“Catherine makes a mean drink.” Hecate smiled and handed them fancy glasses.
Khent took his and sipped. “Berserker. Not Riley?”
Hecate shook her head. “Honestly, Khent. I would never do that to Kraft. Behave yourself.”
He smirked and took another sip.
Val thanked Hecate for the copper mug filled with golden liquid, lightly perfumed to smell both fruity and fresh. The sip made her gasp. She tasted life, so bright and fizzy, with a punch that revitalized her from her head to her toes.
“Good, yes?” Hecate smiled, her expression sweet and knowing.
“Delicious.”
“It’s mead.” Hecate studied her. At Khent’s scowl, the goddess amended, “It’s a bastardized version of mead, one humans can partake without aftereffects.”
Val sipped more. “What kind of aftereffects?”
Khent answered for her. “Mead causes most humans to lose touch with reality and engage in self-mutilation, cannibalism, and blood-drinking. It’s not pleasant. Humans can’t tolerate blood the way we can.”
“And, er, eating the flesh is also gross.” Val stared at him.
He shrugged. “Not my cup of tea, but I’m not against it.”
Hecate huffed. “He means humans can’t handle the divine aspect of the treat.”
“I said what I said.”
Val could see Hecate trying not to smile. She appeared to like the vampires, creatures no one really cared for. They didn’t worship gods, hated other species, and didn’t even like their own kind.
Yet Val could see what Hecate saw, because she found Khent charming though she couldn’t have said why. Much of what he said came across as arrogant. But getting to know him better, Val heard the humor others often missed.
“Why did you want us here?” she asked after they’d been drinking in silence, the three of them watching one another.
“To meet someone.”
“Oh?” Val looked around, still struck by the fantasy of her surroundings. She spotted centaurs and dwarves, lycans in shifted form, a few horned demons, and trolls laughing at each other and the goblins with them. Gods and giants, dark and light elves. One and all in this place that didn’t exist in her world.
A cornucopia of myths and legends, drinking and carousing as if it was normal.
“This is so bizarre.” Yet a sight she’d take to her grave.
“This is reality,” Hecate said softly. “We are all connected, fae to demon to human to god. Even to vampire.”
A glance showed a hobgoblin glaring at Khent, the smaller goblin twice as vicious as a veil viper, according to the stories Val had once heard. And a veil viper could take down a lycan with one bite.
“Hobgoblins? Really, Hecate? That’s like inviting rats into the kitchen.” Khent grimaced.
Val couldn’t tell if he was feigning disgust just to annoy the creature that could obviously hear him, or if he genuinely meant it.
The hobgoblin, this one a mottled green and brown with pointed ears and lower fangs overlapping its black upper lips, raced toward him on four feet, bent unnaturally since hobgoblins normally walked on two legs.
It screeched at Khent, fangs out, and went for his throat. “You killed my?—”
Before Hecate could intervene, Khent threw the hobgoblin at a nearby pair of glowing beings. Gods, maybe? They didn’t look pleased with him or the hobgoblin now trying to pick a fight with them.
“There he is.” Khent ignored them, focused on someone else, and tore into the crowd.
“Oh boy. I told him to keep himself hidden.” Hecate sighed and took off after him.
