What a Goddess Wants by Stephanie Julian Page B

you. The Cimmerian reputation should be enough to keep him at bay. At least for now. But you have to stay close.”
    “But what about the others?” Tessa’s soft voice held sadness. “He’ll just go after Lusna or Alpan or Thalna or one of the others. We need to find a way to stop him.”
    “Tessa honey, I told you,” Salvatorus said, “the only way I can think of to do that is to get the other Etruscan deities to accept that Charun is enough of a problem to pool their power and strengthen the wards holding him in Aitás.”
    And that, Cal knew, was the problem. He turned to look at Tessa. “You don’t think you can talk enough of them into attempting it, do you?”
    She shook her head, her expression grim. “There are a few who would. Selvans, Nortia, Tivr, and Lusna, for sure. Possibly Turan. Maybe Fufluns and Laran. But there are others who haven’t been seen in centuries. Nethuns, Usil, Veive, Lucifer. We have no idea where they are or how to find them. And even if we could, I don’t know that there would be enough to create the kind of power needed to strengthen the ward. It took Uni, Tinia, and Menrva to do it before they disappeared.”
    Cal heard the bitterness in Tessa’s voice as she mentioned the three main deities of the Etruscans, the equivalent of Juno, Jupiter, and Minerva in the Roman pantheon. He heard the despair, too, over the desertion of those deities centuries earlier.
    “The other goddesses like me,” Tessa continued, “the members of the FoGEs, we no longer control that much power. Not even all together.”
    That bothered her. He saw it in the slump of her shoulders. He wanted to put his arm around her and pull her against him.
    Damn it, that was just one big hole waiting to suck him in. Emotions made you weak. He knew that. And he and Tessa had met less than half a day ago. Still…
    “But if he consumes seven,” Tessa shook her head, “maybe eight of us, combined with his own powers, Charun would have enough to escape Aitás.”
    Cal forced his gaze away from Tessa and turned back to the goat man. “And you don’t think you can get some of the others to listen to you?”
    Salvatorus shook his head. “Not a chance, at least not enough of them to make a difference. They’re a damn stubborn bunch.”
    Much like all the rest of the deities he’d ever met. Stubborn, selfish. Stupid.
    His gaze slid to Tessa. Maybe not all.
    Shit .
    “So… what?” Cal threw his hands in the air, wondering what the hell Salvatorus wanted him to do. “How are you supposed to stop a god intent on breaking out of his prison?”
    Good question.
    Tessa watched the men fall silent as she sipped hot chocolate. She could’ve used the caffeine in the coffee but she’d craved chocolate. Luckily for her, Salvatorus knew his goddesses and stocked four kinds of hot cocoa mix as well as dark and milk chocolate syrup.
    She wished she could really enjoy the chocolate. The sweet had magical properties that allowed it work on the biochemistry of the deities. Unaffected by all diseases, man-made drugs, and most poisons, the deities had discovered many millennia earlier that chocolate acted as a sedative.
    And she definitely needed one. Between the attempted kidnapping by the demon and Cal’s kiss just now, she needed to calm down. She couldn’t think clearly, and that would not help them.
    “Have you told the other goddesses what’s going on, Tessa?” Cal asked, drawing her back into the conversation. She took a few moments to think before answering.
    “Not yet, no. I’ve been a little preoccupied.” Trying to stay alive. “I can try to contact them, but it will be tough to get them all in one place at the same time. Deities can be notoriously difficult, and several have had, ah, disagreements over the years.”
    Cal snorted, his expression clearly showing he thought she’d understated the matter. Then he sighed, long and deep, as his expression became dead serious. “And you haven’t tried to reach