Page 16 of Discord
Reyson pushed his chair back, rose to his incredible height, then tossed his long black hair over his shoulder.
“We’ll see how she recruits and keeps her army together when she can no longer show a live feed of Talvath. Do you think if I made a video about how I plan to kill everyone involved in this and Balthazar posted it on social media, I could do that viral thing?”
The God of Chaos was one step away from asking for a cell phone and shirtless selfies.
10
Gabriel
This was totally unreal. I could not believe Minerva-fucking-Krauss had waltzed into the library and given us her journals! I thought Ripley was an amazing witch, but her twin sister was pretty fucking cool, too. She was just as intelligent as Ripley, but she came at this as an outsider and so provided a valuable fresh perspective.
She was right about a lot, and we had been doing Reyson wrong. We’d been totally ignoring him like he wasn’t an ancient deity who knew perfectly well how he’d stack up against a witch. We flipped out about Talvath and acted like we knew more about Reyson’s powers more than he did. He never said a single word about it, and he could have.
We all took a journal and piled onto the sectional to read. Reyson hadn’t offered to give Orion his body back, but when he asked Ravyn about her familiar, Orion hissed in my ear that he didn’t want that if they offered it. We were going to have to have a conversation about that when we were alone, because I couldn’t imagine why not.
My journal was fascinating, though it contained nothing that would help Balthazar or anything about picking a blood lock. She had been digging into some pretty ancient curses in the journal I had. Most people didn’t use these anymore, unless they were particularly nasty. No one knew how to break them, and so the victim would die a horrible death... and you’d for sure be arrested and put to death if you used one.
Her process was fascinating, and she documented everything throughly. I was so engrossed in my journal, I nearly jumped when Ripley let out a shriek.
“I love that woman. She figured out how to break any curse on a blood lock! She didn’t investigate how to open it if it’s the wrong blood… but we can disable the curse. Reyson, I know you’re immune, but I really don’t want to risk you getting hurt. How about we break the curse before you destroy the lock?”
Reyson just sat there, smirking.
“It sounds like you care about me, my witch.”
We all knew she did. She might not be ready to walk down the aisle with him just yet, but she was getting there. He might be a primordial god, but she needed to throw him a bone and admit it.
“You know I do, or I’d be setting you loose against someone going around claiming to have the power to control you. You’remine,and I’m not losing you to Silvaria.”
Reyson’s entire face lit up, and he couldn’t stop smiling. He’d watched the entire universe being born, but that moment made him so happy. I’ll be honest. I think everyone here wanted Ripley to claim them like that. I saw the way Bram looked at her. He might not be obvious about it like the rest of us, but he wanted in on it, too.
“You’re getting gross, Ripley,” Ravyn said.
“I’m allowed to be gross. They’re all amazing.”
“If only the you from two years ago could hear you now…”
“My life was full of punks and assholes then. Things change.”
“I found something in mine that should help Balthazar. Remember Helena Grimsbane from the academy? She—”
“Helena Grimsbane is my fucking ex!” Balthazar yelled. “She’s the one who cursed me!”
“Super not shocked there,” Ravyn said. “She had the same MO at the Academy of the Profane.”
“They expelled her for it, remember? A guy would take her out, and she’d get obsessed. If they so much as looked at another girl, she’d start threatening them. She’d stalk the guy until she eventually gave up and would then leave them with a nasty curse. The academy will forgive one little curse with a warning, but she did it again,” Ripley said.
Balthazar was furious.
“Why didn’t they tattoo a warning label on her forehead on the way out, so a vampire knew to run if she approached him in a bar.”
Why had no one called the Paranormal Investigation Bureau when they expelled her? Oh yeah... because dick curses were uncomfortable, but not fatal. Witches thought it was poetic justice, and warlocks were just glad it wasn’t their cock that time. Still, someone should have been watching this witch and someone should have taken her off the streets.
Yeah, it was dicks now, but if she was obsessing and stalking, then it was going to escalate. She would eventually cast something fatal, and when she did everyone would have to live with the fact that she could have been stopped.
Poor Balthazar. No one would help him because witches and warlocks always sided with their own. This girl was clearly unhinged, but they victim blamed him and wouldn’t help him.
That kind of shit made me furious. I had the grades for a scholarship at the Academy of the Profane. If I had gotten one, I wouldn’t have been so stupid as to get expelled over the opposite sex. No one ever wanted to date me when they found out my last name... which most people did by the second date, and then ghosted me. I took it in my stride though, I moved on and forgot about them. My ancestors might be unhinged, but I wasn’t.
