Banished

34

Artemis PoV

With my meeting finished and my visit to the hunters complete, I decided to stop by Percy and see how he was doing.

I appeared on the ground in a dense forest, where he was laying on the ground and moaning in pain.

I ran over to him and kneeled down by his face. "Can you hear me?"

He nodded. "I'm fine, dear. I'm just tired and sore from clearing the forest of mutated cyclopses."

"I'm going to get you home and set you up in the bathtub while I get us dinner," I started, sitting him up against a tree trunk. "How does that sound?"

The god nodded and we appeared in the master bathroom of my palace.

I leaned him against the counter and turned the knob connected to the bathtub so that water began to flow. "Do you need help getting into the tub?"

"No," he replied. "I have a few scrapes and bruises and I'm pretty tired but the water should fix me up pretty well."

I kissed his cheek. "How does pizza from that place in Manhattan sound?"

He smiled. "That sounds wonderful, dear. I'll contact you if I need anything."

I sighed and appeared at the pizza place, where there was a short line.

With this added bit of time, I decided to look over the non-pizza options on the menu.

Of course, I would be getting pizza, but there was also a giant brownie the size of a pizza, and I wanted to try it.

The older woman with the short, dyed hair was arguing with the cashier, and the man in front of me turned to talk to me.

"Hi, I'm Blake," he greeted. "The woman at the front of the line is Karen, and she'll probably be holding up the line for another ten to twenty minutes. I haven't seen you around here before. Any chance
you're new to the city?"

"No," I answered. "I just don't go out much as I get pretty busy with work."

"Oh, well, that's unfortunate," the man remarked. "I suppose that means you wouldn't want to go grab a drink some time?"

I cleared my throat. "You are correct on that. I'm actually grabbing pizza because my boyfriend was injured and he can't come to get it himself."

Before Blake could say anything else, the manager seemed to have had enough of Karen and kicked her out of his store.

The line moved up, and it was Blake's turn to order.

Within a few minutes, it was my turn to order.

"Hello, Miss, what will you be having today?" The cashier greeted courteously.

"Could I get an extra-large mega meat pizza, mozzarella sticks, and a large ultra fudge brownie pizza?" I asked, pulling the lotus hotel card from my pocket.

The cashier punched in my order and I paid with the green card.

I stepped over to the waiting area and found that Blake was now flirting with another woman.

I had to hold in a chuckle when she also turned him down.

Mortals really didn't behave all that
differently than gods in some aspects.

Consumed by my thoughts, time passed quickly and my order was called.

I grabbed the two boxes, thanked the worker, and appeared back at my palace.

I set the boxes out on the dining table and set up everything else, making sure that the drink in the jug was nectar.

Percy exited the bedroom in what seemed to be a normal condition.

He pulled me into a tight hug and kissed the top of my head. "See? I told you I was fine. Anyway, did you have any trouble getting the pizza?"

"No," I replied. "Some guy was flirting with me, I turned him down, and I watched him get rejected by another person before I grabbed the pizza. It was actually pretty funny."

My boyfriend kissed my cheek. "Thanks for setting me up in the bathroom earlier. Is there anything you want me to do?"

"No problem," I answered. "My only request is that you make sure I don't eat the entire brownie pizza tonight."