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Clay gripped the sides of his head with both hands. His brain was about to explode in his skull. “Have you lost your fucking mind? Are you talking about torturing it?”
“Well, it’s not my intent, but those damn things have been trying to kill me for at least two years now. I’m not going to feel bad about killing them. If a little torture happens, well that’s just unfortunate.”
Scrubbing his hands over his face, Clay tried to find the words, but this was crazy. “Torture aside,” Clay said, and he couldn’t believe he had to say those words, “how would we even do that? And where would we keep it while we tested our powers on it?”
“Here,” Baer said.
“What about Dane? He’s working on the house. Do we want to worry about him finding the thing? And what if it gets loose? Our home is supposed to be a safe zone. We need a place where we are safe. Where we know he’s safe.”
Okay, so a lot of that was about Dane, but Clay wasn’t not going to worry about that or the questioning eyebrows Baer was shooting him. This trapping suggestion was batshit crazy.
“Then we’ll figure out someplace else. Getting our hands on one would give us a chance to really work out our powers. Get some better control.”
Baer’s words wrapped around the little knot of insecurity living and breathing in Clay’s chest. He needed control. He needed to understand how to better use his powers if he was going to keep Dane, Baer, and Grey safe.
But as tempting as it sounded, it was also incredibly dangerous.
“There has to be a better plan when it comes to learning about them.” His brain scrambled, trying to come up with another option. “The aunts. They’ve known about these things for centuries. They can tell us more before we resort to this.”
Baer frowned at them. “And how are we going to do that? Flo and Jo don’t exactly keep a regular schedule with their appearances. And we’ve yet to even see this Willie.”
“You can’t summon them?” Grey asked.
Clay shared a look with Baer. It wasn’t like they exactly tried. Neither of the women had left a cell number or any other alternative for contacting them if they were needed. But, of course, how exactly did a person summon a goddess?
“You could try calling for them,” Baer suggested.
Clay stared at his friend for a moment before heaving a sigh. Tilting his head toward the sky, Clay shouted, “Flo?” He waited a few seconds, listening to the breeze rifle through the leaves overhead. He shouted, “Jo?”
They looked around the open field and then at each other. Nothing happened.
“I wonder if you’ve got to be more formal about it. You did say they were goddesses. They need a summons worthy of goddesses,” Grey said.
Clay narrowed his eyes on Grey and it didn’t look like the man was teasing him. “You’ve met Jo. Does she exactly scream classic goddess to you?”
“No, but that could be for our benefit.”
“Come on, Clay,” Baer prodded. “You’re the one who’s against the trapping idea. Give it a go if you think we should talk to Jo and Flo first.”
Swallowing some fresh grumbles, Clay shoved to his feet. He felt like a fucking idiot, but if it kept them out of trouble, he’d embrace the feeling. With his eyes closed, Clay held his hands out in front of him, palms up. Air flowed into his lungs and with it he welcomed the power from the earth, letting it fill every cell of his body. It was like his body was floating on a cloud of peace.
“O Great Goddesses of earth, animal, and soul, we humbly beseech an audience with you. Please bless us with your wisdom so that we aren’t complete dumbasses and get ourselves killed.”
Seconds ticked by, but there was only the sound of the wind and the chirping of the birds.
Clay opened his eyes to find both Baer and Grey staring up at him red-faced. He rolled his eyes and they both exploded with laughter. Both men fell backward in the soft green grass, gasping for air between chuckles.
Assholes.
Dropping his hands to his sides, he waited until they’d stopped laughing enough to actually hear him. “Glad you’ve had your fun. We’re still not trapping a pestilent. It’s too dangerous. We’re waiting until we can talk to the aunts.”
“Who made you the boss man of us?” Grey shot out.
“I’m the boss until both of you start showing a little common sense.”
Grabbing his shoes, Clay stomped to the house. Despite the tone of his words, the anger was already slipping from his frame, and he was flooded with a feeling of déjà vu. But it was more than a feeling of it all happening in the past; there was also a rightness to it all. Everything was falling into place as it should. As it had before.
