Chapter One (Part 1)

“Maybe if you’d kept it on a fucking leash, it wouldn’t have become a meat pancake.”

My words – totally logical and correct as always – were met with sneers and outraged cries. Oh well. Not my problem that everyone else was too much of a pussy to say it. I rolled my eyes.

“That’s not the point!” Anastasia spat out through gritted teeth. Her orange-brown eyes locked on me in a fierce, hateful glare. “I want whoever crushed my little Milton to pay!”

Milton was Anastasia’s pet lizard. A few days ago, Anastasia had let it out into her garden to piss and eat bugs, and when she went to check on him, she found him smashed under a rock. Most likely, it had been a freak accident. Anastasia’s garden was filled with odd rock sculptures, so it wasn’t out of the question for one to topple onto the little guy. But Anastasia was convinced someone had murdered Milton in cold blood, and apparently, it was an important enough issue for her to bring it up at the monthly meeting of the gods.

Each month, all the main gods of the realm got together in a small, drab meeting room to discuss important issues, such as wars, trade, and whatever the hell the mortals were doing. Or smushed lizards. That too.

At the beginning of time, the god realm was split into two parts. Paradise, and the venomous forest.  Over the millennia, however, the realm had been divided into dozens of different kingdoms as more and more gods sprang into being and began claiming territory for themselves. Well, claiming territory in paradise, anyway. No one was brave enough to claim part of the venomous forest.

Anastasia was the goddess of rebirth, and she ruled a kingdom called Chrysos in the center of what used to be just paradise. Chrysos was where passed souls went to be reincarnated.

She was also notorious for wasting everyone’s time with bullshit. Every single meeting was more of the same – bitching and moaning about shit I couldn’t be paid to care about. Not that I cared about much of the other stuff discussed at the meetings. I was really only in attendance for the sake of ‘fairness.’ Given the choice, none of the other gods would want me anywhere near them.

But Idris was all about equality or some shit. Pansy.

Idris was the god of light and creation and the king of the realm, and he was currently sitting at the head of the long, black, rectangular table in the white and gray designed meeting room, pretending to listen to Anastasia’s whining along with everyone else. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye and felt my throat start to close up. I looked away before he could catch me. I had never been able to stomach looking at him for long, and since he was an observant fucker, he noticed. So when he did catch me looking, he took it as an invitation to start a conversation, and that was the last thing I wanted.

He was gorgeous, much like every other god in the room. He was exceptionally tall, over seven feet, which was not an uncommon height for gods. I myself was only an inch or so shorter than him. His hair was pure white and pin-straight, falling over muscular shoulders. His skin was a warm shade of olive, and his eyes were the color of the sky. White and black smoke tattoos crawled over his upper arms. If you looked at them closely, they appeared to move.

Idris was the first god in existence, yet another reason why he was elected as leader. He sprang from the earth and brought light to the land, triggering the birth of the rest of the gods. I was the second god in existence, rising up just seconds after Idris, meaning I also had seniority, but no one wanted to acknowledge that little fact.

“In fact,” Anastasia was saying when I tuned back in, “I wouldn’t be surprised if it was you, Rook! This is exactly the kind of sick trick you’d pull.”

I snorted. “Yeah, sure. If I was gonna kill your fucking lizard, I would have eaten it, not made it into paste.”

Wow. I’ve never seen Anastasia’s face get that red. Her cheeks were almost the same color as her hair. Maybe her head will pop off. That would be fucking sweet. Although, she was the goddess of rebirth, so she’d probably just grow a new one immediately.

What I’d said was true, though. There was very little food that was actually edible back in my land. If I were to get my hands on her lizard, I would have roasted it and had it for dinner. Lizard was pretty delicious if you got the seasonings right.

“We all know how cruel you are,” she said finally. “I’m not sure what I’ve done to earn this kind of retribution.”

And there she was, talking as though I’d definitely done it. It was a foregone conclusion. She’d decided it must be me, and so everyone else was going to fall in line with her, and then I would have to buy her a new lizard or lick her shoes for a week or something. This happened every fucking time. It wasn’t always Anastasia pointing the finger at me, but if not her, then someone else would be pinning their own shit on me. Why do I even bother showing up at these meetings again?

Oh, right. Because the one time I tried to skip, Idris busted his way into my palace and dragged me out. He was really big on community, or so he’d said at the time, and it wasn’t a complete community without me. I, and every other god in the realm, begged to fucking differ.

“I don’t give a shit about your goddamn lizard, bitch,” I gritted out. “And I think you would know if I showed up in your kingdom just to throw a rock at a fucking reptile.”

It was true. I rarely left my palace, aside from when I was forced to attend these meetings. So if I did leave for another reason, it was usually a big deal. People noticed when I entered their land because my presence was almost always unwelcome.

“As much as I want to agree with you Ana, he has a point,” Ren said. Ren was the god of flowers. His skin was the color of coal, his eyes were rose pink, and his curly black hair was tightly restrained in a sensible ponytail. He was a peacemaker, and one of the few gods who just ignored me rather than spitting in my face. “Rook is kind of hard to miss. Chances are, if he did it, someone would have seen him.”

“Maybe one of your servants did it,” said Amani, goddess of dreams and travelers, from further down the table. Her voice was soft and sweet, matching her cute appearance. Her eyes were silver, skin the color of caramel, hair cut close to her head and spiked up as though she’d just rolled out of bed. She probably had. She was also once again wearing pajamas to a meeting, but no one could find it in themselves to scold her for it.

Anastasia shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest. “No. My servants aren’t allowed in the garden.”

“Did you ever think it might have been an accident?” I drawled, examining my nails casually. “I mean, your garden does look like a toddler stacked up a bunch of building blocks at random. I’m honestly surprised this didn’t happen sooner.”

Anastasia scowled, glare returning full force on me. Yikes, that’s fierce. Someone’s got issues.

“Excuse you, those rock formations are artfully designed and placed – “

“I’m not sure you know what the definition of ‘artfully’ is.”

Letting out a frustrated scream, Ana slammed her palms down on the table, causing it to shudder dangerously. Everyone paused for a second, waiting to see if it would collapse. We’d gone through a lot of tables over the years, for precisely this reason. When it stayed standing, Anastasia whipped her head towards Idris, who looked on calmly as we squabbled amongst ourselves.

“Idris, I demand that we get to the bottom of this – ”

“Peace, Ana,” he said with that deep, rumbling voice, his expression placid. “I will send someone to investigate. In the meantime, don’t let any of your servants leave the premises. We’ll find out what happened to Milton.”

Anastasia swallowed the rest of her words and nodded, suddenly timid under Idris’s calm stare.

“Now,” Idris continued, “are there any other issues anyone would like to address today?”

Yeah, any important issues. Not fucking crimes against lizards. There was a moment of awkward throat-clearing from a few people in the room before Nen, god of flowing water and agriculture, stood up.

Everyone settled, paying careful attention now that Nen was taking the stage. Nen was a commanding god, stern but intelligent and fair. He didn’t say more than he needed to, which is probably why he was one of the few gods I could stand. Hard to say how he felt about me. He was probably as on board with gutting me as everyone else. But whatever. I didn’t hate the guy.

It helped that Nen was extremely attractive. With rippling muscles under evenly tanned skin, hair black as night braided down his back, and eyes the color of honey, he was certainly eye-catching. Maybe not as flashy as a god like Ren, but still beautiful.

“Two days ago, hundreds of dead fish were discovered polluting the Dawn River. We’ve concluded that something must have poisoned the river but haven’t pinpointed the kind of poison or how it got into the river.”