particular line…
It didn’t hurt that when I’d killed the demon who was cursing them, they’d absorbed the power of generations of griffin leaders. Pretty much every leader who had succumbed to the curse over the centuries.
So now, they had beauty, power and their whole lives ahead of them—not to mention a bunch of griffin warriors intent on wooing them.
Dyonne’s short-cropped hair fell in layers around her eyes as she watched the men. “I told them whoever unloaded the most got to sit next to me tonight.”
“We should have used them for the tulle bonbons,” I said to myself.
Diana gave me a quizzical glance, but she didn’t question.
This could be fun.
“Dimitri is off somewhere,” I said. “I don’t know where he is…or what he’s doing.”
Dyonne grinned. “I think I know.”
Before I could grill her, I felt a pinch on my arm. “She is too skinny. You, too.”
“Ow.” I yanked back and turned to see a heavy-set woman wearing a white tunic outfit and plenty of gold jewelry. Her coal black hair was teased high on her head, and if I wasn’t mistaken, she had a slight mustache.
Diana wrapped an arm around the woman, as if guiding her to give me a little more personal space.
It didn’t work.
“Aunt Ophelia,” she said, “meet Lizzie.”
“Aunt?” I asked. The women in Dimitri’s family had perished from a curse.
Diana caught my confusion. “Ophelia is from our new clan. When we joined, we gained about a dozen aunts and twice as many uncles. All unrelated, although you wouldn’t know from the way they treat me.”
The woman leaned in close. Way close. Her face was severely angled, softened by age, and her eyes were a striking shade of gray-blue. “Blessings on you, and may you have a dozen children.”
I tried to laugh. But a dozen kids? “I have enough trouble with my dog,” I told her.
“Ha!” She barked out a laugh, before it died on her lips. She brought a hand to her chest. “She understands me?” she said to Diana. Then turning back to me. “You there, you know Greek?”
Before she got too excited for me, I had to admit. “It’s a demon slayer power.” I could decipher languages.
It was most handy with ancient demonic texts, but hey, I’d use it where I could.
Wait. I turned to Diana. “Your new relatives know I’m a demon slayer, right?”
She looked at me like I was crazy. “Who doesn’t?
Hmm…with a sinking feeling I realized I had more in common with a bunch of shape shifting griffins then I did with the woman who’d raised me.
I only hoped they wouldn’t say anything to my mom until I had a chance.
In the mean time, Aunt Ophelia was studying me like a prized goat. “This is good,” she said, fluffing my hair, examining the cloth of my dress between her fingers. In a minute, she would start checking my teeth. “You will have no trouble when you come to live with us.”
“Er,” I said, both glad and worried she’d overlooked the state of my dress, “I live here.”
“My nephew Izzy is going to marry Diana,” she said confidently, as if I hadn’t spoken.
We’d see about that.
“Hello!” Mom said, drawing up next to me. She had that pasted-on smile that said she was about one second from a panic attack.
At least most of Dimitri’s relatives had made it into the foyer, and into the hallway, and okay—it was getting a little claustrophobic in here. Plus, it didn’t help that they were watching us.
“Mom, this is Dimitri’s Aunt Ophelia. And his sisters, Diana and Dyonne.”
Mom seemed to take comfort in the routine introduction, until Aunt Ophelia took over. “And this is Gelasia, Eugenia, Antonia,” she said, pointing them out one-by-one. There were older aunts and uncles, some younger twenty-somethings, no kids. “Antony, Tony, Milo, Argo, Tony, Nick, Tony, Antonio…” She pushed through the crowd to cup a good-looking guy by both cheeks. My handsome son, Antonio.”
He smiled widely and let her do it, even though he carried four suitcases stacked in his arms.
“He belonged to my old clan, but when I married his step father, he was a loyal son and came with me,” she told my mom proudly.
“Oh. My,” my mom said, no doubt thinking Ophelia was one slice short of a baklava. “If you’ll please follow me this way,” she said, breaking away to guide a few of the Antonio’s up the stairs. She paused part way up. “I look forward to meeting each and every one of you. Some of you will find your names on the doors. If not, then, you can choose your own room on this floor or the third floor.” She raised a warning finger. “Be sure to inform me so that I can make name plates for you.”
A bunch of the Greeks stormed the steps after her, ready to claim their spots, while others began cozying up to biker witches. An older man—Tony?—broke out a bottle of ouzo.
He grinned proudly, his cheeks red. “Want to know how I smuggled it through?”
The biker witches whooped.
Talk about a universal greeting.
Diana hugged a startled Ant Eater while I caught up with Grandma. “I wish you spoke Greek,” I told her.
“In a minute,” she said, as Sidecar Bob wheeled into the room, his mouth split in a grin as he held a homemade marshmallow launcher.
How very biker witch.
He dug a jar of what looked like pink marbles out of the bag on the back of his chair. Of course, I knew better.
“Watch this,” he said, dumping the contents into the launcher. “Fire in the hole!”
I winced as Bob pulled the trigger and fired a shot across the foyer.
Gasps erupted from the Greeks as it exploded in mid-air. Aunt Ophelia shrieked. Caustic smoke filtered over the room as flakes of glitter rained down. They felt cold to the touch, and—oh no—“She’s shifting!”
This was not a threat. There was no danger. But try telling that to Aunt Ophelia.
Claws erupted out of her hands and feet. Her tunic tore in half as a thick lion’s back emerged. Red, orange, and silver feathers cascaded down her shoulders and spine and formed wings as her bones snapped and re- formed.
And she grew. Huge. She was as big as a truck. Her blue eyes glowed as she turned to me and snarled.
Ant Eater stood next to me. Staring. “At least she’s still in the foyer.”
Yes. Well. “Is that good or bad?”
“I don’t know,” she said, refusing to take her eyes off the beast.
Aunt Ophelia snarled and rose to her full height, her head clinking against a wrought-iron chandelier.
“Somebody stop her,” I gasped, envisioning an Aunt Ophelia-sized hole in the wall. A staircase reduced to tinder. Hillary in a dead faint.
The elder Tony scratched his chin. His other hand held a half-empty bottle of ouzo. “You want me to shift too?”
“No!” One griffin was enough. “Talk to her,” I pleaded. “Reason with her. It was just a translation spell.”
“That is unfortunate,” he said as Aunt Ophelia let out a bellow.
Oh, my God. It hadn’t really hit me until that moment. I had a house full of griffins.
Ophelia’s son Antonio came walking down the stairs. He did a double take when he saw his mom.
“Can you help her?” I asked him.
He winced a little as she slid her claws over the tile floors, trying to get her feet under her. “Really, Uncle Tony,” he said, “I know she’s wanted to stretch her wings, but she could have waited.”
Tony shrugged. “They scared her.”
“Congratulations on your wedding,” Antonio said, as if that were the most important thing right now.
“Thank you,” I said automatically. Aunt Ophelia wasn’t shifting back. And it’s not like we could get her out
