in my bedroom, she was adorably sprawled out on my bed with her arm flung over her head.
“Is she drooling?” Drake whispered.
“Welcome to married life. Did Mags say how she wakes the twins up?”
“I’m guessing she wakes George up differently than Matilda. What if she zaps us?”
“Hold the tray.”
I really didn’t know how cranky she was in the morning but she probably wasn’t going to zap us if Mags woke her up every day. Still, she was in an unfamiliar place and might panic. I grabbed the coffee tumbler from Drake and started kissing her cheeks.
“Five more minutes,” she groaned. “Is that coffee?”
Her eyes cracked open, and I passed the tumbler over. Drake slid the tray into her lap. She immediately took a sip.
“Oh, wow. The coffee is perfect, and this smells amazing. You two are going to spoil me.”
She needed to get used to being spoiled. George was a god. Breakfast in bed was pretty minor.
“Can we talk about the hearts?” Drake asked. “They are clearly symbolic of something.”
“Why the Academy of the Profane and independent study students,” George said. “I get that students can be easy hunting, but they went for some of the stronger students.”
“Maybe they wanted a challenge,” I mused.
“No,” Drake said. “Even though she’s a freshman, George is the strongest witch at school. If they were targeting strong witches, why didn’t they go after George? I’m not wishing that, but she fits the profile.”
She did because of the necklace. No one could have known her secret because she was careful. She hadn’t made these huge displays of power, but you could feel it coming off of her. I thought it was independent study students, but it was gifted witches. It was too soon for her to be asked to do independent study, but she kind ofwaswith me. Following her would have confirmed I was tutoring her. Church did it.
I still didn’t know who was doing this or why. I didn’t know why they gifted the hearts to Freya. But the big mystery was why they hadn’t gone after George when everyone thought she was the strongest witch at the Academy of the Profane.
She was also the only one who could fight back because she very much wasn’t a witch.
oscar
Yule break was amazing, but we all missed George. We missed Church and Drake, too, but I wasn’t dating them. We were back at the Academy of the Profane. George’s family was there with her and her dad Bram pulled me aside. I wasn’t quite sure why. He was massive and covered in tattoos and piercings.
“So, my wife loved the painting you did for her Yule gift. You probably don’t know this, but demon and Hellhound magic lies in runes. Most of us have them tattooed on us. Matilda has several where her ballet and cheerleading uniforms won’t show.
“I learned how to pierce and tattoo before my kids were born and run a shop just outside the supernatural market. Gabriel draws for us sometimes. George says you have your heart set on doing magical tattoos. You’re an amazing artist and I have a bruja on staff who’s looking to take an apprentice. She’s a little insane, but everyone at the shop is. Rosita is a fantastic mentor and everyone she’s taught has won awards. Their books fill out months in advance. I texted her photos of the painting and the drawings you’ve been giving George.
“She said if you’re willing to do the work, she’ll work around your school and dodgeball schedule. We both decided if an apprenticeship is too much on top of all that, we’d let you draw custom flash. Our shop is all custom work, but sometimes we post art we’ve done for people to get tattooed. We’ll pay a commission if someone chooses your design and the apprenticeship will be waiting when you graduate.”
Holy shit. That would fix the fact that I refused to ask my family for money, but didn’t have a source of income right now. Pro dodgeball teams might come knocking again now that the Academy of the Profane had a team. They probably would, but I had massive amounts of self-respect and may or may not tell them to get fucked.
I loved dodgeball. I was good at it. I’d make enough money to take care of my family and retire comfortably. I’d be able to travel the world. Dodgeball didn’t complete my soul like art did. Getting an apprenticeship wasn’t easy. Getting one with a bruja who could teach me magical tattooing the way I was created to do, was just lucky. George was lucky.
“School and dodgeball practice are a lot and I still need time for George. I’dloveto draw custom flash until I graduate and do the apprenticeship then.”
“Excellent. Your style is different from the other artists at the shop, so it’ll bring us new clients. If someone has an idea for a custom design and you’re the better fit, we’ll send it to you. This way, when you finally come in to apprentice, you may already have fans of your work. If you can learn to tattoo as well as you draw, by the time you finish your apprenticeship, you should have people willing to fill your books up.
“You’re also going to want to start social media accounts with your art. It comes with the territory. We have three artists at the shop and we all have different styles and mentor differently. Rosita has been with me from the beginning and everything we’re offering you was her brainchild years ago. She’ll send you requests once you have your social media set up.”
