My Ex From Hell (The Blooming Goddess Trilogy, #1)

A little carnage is a dangerous thing (Part 3)

Theo followed me. "You're so pissed right now. But you feel guilty so you're keeping quiet."

Argh! He knew me too well.

He broke into a grin. "Your eye is twitching."

I slapped a hand over my eye, which was, in fact, twitching. "You done?"

Theo chuckled. "Magoo, it was my decision to save you and pay the price. You've got nothing to feel guilty about."

"Really?"

"Really." He shrugged. "Unless you screw up. Then I'm going to make you feel soooo bad."

"I hate you."

He smiled. "Feel better?"

I grinned back at him. "Yes."

We returned to Kai and Hannah.

I looked down and groaned. "I'm gonna throw up." It was too far.

Kai stifled a laugh at my discomfort.

I shot him a "not funny" glare. "You think it's so easy? You do it."

"I don't do ribbons. Kai smash with destructive beams."

Muttering what part of him I wanted to smash, I snaked out the light of my right hand to wrap around Theo and Kai, binding them close together in a very homoerotic Greek hug.

Man, were they annoyed, but I had to get my kicks where I could.

"I don't want to know what you have planned for me," Hannah muttered, massaging her temple.

"Baby," I flirted, "we're going to be closer than we've ever been."

With the light from my left hand, I bound Hannah to me. Now that we were all trussed up together, I wrapped the ends of both ribbons snugly around a large rock at the lip of the cliff.

"It's not a present, Martha Stewart," Kai growled. "Get on with it."

The four of us shuffled awkwardly to the edge. Hannah, Kai, and Theo because that's the only way they could walk given their bindings and me because, well, I was scared out of my tree.

"The first step is the hardest," Hannah said brightly.

"Then it's all downhill," Theo added.

"Couple of real weisenheimers you—" The rest of my sentence turned into a smothered shriek as Kai jerked hard to the side to unbalance me and cause me to tumble off the rock.

When my terror had abated to mere mind-numbing fear, I managed to stop our fall so we could sway in mid-air while I hyperventilated.

"Now would be a good time to close your eyes and not look," Theo said. "Just lower us down."

Slowly, I let out my light, jerking us down the rock face. It didn't matter that we careened into outcropping brambles and random foliage. Nothing was going to keep me from my plodding journey to reach the ground.

I almost kissed the rock once my feet landed safely on terra firma.

"Damn girl," Theo groused, rubbing his neck. "I've seen smoother plane crashes."

Kai touched a scratch mark on his arm that was bleeding from a branch. "Next time I'm risking the jump."

So, no thanks there. At least Hannah patted my arm supportively.

Now at the bottom of the ravine, the four of us crept along the rock wall until we could peer around it for a closer view of Cassie.

We were in hearing range now. I strained my ears to catch what Cassie was saying.

"One to overthrow. One to face the dark. One to lose it all."

Just once, I'd like that girl to say something like "one to have a nice day," or to spew winning lottery numbers.

Separating us from her rock was a small body of water. I couldn't see it since that would involve breaking cover to edge toward the lip of the rocky ground I stood on and peer down, but I could hear it babbling below us. A narrow, precarious rock bridge connected our rock formation to theirs.

"That thing looks like it'll crash into the creek if we even step foot on it," I said quietly.

"Not creek. Castalian Spring," Theo corrected.

"Whatever. We better cross it one at a time, and quickly."

"Not so fast, Speedy Gonzales," Hannah said. "Smell that?"

I sniffed the air and caught a whiff of a sweet smelling gas.

"The Oracle didn't just predict the future because she was psychic," she explained. "She was high." She nodded toward the spring. "Full of Ethylene. A narcotic."

"Cassie wasn't high when she gave me my truths in class."

"Yeah," Theo said, "but this is running predictions all day, all night. Girl needs a little pharmaceutical assistance."

Hannah looked toward the water, thoughtful. "Since the spring runs around that rock, the closer we get, the more we'll inhale. Couple of minutes and we'll be chanting, too. But not coherently."

"So we have two minutes," Kai said. "Plenty of time." He seemed impatient to get going.

He could wait another second. "Was Delphyne going to just keep Cassie here indefinitely?" Maybe having some insight into what she'd planned would give us an edge.

Theo nodded. "Til Cassie died. Yeah."

I shot Theo an exasperated look. "Then what? Rampage the world for some other unsuspecting descendent?"

"Why rampage when you can train the handmaiden," Kai said.

Kai's words didn't make any sense and I told him so.

"One Oracle, many lesser priestesses," he explained. "Conceivably, one could be trained to fulfill the duties."

"And she got her spare how? Mail order?" Oh. Of course. "Bethany." I spied her royal bitchiness just as her name came out of my mouth.