Page 40 of The Goddess is Fierce
“Thanks, Baldur,” George said. “I can’t wait to see your Hydra when you’re done. I have to meet Azren to look at the other forge and see if that gives us any hint about why the arrow is important. Also, if we get our tokens to the speakeasy, we are kidnapping you and making you come party with us.”
I grinned.
“Can’t wait.”
I watched her go with a smile. I felt like I wasn’t helping because I couldn’t remember anything and I didn’t have my magic. But I’d actually done something today. And it was allthanks to what I thought was useless information from the campus ghosts over a hundred years ago.
george
. . .
It was a lot to take in. The forge Baldur had been working on was hot, but I didn’t sense any magic coming from it. Azren had been teaching me to play with their magic in our private lessons. I might not be a master at it and couldn’t really manipulate an essence like Azren could just yet, but I knew what it felt like. After Azren pointed out there was some in that arrow, I could feel it. There wasn’t any coming from Baldur’s forge.
There hadn’t been any magic used on the forge at all. Mags, Matilda, and West had scented the arrow. We didn’t know what it was made of, but they knew what it smelled like. I don’t think we expected to find Baldurusingit and all the scents out therewere overwhelming because of it but they didn’t smell anything similar out there.
That left Shrieking Woods. My dad met Azren and me to lead us to the cottage before dodgeball practice. The only reason I knew Zion and the coach from the other team we’d be playing had some kind of beef with each other was because my uncle had a vision. Zion would have called it bitching to even mention it to us, but he was beingbrutalat practice. I loved every minute of it.
“I know we’re trying to be sensitive to Hale and his ties to the Fae Court, but the three people in our group who have the killer’s scent aren’t going to be out there with us. West is going to make you grovel for a very long time about using his nose like that, by the way.”
Azren sighed.
“I really like West. If I’d known it was going to upset him, I wouldn’t have asked. Is this one of those gift giving situations? Should I get him a card or something? Is there a certain apology flower you send when you ask a shifter to smell a dead body?”
My dad was just walking with us giggling like an unhinged psychopath. Azren was taking this very seriously and West might end up with a dorm full of flowers and gifts at this rate.
“Just be super nice to him. He was probably only upset about it for five minutes after it happened. He keeps bringing it up because you’re nice to him after.”
“Be honest, am I mean to the others? I don’t know them as well as I know Drake and I’m trying. I’m just limited since I’m your teacher.”
“Azren, you’re nice toallof them and they really like you. West just likes getting compliments because he gives them out so freely, so he’s kind of gaslighting you about this.”
Gabriel fell out laughing.
“And you fell for it too. West is a shifter. He smellseverything.He’s probably smelled much worse. The kid wasapparently a bit of a criminal before he got community service at a school for the deaf and decided that was what he wanted to do with his life. West has probably smelled some shit.”
“Ah, fuck,” Azren sighed. “I do like that lion.”
“Just be aware, Ren will probably do it, too, and his weakness is Oscar. You bumped up a ton of notches with him when you realized Oscar was deaf and just started signing your lectures and never stopped. Most of our professors don’t and some of them even stand in front of West when they are walking around doing their lectures and Oscar can’t see. Church doesn’t give a shit how you treat him. He likes you because you treatmewell.”
My dad seemed to find all this endlessly amusing, and I was so going to rat him out to my mom for giving my boyfriend a hard time.
“We all love you and George together but right now, I’m seriously enjoying the fact that the big bad God of Death also has to worry about the approval of some college students if they want to date my kid.”
I was about to threaten to bring the wrath of my mom down on Gabriel, but Azren started laughing, too, so I guess I wouldn’t threaten him with my mom just yet.
“It’s kind of fucked up, isn’t it? I never really thought I’d have anything with another god because of who I am, but when I find her, she comes with college students and one lion with a few misdemeanors. Except I really like all of them, even when one of them is trolling me to kiss his ass.”
“The cabin is up this way. We can’t see him, but Hale will already know we are here. He’ll make himself known when he wants to.”
“I’m right behind you.”
The voice behind us was frankly creepy as fuck. I knew there weren’t deranged ghosts out here and the spirit of a banshee serial killer but I still jumped straight into Azren’s arms andlet out a really stupid scream. I truly thought I was above that. I didn’t scare easily. My brothers tried all the time and never managed.
I whirled around and got a look at Hale. He was pretty like all the Unseelie were but he was a little eerie. A lot of people said Unseelie were unsettling, but my old babysitter Beyla had a run-in with one who was the artistic director for the ballet company she was dancing with. She said she wanted to strangle him most days, but he had been a mostly decent guy underneath it all.
Something about Hale made me uncomfortable, and it had nothing to do with him being Unseelie. There weren’t a lot of them on this realm, but I’d met them before. They never made me feel like this.
Hale was tall, like, nearly god tall. He was about my height and I was on the shorter side for a god. He was very pale and sickly looking for a gardener and I couldn’t really read his aura. It was Unseelie, but complicated. There was some dark shit in his aura, but what did I know? Someone had hired him and my dad hadn’t fired him yet. Hale could have been forced to do some shit in the Fae realm and this was his protection.
