5. Benji

I had to touch her. Medusa was tense and her nemesis was her. Her nemesis was much worse than mine. Like, Sheriff Riddle had nothing on a fucking god. All he could do was arrest me if he could ever prove it was me and he'd never do that. Athena was like, boss-level nemesis. I never fought a god with my shadow wolf, but if Dionysus told me where she lived, I could go full menace until she lifted the curse. I was very good at menacing.

I didn't trust the ambrosia. I'd read about it. If Dionysus presented it deep fried and wanted us to eat it off his bare chest with some whipped cream, I would be there for that. He was pretty as fuck and one of us. Maybe we could do that with the leftovers.

Dionysus said it would help her, but I didn't know why Athena wanted the rest of us to eat it. I got Jezebel and Calamity because they were in New Eden longer, but she specifically said Cas, Pax, and me. I didn't trust bitches I couldn't shift into a shadow wolf and rip their ass off. Could I? Would it just grow back? Questions for Dionysus later.

"You all need to eat that," Athena said.

"No, you need to tell us why we need to eat it and why you cursed our mate, Sugar Tits," I said.

Yeah, I meant that, but was Sugar Tits too much? It was what I called Sheriff Riddle to his face because it annoyed him. Athena needed a good nemesis name if she didn't smite me. I probably wouldn't get off with getting yeeted into the wall like Kat did earlier. But that was totally called for. I didn't need to be making young demons neurotic about the food because boneless wings were just fancy chicken nuggets. If Kat hadn't been so mad about it, she'd agree with me.

Medusa let out a nervous giggle and squeezed my thigh. All four gods moved closer to me. Yeah, if she wanted to smite or curse me for the Sugar Tits thing, the god squad was going to fuck her up for me.

Worth

It.

"Listen, I'm going to have to tell you what really happened in my temple. You aren't cursed. I heard you calling for my help. Poseidon knew you were my favorite, and that was why he targeted you. If I had tried to stop it, he would have killed you. Deep down, you know this.

"So, I went above his head. I went above everyone's head. I asked the Fates to take over. I knew you were meant for more than what was happening to you in my temple. They answered and agreed with me. They said you had a long, interesting thread and there would eventually come a time where you met your mates and your whole group would be my greatest heroes on a much bigger scale.

"Poseidon was going to make you his plaything. It's just how he is when he's feuding with someone. He would have kept coming at you until he got tired of you and killed you or you couldn't deal with it anymore and you let yourself fade away.

"I asked the Fates to guide my hand so no one could hurt you again and Poseidon would lose interest. It was a ruse. I threw magic at you so Poseidon thought I blamed you, but it was the Fates who decided what that magic was. I yelled at them later because gods are immune to Gorgons but they just laughed at me and told me the truth. They made you a fury."

"Listen, Sugar Tits," Medusa said with a snarl.

Fuck, I loved her. I loved that she looked the god that cursed her right in the eye and called her Sugar Tits. I guess we could share nemesis names. Athena just rolled her eyes.

"You could have cleared this up ages ago. Poseidon probably heard about a good surfing spot after you settled your feud and forgot all about me. I wasn't even his type. You just kept showing up and ruining my life. You got me thrown into New Eden Asylum."

"I was trying to teach you and motivate you. You can turn off the snakes and only make your gaze lethal when you want it to be. Don't you see? The Coalition is your hero quest. You'd save countless supernaturals. You had to get taken to motivate Dionysus to contact Cassandra to find your other mates and start the entire process!"

Sugar Tits looked pretty proud of herself, but there were a lot of holes in that story for someone who prided themselves on logic. Oh, and I was loving that the nemesis name was catching on.

"Look, Sugar Tits, you're my half-sister and Medusa was the only thing we ever disagreed on, but you suck at peopling for someone so smart. Don't you think telling Medusa she could turn that shit off would have helped her figure it out better than ruining her life? And since when could you not just come to me and tell me that her other mates were out there and important to bringing down to Coalition? If you didn't drop the hint Cassandra could tell us their weaknesses, I probably would have figured it out. Hello, my name is synonymous with orgies. Of course, I wanted her to find her other mates," Dionysus sighed.

Fuck me. The orgies were going to be damned fine. And Dionysus had a really good point. All this shit could have been avoided by using her words like a fully-grown Sugar Tits.

"You were scared," Hephaestus said. "We were close once. We're both not into the whole romance nonsense, but no one forced you to get married like they did me. I knew you better than any of the other gods.

"Everyone thought you cursed a rape victim, and it didn't really play well. You couldn't be honest without sending Poseidon after her, so after you saved her from Perseus, you made sure she ended up outside my workshop so I could take care of her and then you pulled away from everyone. You terrorized the girl rather than just talking to her because you knew how much you hurt your favorite."

Athena bowed her head. Hephaestus had her pegged. It was low-key weird because she was a god. If I wasn't fucking with someone, I was getting blamed for fucking with someone. Even if it wasn't me, I looked that person in the eye and owned it. Sugar Tits should have nutted up and faced Medusa aged ago.

"It was terrible," Athena said. "I asked them to use their magic through me to make her stronger and they did that to her. I couldn't face her because even though I know she can turn it off, and she has the powers of a fury, no one actually knows anything about that except Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera. I've been researching, but barring asking them and actually getting them to cooperate, I don't know how to teach you how to do this. I hate not knowing something. I was researching this entire time."

I had some opinions about Sugar Tits and her secrets, but I wasn't going to speak for Medusa. This was her life. It wasn't up to any of us to tell her how to feel or react to this. Cas stole her and had her in his lap because that was just him. Pax and I hadn't started eating yet. Pax squeezed her hand, and I nuzzled her shoulder with my cheek.

"I can't deal with this shit," she said, standing up and leaving.

We all moved to go after her but Persephone stopped us.

"Girl talk. You coming, Jezebel?"

"Fuck, yeah."

Persephone saw me sulking and pinched my cheek. Should she be doing that when her husband was a God and looked like he wanted to murder me for that?

"You're adorable. You need to stay and find out your part in all this."

Yeah, yeah. After my mate was okay.