Page 17 of Goddess of Storms

Out of the corner of my eye, I swear there was movement. “Who’s there?”

There is a rustle behind me, startled I stand and spin around and a figure steps out of the shadows.

“Is she still here?” a woman asks.

“Who?” I question with an eyebrow raised.

“The one that was on fire?”

“What? No one was on fire. An ember hit one of our tents and set it on fire. Nothing more.” The lie rolls smoothly off my tongue.

“The video I have says otherwise.” She smirks.

“Huh? Video?” I play the dumb guy, seeing if she will bite. “Why are you out here?”

“Camping, with the blood moon, I wanted to see if I could get anything wild on my camera and your girl was it. What else can she do?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about?”

She takes a few steps towards me with her phone held up and a video playing. It’s what happened earlier, Stone pulling Harper from the tent and her standing there with her clothes burning on her.

Taking the phone from her, I hit the delete button and glance at her and ask.“Oh, that’s an awesome clip, what movie is that from?”

“Are you stupid? You can see you in the video, give it here. I’ll rewind it and show you.”

Smiling, I hand it back to her.

“Dang it, what did you do?” she yells.

“I only watched it, did something happen to it?”

“You deleted it, good thing I sent it to my sister to load to my youtube account.”

Fuck, how can we get that off of the internet? This is really bad.

The rustle of a tent, Nile pokes his head out and says, “Phoenix, dude, I’m sleeping. Shut the fuck up.”

“That is your cue to leave, the lady you were looking for is not in the camp. Please leave.”

She smirks at me, nods, and heads off.

I wait for a good fifteen minutes before I pace the camp in hopes of finding a decent signal. When I do, I stop and go to Youtube and search for the video and pray that it’s not that there.

My heart sinks when it pops up on the page. Harper’s no longer safe, do I wait to tell everyone in the morning or wake them now? I decide that waiting until morning is the best, we can rest and plan their next steps with clear thoughts.

Stone

I awake to the sun blazing through the window I left open to keep the fresh air circulating in the tent. On an elbow, I glance down at Harper as she sleeps, I carefully remove a strand of hair that has fallen in her face.

Gods, she is beautiful. I hope she believed me when I said she was my only one.

Pops told me I was a fool, chasing after her, but he didn’t believe in soul mates. I mean what god would. They can change forms and fuck any one they want and their kids, fuck they don’t usually care about them. There are a few that are favored by them, but not many of the thousands. I was sent to work the forges when they saw that I was gifted with a hammer. Pops put me to work like all the rest of my brothers and sisters. My life changed the moment she set foot in the forge. I knew she was mine and I was hers. My father told me I was foolish for pining for her, but it was great until we were out at the beach with mortals. One spark from her fingers in front of the wrong person and she was hunted.

“Stone, get your ass out here!” Nile yells.

Harper didn’t stir at this, so I carefully removed my arm from under her and quietly unzipped the tent and stepped out.

“I was just about to get up, what’s the fucking problem?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.

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