The Forest Gods' Reign by Alexandria Hook

Author:Alexandria Hook
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781630474485
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing

Chapter 12:

THE LITTLE HERO EMERGES

All of the gods’ jaws dropped as they stared at the hyperventilating Alec, and Zeus demanded instantly, “Tell me what happened.”

Alec put both of his hands on top of his dark hair, taking deep breaths and trying to slow his heart rate down again. “Persephone went out to collect some berries about half an hour ago, and she hasn’t come back,” Alec managed to gasp between deep breaths, his eyebrows knit together with worry. “She was only supposed to be gone for a couple of minutes. There aren’t any signs of her anywhere.”

“I’m going to kill Hades,” Demeter growled, anger clouding her normally cheerful mind.

“We don’t even know for sure if it was him,” Hestia began calmly, placing her hand lightly on Demeter’s tan arm.

“Well, who else would it be?! All signs point to him,” Demeter exclaimed, exasperated, shaking off Hestia’s comforting touch. “Hermes, get down to the Underworld right now,” Demeter ordered, even though she didn’t have the authority to do so.

But Hermes knew this well, so he didn’t move a muscle, and only looked Demeter squarely in the eyes. Demeter let out a frustrated yelp and yanked at her long blonde ponytail, but Zeus just frowned and told her to calm down while he thought. Meanwhile, the other gods whispered worriedly among themselves, discussing what should be done next.

After a few minutes, Zeus agreed to let Hermes go down into the Underworld to try to reason with Hades. Hermes shot off like a rocket toward the east, heading to one of the tiny cave entrances to the Underworld, but the rest of us stayed right where we were to wait for our leader’s next orders. Most of the gods restlessly paced around in circles and exchanged some stressed shouting matches as Alec groaned guiltily and collapsed on the grass; tension was obviously running very high.

Eventually, we all came to a decision. Zeus sighed a bit forlornly, then demanded, “Split into patrols. Kill any monsters you see, and warn all nymphs and satyrs of what has happened today. We don’t need anyone else to be killed.”

We all nodded in agreement and immediately split up. Zeus, Hera, and Hestia headed north, while my A Team, minus Apollo, trudged south. Apollo had agreed to protect Pan and the nymphs and satyrs who couldn’t protect themselves back at the river hideout, as it would be much easier for him than for Alec because the god was armed with a bow instead of a sword. Poseidon and Demeter went east, and Ares, Aphrodite, and Dionysus took off to the west.

Artemis, Alec, and I walked through the forest on high alert, taking the time to scope out every bush. We didn’t dare to speak; we only listened for the tiniest rustle of brush. We were ready for whatever monster wanted to attack us that day, even though we were still tired from fighting the Nemean lion the night before. However, the three of us had yet to come across anything remotely unusual or out of place.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.