Page 79 of Curse the Flame

Alex collars Daphne by the back of her neck. Dancing in front of her, he positions her head just where he wants it to give her a kiss. Then, when she clutches his sides to draw him closer, he grins against her mouth.

“Oh, I am very full of myself, wife. Watch and see why I’m the god of archery.”

Daphne hides her nerves with a snort. “If you say so. Just don’t mess up your aim and shoot us while we’re cheering you on from the sidelines.”

“I told you I was shooting at the other trees to give you light with my golden arrows!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Daphne grabs his tunic, pulling him close for another anxious good luck kiss. When she’s done, she shoves him in the chest before throwing her hand out to point. “Now go. We gotta stop him before he gets too far up the mountain.”

I follow the direction of her point. Crap. I didn’t want to think we were too late, but I can see hundreds and hundreds of uniformed soldiers marching toward Olympus already. Even more of them are already charging up the mountain.

Pity for them because the mountain fights back.

An explosion erupts halfway up the slope. Then another. Entire sections of stone simply… drop.

Walls rise from nowhere before collapsing beneath advancing soldiers. Bronze gears larger than houses grind beneath the mountainside, tilting cliffs until entire companies lose their footing and tumble screaming as they fall.

“Is that...”

“Hephaestus,” Alex answers.

What the… “As the god of the forge, I thought he made armor and weapons.”

“He does.”

Another explosion sends boulders the size of cottages crashing down the mountainside.

“He also gets bored.”

Well. I’m feeling a lot better about our odds now—at least, I am… until the moment I notice three behemoth creatures making their way up a different part of the mountain.

They’re huge. No less than ten feet tall for each of them, they look like old marble statues brought to life. They have no color, no definite shape from this distance apart from a head, two arms, and two legs, but the power… oh, the power. It pours off of them, reaching me where I’m hiding with Daphne, Aiden, and Alex.

I shiver, and I almost clutch my husband’s sleeve when he starts to step out from the illusion of safety among the trees.

I don’t, but he catches my fingers anyway. “Stay here,” he says again, and then he’s gone.

Grabbing a golden arrow from his quiver, notching it against his bow, Alex lopes off after him.

My heart goes with them.

“They’ll be safe,” I assure Daphne.

She doesn’t look like she believes me. “Uh-huh.”

“The two of us just have to⁠—”

Daphne blinks. For a second, she looks confused, and then her eyes go wide. “Shit. I almost forgot.” She turns around so quickly, she nearly whips herself in the face with the tail end of her braid. “Jolie? Where did you go, girl? You here?”

Jolie? Who the heck is Jolie?

A moment later, I find out.

Oh. Wow.

Okay. I trust my husband implicitly. I know that there is no one for Aiden other than me. Still… when I get my first glimpse of Jolie, I admit if only to myself that I’m glad he left before she stepped out from behind another tree.

She’s freaking gorgeous. Seriously. I’ve seen so many beautiful people in the Other, but there’s something about this one. She’s… ethereal. Yeah. That’s the word for it. From her white-blonde hair to her soft blue eyes, her flawless features and a perfect body… she almost doesn’t look real.