What a Goddess Wants by Stephanie Julian Read Free Book Online Page B

little nose wrinkled. “We did not demand it. I personally preferred my offerings alive, twenty years old and very male, thank you very much. Besides, that was a long time ago. We’ve evolved since then.”
    And that should have been a reminder that he was much lower on the cosmic scale than she was. He was mortal. Stronger, faster, longer lived, and with a few more features than regular humans, sure. But he would eventually die, and he could be killed if he was stupid enough to let that happen. And deities tended to change the rules midjob.
    Still, there was something about this one… something he liked, even though he didn’t want to. “Liked ’em young, huh?”
    Her lips turned up slightly at the corners. “I still do.”
    Lust shot straight into his bloodstream like an adrenaline dump.
    Damn, he really liked this little blonde goddess. “Then you’re outta luck with me, babe. I’m nearly a hundred.”
    “Really?” She turned to study him again, the heat in her eyes making his lust boil. “Well, compared to me, babe , you’re still in diapers.”
    Yeah, when you looked at it that way…
    “So,” he steered back to safer waters, “what else can you tell me about Charun and his plans?”
    She shrugged. “Honestly, not that much. A month ago, Mlukukh, another member of the FoGEs, called me to say she’d been having dark, violent nightmares that depressed her so much, she began to feel suicidal. She said she thought she knew what they were, that Charun was searching for her. She disappeared two weeks ago, and my dreams have gotten worse since then.”
    “Wait, what the hell are the Fogies?”
    “The Forgotten Goddesses of Etruria.”
    His eyebrows lifted in amusement. “You got a clubhouse to go with the name or what?”
    He glanced her way, and there was that smile again, the one that screwed with his brain. “Actually, we do, but we have a strict no-men-allowed policy. There are about ten of us who no longer serve our people in the way we once did. We’ve become… somewhat obsolete, yet we remain. Anyway, Mel went missing a week ago.”
    “Can deities off themselves?”
    She nodded. “Especially those of us who… no longer have much function. But it is forbidden, specifically because Charun can absorb our spirit when we arrive in Aitás and become more powerful from it.”
    “And the deities are afraid of Charun.”
    “Of course. Who wouldn’t be? If he consumes you, you cease to exist. Mel knew this and was rightly terrified. She couldn’t sleep for fear of dreaming. She grew tired and listless, moody and angry. Nothing she did was right. Nothing I did could soothe her. Then she disappeared.”
    “How do you know she didn’t just go into hiding?”
    Tessa shook her head. “Because there is nowhere on this earth where she could hide. And Invol, the plane of existence where we were born, is no longer open to us.”
    Cal knew that, probably better than she did. He knew about the other planes of existence beyond this one, the underworlds and the otherworlds which some called heaven and hell.
    “The only place I could not check was Aitás,” Tessa continued. “None of the goddesses are strong enough to resist Charun’s power. Not anymore.” She sighed. “And then my dreams began to worsen.”
    Her face had turned almost green, and he reached for her hand without thinking. She flipped her palm up so she could lace her fingers with his, and her warmth struck him again.
    He really needed to find out what was happening with that. Was he reverting? His father had always feared the possibility that Cal and his brother would regain their feelings and be less than full Cimmerian.
    Cal hadn’t felt any pain at all while fighting the demon. And he couldn’t be upset that he felt Tessa’s warmth. He wanted to feel more. All over his body.
    Okay, time to get his head together. “Tell me about the dreams.”
    Her shiver shook her entire body. “They’re awful. Just… so awful. Dark and bloody.