Claimed by Gods_A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy by Eva Chase

Author:Eva Chase [Chase, Eva]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781989096116
Publisher: Ink Spark Press
Published: 2018-05-15T16:00:00+00:00

15

Aria

We were supposed to gather in the living room, but I caught Hod in the upstairs hall after the others had already gone down. I took a breath to say his name, and he stopped just at that, his head turning toward me. His dark green eyes settled on my face, almost as if he really were meeting my gaze now. I wasn’t sure if I’d have been able to tell he couldn’t see me if I hadn’t known to look for the subtlest signs.

“I wanted to talk to you, just for a minute, before we do this,” I said.

“What’s on your mind, valkyrie?” he said in that flat voice of his. As if I really believed he was that dispassionate after the emotion I’d seen in him the other day in the study. “Having cold feet?”

I grimaced at him, even though he couldn’t see that either. “No. I just wanted to ask…” I paused. He might not be dispassionate, but that didn’t mean he’d be compassionate either. I couldn’t think of any better way to put this. “The last three valkyries didn’t come back. I plan on making this time different, but if I can’t—if something happens, and I don’t make it—would you check on my brother? At least once?”

He knew where Petey lived. As far as I could tell, he was the only one who even knew Petey existed. The dark god had been at least compassionate enough not to rat on me to the others about my sneaky late-night trip.

Surprise flickered across Hod’s chiseled face. “I’m not going to intervene,” he started.

“I know,” I said, cutting him off. “I get it. But the idea was that after all this is over, I’d get to watch over him a little. I’ll feel better knowing that someone will be there, whatever way you can be.”

I intended to do a lot more than just watch if I had the chance, but we didn’t need to get into that.

Hod turned his face away from me, his eyes going even more distant than they’d looked before. “What are you worried will happen to him?” he asked. “That man who was yelling at him—has he hurt your brother before?”

“No,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean— There are tons of things, okay? All kinds of awful things that already happen or could.” Memories flickered up from my own childhood: Mom’s hoarse ranting, insults that cut deep, the slam of a door, a hungry gnawing in my belly. And the worst of them, the one thing I hoped more than anything Petey never had to experience: the creak of a bedroom door in the middle of the night, the weight of a body that wouldn’t take no for an answer.

My skin crawled. I pushed those memories back down where I kept them bottled. “And I couldn’t fix most of those things even when I was alive, not properly. He just shouldn’t be alone. Okay?”

My throat had gotten tight. Hod slid his blind gaze toward me again.

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