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“Bullshit.” She shifted her weight and struck me in the stomach with a roundhouse kick that left me breathless. My left foot slipped, and I noticed I was poised at the edge of the moat. Addison didn’t give me time to recover my balance. Smiling sweetly, she poked my nose and said, “Boop.”
I fell backward and crashed through the ice that had crusted over the top of the moat. The frigid water cut straight to my bones. As I attempted to surface, I felt resistance. At first, I thought I’d hit a patch of ice, until I realized it was Addison’s hand.
That bitch was holding me underwater.
“You’ve bored me, Lorelei,” I heard her voice say. “Here I thought I’d found a diamond in the rough but turns out you’re nothing but a lump of coal.”
I could only hold my breath and withstand the icy moat for so long. I clawed at her hand, but she held firm.
I never should’ve met her outside without weapons. At the very least I could’ve grabbed a butter knife on my way out to greet her. A regrettable error that just might kill me.
Her hand continued to palm my head, applying just enough pressure to keep me submerged. I tried to pull her in with me, but my strength was quickly waning.
An image of Pops floated in my mind’s eye. We were at a lake somewhere in rural Lancaster County. He was teaching me how to hold my breath underwater in case I ever needed to hide. I’d been terrified—that I would drown, naturally, and also that I had to fear someone so much that I’d choose to risk dying over letting them catch me.
I was seven.
My lungs felt ready to burst. I pushed aside the memory and concentrated on the goddess. It was my only way out. I slipped into her mind like it was made of silk. Her thoughts were jumbled and chaotic. A quick sweep of the contentsrevealed her identity—Aite, the goddess of mischief and ruin. Thanks to her reign of terror over the centuries, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of nightmares in her head.
It was only a matter of selecting the most effective one.
Pain sliced through the numbness of my body as I ripped an image from her mind and thrust it straight into reality. I knew I’d succeeded when the pressure stopped. I shot to the surface and drew a desperate breath. My chilled body refused to cooperate as I attempted to climb out of the moat. I slipped twice before pulling myself to the cold, hard ground.
Addison was on the ground, surrounded by a crowd of men. Some wore tunics; others wore doublets and stockings.
All were angry.
“Who are they?” I asked.
“Men I’ve led to ruin,” she said without remorse. She raised her hand, as though to summon her power, but nothing happened. The circle of men closed in on her.
“What’s wrong with me?” she shouted.
She was powerless when confronted by her past actions. Aite’s nightmare made perfect sense.
I jogged in place to get the blood flowing again.
“Make them go away,” she pleaded.
I stopped to squeeze the excess water from my hair. “Only if you agree to do the same.”
I lost sight of her as the maddening crowd tightened around her.
“Help me!” Her desperate plea reached my ears.
Matilda’s warning echoed in my head. The Celtic spirit would urge me to let them kill her. I couldn’t afford to have Addison run back to The Corporation and report my existence. I could let the angry mob take its course. This was one of the features of my powers that frightened Pops the most—that I could weave someone’s nightmare into the fabric ofreality. I was the Freddy Krueger of goddesses; except I was a powerful force in both worlds.
And Aite was far from innocent. She wasn’t some girl I accidentally bumped elbows with on a crowded street. She was a goddess of mischief and ruin. Of reckless impulse and blind folly. We should’ve been more evenly matched. Getting inside her head shouldn’t have been this easy—unless…
Shit.
I’d been played.
I pushed my way to the inner circle, but the goddess was gone. Pain exploded in my head, and I fell to the ground in blinding white agony.
“This has been a real blast, but I’m afraid the test is over, sweetness,” Addison said.
My head throbbed and my vision was too blurred to see. “Cool. Did I pass?”
