Chapter 13 – Forrest #2
At last, something seems to click with Byron. He sits down, pulling her into his lap. She tries to hit him, but he catches her wrists. Their eyes meet, and to my surprise, Byron doesn’t look mad, he looks confused.
“We need to take you there,” he says, very slowly.
“Why?” she asks, and the word sounds torn from her throat.
“There’s something we need there. And you know men can’t enter her temple.”
“Tourists go there all the time!” she says, her words desperate.
“You know we aren’t visiting the ruins…” he explains quietly.
Most Gods and Goddesses can glamour their temples to look like the past. But when they want to, they also have places that they consider sacred or important that have more powerful magic.
Their worshippers, and other Immortal creatures, can literally step into these places like stepping back in time.
Everything is the way it was in the place’s glory days.
Often it’s this other world that the Gods and Goddesses reside in, sliding from the past to the present like time travelers. And yet, usually it’s just the place that’s enchanted. Outside of that, it’s only the present that rules.
And that’s where we must go. To Athena’s temple in the past.
There, she has another artifact, one that was stolen from Artemis, the goddess of children and childbirth. If we take it, it can give us extra protection to ensure the pregnancies we do have will result in healthy children.
The problem is that none of us can enter the temple. Only women can, since Athena is a virgin goddess. To walk into her temple as men would draw instant attention from her worshippers.
“We need you to go in and take something,” Byron says very slowly. “It’s in a hidden room behind her throne. The necklace hangs from a statue of her. It has a red stone. And, it’s very important.”
“I know the room. I know the necklace, but I won’t take it.”
“Medusa, this isn’t a request. It’s an order.” Byron speaks the words, but even I don’t believe them, because he’s busy pulling her shaking frame closer.
“I can’t,” she says, pressing her face into his chest.
Byron looks at both of us. “Marcus should already be here.”
I tense, having almost forgotten. For a minute, all I can picture is Marcus coming upon us and seeing us like this.
Marcus is one of the best monster hunters of our kind.
He’ll be disgusted by our affection for Medusa.
He won’t understand why we’re here hugging her instead of forcing her to do our bidding.
“We should go,” Byron says, surprising all of us.
He rises as if in a hurry, and I realize what’s happening. He’s made a decision to get us out of here before Marcus sees Medusa. We want to understand why she’s so upset, and we won’t be able to do that with him here.
We don’t go back to the sidewalk. We walk through the trees on the hill, concealed from the humans.
Ahead of us, a man steps out of the shadows. We all freeze.
Marcus takes a step forward. His dark eyes, locking onto each of us in turn until he comes to Medusa.
“Good, you have it.” He strides forward, then pauses. “Where are its cuffs?”
“In my bag,” Byron says, his words tense.
Marcus moves around him and takes the cuffs out of the backpack. He grasps her hands, too harshly, and clamps them back on.
And Medusa must be very upset, because she doesn’t even react. She looks far away, lost somewhere we can’t reach her.
“Now,” Marcus says. “Does the monster know what it needs to do?”
“Her name’s Medusa,” I say, and I know I sound defensive.
His emotionless gaze flicks to me, then away. “Does it know what we want it to do?”
I see the muscles in Byron’s gaze clench. “She doesn’t wish to go into the temple.”
Marcus only hesitates a moment. “Since when do we give a fuck what monsters want?”
None of us answer.
The muscles in his jaw tighten. “Put her down.”
Very slowly, Byron obeys.
She stands in the middle of us, looking tiny and vulnerable. Her wrists are bound. Her muscles tense. And I’m glued to her, trying to understand the change in her.
“Monster, you will go into the temple and steal what we require,” Marcus says, looming over her.
“I won’t,” she tells him, her voice soft.
He murmurs the spell, and a second later she cries out, sinking to her knees.
Every muscle in my body is tense, ready to attack.
“Marcus…” I know the word sounds threatening, because it is. He sure as fuck better not hurt her again.
Marcus grabs the chain that links her cuffs and hauls her to her feet. “Do you think that hurt? With just a few words, I can have these magic cuffs tighten until they sever your hands. Is that what you want? Shall we see how much pain you can take until you obey me?”
She spits in his face.
He hits her, and before her body crumples to the floor, we’re on him.
Byron has him by the throat, pressing him against a tree. And I’ve got my fist drawn back, ready to beat him to a pulp. Harold has gone to Medusa, kneeling at her side.
No one breathes.
“Someone explain to me what the hell is going on!” Marcus demands. He's still an alpha, even when he's pinned against a tree by his throat.
I’m not sure Byron has even heard him. His entire chest is rising and falling rapidly, and the anger in his gaze terrifies even me.
I don’t drop my fist, but I answer. “Medusa isn’t the monster everyone says she is. She’s… a person. We know we need her, but she’s scared of the temple. We’re not going to send her without knowing why.”
Marcus laughs. “I knew I shouldn’t have sent you three without me. You’ve fallen for her shit so easily, it’s shocking.” His gaze is cruel as it sweeps over us. “I bet she’s got a tight pussy to have you all this wound up.”
I punch him. Hard.
It wasn’t a conscious decision. It was a reaction, a primal need to protect the woman in my care.
Gritted words I didn't plan leave my lips. “Don’t talk about her like that.”
His eye already looks swollen as he focuses on me. “You hit me?” he sounds shocked.
“Damn right!” I say, my voice growing louder. “You aren’t an asshole. You’re just completely wrong. She isn’t a monster. She’s a woman. Think about that and ask yourself if you’re comfortable with what you’re saying.”
“What about the hundreds of people who she’s turned to stone over the years?” his words are quiet now, and I can tell he’s evaluating us.
None of us have a good answer.
“No one wants to hear the truth.”
I turn. Medusa has struggled into a sitting position. The entire side of her face is swelling. It looks so painful that everything inside of me twists. How the hell could Marcus hit a woman? How could he hit her?
“We want to hear the truth,” I tell her, and mean it.
Medusa curls her knees into her chest, and her eyes fill with tears. “I am a Monster. I have killed people.”
“There! See, I’m right!” But Marcus doesn’t sound satisfied, he’s staring at the crying woman.
Harold sits slowly beside her. “That doesn’t make sense. When we took you, you made an effort not to turn us into stone. If you’re some heartless killing machine, then why did you do that?”
Tears keep tracking down her cheeks. “Do you guys really not know?”
We all exchange a confused look.
She laughs, but the sound is filled with heartache. “You went to kill a monster without even knowing how I became this way.”
“We thought you were born this way…” I say, confused.
Her lips twist into a smirk that’s so at odds with her tears.
“I was mortal. A worshipper of Athena in the very temple you guys are trying to drag me into.” She takes a ragged breath.
“Until Poseidon saw me and decided he wanted me. So on the floor of Athena’s temple he… he… took me against my will.”
I’ve never wanted to kill a god before, but in that moment, I want to kill Poseidon. I’m blinded by a need to kill him. I know the bastard gods have a history of taking what they want, but I’ve never seen the effects of their actions before until now.
Medusa rubs at the tears on her face. “Athena was so outraged that we defiled her virgin temple that she cursed me. Any man who looked upon me would be turned to stone.” She shrugged.
“There’s more to the sad little story of how a mortal woman turned into an immortal monster, like years spent on an isolated island alone.
But I’ve covered the most important parts. ”
“I’m so sorry,” Harold said. He tries to touch her, but she jerks away.
“It’s fine,” she says. “It’s literally been over two thousand years since I became this fucking monster. It doesn’t bother me, okay? I just can’t… I can’t go into her temple.”
Silence stretches between all of us. What are we to do? What can we say?
Of course we can’t send Medusa into the place she was raped.
But we’ve also all realized something at the same time: Medusa isn’t a monster. Not on any level.
She’s just a woman cursed by the gods. So what do we do now?
Marcus pushes Byron’s hand away. “I need to speak to the three of you.” He looks at Medusa. “Stay here. If you try to run, you should know you’ll never get those cuffs off.”
She doesn’t even look at him. She just buries her face into her knees.
The four of us slip away into the trees just a short distance away.
Marcus sighs. “All right. We need to talk.”