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“Fine,” she grumbled, but a little of her anxiety lessened when my wing moved out to curl around her.
The voices down below told me that at least Ace, Aram, Seven, and Bael were around.
The latter of which would probably be the toughest sell, but he was just going to have to accept Dale. He had no other choice.
“Well, look at that,” Ace said when we moved into the doorway.
“What? You’re surprised?” Drex asked, squeezing past the two of us to move into the library to grab a drink. “You didn’t hear them fucking? Sounded like they were going to knock the house down.”
“Drex,” Josephine scolded, shaking her head at him.
Out of all of us in the house, she was the most human. Lenore was raised in a coven. Nova had been a vampire thrall for years. The rest of us were straight out of hell.
But Josephine had just been a normal woman living an average human life until Ace plucked her off the street to take care of Red when she came back from hell so wounded.
She was the one to understand basic manners better than anyone else, and wasn’t shy to scold us when she thought we were being inappropriate.
“I was scared for my fucking life,” Drex said, smirking at Jo.
“You’re immortal,” she shot back. “Anyway,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Hey, Dale. It’s nice to see you with Minos. Not running away from him.”
There was censure there.
But Dale just gave her a knowing nod.
“So, this is a thing now?” Ace asked.
“Yes,” I said, nodding.
“What do her people have to say about that?” Ace asked.
“That’s the thing,” Dale said, taking half a step forward, not wanting to seem like she was hiding behind me, but also not getting far enough away that my wing stopped touching her. “Things have changed in the world right now. I don’t know if any of you have noticed that something is happening.”
“Something,” Ace repeated, his brow raising.
“We heard some whispers on the road,” Aram said. “But nothing concrete. Just a sense of unease among the witches and other supernaturals.”
“Right. Well, better just get out with it then,” Dale said, wincing. “The old gods are waking up.”
“I’m sorry… the what?” Josephine asked, looking over toward Ace.
We all did, in fact.
It was habit.
He was our leader.
And he was the oldest.
“That’s not possible,” Ace said, shaking his head.
“Well, The Academy says it is. And our priest says it is. And Arick says it is…”
“Arick?” Drex asked, going from laid-back to worried in a blink.
“What old gods?” Josephine asked. “I was under the impression that there was, you know, just… God. God and the Devil and heaven and hell. That’s why these guys—and you—all exist, right?”
“I was just as confused as you are,” Dale said, giving her a nod. “But, apparently, those old, you know, old world gods… those weren’t just myths. They were the gods before our God. And, apparently, they got a little tired and took a nap. But now they’re good and rested, and…”
“And ready to fuck everything as we know it up,” Ace said.
“That’s the general consensus,” Dale agreed.
“Dark as the morgue in here,” another voice said, coming up from behind us.
I pulled Dale to the side to leave enough room to let Daemon pass by, wearing a pair of low-slung pajama pants with mushrooms all over them, and holding an almost overflowing bowl of sugar cereal.
“Long story short,” Bael, his brother, piped in, “the old gods are waking up.”
“Oh, yeah. I heard about that,” Daemon said, making every head whip in his direction.
“What?” Bael hissed.
“And you didn’t say anything?” Ace demanded.
“What? What’s the big deal? Sounds like a good time.”
“A good time? Nothing about this will be a good time,” Ace insisted.
“No? Nothing? You’re gonna stand there and tell me that Dionysus is going to come back and there’s not going to be an epic year-long party? Come on. What?” he asked when everyone stared at him.
“Always kind of thought you were a fucking idiot,” Drex declared, making a few of us have to cover our laughs with coughs. “And here you are, spouting old god facts.”
“I’m full of surprises,” Daemon declared. “Anyone know how to get an invite to an old god party? I think I need to be there.”
“What will the old gods think of us?” Aram asked, ignoring Daemon. “We don’t fit into their old world.”
“No,” Ace agreed. “I figure that they will get some sort of crash course on what has been going on in the world since they took a nap, apparently. But I don’t know what that means for those of us who are a part of the new system.”
“Never been so happy to be immortal,” Josephine said, getting up and walking over to Ace, and dropping down on his lap.
“We do have that working in our favor,” Ace agreed as his wing moved out to close around his woman.
