Page 13 of Can you take it?

She shook her head. “Not yet,” Anna replied.

“Well, hurry it up!” Eletha shouted and the walls rattled with power.

Anna suddenly turned and lunged for me, snatching at the amulet and trying to pull it from my neck with brute force. I gagged, bending over to get her off me without hurting her while simultaneously trying not to trip over my pants, which were still trapped around my boots.

“Stop! Stop! Stop! Clothes! Pull out!” came a voice off in the distance of the hallway.

I managed to swat Anna away while holding on to the pendant with a firm grip and shuffling in a circle. Thankfully the woman only came to about my armpits, so I was able to keep it from her grip fairly easily once I stood up to my full height, except that meant that I flashed Eletha in between pushing the little gremlin away from me.

“Get it, Anna!” she shouted.

“I’m trying!” Anna shouted back, and I startled for a moment at the burst of power that flickered through the room. That second one hadn’t been Eletha—it was from this Anna girl. What had I just gotten myself into?

“Gods, just grab it already!” the Shepherd of Tartarus shouted from the doorframe.

“Oh, don’t worry. She’s already done that. And quite well, I must say,” I said with a wink that riled up the brunette heathen attempting to rip my ear off.

“Stop!” Walter appeared in the doorway next to Eletha. “Hurry! Get your pants on, Aurelius!”

“Hello, Walter,” Eletha said snidely as she crossed her arms.

“Hello, Walter. How are you?” the woman in front of me said conversationally as she punched me in the gut. “Damnit! Why don’t you have any powers? I could have sapped them from you and had you on the ground in a puddle.”

I realized she was talking about me. I turned, cock in hand, to face Walter. “I thought no one here had their powers?”

“We do.” He shrugged awkwardly. “For whatever reason, the Fates didn’t want you to have yours apparently.”

“I gave them to Cal,” I rushed to say. I must have left that out of the story when I caught him up. “Calypso is now a Seelie royal and a SunTamer,” I said proudly, happier than I could express that she would carry on my powers.

Anna stopped fighting me and stilled. “What?”

“Have you done as I asked?” yet another voice said from the doorway. Perfect. Perhaps the rest of Eromreven could gather and catch a second glimpse of me in an embarrassing cock-out situation.

“Uggghhh!” Anna growled sounding a bit like a petulant child.

Kaohs stepped into the room, and I felt more ridiculous than ever as his eyebrows rose at the sight of me. Was he seriously checking up that I was getting rid of the itch like he’d told me to? What a bloody control freak.

“Welp,” I said, deciding I may as well unload on him and explain myself. “I chose a whore I really liked⁠—”

“No. Stars, no.” Walter interjected before he covered his eyes with his spread palms.

“This one here”—I pointed to Walter—“even tried to convince me to tie her up and choke her.” I was so irritated that the stunning woman had pretended to be interested in me only to try and steal my necklace.

“Oh…my…” Walter turned and smooshed his face against the doorframe.

“She milked me good and clean before she tried to steal my⁠—”

“Not you,” Kaohs barked in my direction, silencing me.

“You. Did you do as I asked?” He looked at Anna where she stood and crossed his arms.

“I was about to when you two barged in,” she growled at him. Kaohs. The lord of the Underworld. She growled at him.

What. The. Fuck. Was going on?

“How do you expect me to leave you to run this place if you can’t manage to get a trinket from a man’s neck? Eletha, I thought you were going to help your sister.”

If my eyes were capable of it, they would have punched Walter in the face with how quickly they snapped to him.