Zeus.
Mother fucking Zeus who can’t keep his nose out of my business. How many times am I going to have to tell this guy no before he takes the hint?
“Any naysayers?” Zeus calls out. Not a single God so much as shakes his head. “No.” I shout into the sudden silence but my shout is ignored. I look around searching for one of the other “servers” but they’ve all vanished. Where the hell did they all go? Zeus’s voice drowns out my thoughts as he asks, “What will it be, dragon or enslave-?”
“What?” I shout interrupting him.
“Vote now if you want dragon!” His voice booms out, completely ignoring my outburst. I glance around, the parent-Gods and Goddesses all move off to the side as though it’s choreographed, leaving only the ten Gods-in-training and the four instructors, inclusive of Tanner. Seven have their hands raised. Thankfully Tanner isn’t one of them.
Before I can protest, Zeus calls out, “Those in favour of enslavement?” Again seven hands are raised, Tanner’s, Kier’s, Ty’s, Seth’s, a Goddess I’ve never seen before and two Gods I’ve seen around but haven’t spoken to.
“We have a tied vote. Normally I would be the deciding vote, however, I think we should leave this up to chance.” He tosses a coin at me and steps back. “Heads, you get eaten by the dragon. Tales, you become the slave of the first God you insulted with your bumbling.”
I raise my brows at him, knowing full well he could have just demanded I do what he wants instead of carrying out this farce. He was probably the one who tripped me in the first place. At this point I wouldn’t put it past him.
“Well, flip the coin.” Someone calls out and I sigh. The coin feels warm in my hands as I turn it over, checking to see if there really are two sides to it.
“Please let it be the dragon.” I whisper under my breath as I flip the coin into the air. I’d rather face a dragon than be subjected to someone else’s whims for the foreseeable future.
As the coin begins to come back down, I reach up, preparing to catch it and slam it onto the back of my other hand, but the coin has other ideas. It bounces off my finger, rolls down the cement path and onto the grass where it teeters for a moment before dropping flat. I’m too far away to see but Kier isn’t.
He bends down and then looks up at me with the biggest grin on his face. “Looks like the dragon will need to find its meal elsewhere. You’re mine.”
“For how long?” I growl, directing my question to the God I swear rigged this whole charade.
Zeus smiles, “Until they release you from their service, but no more than seven years as that was the number of votes you received in your favour.”
“Their?” I snap. “My favour? Neither of those punishments were in my favour. You rigg-.” I lose the ability to talk the moment I try to say the words,You rigged the whole thing in your favour.Zeus’s smirk is the only proof I need, that the asshole did this on purpose. I refused to do his dirty work and now he’s tricked me into it anyway.
“Yes, their, as in the triplets. The family you insulted first with your bumbling. Until they release you from their service, you are theirs to do with as they please. Be grateful your punishment is not worse.”
My entire body jolts in shock as Zeus’s voice rings out in my mind, “You will do what we want. Keep an eye on those three and report to me, Poseidon or Ares once a week with everything they do and say. If you do not do as we say, you’ll spend the rest of your life wishing you had.”
My mouth flaps like a fish but still nothing comes out.
I want to scream, stomp my feet, anything, but my body refuses to cooperate. A single tear leaks down my cheek as I stand there glaring at theGods.
EIGHTEEN
SETH
I can’t believe our luck. I feel like kissing whoever it was that tripped Ryxa. We’ve been trying for the last few days to convince Zeus, Poseidon, and Ares to let us have Ryxa as our human liaison, but they’ve denied us at every turn. Now she’s ours and because she’s officially ours, by law we can move her into our rooms. No rules broken. It’ll make it so much easier to keep an eye on her. Protect her. My smile couldn’t get any bigger.
“Come on, babe, we’ve got a lot to sort out now that you’re ours.” I say wrapping my arm around her shoulders. “As our official Human Liaison, you don’t have to do any of the work duties the others do, you only have to do what we tell you.”
To my shock, she ducks out from under my arm and races over to Zeus, the entire crowd of Gods all gasp as she grabs him by the arm and drops to her knees.
“Please, I’d rather face the dragon.” The look of utter horror on her face makes my chest feel like it’s caving in on itself.
I think we just made a huge mistake forcing her to be ours. She still hasn’t forgiven Kier for pointing out the stupid rule that made her boyfriend break up with her, there’s no way she’ll forgive us for forcing her into this.
My good mood deflates with every thought I have.
Zeus laughs at her, actually laughs at her and lifts her back to her feet. “I’m sorry, my dear, once the decree is made, there’s no breaking it. You belong to them now.” He turns to us, his face turning hard, “You’d best teach this girl her place. Might I suggest punishing her by denying her free time for a week.”
“Yes, Sir.” Kier looks like he’s just come to the same conclusions I did a few moments ago. He can’t deny Zeus though, not when none of us have come into our powers yet.
Ty tries to be the good guy here by walking over and picking her up like a bride, she squirms a bit but he whispers something in her ear that makes her go completely still. All the colour drains from her face as she nods. I’m not sure what Ty’s said but it can’t be good.