Page 53 of Whiskey, Thieves, and Bastards
Yeah, I could deal with that. I even understood it. Based on the scent coming from the front of the house, my mate knew her way around the kitchen. Even if she didn’t, I would have eaten every bite and told her it was the best thing I’d ever eaten.
I didn’tusuallyhave an original vampire, her mates, the furies, and three gods in my house and I was still getting used to that, so I walked in the kitchen in my boxers. Theonlyreason I didn’t turn right back around and put some sweatpants on when I saw all of them was that Medusa blatantly checked me out and seemed to like the view.
I was pretty sure Dionysus would have gone out stark naked knowing they were out there and Kat would have started a brawl if Calamity so much as blushed. Jezebel would have said something inappropriate and Hades might have started a fight, too, if Persephone peeked. Something told me my mate’s best friend would have had something scathing to say about Dionysus’s junk.
All of these people were pure chaos, and I was glad to have them in my life.
Medusa had been busy while we were sleeping. She’d cooked a massive feast and had been to the garden to pick figs off the tree. Benji was at the coffee pot starting another. If I knew Benji, he’d probably already drunk a pot. Benji could drink an entire pot of coffee ten minutes before bed and sleep like a baby. He often did.
It looked like she’d brewed tea, too. I liked tea, but I really fell in love with it when I took Pax in. It didn’t matter what kind of witch someone was, they usually had a tea for everything. Some were medicinal, and some were just refreshing. Benji drank the medicinal ones when needed, but he tended to do better with a lot more caffeine, so we kept the coffee stocked.
“This smells delicious,” Pax said.
“It is,” Kat moaned. “I was around when these were invented.”
“I’d say it was weird we never met, but I was wrapped up being a priestess then I could have turned you to stone.”
“That definitely would have sucked, but I think we met when we were supposed to. Oh, my goddess, this is just like back then when the she dragon I was dating learned how to make these and perfected her recipe.”
“She dragon, huh? And she cooks?” Calamity growled.
Yeah, I didn’t take the young demon for being that possessive.
“Relax. I dumped her because she was weirdly monogamous and jealous and we think it’s adorable you burned microwave mac and cheese.”
“Imps and microwaves aren’t a good mix. Someone needs to do something about that,” Calamity sulked.
Fuck me. We all dug in and the food was fantastic. Medusa didn’t have Benji’s praise kink, but she seemed so contentknowing we were enjoying her food. I knew the feeling. I felt like that every time I provided for my mates.
I didn’t know if we were going to sit around plotting again, but we really couldn’t pull anything off without Benji’s mystery woman. All we had were suspicions and we couldn’t confirm them with her social media accounts. She wasn’t using her real name or photo and she never posted anything. Everything appeared to be a personal account she used to comment and follow people that she didn’t want linked to her real identity.
We were all pretty certain she was a politician or working for one, but we wouldn’t know unless she revealed herself. She might not even want to go there. She’d been helping us in the shadows, but in public was another story.
I wasn’t expecting Medusa to ask me to take her on a tour of the village. We hadn’t really had time to take her, nor had we discussed where we’d all live. I’d spent a lot of time making my house a home for my family, but there wasn’t anything of Medusa and Dionysus yet because I hadn’t had time. And I was betting Dionysus had big fancy mansions all over the world. He might not want to live here.
I was a little worried when it looked like Dionysus didn’t want to come, but he threaded his arm through Pax and Benji’s and told them to take him on a tour. Ah. He wanted us to have alone time.
Medusa snuggled into my side as we walked out the front door. I lived a little way away from the main town, so I pointed out my neighbors. When we got to the town, she squealed.
“Oh, I love everything about it! You even have a movie theater!”
“We don’t get the latest releases on release day because it’s not going to be a huge audience and mostly only the young’uns want to see those. A lot of us saw cinema during its heyday.”
“Speaking of, did you know Benji has big opinions aboutThe Wizard of Oz?”
I started laughing.
“Yes, he does. We showed him the movie after we found him and it was the one thing that got him out of his shell. He ranted about Glinda for weeks. This is the town square. Every Saturday, we have a farmers’ market. People come out to sell their wares. Most of them sell online, too. A lot of the kids leave for college and come back after they’ve graduated, but we have schools here, too.”
“This is amazing. Benji told me about the sheep farmers. Their feta was something else.”
“That’s the Ash family. They’re like Kat in that they’ve changed their name a few times so they don’t come to the Coalition’s attention. They decided on Ash after the internet came about and their brand became famous.”
“Ooh, is that a park?” she said, zooming away from me.
Green witches. Even if they were malnourished and getting their strength back from magical god food, they couldn’t resist a good park. Fuck, she was fast. When I caught up with her, she was starfishing in a field of clover.
I smiled down at her because that’s what she needed as a green witch. She made grabby hands at me.
