Chapter 18
“Don’t Beth,” Draven calls out. “She may be unconscious, but when Raven wakes up and finds out that you gave yourself up for her, she and Jayden will drag your ass back from the underworld, and you know it.”
Greyson roars, thrashing in the golden net to no avail. We can’t lose Raven. Greyson will become something far worse than the rogue king if Raven dies.
“But I can’t just let her die.” I shout over Greyson’s howling and snarling.
“As soon as we have the hammer, this ends,” Draven says. “Kira will be back soon, and then we leave just like every other time we’ve gotten an item of power back.”
“Ticktock, little godling. Your friend or your freedom?” Aphrodite sneers. “That’s what it comes down to. What do you value more? Your friendship with her or your freedom from the queen?”
“Don’t listen to her, Beth. She can’t beat you on her own so she’s down to bargaining your surrender. It’s pathetic.” Draven smashes his fist into the ground. “It’s not like she’ll live up to her end of the deal anyway. We’re all on the queen’s kill list.”
“Are you calling my honor into question, child?” She sends a blast of glitter magic at Draven, but it can’t penetrate the net and bounces off in a puff of magic sparkles.
“You have no honor.” Draven laughs. “It’s hilarious that you think you do. What happened to make your husband capture you in this very net? You were dishonorable.”
“Draven, I don’t think this is a good idea,” I whisper shout at him.
“I disagree. Just watch.” He winks at me.
I turn back to the crazy goddess. Her face has turned an ugly shade of tomato red, and her hand is shaking in Raven’s hair. Maybe Draven is right. That was her most humiliating moment in her existence.
“I was forced to marry a hideous male who was disfigured because his mother dropped him out of Olympus as an infant. Me. The goddess of love and beauty was saddled with a freak. Of course I cheated on him. All men want me,” she screams.
She tosses Raven to the side as she raises both hands to attack Draven again.
Hades’ shield sits heavy in my hand and I command the shadows silently to cover both me and Draven.
I raise one hand and a blast of lightning hits Aphrodite, but she absorbs the blow, only twitching slightly as she lets loose a powerful blast of glitter that knocks me off my feet.
I roll with the blast over to cover Raven and transport us both behind the golden net.
“Draven, you good?” I ask.
“Yeah, I just wish Kira would hurry the fuck up so we can get out of here.” Draven shakes his head.
“Agreed.” I glance up at the cave still pulsing with Hephaestus’ power. “We need to keep her busy a little longer.”
“Wow, that was one self-centered rant if I’ve ever heard one. Don’t you think about anyone but yourself?” Draven asks. “You say you have honor.”
Aphrodite’s eyes blaze gold with fury and I pray to the gods that he hasn’t taken this too far. We can only push a goddess so far before they decide to incinerate us where we stand.
I hold up both hands, letting my magic build up as she splutters. I will only have one shot at her, but seeing as how she can transport too as a goddess, I’m banking on her forgetting that detail in her rage.
“Who else should I care about other than myself? Beauty is everything and I am the most beautiful. I should be at the top of everything but no. Everyone looks down on me.”
“Better than everything, huh? If you’re better than the queen, why help her overthrow Zeus? You should be queen, right? That’s what you’re saying.” Draven pushes.
My eyes widen as I whip my head in Draven’s direction. He’s sowing dissent among the ranks. It’s smart. I wish I had thought of it.
“Yes, I should be queen but since I can’t, I’ll help Hera win this war and overthrow the king. After I kill you all for getting in our way.” Aphrodite raises her hands, ready to blast fire at us again, but I’m a second faster and blast her back with all the electricity I’ve got left.
The goddess flies back, smacking a tree with a loud thwack so hard the bark breaks behind her. “You’re going to pay for that, you little whore.”
“That’s hilarious coming from you.” I chuckle.
“You stole the son of Hades right out from under my poor Mia,” she snarls. “He should have been with beauty. Instead, he chose you.”
“How does that make me a whore?” I chuckle.
A vibration trembles through the mountain above me and my grin widens as heat so intense it’s nearly suffocating blasts out of the cave ten feet above our heads. Kira sprints out of the cave with a battle cry and the hammer raised high in the air.
“You don’t touch my friends, you nasty bitch,” Kira roars and swings the hammer at the goddess.
I roll to my feet, calling my sword, and ready myself for another attack from the few remaining lizard demons. Raven groans behind me but doesn’t wake fully. Kira swings the hammer, but the goddess disappears in as cloud of floral perfume and pink iridescent glitter.
“Kira, you did it.” I fist-pump the air and turn to the last of the demons.
“We aren’t out of the woods yet,” Kira growls as flames dance in her eyes.
“Go help the others out of the net and protect Raven. I got this.” I square my shoulders and crouch into a fighting stance.
A demon uses my distraction to attack, and I slice my sword through the air, taking its hand off before whirling around and booting it in the gut. My whip sparks with electricity, dimmer than before, but still powerful.
Draven jogs over, a sword in one hand and a granola bar in the other. “Eat this. I’ll distract them.”
He tosses me the granola bar and charges the four demons coming for me. Ripping open the granola bar, I eat it in two big bites, but it barely stifles the emptiness in my stomach.
Draven slashes and dodges but there are too many of them and I crack my whip, slicing the electrified tip into the neck of a demon about to stab him in the back. It bursts into ash, raining down on Draven’s head and back.
“I’ll never get used to that mess.” He frowns. “Thanks.”
“No problem. It’s time to end this shit.” I twirl in a circle, slashing at demons left and right. Every part my electric sword touches turns to dust until it’s just me and Draven standing back-to-back, chests heaving with exertion.
“That was fun.” Draven chuckles.
“Yeah, nothing like fighting off a deranged goddess and her evil minions for cardio,” I breathe.
I turn around and take stock of my friends.
Kira is standing in front of Raven and Greyson with the hammer raised, ready to strike anything that messes with her.
Raven is awake and healed from the gash on her side.
She looks worse for wear but still Raven.
Greyson changed back to his human form, and thank the fates he found some pants.
“You guys all good?” I ask.
“No.” Raven pouts. “I missed all the fun because of that asshole lizard face. I wish I could bring him back so I could kill him again.”
“We have a whole-ass other battle to fight once we get back to the academy, Raven,” I say, shaking my head.
“Yeah, but how are we getting back to the academy?” Draven asks. “No one showed up to retrieve the hammer.”
“Where is Hephaestus? He should have felt it when we succeeded, right?” I ask. “That’s the way it worked with all of the others.”
“Maybe he’s here in the forge like I said before,” Kira says hopefully. “He can help us get back to the academy.”
I glance around at my friends, wondering how to let Kira down gently, when the weight of everything hits me. Something isn’t adding up.
“How did you free them from the net? I thought only Hephaestus could. He’s not here.”
“I don’t know what happened to be honest. It was like instinct took over and I touched the hammer to the net. The hammer kind of absorbed it, I guess?” Kira rubs her forehead.
“Cool. I wish I would have seen that.” I sway on my feet a little and my stomach rumbles again.
“Beth? Are you okay?” Draven puts a hand on my arm.
“I’m good, just running on empty. The granola bar was good, but it wasn’t enough.” I blink several times to stop the world from spinning, but it does nothing to stop my dizziness.
The ground rumbles beneath my feet and a crack splits between them, forcing me to drop and roll to the side. Black smoke and ash rain down on us from the mouth of the volcano.
“We have to move,” I shout over the groaning of the rocks and spewing lava.
“Into the forge. We won’t outrun the lava, but my father has rooms in his forge that will protect us.” Kira waves us to go up to the cave entrance.
“We need to get him the hammer or we failed. For some reason the volcano is still actively erupting even though we retrieved it.” I point the opposite direction down the mountain.
“You’re gonna have to trust me, Beth. I know volcanoes. We won’t outrun this, and my father has to be inside. I can feel his presence.” Kira grips my arm.
“Listen to her, B. Remember when we met him. He had tunnel vision, and we were almost eaten by a golden Chimera.” Raven raises a brow at me.
“I still don’t understand why he would make an automaton like that.” I glance at Kira’s pleading eyes and then to Raven who nods. “Okay, let’s go inside the erupting volcano. This should be fun.”
“I promise it will be fine. It’s gonna be hot in there but at least you won’t be burned alive.”
“That is a bright side.” Draven chuckles.
We follow Kira into the cave entrance and sweat drips down the back of my neck almost instantly. “You said there was a safe space for us to ride this out? I desperately need to refuel before we encounter anything else.”
Greyson rummages in his pack and pulls out one of the prepackaged sandwiches from a cooler compartment in his pack and grins at me. I shake my head with a smile as I take the sandwich from him.
“Thanks, snack mom.” I unwrap the sandwich and bite into it, immediately feeling slightly better. “Do you have like three more of those?”
“I have a few more in there. If you need more. That’s what being the snack mom is.”
“Where did you even get a cooler for your pack?” Raven asks.
“I got it from Pan’s shop.” Greyson shrugs. “We needed protein and carbs, not just granola bars and chips.”
“Protein bars are just that, protein, but I appreciate the gesture. This is much more filling than a protein bar.” I take another bite.
“Gods, when you said it was going to be hot, I was thinking sauna hot, not inferno.” Draven wipes the sweat beading down his forehead. “Can I stick my head in that cooler, Greyson?”
“You’re not getting your sweaty hair all over the sandwiches the girls need to refuel after they saved our asses again,” Greyson growls, clutching his pack to his chest.
“Fine,” Draven whines. “I helped save our asses by the way, wolf boy.”
“Yeah, yeah, you were in a net with me most of the time.” Greyson shrugs.
“I pissed her off enough that she let Raven go to come after me.”
“She threw her, asshole,” Greyson snarls.
“Hey, cool it, guys.” I step between them. “Yes, we’re all insanely hot right now but let’s not fight among ourselves or say things we can’t ever take back. We’re on the same team.”
“She’s right. Stop being idiots. Draven, thank you for your help. It’s nice to see you used your talent of pissing people off for good instead of evil for once.” Raven turns Greyson away from the argument.
Draven turns his sadistic smile on me and says loudly, “Beth almost surrendered herself to the goddess to get her to let you go.”
“Traitor,” I shout at him.
“You almost what?” Kira and Raven whirl on me.
“Don’t you ever martyr yourself for me,” Raven growls. “I’ll assist Jayden in bringing your ass back from Elysium kicking and screaming if I have to. Then once you’re back, I’ll kick your ass. No. Fuck no.”
“I can’t believe you thought it would be a good idea to give yourself up. We would all feel guilty for not being strong enough to protect you if you did that.” Kira pushes a door open, frowning at me.
“If I can save one of you, I’m going to do it.” I stomp past Kira.
“For what?” Raven throws her hands up. “Just so we can all die anyway when the queen wins and destroys the world?”
“We can’t win this war without you.” Kira wrings her hands together. “If you’re captured, everyone dies.”
“Okay, I understand. Draven had me talked out of it almost immediately anyway, and then he started insulting Aphrodite to the point that she threw Raven away and I was able to save her, but don’t you see?
It may be me that’s needed to save the world this time, but I can’t do that without all of you. ”
“Okay, I see what you mean,” Draven says. “I was pretty awesome back there.”
Raven shoves him in the shoulder as I laugh. “Yeah, you were pretty awesome, Draven.”
“Please don’t boost his ego any more,” Raven says. “We won’t be able to get him out the door.”
Kira points at Raven with a grin. “She’s not wrong.”
“You’re not supposed to agree with her.” Draven throws his hands up.
The ground beneath us rumbles, rolling and shaking, pitching me into the cavern wall. I hiss out a breath as the craggy rock jabs me in the back.
“The tremors are getting worse. We need to hurry before the volcanoes all erupt and destroy everything.” I grip the wall with both hands at my sides.
“Where is your dad, Kira?” Raven stumbles, but Greyson rights her before she falls.
“When I was searching for the hammer in here, I came across a locked door. There was movement on the other side. Creaking and metal against metal. I think it was the sentries.”
The ground beneath my feet cracks and I roll to the side. Steam rises from the ground where I just was, and I curse as lava bubbles from the floor.
My eyes are wide as I turn to my friends. “We need to get to Hephaestus now or we’re all going to die.”