Page 26 of Whiskey, Thieves, and Bastards
“Seriously?” I asked.
“Yeah. Calamity is listening. You can find out what she heard after you finish your homework assignment. We need your fury as stable as possible. I know it’ll be an accident and you can fix it, but Ireallydon’t want to know what it feels like to be turned into stone.”
“It could be cool to try it out for science,” Calamity said. “One of my cousins got kinky with a gargoyle in their stone form once.”
“That sounds like a UTI. Stone is porous.”
“It was a girl gargoyle.”
“That sounds extremely unpleasant and painful,” Cas said.
Calamity just shrugged.
“My cousin was never really right in the head. He had to move elementary schools for getting weird with crayons and glue. My parents never really let me play alone with him.”
“Well, we can’t do anything until Medusa eats. I don’t want to hurt her,” Cas said. “Can we get any updates?”
“Hannibal thinks Pax was a human priest who didn’t have the stomach for what they were doing, stole confidential data off their computer, and helped start the riot. They don’t want to say that because it looks bad that one of them turned. It’s better for them if it was supernaturals that did everything.
“Hannibal wants to spin the vineyard and all the records disappearing on demons. Saul wants him to wait until they can confirm someone actuallysawanyone where there would be paper records and apparently the Maenads at the Vineyard are having a field day with how their parents worked there, too, if a reporter shows up. Right now, they are arguing about it,” Calamity said.
“You’ve got homework, big guy,” Jezebel said. “As one of Medusa’s best friends and a succubus, I expect to get a full report that she’s been sufficiently railed.”
“She has to eat first. She’s still weak,” I said.
“Cas and Pax are really good at the railing. Ask me how I know,” Benji said.
“You aren’t discussing our sex life with a succubus hybrid, Benji,” Cas warned.
“She could give me pointers.”
She really could. From what I understood, Jezebel used to be a sex worker. No one here cared about that, but she probably understood the male and female body better than anyone in the room.
Dionysus finally came back with Medusa and announced she was fed. Her aura was feeling much stronger. Maybe I was imagining it, but her outline seemed to have filled out a little from the two servings of ambrosia. I know I felt stronger from eating one. I was glad Dionysus kicked down Athena’s door for it. It wasn’t just that it helped her. It got her answers.
“No offense, but get the fuck out of my house,” Cas growled.
Yeah, it was on.
Ambrosia was an amazing thing. I was already feeling like myself again and part of that had nothing to do with the fact that I didn’t have to wear those glasses anymore. My body didn’t feel like home after New Eden. It was weak and thinner than I was used to. But after two servings of ambrosia, I was starting to feelmuchbetter.
Which was good because I had a polar bear shifter, a smith, a god, and a werewolf-shadow demon hybrid looking like they wanted to eat me alive.
“Wait,” Cas said. “I have fresh sheets in the dryer.”
“I’ll help you put them on,” I said.
Benji, Dionysus, and Pax went to get their supplies. Ilovedfresh sheets, especially when they were warm from the dryer,which these were. And Cas’s laundry detergent smelled amazing. As soon as we got the sheets on the bed, Cas stepped away from the bed with a knowing look on his face and held up a finger.
Benji poofed himself in the middle of the bed and started rolling all over the sheets.
“Fuck it,” Cas said, ripping his shirt off and joining him.
It was kind of sexual, but I didn’t actually know what was happening right now. Pax and Dionysus came in and set everything on the nightstand.
“I’m not even a shifter and I want her to smell like me,” Pax said, diving into bed.
There were now three enormous men just rolling around on the silk sheets. Dionysus yelled something about a puppy pile and he wasn’t that far behind them. Maybe I should have been weirded out by four men rolling around scent marking the sheets, but I wasn’t.
