average human’s Reviews > Visions > Status Update

A woman who should not fucking exist.
Rage unlike any other turns my sight red, and I howl my displeasure to the gods above.
I know they watch this realm through their scrying glass. Curiosity was always Hera’s biggest weakness. Again, I rush to the side of the butte.
Then again. And again.
“My dear brother, this is what mortals call a temper tantrum.” Artemis doesn’t bother to hide the amusement in her tone.
I want to suffocate it right out of her.
“This is your fault!” I roar at her while pointing an accusing finger in her face. “I know you were here earlier. Did you help her?” I stalk my sister, my nostrils flaring as I catch the slight scent of my prey on my tongue.
Sandalwood and strawberries. A combination that should not please me, though it does.
“You charged across the desert on your chariot, you fool,” she rages, not bothering to hold back. There she is, my bloodthirsty sister. I very much prefer this version of her. “I did nothing to aid in your oracle’s journey.”
“You did not stop her.” I should choke her again until she tells me the truth, she owes me that much for keeping secrets from me.
“That was not a part of our bargain.” Her smirk has me turning around to stalk off into the desert.
How. Dare. She.
“The oracle is mine.”
“Don’t be foolish, brother, you cannot own a person.” I glance over my shoulder to catch her cleaning her nails with a pocketknife.
“All oracles are mine.” And thus the girl will belong to me once again.
Together, we will restore all I lost.
Parnassus.
The Pythian Games.
Pythia.
It will all be mine once again. I was so, so close. Closing my eyes, I scent the air, following the lingering aroma of strawberries to the entrance into the butte. One I cannot pass through.
“Yes, my dear brother.” I jerk my head at her condescending tone, only to see her roll her eyes at me. The years in this forsaken realm have made her crazier. “But is that all she is?”
The oracles were human. My oracles. “I would not make that mistake. After all, you are the one who bargained for her life. She belongs to me.”
“I gave you her location, I did not bargain her life.” My sister drops her act as her anger tinges the air. I inhale her fury into my lungs, savoring the bitter odor. It’s so much better than her indifference.
“It is but one and the same, dear sister.” My fists clench and unclench as I restrain myself from hitting the wall. Again.
“Look at you, you have lost your mind. Stuck on only one purpose. The days of the past are gone, Apollo. It is time to move on.”
“No,” I snarl at her before pacing away. I run my hand through my curls before I continue. Why I feel the need to explain myself is beyond me. But in the end, this is my twin. The only creature in this world and the next who should know how I feel. “Mortals will not survive without the restoration of the Pythia.”
Her laughter is not what I expect.
“You blind fool. You’re serious, aren’t you?” She shakes her head, her voice going soft. “Man no longer believes in the gods.”
“Yet here we stand,” I say, even though I know better. We don’t need the worship of men and mortals to exist. Our power is tied to the self.
“I have a theory on that.”
“I care not for your theories.” Or rather, I care not to encourage her theories. “Men cannot survive without the gods.” Truth, yet not my whole truth.
“Yes, well, the Dark Ages were…well, dark without the gods.” Why the fuck is she smiling and bringing that up?
“This is no laughing matter.”
“Do not try to convince me that you do this all for the good of the mortals. I’m not that much of a fool, Apollo.”
“You do, you care for them, so why can’t I?” I raise my chin at her in challenge. She thinks the rest of us don’t see how much she meddles. “You are worse than Hera.”
“Bite your tongue, brother, lest I cut it off.”
I smile at that and the venom in her tone. Delicious. This is the sister I know. She is usually the defiant one, the one who storms into battle while I hold her back.
Time changes a god, and I miss the goddess my sister was. She is nothing but an echo of the fierce woman she was all those years ago.
“You kept her a secret,” I accuse. My dear sister found the little sapling twenty years ago. Instead of telling me that the Pythia rises, she hid her away.
With mortals.
“Because she was but a child.”
“A child you would have given to me centuries ago without thought!” My throat burns with the quantity of my yells, but I won’t hold back, not anymore.
The mortals fucked this world over. Weapons and broken monarchies, greed, and hate. It was a bitter pill to swallow when I crawled out of the portal. I cannot allow this to go on.
The humans must remember their place. We are nothing but stories.
Myth.
I am no legend. Not only that, but the stories they tell of me are of a soft god. I am not a soft god.
“Apollo, I am no longer that woman.” The edge in her words reminds me she has spent years playing house with them, raising babies she did not birth, and she loved it. She loves them more than me. “Have you tried speaking with her?”
“I will speak with her when she tells me all I need to know—such as who her parents are.” There is no way that I wouldn’t have known an oracle lives. Our power is irrevocably tied together.
They breathe their first breath. I know.
They exhale their last. I know.
Hurt, anger, fear, and love. I fucking know.
“How?” I pause in my pacing to look at my sister who is… “Are you texting?”
“My spawn.”
“Spawn.” The term tastes odd on my tongue.
“Yes, my spawn. They are blowing up my phone.” Her thumbs fly across the screen as I step closer. Curiosity eats at me as I peer at the screen over her shoulder.
I point to the little man on the screen whose head bursts with blue flames. “What magic is this?”
“That is a GIF.” She sends another one with the same cartoonish man rolling his eyes.
“How did you get the little man in there?”
She laughs at me before pocketing the device.
“Talk to her, Apollo.” Her hands land on my shoulders. She is but a small woman compared to me, yet taller than mortals. Her eyes, so like mine, gaze up at me. “If you talk to her, then maybe she will listen, and maybe, just maybe, she will help you.”
“Help.” Mortals do not help the gods. We tell them what to do.
“What if you lost her, Apollo?” She squeezes my shoulders as fear grips my gut.
“I cannot.” She is mine, and I will do anything in this world to keep her safe, just not from me.
“Then treat her like the priceless gift she is. Not a possession.”
“She is my possession.” How can my sister not see this? It has always been this way. The oracles belong to me.
“Then you will lose her.” She claps her hands. “Oh, listen, there’s a problem.” She disappears before my eyes, teleporting to whichever hell she spawned from and not continuing her thought.
The same hell as you, fool.
A grunt catches my attention, and I spin around to see a small man stumble from the butte. His gaze takes in my impressive chariot before he turns in my direction. In two long strides, I have him pinned against the red stone by his throat. Pieces of it clatter all around us. He smells of the woman and sex, which boils my blood with fury.
“Where is the girl?” I snarl.
Defiance flickers in his eyes as he struggles, yet no sound leaves his mouth.
Ah, I am choking him. Fragile creatures, humans. I let go and watch with dispassion as he falls to my bare feet.
“You are an asshole,” he rasps, and I try not to smile at the strength it takes him to stand up to me, no matter how foolish the notion is.
“Yes, I am.” I crouch beside him, realizing he isn’t as small as I originally thought. He is but a handful of inches shorter than me and lean. Most of all, there is a passion that burns inside him that intrigues me, as well as a dusting of power that coats his soul. “Where is the girl?”
“Vanessa,” he corrects. I find I don’t like him correcting me, so I pinch his shirt and lift him.
“I don’t care about her name, I only care where she is.” I inhale his scent. Burnt amber makes my nose twitch, and I drop him. “You reek.”
“Fuck you too, man.” He straightens, shaking his head. “Something happened.”
Artemis’ words come back to haunt me. I won’t lose her, not when I’m so close to recovering everything. “Bring her to me.”
The redheaded human holds up his calloused hands. “She drank water and then passed out. She’s been doing that a lot lately.”
“Bring her to me.”
“Not until you swear you won’t run off with her. I care for her.”
“I don’t care about your misguided feelings. Bring me the human before she dies!” Spittle flies in his face as I yell.
“You shot at her.” The human argues.
“She moved.” I roll my eyes, knowing he needs some kind of empathy from me. “If I wanted her hurt, then she would hurt. As it is, I want to help her.”
He wears his emotions on his sleeve as panic threatens to overtake him. “She… Fuck, Pim is going to be so pissed at me.”
“Get her.”
“Fine,” he shouts before pressing into the wall where I cannot follow.
Old magic shimmers before me, taunting me with its presence. Long ago, those who inhabited these lands before us created these passageways as a haven for travelers between realms. Gates lead to worlds his puny little mind cannot comprehend, and he let her drink of its magic. Idiot.
The human has no idea where he is, and the foolish girl has no idea what she drank. Waters of the original rivers, lakes, and streams bubble up in that pedestal. Its sole purpose is to hydrate and replenish.
But for some creatures, monsters, it is a death sentence.
I roar to the sky at my sister’s words. She is not just one of mine, but another’s as well. A mere sip of that liquid wouldn’t hurt one of my oracles nor my seers.
My thoughts die as the human brings me my prize. Her curvy body curls around the man, yet her arms are limp across her chest, set there probably by his hands. Her life force teeters neither here nor in the ether.
In two strides, I close the distance to her and lift her from his arms. As my fingers brush hers, little sparks of lightning zing between us, lighting up something long dead inside me. Everywhere I touch her, life awakens, and with it…
Feeling.
Her moan draws my attention to a face belonging to an angel.
“Can you help her?” The human is interrupting this moment, and I growl at him.
I spin, marching to my golden chariot.
His hand lands on my arm, making me turn with a snarl.
“You said you wouldn’t take her.” For a moment, I’m taken aback. This creature still dares to talk back to me? Me? A glimmer of respect for him simmers in my gut.
“I will not lay her on the ground like some beast.” She is so much more precious to me than that. Instead, I lay her gently on my cushioned seat and brush her chestnut hair back from her face.
My goddess, she is a divine creature. Small, so small and delicate. She is shorter than me by a foot but with the curves of a siren. Her pouty lips beg to be nibbled, while her sharp cheekbones flush pink. The swell of her breasts beg for my caress, and her hips…
An image of me entering her from behind nearly undoes me.

“Can you help her?”
Dammit, the human is still there and my prize sleeps. “What happened?”
“She started seizing and shaking. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she fell.” He climbs up onto the other side of my chariot. A human. This fucker has balls. “Her eyes turned opaque.”
She can’t be just a blind seer. I lift her lids to find her eyes aren’t opaque. A membrane rests across her irises. I tilt my head as I peer at her, the cloudiness covers her whole eye. That has nothing to do with her vision. It’s been a long fucking time since I’ve seen the likes, and for a second, I can do nothing but prod at the membrane, trying to get it to retract. She must have felt as though she was in danger and her power rose to protect her.
I cup her jaw, realizing just how dainty her heart-shaped face is. My thumbs take up the whole of her cheeks, making me feel like a monster next to her.
The human called her Vanessa.
Closing my eyes, I use my power to enter her mind. No barriers push back at me, and even if she had them, I’d still hold the authority to obliterate them.
“Do not move us, human. No matter what happens, do not wake us.” I dive into her mind, not waiting for his reply.
The taste of her power ripples across my tongue. Savory and addictive, it reaches for me. Like calling to like. It knows I am meant to be a part of this creature’s life.
My feet splash inside her mind as I make my way to her dark vision room.
It’s been eons since I’ve set foot inside another’s sacred space. This Vanessa didn’t even resist. She welcomed me in here, otherwise I’d never have been able to enter. Just more proof that she belongs to me.
Her sacred space is nothing but endless darkness. All around me, images come and go, hurtling too fast to concentrate on. It doesn’t surprise me that she can’t control this space. Her power has grown beyond her mortal comprehension.
If she doesn’t get control over this aspect of herself…
I shake my head at the thought and turn around, searching for her. Ahead, a creature lies in a pool of water. It’s no surprise that the entire floor is nothing but an inch of water. Water is a conduit, not just for the senses, but for the realms.
I peer down at this Vanessa, her eyes unseeing as they watch an image about a fire that dances with a golden flame.
Crouching, I turn her delicate head toward me, her hair dripping beneath my fingers.
Golden amber eyes meet mine, free of the membrane.
“Are you real?” Her voice sounds broken and small.
“I am,” I answer in a soothing voice. Unlike what my sister claimed, I can be soft. I have trained thousands of oracles over my very long lifetime. I had to treat each with a gentle hand.
Yet it is so much more than that now. Though my words to Artemis were brash and cool, I know I could never hurt this creature. Not as her eyes search mine in wonder and confusion.
I just hope she doesn’t find me lacking.
Fool.
“You shot at me.”
Not this again. “To disable you. You ran from me.” I watch her face take me in and assess my words and the truth that lies within them. For a long moment, she studies me until she looks away, accepting my truth.
“I can’t move.” Despite her words, her fingers graze her mouth, a pad pulling down her lush bottom lip. “Though I suppose I can, can’t I?”
“Why do you suppress this gift?” My thumb brushes against her cheek as I kneel before her. “You’ve buried all these images, and they demand to be seen.”
“I was thirsty.” She blinks up at me as though that is answer enough. It isn’t.
I want to rail at her, but I’ve seen this before. I may demand that she is mine, but here, in this sacred space where the realms collide and the future, past, and present wait for no one, I will treat her with the care she needs. Because to be harsh here means she may refuse to leave. If she will not leave, then she will become trapped in this place.
“Are you still thirsty?”
“No.”
“Then why do you stay?” I know the answer, but she needs to realize it for herself.
“They won’t allow me to get up.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to live.” Again, her voice is so small, so utterly broken, that it calls to something within me.
Her gift, her power, is so rare. Many of my oracles could never reach this place, and here she lies, stuck inside. I would bet that her sacred space found her and not the other way around.
She must, by all means, regain control of this power before it gains control of her.
“Tell me, little one, is this living?”
“Tell me, beast master, why will you throw me on the stone?” She pushes into a seated position, her breath gusting over my face as her words spill from those pouty lips.
“Beast master?”
“Why are you so large?” Her hands run from my fingers to my shoulders, stealing my breath and igniting a desire within me that’s so strong, I want nothing more than to spill myself inside her.
Sacred. Space.
I grip her hands in mine to keep her from touching me and stare into her eyes. “You must acknowledge what fate has to show you.”
“No.”
“Then you will never get your wish, you will never live.”
“Who are you?”
“Only someone who wants to help you gain control of this.” I spread my arms wide, dropping her hands in the process. “Now stand.”
She flops back down, closing her eyes. “I don’t want to see.”
“That is not what fate has in store for you.”
“Then what the hell is that?” Without opening her eyes, she points behind me.
Turning, I catch the flicker of a flame, a flame that does not belong here. I inhale slowly, willing its scent to me, but instead, it backs away, shrinking into the water.
“Who are your birth givers?”
“Birth givers?” She snorts, opening one eye. “Do you even hear yourself? Birth givers?”
“The woman who birthed you, who is this woman?” I crouch low again. Why is she being so bloody stubborn? This beautiful, delicate creature that has me far too curious and hard as stone.
“I don’t have one. I have life raisers.”
“What is that nonsense?”
“Two women chose to love me over the birth giver who gave me up,” she taunts defiantly.
I swallow my rage at this little slip of a woman.
Sacred space, I remind myself once again. “Do you want to live, Cupcake?”
“You called me Cupcake in my vision,” she says without opening her eyes.
“It is because I want to know if you taste as sweet as you look.” Lie. I want to fucking devour her essence.
“You will find only disappointment.” She continues to ignore me, irritating me further.
“I am rarely wrong.”
Finally, she turns, her warm yet assessing eyes meeting mine. “I am not sweet, I am as bitter as a pill resting on your tongue and just as hard to swallow.”
Her words only make me want her more. “Get up, Cupcake.” I give her a taunting smile. “It’s time to put these visions to sleep so that you may gain your strength.”
“I am strong.” A wrinkle forms between her almond-shaped eyes.
“Not in this you aren’t.”
She growls at me, and this time, I don’t hold back my smile of pleasure. Her defiance just might save her.