Page 13 of The Goddess is Fierce
West gasped.
“You shut your mouth. Don’t compare my precious dodgeball to that.”
“Anyway, we hit him withtwohexes from back then. I know how to break them and Minerva Krauss probably would have figured it out in a day, but she was also a genius. Modern witches are going to takemuchlonger to break those hexes. Trust me, they are terrible. The menfolk tried to make them illegal back in my day.”
“I hate him,” Belladonna said. “Just tell me if it’s worse than losing all his body hair when he shifts or leaking puss out of his butt?”
“Didn’t you have a feud with him in high school?” Church asked. “I always thought it was because you didn’t like shifters, but now you’re dating one. I’m guessing there’s more to the story than I initially thought.”
“He tried more than just words with me. Eugene cornered me in the library and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I didn’t have my magic yet, so no super speed or strength to get away. One of the senior vampires was in there late. He wasn’t eighteen yet either, but neither was Eugene. He was able to chase him off. I put him in his place twice after that, but I had to use my wits instead of anything vampire related.”
“I’m sorry. I wish we’d been better friends in high school. I had magic. I could have helped.”
“No, I get it. I was terrible in high school. My parents really wanted you in my hive and they kept pressuring me about it. I didn’t want any of the men they kept pushing at me, so I pretended like I did and just acted like a vile bitch so none of you really wanted me.”
“Well, I’m glad you stood up to your parents and are with someone you care about because you’re actually pretty cool,” Church said.
“What did the bear do? He asked us to rate your performance at the moon orgies, so West hit him and I set his shoes on fire. I would hope he was a little more tactful addressing a god.”
“He wasn’t,” Matilda said.
George filled the rest of the guys in on what happened before they got there. They were all pretty pissed.
“Guys, chill. I knew people were going to treat me differently when I took the necklace off. Eugene got gross about it, but this is going to happen again. I lost my virginity to a guy who was justusing me because of my dad. He didn’t even knowIwas a god. People are going to be trying to get close to me because of what they think I can do for them. Alotof them are going to try to get me at moon orgies, either because they think I’ll fall for them or they just want bragging right. I can deal with it.”
I sat back in my chair. I got her a little bit more. I understood she originally had the necklace for her safety, but I was pretty sure she kept it on so long because she just wanted to be treated like every other person.
I didn’t need to say anything to her other guys. We needed to shield her from that as much as we could.
george
. . .
Almost everyone who didn’t grow up with me seemed shocked about what went down in the dining hall with Eugene. Belladonna wasn’t because she’d had a similar experience. Even Drake seemed surprised and he grew up with Azren. I was guessing Azren shielded him from a lot of the stuff that came with being a god.
My parents prepared me for this. My mom tried to teach me not to take it to heart. Most of my dads told me not to let it go to my head. My dad and my uncle told me to use it to my advantage. If I liked it the first time it happened, find a way tomake it happen again on my terms. If I hated everything about it, make a giant show about it to deter other people from doing it.
Tossing Eugene around the dining hall was child’s play. Mags had an arsenal of medieval hexes and curses that no one immediately knew how to curse in modern times and were so nasty, some of the men got together and tried to get them outlawed as dark magic. I was pretty sure I made a point, but I also knew there were going to be more people like him.
As we were walking to history, I was surprised at the number of students coming up to me to thank me for what I did to Eugene. It wasn’t just freshmen, and it wasn’t just women. He didn’t proposition the men. He was a fucking bully and everyone was worried about retaliating because his dad was a judge.
I thought I was just making a point and deterring a few people, but I actually made a few friends. Most of them knew I was on the dodgeball team and that I was good at it. They would have come to cheer the team on, but now they had other reasons to root for me.
We took our seats in history. Kaylee was gone now. I would have thought most of her minions wouldn’t want to be associated with her anymore after she threw an illegal potion at me in front of everyone and ended up getting it on Oscar. I mean, it made sense to me when I woke up, but gods weren’t omnipotent and I’d been wrong before.
Paris jumped in front of me before I could get to my desk. Her hair waswrecked.She had to have spent hours and a ton of money at the salon getting it untangled after she mouthed off to Loki, but it was still damaged to all fuck. She probably should have just cut it short and let it grow back out. I was pretty sure Paris was one of those girls who thought short hair was just for lesbians. Pixie cuts were for everyone and were cute as fuck.
She looked like she wanted to start some shit with me. I sighed and made a motion with my hand for her to proceed.Paris was a stronger witch than Kaylee was. If she wasn’t lazy, she could have easily graduated from the Academy of the Profane with honors. Paris didn’t need to ass kiss Kaylee Krauss to graduate. She just needed to apply herself.
“You have a lot of nerve bullying Eugene, George. He’s an awesome guy. He grew up with my cousin and came to every one of my birthday parties. Eugene can’t help that he ate too much paste in kindergarten and it affected him as an adult.”
I leaned forward and she clinched her fists like she was trying not to fling a hex at me.
“Based on thenumerouspeople who came up to me on my way to class, Eugene is the bully and he has massive consent issues. A lot of the women who approached me have said he cornered them and the only reason he stopped was because they used their magic and made him or in the case of a fourteen-year-old vampire with no magic, another vampire came in and stopped him.
“From what I understand, most people are too afraid to fight back because of who his daddy is, but he’s been hexed before. Well, my daddy outranks his daddy.Ioutrank him, too. Your boy tried the wrong thing with someone stronger than him and got put in his place. That’sexactlyhow the supernatural world works. And it’s something you should keep in mind because Kaylee forced me to reveal my secretwaybefore I wanted to, so I’m not hiding anymore. How long were you in the salon after you pissed Loki off?”
Paris paled and ran her hand over her hair. She scurried to her desk. Honestly, Paris had one of those faces that would look adorable with a pixie cut, but she was too scared to do it. Her hair was probably just as important to her as West’s was to him. I could tell that just from the look on her face when I brought up what Loki did.
