Zach, Connor, Luke, and I were biking down Main Street toward the Fire Pit, eager for delicious lemonade to help cool us down on the sweltering summer day. It had been only one week since Alec had gone down into the Underworld, but it felt like much longer. Most of my days had been filled with playing reverse hide-and-seek with the rest of the Monster Watch, and I spent long nights training with Alec and sometimes hunting with Artemis. Hades had made no other threats so far, although there were a few more monsters roaming the forest than normal.
When the four of us reached the restaurant, we lazily dropped our bikes on the burning sidewalk and walked into the Fire Pit, where old electric fans were humming, plugged into every available outlet in the entire building. Not many of the old buildings in our town had air-conditioning, after all, and just sitting outside in the summer could make you break out in a sweat.
Martha looked up to see us walk through the swinging door, and her blue eyes immediately brightened. We sat down at the bar seats, since we weren’t planning on staying for long, and waited while she happily made us four fresh lemonades. While Zach and Luke were bickering about what to do after lunch, I glanced around the room to see who else had stopped in for a bite to eat.
First I saw Becca sitting at a small table across from Matt. She was flipping her golden hair, obviously flirting, while Matt was gazing at her in some sort of dreamlike state with his big brown eyes. It looked kind of funny, since Matt, who dressed like a stereotypical buff guy from a biker gang and happened to be the complete opposite of the gorgeous Becca, was totally falling for her, nodding his head like he was in love with everything she said.
I rolled my eyes in amusement and continued to look around the room, noticing Shane and Jack chatting at the Monster Watch’s usual booth in the back. Perhaps they had been waiting for us to join their party of two, because no one ever dared to steal our table; ever since the Monster Watch had come out of the forest unscathed for the first time, we were considered almost untouchable by the townsfolk. Confirming my suspicions, Shane saw me looking over and waved, eagerly offering to make room at the booth, but Jack was too busy gulping down an entire glass of lemonade in just three huge sips to notice me.
However, Josh and his best friend, Cole, happened to walk into the restaurant at exactly that moment. Cole’s soft brown eyes locked onto me, and hoping to avoid an awkward conversation, I quickly turned away from him to pretend that I was actually paying attention to what Connor was saying. Unfortunately, my plan didn’t work out as well as I hoped.
I felt a tap on my shoulder and hid a grimace as I reluctantly swiveled around on the bar stool to face Cole. “Um, hi,” he said awkwardly, scratching his head. “Can I talk to you for a minute? In private.”
Part of me wanted to say no and run into the woods as fast as I could, but the guiltier half got the better of me. I just glanced at Zach for permission to leave the Watch discussion, and he nodded curiously. Sighing, I walked with Cole out of the restaurant and onto the street. “What is it?” I asked him, with more of an edge to my voice than I meant to have.
“What happened in the forest two weeks ago?” he whispered to me, sounding quite frightened. “The only thing I remember is waking up by the side of the road. And you never came to talk to me about it.”
I bit my lip, rapidly trying to think of what to say. There was no way I was going to tell him what had really happened. He never would have forgiven me. Not that I would ever forgive myself, either.
“We walked about twenty yards in before you just blacked out. It was weird. I thought you were seriously ill or something, so Zach helped me drag you out here,” I lied fluently, keeping my expression calm. “Zach and I didn’t want to get in trouble by telling someone you had been in the woods, so we just … ran back in.”
Cole frowned, scratching his head as if deciding whether to believe me or not. Eventually he just shrugged it off and started to ask, “Um, okay. Anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to go to the movies or—”
“Look, dude, I have to go. I think my lemonade’s ready,” I told him apologetically, and I brushed past him and headed back into the Fire Pit without another word, my heart racing nervously. Cole was a great guy, but I couldn’t date him in this universe, and I definitely did not want to make things any more awkward and tenser than they already were. Even if Alec really did like me, he knew that he couldn’t have me, so I was sure he would eventually get over it. He had to.
Martha had just delivered the lemonades when I reached the bar stools. The rest of the Monster Watch and I said a quick goodbye as we grabbed our drinks, plus an extra one. We told Martha that it was for my mother, but it was really for Alec. Then, waving to Josh and Cole, the four of us finally left the restaurant and picked up our bikes off the scorching hot pavement, ready to go home.
A few long minutes later, Connor and I were drinking our lemonades and sitting in ancient wooden rocking chairs next to Zach and Luke on their large porch overlooking our quiet street and Main Street. On the other side of Main Street, just inside the forest, Alec slurped his own lemonade in a safe spot where he could see us but no one could see him. We were chatting with him in low voices through our walkie-talkies, mostly about monsters and whatnot. Luckily, Zach and Luke’s parents were still working at the busy restaurant. It didn’t close until late at night.
“So what did Cole want?” Poseidon asked me in Greek. “It was kind of weird how he, like, dragged you away from us.”
I shrugged indifferently. “He doesn’t remember what happened that day I took him into the woods, and he wanted to know,” I told the boys. “I lied, of course.” Poseidon nodded in approval and satisfaction, and then he took a long, slow sip of lemonade.
Silence took over the lull in our conversation for a few seconds as we all paused to catch our breaths in the tiring heat, and I wished Zeus would send a couple of clouds to hide the hot sun for a while. We had powers for a reason, after all, and they were meant to be used in one way or another. Therefore, I could only shake my head in amazement when I noticed that the ice in our lemonades had already almost melted completely, even though it had only been a couple of minutes since we got them. But Zeus was seemingly oblivious to this fact, and he actually appeared quite comfortable with the abnormally high temperature.
Frowning, I swatted away a small fly that seemed to have no sense of direction whatsoever, and I automatically looked over at the edge of the trees when Alec’s voice crackled through the walkie-talkie. “What are we going to do about getting help from the Knowing?” he asked no one in particular. “There is no address for the camp, so I’m not sure how to send them a message. It’s pretty much in the middle of nowhere. I think I’ll have to go all the way back.”
Zeus sighed and answered him, “Well, we obviously can’t send you all the way back to Kentucky alone. Hades probably has a price on your head already, and half of the Knowing might not even believe you when you tell them everything that’s happened so far.” Apollo, Poseidon, and I nodded in agreement before taking another sip of cold lemonade in unison.
“No, I don’t think anyone in the Knowing will believe me, let alone half of them,” Alec muttered darkly, more to himself than to the rest of us, and I raised my eyebrows.
“What did you just say?” Zeus asked in surprise and confusion.
“Nothing,” Alec recovered, and I frowned dubiously. “Forget I said anything.”
“Okay, so who’s going with Alec and how are they getting all the way out to Kentucky?” Apollo wondered aloud, running his fingers through his golden hair.
“They’ll have to take a plane at least part of the way, if we have any hope of finishing this war before the end of summer. And for that, we need a cover story … and money. A lot of it,” I added, still keeping an eye out for that perseverant fly that kept coming back to annoy me.
Zeus leaned back in his rocking chair in thought, and the porch floorboards creaked under him as he took another sip of lemonade. “Well, which one of the gods might actually be allowed to travel almost all the way across the country without warning?” he asked all of us.
I sighed as I ran through all the gods in my head. Zeus and Poseidon were a definite no; same with Apollo, as they were needed here in the Woods. Aphrodite would never agree to do something like this, not even for Alec, since there was no telling when she would be able to stop for a shower or a change of clothes. The unforgiving Ares probably wouldn’t even care about helping to protect Alec, and Hera and Demeter were out, as their policeman father would be too suspicious of them. The quiet Hestia’s parents were way too overprotective, and Hephaestus wouldn’t be much of a help to Alec anyway. Dionysus just wasn’t the best god for the job. Hermes might have been okay, but he would be needed in the Woods as well, since he was the only other one of us besides Alec who could go down to the Underworld to talk to Hades. That left only two gods.
“It has to be me or Camille,” I told them, switching back to English. “Whichever one of us can come up with a good enough cover story so that our parents will agree to it.”
Zach, Connor, and Luke nodded in agreement with my conclusion, but Alec’s confused voice asked, “Camille?”
“Artemis,” I translated for him, since Alec didn’t know all of our human names. I was about to add something else, but my cell phone suddenly rang from inside my jeans pocket, and I frowned in confusion because no one ever called me. There was never any real reason to, since house calls were more common in small towns like mine.
I pulled out the old black flip phone and squinted at the small screen, reading the caller ID. Shaking my head, I cursed under my breath and forced myself up out of the chair. When Zach, Luke, and Connor looked at me questioningly, I explained simply, “It’s my dad.” I walked into their house, where I could speak to my father privately, and answered the phone rather harshly, “What do you want now?”
I heard my father sigh, and he said, “I’m sorry, Ashley. I should’ve left a note or something—” Surprisingly, he didn’t even sound drunk, yet his voice seemed to cut off all of a sudden, and as he cleared his throat, I could have sworn that I heard him frowning. “It just wasn’t working—things between your mother and I, that is. I don’t know if you knew.”
“Of course I knew!” I interrupted loudly as I paced back and forth through Zach and Luke’s kitchen, walking in circles around their dining room table and chairs. “How could I not know, after so many years?” I paused to think for a moment and asked suddenly, “Wait, where are you anyway?”
“Paris,” he responded blandly, and I sighed, thinking about the painting of my parents in front of the Eiffel Tower that I had found a few weeks earlier.
“Are you ever coming back?” I asked quietly.
But he only ignored my question and continued, “Just tell your mother that I’m sorry, because she won’t pick up my calls, but she probably should’ve known this was coming. Oh, and if she really doesn’t want all of those paintings I got her over the years, just send them back to me.”
“No, she wants them,” I said quickly, thinking they could probably be sold at the antique shop for a fair amount of money, if my mom was willing to selling them. But I also knew there was no way all that would happen in just a few days. I would have to find money for plane tickets another way.
Fortunately for me, I was still on the phone with a disinterested man who trusted me enough and felt guilty enough that he almost never asked questions.
“Hey, Dad, you wouldn’t mind buying two plane tickets for a flight from here to Kentucky, would you?” I chewed my lip as I waited for his reply.
He let out another exasperated sigh, and I envisioned him furrowing his brow, scrunching up his hooked nose, and scratching his head, the way he always did when something was bothering him. “Why can’t your mother do it? She knows about this trip, right?”
“Of course,” I lied. She would know within a few hours, at least. “Mom’s just really stressed out right now, and I thought you could do it for her. I need the tickets as soon as possible. And you should put them under my name somehow, because Mom won’t be taking me to the airport.”
“Wait—what?” My father sounded like he was getting angrier. “What do you mean Catherine isn’t going? Ashley, what the hell are you trying to pull? I want an explanation. Now.”
Suddenly, I heard the screen door creak open and slam shut, and then Luke, Zach, and Connor poked their heads around the corner of the wall, looking at me questioningly. They wanted to know what was taking so long. I motioned for them to leave the room again, but they only ignored me and sat down at the kitchen table to listen in on the conversation.
“I’m feeling very left out right now,” Alec grumbled through the black walkie-talkie on my belt loop from outside in the woods, but Zach just told him to shut up and let me think.
I pressed the phone harder against my ear. “Remember that college camp I wanted to go to?”
“No,” my father grumbled, and I smirked.
“Well, I’m signed up for the summer program at the University of Kentucky. Mom said she needs to stay here and take care of the antique shop, so Martha offered to fly there with me, as long as we paid for her,” I informed him, making the story up as I continued, though I hated how easy it was becoming for me to make up lies spontaneously and worried about the all-too-likely possibility of getting caught. If my father had actually remembered the camp I had wanted to go to, he would have known it was in New York, not Kentucky. Still, it was a plausible story, and I knew Martha, the most loving second mother I could ever hope for, definitely would have gone with me if she were needed.
“All right, I’ll buy two round-trip tickets and email the link to you. But you have to promise me that you won’t do anything stupid in Kentucky and that you’ll remember to tell your mother I’m sorry. I don’t know when I’ll call again or if she even wants me to,” my father reluctantly agreed, and I gave the boys at the table a thumbs-up. They exchanged high-fives as I said goodbye to my dad, and after I hung up the phone, we raced back out to the front porch.
When we all finished our lemonades and told Alec about what my dad was doing for me, the rest of the Monster Watch and I grabbed our bikes again and slowly pedaled back to the restaurant, trying but failing to ignore the sticky heat. We threw our bikes down on the sidewalk almost exactly like before, not caring that they were blocking the path. The boys followed me as I opened the Fire Pit’s door with a loud creak, and I looked inside to see everything almost exactly like the four of us had left it only an hour earlier. Becca was still sitting with Matt, but Jack and Shane had joined Josh and Cole at a different table, nearer to the front of the restaurant.
Our messenger, Josh, turned around in his chair to see who had walked in, and I quickly met his brown eyes and gave him a look that read, Get over here now. Nodding in understanding, Josh slowly got up out of his chair and started to make his way over to the Monster Watch and me. The rest of the gods in the restaurant noticed this too and followed Josh outside, where we could all talk without being overheard.
“What’s going on?” Jack asked, squinting his dark eyes against the burning sun as he stepped around our bicycles.
“I can get us the tickets to fly to Kentucky. If Camille is okay with it, I should probably be the one to go with Alec,” I informed Becca, Shane, Josh, Jack, and Matt, who looked very upset that we had interrupted his lovely date.
Shane frowned, narrowing his eyes at me. “May I ask how you managed to procure these tickets? Or do I even want to know?”
I smirked and replied, “Believe it or not, all I had to do was beg my dad. I think he feels bad about leaving my mom like this, so he was moderately open to the idea of helping out.”
The others nodded, and Josh clarified, “So do you want me to go tell Camille now, or can I finish eating first?”
Zach was about to reply aloud, but then he caught sight of Cole, who had obviously gotten curious as to why all of us were outside talking in low voices, so Zach just nodded silently instead. Pushing open the wooden door and sticking his caramel-colored head out, Cole asked innocently, “What’s going on?”
We all glanced at each other, even nudged one another, quickly trying to figure out who would answer him. Finally, Josh nervously pushed his curly hair out of his eyes and spoke up apologetically, “I have to go. Sorry, man, but I’ll catch up with you later.” He took off down the dusty road to go talk to the other gods, leaving Cole looking confused and hurt. When Cole looked to me for an explanation, I just shrugged, not meeting his eye. He would never understand the fact that we gods had to (and would willingly) drop everything if some ungodly trouble suddenly arose.
Then the rest of the Monster Watch and I bid farewell to everyone else, and we turned around to head into the woods for a game of reverse hide-and-seek with Alec. Since it was my turn to hide, it took two long hours before the boys finally gave up on trying to find me, and they were obviously tired of trying to fight monsters at the same time. Poseidon, Zeus, and Apollo had fared perfectly fine, but Alec gave us quite a scare when he finally met up with us, limping badly and bleeding from a nasty, bloody gash on his right forearm. Fortunately, upon closer inspection, the wound didn’t appear nearly as bad as we thought. I, on the other hand, was left undefeated, even after narrowly avoiding being trampled by the prancing Pegasus while I was hiding in a bush.
About an hour later, Zeus, Apollo, Alec, and I were sitting down with Pan on a log by his hideout, and Poseidon was happily swimming in the small pool with two nymphs who were a few years older than us. Alec winced as I bandaged his injured arm, and I looked up at him with great concern, pulling my hand back from his wound in surprise. I knew we couldn’t have him too seriously in pain at a tense time like this, when we would need every last fighter at a moment’s notice.
“I’m fine,” Alec whispered to me with a forced smile, and I returned to my work even though I didn’t quite believe him.
Suddenly, our walkie-talkies erupted with the unmistakable voice of Hermes. Apparently, he had finished delivering the message to the rest of the gods. Poseidon and the nymphs immediately stopped swimming, and Apollo, Pan, and Zeus looked up from eating berries to listen in as he said in Greek, “Artemis says the plan sounds good. She can’t go to Kentucky anyway, since her aunt is visiting this week. It’s all on you, Athena.”
I honestly wasn’t surprised, so I just sighed and replied shortly, “Okay, thanks for letting me know.” I finished wrapping the bandage on Alec’s strong arm and stood up. “I’m going to go home and sort everything out.” Next, facing Alec, I told him seriously, “We leave in three days. Don’t get killed while I’m gone.”
Alec only smirked as I started walking south toward my house, leaving the others behind. “I’ll try not to!” he yelled after me flirtatiously, as I disappeared into the foliage.
___________________
I ran up the rickety steps to my front porch and entered my house, noticing that my mother wasn’t home from the antique shop yet. After I had printed out the plane ticket information, I used the format from my invitation to the prestigious New York summer camp to type a fake acceptance letter from the University of Kentucky. I had always wanted to go to the program in New York, but I never actually applied to it, even though I was certain they would have accepted me. Knowing everything did have its perks.
The next day I showed my mother the fake acceptance letter, much to her surprise, and she told me that she didn’t even realize I had applied this year (or any year, for that matter). She did, in fact, allow me to go after some thought, although I could tell that she didn’t really want to be alone after what had happened with my dad. But what else was I supposed to do? I had a much more important mission. And when my mother offered to go online and buy the plane ticket to Kentucky, I quickly intervened and told her Dad already did.
For the next two days, I went into the forest only at night, to train with Alec. I was too busy during the day trying to work out the travel details and to pack as lightly as I could, with only the necessities that could fit in a backpack: two changes of clothes, a toothbrush and toothpaste, and a few snacks. Unfortunately, Alec and I would look awfully strange walking around in Grecian armor, and our usual weapons would never make it through airport security, so we would just have to be extra careful when we were fighting whatever monsters that were bound to chase after us.
While I was busy arranging the plans, however, somehow Hephaestus managed to make Alec and me special swords that could easily go through security and were concealed as round rocks, small enough to fit in our pockets. With one squeeze, the long sharp metal blade of a sword would shoot out of one end of the rock, and another squeeze of the hilt would turn it back into an ordinary rock. Alec and I just had to make sure we didn’t accidentally lose the tiny, inconspicuous objects.
On the night before Alec and I were going to leave the Woods, I sneaked out of my bedroom around eleven to head into the forest, grabbing my armor, spear, and shield on the way. Because Artemis and I reckoned that there would be some archers at the Knowing base camp (which was confirmed by Alec), we had agreed to go hunting for Stymphalian birds that night so she could teach Alec and me a few tips about archery, which the two of us could then pass on to the archers at the camp. Therefore, as soon as Artemis arrived at Pan’s hideout, she, Alec, and I started to head toward the Oracle’s region of the forest, where the greatest concentration of the metallic birds lived.
For the first hour or so, Alec and I took turns practicing our shots with Artemis’s bow, aiming at certain trees or branches while staying hidden in the bushes. I supposed we could have kept shooting at unmoving targets, but Alec and I found that to be quite dull. Frankly, killing monsters, especially without good reason, was much more fun. Henceforth, when Artemis thought we had enough experience, we stopped trying to be quiet and waited patiently.
The giant birds appeared right away, disturbed by our presence in their territory. Three of them flitted nervously from branch to branch, and their razor-sharp metal feathers made terrible grinding sounds every time they moved. Nevertheless, I managed to hit my mark on the first try, and the bird disappeared in a puff of ashes. This caused the two remaining birds to screech and circle higher in the trees, sensing immediate danger.
I passed the bow and arrows to Alec so he could have his turn, and he rolled his sparkling blue eyes at me, as if to sarcastically thank me for making his job a lot harder. Indeed, he missed the anxious Stymphalian birds, which were even bigger and taller than us, on the first two tries, but his third time was the charm. As soon as the second bird had disappeared, however, five more immediately joined the one remaining, apparently angered by our unwarranted assault on their population. Although these birds usually only harmed other beings by destroying crops with their toxic droppings, they were known to turn into hungry killers when provoked.
“I think they’ve declared war,” Alec announced with a smirk, passing the bow and quiver full of arrows back to Artemis in exchange for his sword.
I grinned at my friends confidently. “Apparently they haven’t learned the most important lesson of war: never start battles you can’t win.”
And the battle began. A steel-gray Stymphalian bird swooped down from the trees, metal wings and sharp talons outstretched, but Artemis shot it immediately. Another flew toward me, and I dove out of the way but rolled over on the ground just in time to throw my spear into its belly. I was showered with dark ash as the smooth spear fell back into my hands, and I raised my silver shield just in time for a second bird to crash into it with the force of a high-speed train.
Behind me, Alec was slicing and stabbing at the underside of the mechanical bird hovering above him, blocking the acidic yellow droppings and the snapping of the bird’s bronze beak with his own shield. Meanwhile, Artemis was hiding in a bush, not wasting any arrows and patiently waiting for the perfect moment to shoot at the humongous birds flapping around her, the moment when the silver light from her bright moon glinted at just the right position off of their wings, which seemed to be covered with what looked more like flattened tips of spears than real feathers. Artemis was on a hot streak and had killed her third by the time Alec had finally killed his second.
The terrific battle came to a conclusion when I quickly unbuckled the straps that held aegis on my left arm and hurled the heavy shield like a discus at the last Stymphalian bird, which then slammed against the trunk of a pine tree and fell to the grass, heaving for air. Fearlessly, Alec raced up from behind it and jumped on its back just as it began to take off again. The brave young hero didn’t even shout for help as the bird screeched and twisted around twenty feet up in the air, struggling to throw off its determined rider. Finally, he managed to stab the bird’s back with his sword, and I dropped my weapons to catch him with my superhuman strength as he plummeted back down to earth, followed by a small cloud of gray monster dust.
“Thanks,” Alec told me with a weak smile as he wiped off the bright red blood from his hands, which had been cut on the gigantic bird’s bladelike feathers. “Riding a Stymphalian bird wasn’t quite as much fun as I thought it would be.”
Artemis and I simply rolled our eyes at him in response, and then we headed back to Pan’s home to drop Alec off. I was eager to get some rest.
___________________
Finally the day Alec and I would leave for Kentucky arrived. First, I got up early and took a shower before putting on some jeans, a red T-shirt, and my leather jacket. Then I grabbed my black backpack and the ticket information I had printed out and quickly headed downstairs.
To my surprise, my mom was already in the kitchen, preparing a bowl of cereal for me. “I’m going to drive you to the airport in half an hour,” she said, not even looking up at me.
“Oh no, that’s okay. I called for a taxi last night, and it should be here soon. I didn’t want you to take off from work just for me,” I told her. Alec had to get to the airport as well, and since he wasn’t even supposed to exist, there was no way my mom could ever find out about him.
“Okay then. Give me a hug before you leave, sweetie,” she told me, and I clenched my teeth but obeyed anyway.
She sighed, and I thought I caught her wiping her eyes with her delicate hand, but I didn’t say anything besides, “Bye, Mom.” And then I walked out of the door and into the woods to meet Alec. If she even noticed that I only had one small backpack for two weeks’ worth of traveling, she didn’t say anything.
When I finally reached the meadow, our usual meeting place, the rest of the gods and Alec were already there waiting for me. “Ready?” I asked Alec. He was the only person there, besides me and Pan, who wasn’t wearing armor.
Alec simply nodded and walked over to stand next to me, now facing the rest of the gods. “Well,” Zeus spoke up, looking me in the eye, “give me a hug, and don’t get killed.”
Grinning, I walked over to him, gave him a hug, and replied, “Just keep the skies clear for us, Father Zeus.” He smiled, his blue eyes twinkling, and nodded, while Hera just glared at me from behind him.
“Don’t be thinking that I’m going to give you a hug too, Athena. Because I definitely won’t,” Poseidon said, stepping up behind Zeus and winking.
I just shook my head as Hephaestus stood up awkwardly with his wooden cane next to Poseidon and held out his rough hand, on which sat the two rocks that could turn into swords. He handed the larger one to Alec, since he was slightly taller than me, and the smaller rock to me. “These should work just fine. I laced them with magic, so if you drop them or they get lost, they should return to your pockets within five minutes, give or take a few. You know how these things work,” he instructed us with a wave of his hand. “Oh, and good luck.”
Alec and I nodded in unison, and I was about to respond to the smith god when I was suddenly pulled away by Aphrodite. I just let out an exasperated sigh, knowing full well what was coming. Frowning, she quickly reached behind my head to fix my ponytail and then placed her perfectly manicured hands on my shoulders. “Okay, by now I’m assuming you know that Alec likes you—”
“I know everything,” I told her bluntly, crossing my arms.
Starting to remind me of Katie, she sighed and explained, “Well, yes, but let’s just say that love is definitely not your area of expertise. I mean, you haven’t said anything to Cole or Alec on the subject yet.” Fixing her own hair and clasping her hands together dramatically, Aphrodite continued, “I just wanted to tell you that you shouldn’t be afraid to fall in love.”
I only raised my eyebrows in silence. “I’m not supposed to fall in love,” I reminded her matter-of-factly.
Aphrodite shook her head and argued, “No, you’re just supposed to be a virgin. You of all people should know about loopholes. Don’t you have a law degree or something?”
I looked her in the eye. “Forget it, Aphrodite. It’s not happening. And I have to go now, so—” I was interrupted when she suddenly hugged me tightly, and I was all too aware of her curvy body and breasts pressing against mine. Her voluminous blonde hair was strewn over my face, and the fruity scent of perfume was overwhelming. She couldn’t help it, though. Her aura and good looks were more than enough to evoke powerful feelings of desire or to send one’s senses spiraling out of control—but always in a good way.
Reluctantly giving in to her charms for a moment, I sighed and hugged her back, but then I pushed away again. “Bye,” I told her softly, tucking a stray piece of hair behind my ear. Even though we had our differences, I had to admit Aphrodite was a pretty good friend, like most of the gods.
I turned back to face the rest of the gods one last time before saying farewell. “Well, happy hunting, Artemis, and to everyone else, please stay alive,” I said with a nod toward my good friend, the goddess of the moon.
When they all smiled back, Alec knelt down on one knee, giving one last bow to his gods and best friends, the determined look of a hero now permanently written across his face. Without another word, we slowly headed north to meet our taxi, leaving the other gods behind to go kill some of the monsters Hades had sent. I hated to admit it, but I was going to miss them.