Page 25 of Battle of Witches
“Actually, we can’t. Asfrid knows better because I told her how she was created. Reyson was only trying to give Felix his body back to impress Ripley. Felixshouldhave only come back as a warlock, but his essence had been marked as a familiar. So, it was all a big accident Felix and Killian ended up hybrids.
“It doesn’t work like that with other magical creatures because they already have a body full of god magic. New magic usually conflicts with that, and they just turn into this really nasty puddle of goo. I never personally tried it, but some of the other gods used to do that as punishment.
“Creating a hybrid is just like creating a new species. It’s similar to making a golem, but you use the four elements instead of just mud. You put your magic and intention into what you want it to be in the body, and onlythendo you bring it to life. You can pretty much get freaky adding whatever magic you want when it’s a lifeless vessel, but once it’s a person, that’s a big no-no unless you want to wash people goo out of your hair.”
As a certified dork, I had about a million questions for Loki about how everyone was created because no one really knew, and everyone had their theories. Most of the gods put out their own creation stories and sometimes took credit for the primordial’s work. Witches knew damned well Lilith made us, but I didn’t know how and up until recently, I didn’t know she made demons and Hell, too. I couldn’t properly geek out now that I was dating a god because of Asfrid. I hoped we got to kill her soon.
“Well,youknow that, and nowweknow that, but is Asfrid privy to that fact?” Killian asked.
“I don’t think facts matter to her,” Bjorn said.
“I mean, Ithink?When you create something, you have to teach them everything. I wasn’t interested in starting a legacy based on lies. I wasn’t going to tell them I created them with farts and rainbows. They know how they were created, but one of the things I used to like about Asfrid before I found out she was a psychopath who even managed to gaslight fuckingmewas that she was always curious and trying to do the impossible. I just don’trememberevery conversation I’ve ever had, and every time we learn something new, I try to remember little details. It’s worse than being constipated.”
“Maybe we don’t need tiny details,” Killian said. “The whole concept that people are born evil has always been used to oppress or murder people that the majority is uncomfortable with. They used that kind of shit to justify slavery, witch hunts, and all sorts of nastiness. I didn’t really believe that shit the first time I was alive, and I don’t think it now.
“There’s always a moment or series of moments that lead to every villain and hero’s origin story. Even if you weren’t there to experience it with them, it’s there. Our experiences shape us. Not everyone with the mutation on the so-called serial killer gene ends up a murderer. I could have lived and died a pompous wanker who thought he was better than everyone because of my last name. It was how I was raised. It was who my fatherexpectedme to be. I idolized my tutor more than my father andchoseto be better.”
He chose to bethe best.Seriously, I had been a dramatic teenager who grew up to be a semi-dramatic adult. I had horrible taste in men for the longest time and had a kink for playing with dangerous shit. When I was at the Academy of the Profane, I wasn’t the best at listening to him when he warned me that I would get caught and end up in jail if I broke into the Museum of the Profane to play with the things they couldn’t put out to the public.
Killianneverlost his temper with me, even when I was being stupid. He learned a lot from that tutor because he always guided me with zero judgment and humor. Of course, I was older now, and when he spoke, I always listened, even if I might not like what he was saying.
I happened to agree with him. Ripley told me Reyson never tried his hand at creation because of what his god powers were, but I justkneweven with the most chaotic of god powers, that didn’t create evil beings. Maybe I would think that if I hadn’t met Bjorn, but he was utter perfection. He could keep up with my sarcasm, but there wasn’t an evil bone in that massive, muscular frame with abs I just wanted to lick.
Bjorn was living proof of Killian’s theory. He was created by Loki just like Asfrid was and raised and taught by him.Somethinghappened when they hid in that cabin from Odin, that was Asfrid’s origin story. It was probably the key to stopping her, too.
“Okay, you three were there. Let’s figure this shit out.”
Chapter20
Loki
Ever since I grew into a man, I could always count on my mind to get me out of any situation. Even when I was chained in a cave with snake venom dripping on my face, Iknewthe people I counted on as real friends would get me out of there. This? Asfrid continued to trick me, and I didn’t like it. If she were just causing a little good old-fashioned mayhem to people who deserved it, I would be so fucking proud of her, but this was a little extra.
Still, ifIcouldn’t figure this out alone, I had a lot of brains here that didn’t think like me but were delicious brains all the same. Ravyn was the only person here who wasn’t thousands of years old or on her second lifetime, but my girlfriend was utterly brilliant, and I was honored to have her in our war room.
“I don’t think history got it right,” she said.
“Pardon?” I said.
“Someone gave them the name the Cult of the Aether Sisters ages ago, and it stuck, but they weren’t all women, right? You didn’t create another seer because you were making sure Bjorn could handle it. You didn’t get a chance to figure that out because Bjorn went into the pocket dimension with Sleipnir.
“You didn’t create a harem of female hybrids to worship you. I know you well enough to know that’s just not your style. You meant them to have relationships and multiply, so there were male hybrids too, right?”
Was this witch perfect or what? She was sexy as fuck, and she justgotme. Yeah, it would be easy to assume they were all women created to lick my asshole when it amused me, and I did something to make them betray me. But that wasn’t my style. That was the kind of shit Zeus would do. I didn’t even like sharing the same universe with him.
I yanked her in my lap and squeezed her. Sheneverblamed me for any of them. Ravyn heard me out when she found out I wasn’t a warlock. She wasn’t even mad at me when Asfrid cursed Killian, and I couldn’t wake him. I was keeping this one. Killian, too.
“You’re correct, as usual. There were five men and five women among my hybrids. I never policed their relationships or tried to force them into one. When Charlemagne became emperor, the Dark Ages were a little less dark. Legends from other countries were starting to spread. The story of my hybrids was making their way everywhere the descendants of Vikings were moving, too.
“Everything was word of mouth then, and it was like a game of telephone. Hybrids became witches because the concept of hybrids was too foreign. They were given the name you know by a woman-hating, vampire historian because it was the fucking Dark Ages, and he wanted to use that tragedy to try to keep powerful women in their place. So, hybrids turned into witches, and men and women turned into only women. The whole thing is insanely stupid.”
“So, if Asfrid was actually interested in populating the world with hybrids, she could have done it the old-fashioned way that guaranteed there would probably still be hybrids in the world today. Instead, she made everyone in her villagefearthem enough to kill her to come back now when shestillcan’t make a hybrid unless she puts it up to chance by giving birth. Except she sacrificed the other male hybrids and took up with fuckingValentine, so she might end up with a wolf pup. And I already know Valentine isn’t going to have a kid until he’s done slutting his way around the globe and finds someone young enough to be his daughter with questionable intelligence who wants to raise his kid and be a mother to a middle-aged werewolf, too,” Ravyn said.
“It was before my time, but even though childbirth was dangerous and you and your child could die, everyone had kids left and right. We weren’t like the humans who had no birth control at all, but you needed an heir to continue your line, and then you needed a few spares in case they died. It’s not just lineage, either. People had children to help farm the land so they could eventually stop working. None of this makes sense,” Killian said.
“Children were a blessing in our time, too, but they weren’t guaranteed to survive to adulthood. It was also a savage time. Sometimes, the humans would go to the supernaturals for remedies to not get pregnant. Others didn’t trust them. If a baby happened and it was sickly, or they just couldn’t afford to feed it, they’d leave it outside to die. I’m glad things aren’t like that anymore,” Bjorn said.
“Loki taught them the appropriate birth control magic for their type of magic so they wouldn’t have children until they were ready. So, they were all quite young as far as creations go and mostly in their teenager phase when everything went down,” Sleipnir said.
