45. Benji

S weet mother of fuck. We did it. We still had a lot to do, but if my parents were still alive, they'd be released soon. Moms was a shadow demon, and she'd always be able to find me. As soon as the angel tears were out of her system, she'd poof to me. Or I could poof to her once she was out of the wards. I was so close.

We were all in Pepper Crane's living room while she cooked dinner. Well, Cas wasn't. He was in there trying to swap recipes. The dude was massive and could tear your throat out with his teeth or claws, but he was happiest being domesticated. Cas loved being in the kitchen sharing recipes. And he was sexy as fuck doing that.

I could be feral for both of us.

We were sitting in Pepper's living room talking to her husband. I wasn't shocked Pepper had four degenerate cats. Cats didn't just mooch off everyone. They only mooched off the good people. I definitely worried if a dog didn't like someone because that was just fucked up, but if a cat was judging, I sure as fuck was, too. Which was weird because I wasn't any type of cat shifter.

Medusa and Dionysus were cuddling me because I was honestly about to lose my shit about my parents. Pax was being Pax and coordinating with the gods and Callum Crane. I'd do that in five minutes. I needed to lose my shit for a minute.

Medusa squeezed me.

"Hey, no matter what happens, you'll at least know for sure what happened. And we'll all be here. If you want revenge, you've got a god and a fury with dubious control over her magic."

I whined and rubbed my face in her neck. The werewolf half of me was tactile as fuck. My demon half was a little needy. The person underneath all of that had been kidnapped as a child and tortured by fanatics. I knew I was a badass shadow wolf, but sometimes, I needed to be coddled and promised violent revenge against the people who hurt me.

"It's the not knowing. If you share shadows with someone, you can always find them, but I couldn't feel my mom's as soon as they got me behind the wards. I still couldn't feel her when I got out. I'm not being blocked anymore, but they might be. Or they're dead. I want to know, but I don't."

"We could find out and break the news gently," Dionysus said, stroking my back.

"Doesn't work like that with shadow demons. I share my shadows with my mom. That bit of my shadows in my mark on Medusa is how we protect our mates. If I feel through the mate bond she needs me, I can use the shadow to find her anywhere. It's like that with families, too. Once the angel tears are out of my mom's system, she can find me or I can find her and my dad.

"If they are still alive. The Coalition has had them a long time. We are hard to kill, but we've been known to give up and let ourselves fade away. I don't think my parents would if they knew I was still out there, but these people are liars. They could have told my parents I was dead."

"Fate is a funny thing," Dionysus said. "She's put us through a lot of shit to get to this point, but I think she's going to reward us for pulling this off. Medusa and I get all of you and a home because we got the closure we needed to settle somewhere. I honestly thought we were going to be nomads running from Hera and Athena forever, but we don't have to anymore. I can just feel you'll get your family back."

"I hope so. Not getting them back after all of this is like downloading a BookTok book because everyone is talking about how utterly filthy it is and the author keeps repeatedly using moist in the sex scenes. It's morally reprehensible," I said, shuddering.

"Benji?" Pax said.

"Yes, my love?"

Pax knew when I was like this, I could barely focus. He was doing what he needed to do while I was getting the care I needed. He would have been over here cuddling me himself, but our group had expanded. Pax was about to say something to make it better.

"Callum is a lawyer for a nonprofit. His boss was watching and has already called and offered to help. She has shelters all over the country to take people in, doctors and mental health professionals to help them, and the resources to help find their families."

"Well, that's a good thing, right?" I asked.

Because Pax was looking at us like it was a bad thing. If my parents were alive, they could just poof to me. They had separated us by several states, so I was guessing it was the same for other supernaturals. Shadow demons could travel by shadows, but there weren't many supernaturals that had means of travel like that. They'd have to do it the hard way.

And they were probably beat up, half-starved, and mentally traumatized. Anyone who was willing to step up and help with that was okay in my book.

"Is she equipped to handle supernaturals?" Medusa asked.

"Uh, in the most way anyone could be equipped to handle supernaturals. That's the problem."

"Why is that a problem?" I asked.

"Her organization is called The Silver Peacock."

Dionysus hissed and made some kind of gesture that I was sure was for warding off evil several millennia ago.

"She's not the same woman you knew," Athena said. "If she saw you again, she'd probably apologize for what she did. She really has reinvented herself and is all about helping people now. We didn't have to call her. She called and volunteered."

"If she was watching, then she saw me. It's probably a trap," Dionysus grunted.

"This didn't make sense until you said that, but she said to pass on a message that she's sorry and she can do this without us ever having to see her," Callum said.

Ugh. I hated not knowing what was going on. I didn't know who he was talking about and if we ever worked with The Silver Peacock, it was all Cas because they were all worried about me offending important people. Which was stupid because I was a pacifist. I didn't go after people unless they offended me first. I was the perfect pacifist.

"Um, who is the mysterious she? I could slip into the shadows and fuck with her if she messed with my mate," I demanded.

"Ugh. That mysterious she is my stepmother, Hera. Don't go anywhere near her. She might want to help people now, but she's much older than you and her methods of revenge aren't as playful. I'm talking, the kind of shit that you'd think all of us were your enemy and turn your shadow wolf against us. Stay far away from my stepmother."

Yeah, I wasn't going to fuck with that. Hera had the resources to help, but no one was going to tell Dionysus how to deal with that trauma. I'd never forgive someone for doing that to me.

"It's up to you," Athena said. "My presence here is also upsetting, but I did what I came here to do. Hera has offered to do this without ever talking to you because she acknowledges what she did to you.

"I've got resources, too, and I have the ability to cobble things together to keep these places honest. I also still have followers, both human and supernatural. I can put pressure on these places who are dallying releasing people. I can have someone waiting when they do to collect names and get them to one of Hera's shelters. It should also be simple to set up a database of people who were released for their families to check and come get them. I can find out if Benji's parents were released before the angel tears are out of their system."

Ugh. Fuck me. Were we still mad at her? I didn't see much of what went on in the chambers because we were trying to deal with Lucky, but Calamity was watching and said Athena gave some pretty good speeches to help get the law passed. And then she addressed the reporters and gave us a little backup if phase two of our plan never happened.

Athena was willing to help with the fallout of what we'd just done and deal with Hera so Dionysus didn't have to. She also immediately offered to help with my parents because she knew I needed it. If we were still mad at her, I could accept that, but I wasn't calling her Sugar Tits anymore. That was back to being solely reserved for Sheriff Riddle.

Medusa got up and hugged Athena. I guess we weren't mad at her anymore. Athena stood there stiffly and patted Medusa on the back like a dog. Some people didn't know how to take a good hug and Athena was one of them. No judgment.

"Thank you. You've been more than amazing. We couldn't have done any of this without you. When this is over, you should come back for dinner or do girl's night out with us again."

Medusa had forgiven her, so I did, too. Part of being mated to someone was being furious with people who didn't do shit to you, but had hurt your mate. It was sacred. Athena had done some amazing things, but if Medusa was still mad at her, I probably would have poofed to her house, stole the batteries out of everything in her house, and also took the plate out of her microwave because I broke ours once and finding a replacement was a bitch.

I was glad I didn't have to do all that.

"Uh, guys?" Calamity said.

Last time she said that, she had some big fucking news, so we all paid attention. She was looking out the window, so we all jumped up to look. It looked like there were hundreds of stars falling out of the sky, but it felt like a bad omen. It didn't feel like you should make hundreds of wishes. This was some bad shit.

"I've seen this before," Kat said. "That's what we saw in the sky before the angels showed up in our village and started slaughtering innocents for loving an angel. I'm guessing the last two countries just outlawed the Coalition and Athena's speech about the angels going rogue got their attention."

Pbbt. We'd come this far. We were all total badasses, even if we weren't gods or furies. Kat had intel on fighting angels. All the shit I'd been through was because of them. Pax lost his eyesight and Medusa was nearly starved to death.

We needed the angels to make an appearance so we could find out why they did all this and fully get humans on our side. It was one of the steps of Medusa's plan.

But my shadow wolf wasn't going to complain if we got to do a little violence against the angels that were currently falling from the sky.

In fact, we craved it.