The Goddess Hunt (Goddess Test #1.5)(5)
Author: Aimee Carter

“Forgive me if I’m skeptical. You are newlyweds, after all.”

Casey set his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Let it go. Kate, we don’t have many friends among the members of the council. They don’t take kindly to having the tables turned on them. Hermes—James, he’s the only one who’s shown us any kindness at all.”

“Well, you can count me as a friend, too,” I said. “I’m not going to let their egos get in the way of me helping you.Rhe ing you21;

“See?” Casey nudged his brother. “She’s not so bad.”

Lux scoffed, his dark eyes fixed on me. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

His lack of trust didn’t exactly inspire my confidence in him either, but at least he had a legitimate reason for being suspicious. I stared back, refusing to look away, and the seconds ticked by. Lux smirked.

“Feisty.”

I wrinkled my nose and gave him a look, which he returned mockingly. Casey grinned and patted his brother on the knee. Now that they were beside each other, they were in constant physical contact, as if reassuring themselves that the other was still there. I didn’t blame them.

“You need rest,” said Casey to Lux. “Go to bed, and we’ll figure out where James and Kate will—”

“Stop.” Lux tensed, and he turned toward the door. Several seconds of silence passed, and he whispered, “Did you hear that?”

I expected Casey to brush aside his concern, but instead they stood together. “Come on,” said Casey, and he fetched a pair of backpacks from the corner. “If we leave now we might be able to—”

A chorus of howls shattered the quiet night, and Lux swore. Loudly. “Artemis. I told you,” he growled. “I bloody told you.”

James jumped to his feet, and I joined him. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?” I said, and he shook his head.

“Ella’s out there.”

Ella, another member of the council. And according to the twins, another person who wanted them dead. My stomach dropped, and I peeked through the threadbare curtains. Sure enough, Ella stood bathed in moonlight not fifteen feet from the cottage door, and several hulking silhouettes loomed over her. Even in the darkness I could see the bow in her hand and the quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder, and she glared at the cottage as if it had personally offended her.

Perfect.

A rough hand grabbed my wrist and yanked me away from the window. Lux. “You did this, didn’t you? Somehow you told them.”

“Are you crazy?” I tried to pull my arm away, but my newfound immortality was the only reason his grip didn’t shatter my wrist bones. “How could I have possibly told anyone? I would never—”

“Of course you would. Look who you married,” he snarled.

“Lux, shut up.” Casey rammed his shoulder against a seemingly solid part of wall, but the wood groaned, and a piece half the size of a door came loose. An exit. One big enough for us to squeeze through. “Are you coming?”

Lux hesitated, apparently wavering between exacting vengeance on me or going with his brother. Finally he yanked me along with him. “Like hell I’m letting you go back to them. You’re staying with us.”

I hurried along and gave James an anxious look, but his face was drawn. Would he have somehow told Ella where we were? Or was Lux right—was Henry watching 220ry watcme, and was that how he found out?

We burst into the cool night air, and the four of us took off at a dead sprint. Running with my arm attached to Lux was damn near impossible, but every time I stumbled, he pulled me up with inhuman strength, and we kept going.

At last, once we were so lost I wasn’t even sure which direction the cottage was in, we all stopped. I was the only one who was breathing heavily. The others were too immortal or too dead to care about oxygen, but my body was still adjusting to the changes.

“Did we lose them?” said Casey, his cool demeanor all but gone. Instead he looked like a hunted animal, his eyes wide and his muscles flexing with the need to keep moving.

Lux hesitated. “I’m not—”

Suddenly an impossibly huge dog burst through the trees, snarling and snapping at us. Saliva dripped from its razor teeth, and its eyes glittered with the need to catch its prey. To catch us. I shrieked, and the four of us took off all over again. The dog tried to follow, but its large paws kept getting caught in the underbrush. At least that gave us a chance to get out of there.

This time I was the one leading Lux through the woods. Another dog appeared, somehow even bigger than the first, and Casey and James veered off to the left.

Where were they going? “James!” I shouted, and even though there was a canine the size of a Honda in our way, Lux turned sharply to follow them. The first dog skidded through the dirt and turned a tree into splinters, but that didn’t seem to faze it at all. Instead it changed course with ease, snapping at our heels.

I ran as fast as I could, dodging trees and roots and only looking as far ahead as I had to in order not to trip. Lux guided us down James and Casey’s path, and another set of snarls echoed through the woods ahead of us. But we had more pressing matters to worry about, like the dog that was about half an inch from taking off our legs.

“Lux!” I screeched. Instead of running faster, he let go of my wrist and whirled around. Without warning, he sent his fist flying into the dog’s jaw, and the resounding crack made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The dog howled, and Lux howled right back.

“Piss off, you hairy beast, before I break your skull.”

To my astonishment, the pair of them stared each other down for the space of several heartbeats, until at last the hound whimpered and ran in the opposite direction. How the hell had he done that?

“Was it absolutely necessary to hurt it?” I said. Lux’s skin glistened with sweat, and his eyes were practically on fire.

“Yes, else she would’ve used us as a chew toy. It’s an old trick. Works every time. Let’s go.”

He didn’t need to tell me twice. We took off running together in the direction Casey and James had disappeared. “Casey?” he called. “Casey!”

Sprinting through the woods, I kept my ears peeled for the sound of snarling, but I heard nothing. Just our feet as we crashed through the forest, making no effort to hide our path. Lux’s shouts grew wilder and wilder, until the desperate way he yelled his brother’s name broke my hearr oroke myt.