Page 25 of The Goddess is Fierce
Azren put their hand on Drake’s shoulder.
“I’ll take you to get it. Did you still want to risk it and try the lock with your blood?”
Baby Drake was keeping secrets from me. I didn’t know about secret boxes in his dorm room, but it sounded like a blood lock. If he was wrong about the box being his mom’s, the box could kill him.
At least there were enough gods here to fix it if Drake was wrong.
drake
. . .
It was time. This box had felt like a live grenade in my dorm room. I pulled it out and ran my hands over it every night before bed. It had been under that floorboard for a while, but not so long it couldn’t have been my mom’s. George confessed it had been her in my closet and not a ghost trying to help me, but so far, the campus ghosts had been super unhelpful and kind of violent when it came to your nut sack.
I didn’t really want to ask George or Oscar to summon Bethany again to ask about that box because I might say something nasty if she refused to help again. George and Azren could say things to ghosts the rest of us couldn’t, butthey couldn’t reallydoanything to Bethany to make her stop assaulting my nuts if she wanted to without her body and that was impossible to get.
Azren portalled me to my dorm room. There could be a major clue in this box or it could be nothing. It could answer everything Azren had been looking for when they got their feeling. Whoever was doing this could do it again at any moment. They’d been quiet lately, but they might escalate now that Freya was here. But Azren was always going to be Azren, and I loved them for it.
“You don’thaveto do this because you think everyone wants you to. Don’t open the box untilyou’reready. We know it’s not Baldur now and Freya is probably right. Someone either recognized him, thought he was harmless because he didn’t have magic, or they were causing his blackouts to set him up for the murders because he’d make a good suspect. Muninn will get here soon and Baldur will remember. We don’t all know each other, but he might have an idea.”
That was so Azren. Azren wanted to catch this god so badly, they could probably taste it. Only a god could hurt another god and killing them was next to impossible unless you knew their weakness. And god weaknesses were weird random shit. Baldur was the biggest man I’d ever seen across two realms and could literally die if he got scratched by a tiny plant like mistletoe.
Azren didn’t play by those rules. They could pull someone’s essence out of their body and put it in one of their little jars until they decided to let them out. Azren told me they’d done that to a ton of misbehaving gods who thought that was just an urban legend. I was guessing whoever was murdering witches while Azren was on campus thought it was just a rumor, too.
But I wasn’t doing this because I thought it was expected of me. I’d been watching Baldur come through all of this a stronger person. He didn’t know what would happen either, but he approached George and asked her to bring him to Azren justlike I didn’t know if I had all my hopes up that I’d find a clue in this box. Baldur found his dad and he would get his memories back soon. I had to hope it would work out for me, too.
I just smirked at Azren.
“You’ve known me most of my life. When have Ieverdone anything I didn’t want to do because I thought other people expected it?”
Azren fell out laughing.
“Pretty much never, even when Ketura wanted to wring your little neck. You ruined that school play, by the way.”
“I regret nothing. Basilisks aren’t meant to play sheep. Take us back.”
The room feltmuchdifferent in the few minutes we were gone. The tension was gone. Baldur was looking more like a light god and less like a beaten-down man now that he knew he hadn’t killed anyone. Matilda and Mags weren’t giving him stink eye anymore because they knew that, too. Everyone knew Baldur wasn’t married anymore and he and George felt something.
Everyone was trying to get to know each other. I’d give it to Odin. George was still a young god, and she told us she and Michael kind of wrecked Odin’s house when they were kids, but he seemed to like the idea of George and Baldur together. Odin and Freya looked like co-conspirators on the loveseat watching them together with content smiles on their faces.
Yeah, never let it be said that Drake Nathara didn’t know how to ruin a whole mood. George and Baldur could figure out where this was going and we could all get nasty at the next moon orgyafterI figured out if my mom left a clue behind in this box. Of course, I could prick my finger on the lock and find out itwasn’tmy mom’s box. It would ruin my day in more ways than one until a god healed me so whatever nasty curse in the blood lock didn’t kill me or make my hand rot off.
I understood now that not all witches were evil, even after what Kaylee did with my hair, but if you were dealing with something made by a witch designed to keep people out, you should probably keep out if it wasn’t meant for you.
“So, I found this box in my dorm room. It was under the floorboards and it’s got carvings of Basilisks on it. All Azren and I have been able to find out is that a student was randomly attacked with an arrow shortly before my mom went home for break and never came back. No one knew she was thinking of dropping out, not even her roommate.
“Church, your grandfather was headmaster then. He told Azren my mom was at the top of her class and wasn’t the type to get burnt out and drop out. She met my dad and had me shortly. They were murdered by someone they didn’t see, but told the reaper was so powerful, they could feel them coming. I also know they were living in a small town in the middle of nowhere like they might be hiding from someone. I think the reason she dropped out is in this box.”
George had been wrapped up with Baldur because it looked like he needed her. Azren could have healed me if anything bad happened, but George didn’t treat us like we were minions here to worship her. She was amazingly supportive of all of us. If I was about to risk a possible deadly curse and find out this box didn’t contain any answers, she was going to hold my hand and heal me herself.
I came to this realm hoping to find answers and only knowing Azren. I thought I was content to just get an education and answers, but I was so wrong. I loved my girlfriend. I loved my friends. It meant so much to open this box with these people.
I didn’t know what would happen or if George was going to have to cure me before a curse took hold, but I shifted the ornate cover on the blood lock and pricked my finger.
azren
. . .
Ialways wanted more answers for Drake. When Ketura came home with a baby from another realm and told me why she wanted to raise him in mine, I was hesitant at first. Ketura didn’t play fair. She told me something powerful and unknown killed his parents to get me interested and then shoved a fat little baby Basilisk in my arms because I’d always loved kids and she knew that.
