Page 12 of Witches and Wine (The Mythical Mates of Arcane Cove #1)

What a fucking surprise that was. And I’m not the type to be easily taken off guard, but when Chelsea showed up on my doorstep in only a thin tank, her tits visible, and some tiny ass booty shorts? I am a god, and I still thanked the gods for whatever I had done to deserve such a moment.

“You dog,” Hermes said, punching my shoulder.

The club wouldn’t open for another couple of hours, and I busied myself with unloading glasses from the dishwasher and setting them up for the club’s busiest night of the week. Hermes sat on a stool, Bruce on the one next to him, spinning circles, his hooves raised to the ceiling.

“What?” I grumbled, positioning the glasses in perfect rows, even taking the time to adjust them if they were off.

Bruce paused his circles long enough to scratch one horn and said, “You always regale us with stories of your exploits, and yet with Red?” He made a gesture of zipping his mouth shut.

Hermes pointed at Bruce and interlaced his fingers on the bar top. “What the satyr said.”

“Shut up.” I reached for another glass, and when I came up with empty air, I grabbed a towel and started wiping anything and everything down. “This is different.”

“How so, big guy?” Hermes blinked his blue eyes at me, feigning ignorance.

There was an exceptionally stubborn grease mark, and I growled, rubbing at it furiously. “Shit, I don’t know. I feel—protective over her.”

Bruce scooted forward on his seat. “Like a mate?”

“No,” I frowned, the idea of that not being true irritating me. “I mean, maybe? Fuck if I know.”

Hermes scoffed and raked a hand through his brown locks. “Wow. This is really getting to you, huh?”

“Look, you two.” Throwing the towel down with extra fervor, making them both zip to attention, I pressed my palms to the bar. “I feel something different toward Chelsea than I have with anyone else. And if she was my mate, how would I be able to tell?”

Bruce burst out laughing, resting his hands on his portly stomach. “You’d know. Trust me.”

“Not necessarily,” Hermes countered, fluttering his fingers at Bruce.

“Yeah.” I playfully punched Bruce in the shoulder, making him wobble on his stool. “Like you have experience.”

“Now, I never said that. I only know because I talk to a lot of people. One tends to hear things.” Bruce got momentarily distracted by a maenad strolling past, setting up tables.

He licked two fingers, ran them up the length of his horns, and made a motion like he was about to abandon the conversation, but I grabbed his vest and stopped him.

“You said not necessarily, Herm. What did you mean by that?” Keeping Bruce still until he relented, I nudged my chin at Hermes.

“A lot of us have found mates, but there’s not one all-encompassing type amidst so many varieties of celestial beings.

You have fated mates—” Hermes lifted a finger for each phrase.

“—fated bonds, soul mates, and Tartarus, I don’t know what shifters call it, but their mating is an entirely different game. ”

I stroked my beard, mulling over Hermes’ words. What if Chelsea and I were mates in the shifter sense? I did, after all, have the capability to shift into a more beast-like form. “That still doesn’t answer my question on how we would know.”

“What is she, anyway?” Bruce asked, snatching a cocktail straw to gnaw on like a goat.

“A witch,” I responded, my dick getting hard at the memory of the brightened look on her face when she’d told me. It was like the revelation breathed new life into her.

Hermes stood on the rung of his stool and shoved my shoulder, a wide-ass grin on his face. “Well, hot damn, bro. Has she shown any powers yet?”

Grabbing the towel again, I wiped down the liquor bottles. “Not really. Only some bright white tendrils when she ca—” I stopped and glared at them. “Not really.”

“You should take her to talk to the Crone,” Bruce suggested, nodding his head as if he had all the witchy answers.

Hermes slapped a hand over his face. “I highly doubt she prefers to be called that, Bruce.”

“Why wouldn’t she? That is what she is. Because she certainly ain’t no Maiden or Mother.” Bruce gave an exaggerated shrug before waving us off and moving the straw to the other side of his mouth.

Hermes sighed. “He’s referring to the High Priestess, Cressida, Dion. And despite the satyr’s insane disregard for manners, it’s not a bad idea.”

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t thought about it. Everyone in the Cove knew who to go to with any questions or concerns involving witches.

“I will, but Chelsea wants to come into her own, and I don’t blame her.

I think it’s best if she discovers her powers first, whatever that might be.

” Throwing the towel at Hermes’ chest, annoyed when he snatched it from mid-air with lightning speed, I added, “That’s why I invited her here tonight.

To get her to unwind. She’s so high-strung it stresses me out at times. It’s gotta be holding her back.”

Bruce showed us his ass, making his bushy satyr tail sway. “Get her to unwind. Rail her in the backroom. We know where you’re going with this.”

I grabbed the towel and hurled it at Bruce, making it land on his horns and covering his face.

“What you should do is take her to the VIP room,” Hermes suggested with a wicked smile, nudging his head at the black door with gold lettering labeled VIP Only.

The VIP area at Bacchus wasn’t like your typical champagne room with lounging, ordering liquor by the bottle, and private dancers.

Here, it led to my ancient sanctuary in the forest where the real festivities took place—dancing around a bonfire, usually naked, potential orgies, music from wind instruments, and drinking. Lots and lots of drinking.

Blowing out a breath, I grabbed the bar top’s edge. “I’m not sure if she’s ready for that.”

Fucking Olympus, how I wished she was, though. To witness her in complete abandon, to make her feel like the flaming seductress she was—I adjusted my pants and cleared my throat.

“By Valhalla, is that you, Dion?” An all-too-familiar baritone voice boomed from the other side of the mostly vacant space.

He strolled closer, his tall, wide form hovering above mine by several inches, which always irritated the Tartarus out of me. Half of his long, red hair was pulled into a bun at the center of his skull, and his fiery orange eyes landed on me with a brightened smile.

“Thor. Fancy seeing you here. It’s been, what? A hundred damn years?” Smirking, I offered him a forearm that he shook.

“At least. But believe it or not, I got bored on Asgard and thought I’d see why you Greeks preferred a life of disguise over rubbing elbows and drinking wine in the clouds of Olympus.” Thor combed a hand through his long beard and surveyed the club.

Hermes turned in his stool, seemingly unimpressed by the Norse god, and leaned back on his elbows. “Don’t you have giants to fight off?”

“Not sure we’ve met.” Thor offered his forearm to Hermes.

Hermes narrowed his eyes at the god of thunder as if sizing him up while locking arms with him. “Hermes.”

“Ah, yes. You’re the one that can run really, really fast, right?” Thor pantomimed quick legs in the air with two fingers and let out a hearty chuckle.

Laughing for only a moment, I clapped Hermes on the back. “He’s also the only god any of the others trust with important messages. ‘Ol Herm here has saved my ass a time or two, I’ll tell ya that much.”

Hermes elbowed me in the ribs, and grinning, shook his head. “Don’t get soft on me, Dion, just because you’ve finally got a crush on a female.”

“Oh?” Thor propped against one of several ionic columns that bordered the dance floor. He folded his arms, making the black shirt he wore tighten on his biceps, and I fought the urge to roll my eyes.

Bruce’s hooves clacked on the tile floor as he walked to Thor. “Pardon me, good sir, but might I trouble you to see your hammer?”

Thor glanced down at the satyr before turning his gaze to me, silently confirming if my friend was serious. I shrugged. “You would need one of my iron gloves to hold Mjolnir, satyr, and I don’t think they’d uh—” He eyed Bruce’s petite hands. “—fit.”

“Pfft,” Bruce guffawed, flicking one horn. “I don’t need no fancy gloves.”

“Suit yourself,” Thor replied, snapping his fingers and making the golden hammer with Nordic scrolling carved into the metal appear, its hilt a thin, short wooden rod wrapped in leather binding. It made a wall-shattering boom when it landed just shy of Bruce’s hooves.

Bruce rubbed his hands together and lifted, only managing to move it an inch, but it didn’t stop him from repeatedly trying. We’d be hearing cursing, grunts, and growls from him for the next several minutes.

“Why’d you come to the Cove, Thor? Why not Midgard, as you call it?” I asked, popping open the cash register to ensure there was adequate change.

All forms of gods may have had different terminology for it, but a place for humanity always existed no matter how they spun the stories.

“I’ve been to Midgard plenty of times, but somehow, this place slipped through my celestial fingers.

And when I saw the name Bacchus, well, it didn’t take the wisdom of Frigg to figure out who owned this place.

” Letting out a deep chuckle, Thor displayed his hands at the surrounding club, swiveling his hips.

“Yeah? What do you think of it?” Smirking, I tapped the touchscreen credit card device, ensuring it was in working order.

“It’s very you, Dion. Very you,” Thor replied, eyeing Bruce still fiddling with his hammer.

Bruce licked his hands, slapped them together, and did several quick exhales. He squatted on his haunches and attempted to lift with his legs, falling backward when the hammer won yet another battle.

“And don’t think you’re getting out of this female business, the Speedster briefly brought up,” Thor added, pointing at me.

Hermes flashed me a devious grin as he faced the bar again. “Yeah. Thinks she might be his mate .”

“For the umpteenth time, Herm, if she were, you’d think the Fates would’ve given me some kind of sign.” A snarl wrapped my words in a tightly annoyed package.

Thor patted Bruce’s head before pressing a finger to his hammer, making it disappear in a swirl of embers and orange sparks.

Bruce’s shoulders slumped. “I’m not entirely sure if your Fates work like our Norns, but their ‘signs,’ as you called them, can be about as subtle as a sudden chilled breeze on a hot summer’s day. ”

Hermes stuck his bottom lip out, contemplating this. “That sounds about right for our conniving thread weavers as well.”

“You do all realize your help is about as useful as spectacles for a cyclops, right?” I blinked at them, irritation wringing my spine like a drenched sponge.

Music began to blare from the overhead speakers, the multi-color lights spilling over the bar and dancefloor.

Maenads circled through the scattered tables, resting newly filled napkin dispensers and Bacchus coasters on each.

The night’s bartenders, a male demon with dark blue stubbed horns and a light pink pixie with her translucent wings flapping through her white shirt, joined me behind the bar, surprise at my presence evident on their faces.

“You said she’s coming tonight, right, boss?” Bruce asked, rubbing his biceps from the strain of attempting to pick up the hammer.

“Yeah,” I replied, my voice distant. My gaze was glued to the entrance as patrons began flooding into the club, all smiles and excitement to get their night of debauchery started.

A peculiar bout of nerves fluttered through my stomach, making my chest tighten.

As each person entered, the nerves multiplied when I’d yet to spot her .

Thor cracked his knuckles, spotting something he liked across the room, but I was too fixated on the entrance to glance away. He jostled me. “I’ll meet up with you later, Dion. Going to make the most of my night here in the Cove.”

“Have fun,” I mumbled.

The planet somehow slowed on its axis, the pounding bass of the music timing with my ethereal heartbeat as I lay eyes on Chelsea entering my club.

She wore a gold, sequined dress that cut off at mid-thigh.

The front had a plunging neckline that went just above her belly button, giving a prime view of those ample tits I had in my mouth and hands the night before.

Her hair was fiery and voluminous in tight waves over her shoulders.

To my relief, she was alone and her gaze flitted around her, searching for me.

She turned away, revealing an entirely backless dress stopping above her ass and showing those two dimples there.

When she spun around, our gazes instantly locked through the crowd.

A surge I’d never experienced sparked in my tailbone, zipped up my spine and cemented itself in my skull. There was no denying it now.

Chelsea Stewart was my mate. She was mine .