enjoys crushing his victims alive,” Cronus said conversationally, reminding me that I was a moron for lusting after deities that were evil as hell.
“And the redhead?” I asked hesitantly.
Cronus’ huge shoulders lifted as he leaped over a fallen tree branch. “Ares. As the god of war, he can completely ruin your life, tear you limb from limb, and he’ll do that just for fun.”
Well, great. Why couldn’t these bastards have some sort of flowers and rainbow powers? I could use a nice rainbow right about now. And the pot of gold at the end of it.
“I don’t want to alarm you,” I said softly, “but they’re gaining on us.”
“If I didn’t have to carry my burden,” he muttered, “I could move faster.”
I scowled. “I’m a hundred and twenty pounds dripping wet. Basically the weight of one of your arms. Move faster.”
Okay, it was more like a hundred and forty because of the boobs, but he couldn’t tell that. Insulting asshole.
“How come they’re chasing us in the human way?” I said, finally realizing that was weird. “I know you’re running because of low power, but they just flashed themselves here.”
Like a freaking light portal or some shit. I wish I’d caught that on camera.
Cronus snorted. “They’ll be conserving their energy for the fight. Flashing takes a decent amount of power, and neither of these assholes are particularly good at it.”
His tone indicated he was exceptionally good at it, which kind of turned me on in a weird way. I opened my mouth to ask another question, because it was a good distraction against my impending doom, but Cronus growled and shut me right the hell up.
He dodged through the trees and I just hung on to his half-naked muscular body, watching these two hotties beeline it for us.
“Umm, something blue and glowy is growing up one of the guy’s arms,” I told my chariot.
He growled louder and stopped suddenly, slipping me down his body, letting my chest rub down the front of his—#BasketballShortsHideNothing
“Down!” he shouted.
I ducked between his legs like a little kid, and a flash of blue light shot from Cronus. A crack rang out and then I was being hauled up again, this time into his arms. Cradled against his chest, he looked down at me.
“You’re good with people, right? You like chatting and smiling and all that?” he asked.
What the hell?
“Umm yeah. Sure.”
Some might call me a social butterfly. I was a glass-half-full kind of person who could always make friends with anyone, no matter our differences.
He nodded. “Good. I’m going to need your help when we get to the crone’s house.”
My head snapped back. “I’m sorry, did you say crone? Like, as in … a witch?” Maybe I had more fantasy knowledge than I realized.
He ran faster, and a peek over his shoulder told me we’d ditched the angry gods. For now. “Yes. The only witch who can make me a weapon of power that I can wield. We have history and she won’t like seeing me again. I need you to talk her into it.”
Oh God.
“You slept with her!” I shouted. “Now you want me to smooth things over?”
Wait, if they had history, that meant the crone was like … super old too. For some reason it bothered me that these bastards were all old as hell but still looked mid-twenties.
#NotFair
He looked down at me with a glare. “No. I slept with her sister, but that’s not the problem. I … accidentally killed her father.”
My stomach sank. “You what? How do you accidentally kill someone's father?”
Cronus shrugged. “He was on the wrong side of the war and he got in the way of my intended target.”
For fuck’s sake.
“But the sleeping with the sister thing is totally fine? She won’t bring that up?” I snorted.
He grit his jaw and ignored me. “I should kill humanity just to end sarcasm.”
My eyes widened. “Whoa, anger management much?”
We reached a cobblestone path and he finally set me down and let me walk. Grabbing my hand, he dragged me behind him as we passed door after door of small cottages. When we reached one with a blue glass evil eye pendant, he stopped and looked at me. “This is serious. Life or death. You need to convince her to make me a weapon.”
It was almost like begging, maybe. I didn’t want to die, and I was tethered to this sexy asshole until we could figure it out, so I nodded. “I will give it the old college try.”
Confusion crossed his features