Page 15 of The Goddess is Fierce
Everyone knew I was a god by now. If they hadn’t approached me in person, they were all over my social media. I was having random posts from when I was fifteen get thousands of likes and new comments. And I was an awkward little asshole at fifteen.
“Please don’t tell me the Academy of the Profane is going to use this for publicity and plaster random photos of me from campus or dodgeball practice on their website or brochures.”
“Honestly? A lot of them want to. If Church Senior wasn’t in charge and I wasn’t headmaster, they probably would. The rest of the board is salivating that a god is attending the Academy of the Profane, but Church Senior was a teacher and then headmaster. He’s well aware you’re a god, but he’s also smart enough to acknowledge you’re also an eighteen-year-old girl.
“He’s going to add additional security to campus. There’s going to be agents from the Paranormal Investigation Bureau patrolling. It’s not just so nosy paparazzi don’t crash and interrupt your studies. The boardshouldhave ordered it when the first student got butchered each time it happened. They couldn’t do much to stop a god, but they mightseesomething and report it to all the gods that are crashing here now.”
I nodded. From what I knew about my boyfriend’s grandfather, he was a hard-ass, but he was also a decent guy. My mom and aunt were terrified of him when they were students. They said he had been supportive and nurturing, but they had been so scared one of the guys they put in their place was going to complain and they’d get in trouble.
After they graduated, they found out a lot of those guysdidcomplain, Church did his due diligence and investigated, then told the guys they had it coming and not to bother him again. He never brought it up to my mom and aunt because he thought they didn’t do anything wrong and it wasn’t needed. If my secrethadto be out, Church Senior being board president was going to be a good thing.
“You let Baldur stay on campus,” Mags said. “That’s the only decision you’ve made so far that I’m questioning.”
“Because I don’t think it’s him. Back when my family was being shunned, my choices were essentially to work with humans or clean up some things for bad people. I never did anything illegal, and I never helped them get away with anything. It was more when they were playing around with dark magic they shouldn’t be touching and it backfired on them.
“Those people all have a certain look and feel about them. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about, Mags. If you dig really deep beyond what he’s giving off with his magic missing, Baldur doesn’t feel like that. Even if he can’t remember what happened during his blackouts, that kind of thing sticks to a person.
“Witches and warlocks in particular are in tune to that kind of thing. We might notknowwhat that feeling is until we’ve been around bad people and can put our finger on it. Baldur is awkward to be around because of his missing magic, but I’ve had more interactions with him than anyone in this room when we all thought he was just Sol in maintenance. He doesn’tfeellike he’s ever done anything dark. You’ll feel it, too, if you spendmore time around him. He needs help and when he gets his memories back, he could tell us who did this.”
Mags nodded and finally looked a little settled. Odin, Freya, and Azren could all tell her Baldur wouldn’t have done this before he died, but that was thousands of years ago, and he didn’t even remember that person. There was one thing Magscouldtrust—a witch or warlock’s intuition and especially Gabriel when it came to dark magic. Honestly, it settledmymind, too, because I felt drawn to Baldur and I didn’t want it to be him.
“You aren’t eating,” Matilda said. “I’m going to tell Mom.”
Gabriel probably would have worked through lunch, came home light headed, and then Mom would have fussed at him right before my dad fed him. Gabriel was doing more talking than eating because there was a lot to say, but honestly, he was capable of doing both.
“Sorry. Don’t tell your mom. There’s just a lot to say and you need to get to class after this. About why I called for you. I had a meeting with Church Senior and Azren. Since you’re the first and will probably be the only god to attend here, there’s not really a curriculum for you.
“You’ve been surrounded by a mixed bag of supernaturals your entire life, but we never knew your big power was to mimic, so we only ever gave you a solid background in witchcraft because we thought you could use it to pretend to be a witch for as long as you wanted.
“You’re already way more advanced than most of the freshmen witching classes and you don’t really need potions as a god. Youdoneed help learning how to use your mimic powers and you’ve always struggled with shapeshifting. Azren said gods can shapeshift into any kind of supernatural or animal, but they can’t use their powers and they don’t have the same senses. You can technically tap into all of that.
“We’ve decided to pull you out of some of your intro witch classes you either don’t need or I know we’ve already taught you. I’m going to be moving you into intro classes for shifters, vampires, and Fae because it’s all things you haven’t learned and need to. I thought it would be poetic justice to put you into intro to flying since you could sprout wings and do it if you wanted to, but Azren insisted getting revenge for all those times your brother flew you up in the air and tried to drop you wasn’t worth it because you’d never need to fly since you can portal.”
I didn’t want to be in intro to flying. It would be insanely cool and I always told Michael he looked like an asshole walking around with his wings out all the time, but that was just me giving him a hard time. His wings were fucking gorgeous, and he was insanely proud of them. Yeah, he might have tried to drop me a few times when we were kids, but now his wings and my skills were kind of our thing on the dodgeball field. I didn’tneedto fly when I could portal and I had my big brother.
“That’s actually kind of cool. And I do suck at shapeshifting. I could have class with Matilda, Church, Drake, and Ren and actually figure outhowI’ve been mimicking witches.”
“Azren is going to be working on that and your shapeshifting this semester. Your dad never cared about shapeshifting, so he never really pressed the limits like Azren and Loki have. You aren’t a trickster like Loki’s kid is, so it never clicked like it did with her when he tried to teach you.”
“This isso cool,” Matilda squealed. “You’ll be in my shifting classes and once you figure it out, we can shift and chase that guy you hexed in the dining hall all over campus. Hellhound beats bear.”
“And when you figure out the vampire thing, you can use the speed to give him wedgies. His ass and balls aren’t going to recover until they figure out how to break those hexes.”
“What happened in the dining hall?” Gabriel demanded.
“Some bear shifter named Eugene either wanted bragging rights or to elevate his station by joining my group and got gross about inviting me to the moon orgy. Then, he got grosser by suggesting Matilda join us. If he complained about getting punched and set on fire, it’s because he also said something gross in front of my guys. He’s nasty.”
“Ah. He was in here complaining about getting assaulted, but I’m aware of how he talks about people and hadn’t had time to look into the situation yet. I’ve found at least two complaints against Eugene so far that are serious enough to be strikes. Lindsey ignored them. If I find one more, he’s gone. His last name won’t save him. Church Senior is about to pull out the original charter Beatrix Halliwell wrote. A bunch of families are about to get pissed off that their kids are only getting into the Academy of the Profane if they have the test scores and not because of their last names. A world of opportunity is about to open up for countless students whodohave the test scores, but the spaces were filled up by people who didn’t.”
Which was how it should be. Matilda, Michael, and I got in because we were related to Gabriel, but we didn’t rely on that. We had some of the best test scores in our high school. Beatrix Halliwell founded all three Profane buildings on the site of the biggest supernatural massacre in this country to helpallsupernaturals. The library was open to everyone who didn’t intend to use the contents for evil. The museum had always been available for anyone to visit. The academy was supposed to educate everyone with the test scores to get in and it slowly became something different.
Gabriel clapped his hands.
“Now, the three of you need to get to class. You can report back to your mom I ate lunch with you and didn’t work through it now that I’m headmaster. George, I’ve emailed your new class schedule to you. You’ll start tomorrow.”
“I’m excited!” I squealed.
I was. Most of my classes were things my family had already taught me. I messed up in class when I was distracted, but I shouldn’t have because it was stuff I already knew.
