Eris (The Lost Goddesses #4)

1.

Elise knew the day would be a nightmare when a guy in a posh suit bumped into her on the train and spilled his coffee down the front of her work uniform. He tried pawing at her with a handkerchief to mop it up as he apologized, to the point Elise had to slap his hands away for having a grope.

"Bloody Mondays," she muttered, buttoning up her coat to hide the stain as she got off the train. Tottenham Court Station was packed with commuters this time of morning and was humid with humanity's fug.

Outside, the winter wind was paralyzing, blasting Elise full in the face and making the people around her hunch inward to brace against it. The coffee was already freezing and sticky against her skin.

Just perfect.

Elise would need a pick-me-up before she spent the day surrounded by dusty boxes in an airless basement office. She checked her phone. 8:30 am. Plenty of time to indulge in her favorite sanity saver.

Instead of going on the usual route to her work building on Morwell Street, Elise hurried up Great Russell Street and headed to her happy place. The British Museum's columns came into view, and she let its unique kind of magic work on her.

She calmed down even as she dodged the tourists and bought a coffee from one of the vendors who liked to take advantage of the Museum's traffic.

One day, Elise, that's where you are going to be working . She sat down on a damp step, sipped scalding coffee, and let herself fall into her favorite fantasy. In it, Elise poured over ancient manuscripts, carefully restoring and digitizing their words for future generations. She would wander the archives and find lost treasures, forgotten about in their depths, be an insider advocate to help repatriate treasures and assist Interpol in hunting down black market antiquities.

She had completed a degree in history and a master's in restoration, and where did she end up after graduation? Working in HR for a fucking real estate firm. It didn't matter how good her grades had been or how highly her academic papers had been praised. She still had to pay the bills, and jobs at the British Museum didn't come up often.

You'll get there. Baby steps , her father's voice echoed in her head, and her chest ached. Last summer, he had finally succumbed to cancer that had been eating away at him, and Elise still missed him every day. She had taken a month off to sort out his estate, and then, her boss had mentioned if she needed more time, Elise should quit.

Like I'd give her the satisfaction . She should have probably sold the house in Salisbury and moved closer to the city but hadn't had the heart to do it.

"Hey Elise!" a cheerful voice shouted across the green space and hurried towards her. Chrissy was an eyesore to look at on a gloomy day. Wearing an offensively bright yellow jacket and beanie, her curly brown hair corkscrewed in the wind and tangled with her massive pink earrings.

"Morning," Elise said, standing up and taking one more wistful glance at the stately columns of the museum before they began walking to work.

"I thought I was going to be the only one running late, but this is brilliant. We can say the train was delayed," Chrissy said breathlessly. "Come to worship at your fave shrine?"

"Yeah, something like that. Couldn't bear going into work just yet," Elise replied, giving her a smile. It was not that Elise didn't like Chrissy, but she was high-intensity first thing in the morning, and Elise tended not to feel alive until 10 a.m.

"I hear you. Goddess, I'm hungover. I went to an early winter solstice party yesterday, and I hit the homebrew beers too hard," Chrissy replied, stuffing half a croissant in her mouth. "The energy was off the charts, though. I'm buzzing even with the hangover."

"Share some of those good vibes around. I think we all need them at the moment," Elise said, smiling because it was impossible to stay in a bad mood around her.

"Oh yeah, I heard on the news this morning that Yellowstone Park is going to blow in America. Seriously, with this year, nothing would surprise me. Gaia is kicking about and pissed off, I tell you. We did a ritual last night to try and calm shit down, but the Goddess wants what she wants." Chrissy was keen on her New Age spirituality, but thankfully, she didn't push her 'love and light' brand of it onto Elise too much. She was a jaded Lutheran raised kid, but Chrissy was more concerned with her preference for wearing only black and never getting laid than her spiritual beliefs.

"A winter solstice ritual sounds like a really cold orgy in the woods," Elise teased. Chrissy's pink lips smirked.

"Well, there was a bit of that, but don't mock it until you try it. I'm gutted that the Solstice falls on a fucking Monday, or I would have gone to Stonehenge and really soaked up the energy," she replied as they walked into the blissfully warm foyer of Highland and Pierce.

"And no doubt, I would have gotten a call to come to pick up your freezing ass because I conveniently live twenty minutes away from it," Elise said, giving her a playful nudge with her shoulder.

"Probably, but to be fair, your cottage comes with tea and a fireplace. Do you think Umbridge will be wearing the beige cardigan or the cream with the beige spots?" Chrissy asked, stepping into the lift. 'Umbridge' was their name for Susanna, the manager of the HR department who was a total troll, just like the Harry Potter character, but with a worse taste in clothes and desk knick-knacks (creepy dolls that Elise occasionally moved around to mess with her).

"What about the one slightly more beige than standard beige, but less beige than mocha beige?" Elise said, and they both giggled.

As it turned out, Umbridge was wearing the one with spots because she was standing outside of the elevators, waiting for them.

"Where have you two been? You're ten minutes late, and I need you to watch the phones so I can go to the manager's meeting upstairs," Susanna demanded.

"Sorry, the train was delayed, something about ice on the tracks," Chrissy lied and gave her a harried smile. "You know what the bloody tube is like in winter. You better run. We can take it from here." Susanna's eyes narrowed behind her glasses, her lips pursing together as she stepped into the elevator. "We will discuss this later."

"Should have farted in the elevator before I got out," Chrissy said once the silver doors shut.

"You'll get her next time," Elise replied with a laugh and headed for her corner of the office.

Elise had a standing desk with a computer and scanner next to the storage compactors that housed all the hard copies of employee contracts and files. A half-dead succulent and a picture of her Dad were the only decorative touches she had bothered with.

What's the point of decorating when I'm going to be out of here in two months? She had said over a year ago. I really have to get out of this place.

Elise dumped her coat over a chair, found the clean shirt she kept for emergencies in a drawer, and headed for the bathroom to change.

By the time she got back to her desk, Chrissy was waiting for her, shuffling her deck of faerie creature oracle cards and looking at her curiously.

"What? Is there still a coffee splash on me somewhere?" Elise asked.

"No, your aura just looks a bit ramped up today, like way more than usual," she said.

"I tried a new cereal today, if that counts? It's bran heavy," Elise replied. Chrissy rolled her eyes.

"Trying to stir me up today won't work. I'm too charged with dark energy."

Elise turned on the computer. "Hmm, sounds dodgy."

"We are made up of both light and dark, Elise. You have to accept both sides whether you like them or not," Chrissy replied, unperturbed. She fanned out the deck and held it out to Elise. "Pick one."

Humoring her, Elise shut her eyes and ran her fingers over the deck. This was a fun thing they did at least once a week, so Elise was surprised when she pulled a card she'd never seen before.

It was of a tall male fae, with long scarlet red hair and a set of antlers like a stag rising from his head. He had two swords strapped to his back, with his torso covered in woad tattoos. His golden eyes were savage, with a sensual mouth curled in a smile the kind a wolf gave you…right before it tore your throat out.

"Please tell me it means I'm going to win the lottery," Elise teased. Chrissy was frowning at the card, deep in thought. "What?"

"Nothing. This card is a heavy masculine energy card. I've never seen a woman pull it before." Her voice deepened, and her eyes glazed over. "You're going on a journey, and you're going to face darkness and hardship. You will have a protector from the shadows, but you're never going to be safe." Chrissy shook herself. "What did I say?"

"That I'm going to meet someone. Hopefully, he's hot and not like…Barry from Accounting," Elise joked. Barry had drunkenly groped her at the last Christmas party, and since then, he had kept asking her out once a month like clockwork.

No, thanks.

"No, it won't be Barry."

"Then the only other man I see regularly is Glenn down the pub every Monday night," Elise said, determined to make her laugh. Glenn was her Dad's old drinking buddy and best mate that wanted to keep an eye on Elise and make sure she was doing all right. It was nice to hang out with the old guy and have someone to talk to about her Dad. Besides, Monday was Cheap Night at the local pub, and Elise could never say no to a pint and meal deal.

Chrissy shook herself and propped the card next to Elise's succulent. "I don't know, honey. I'm probably just jittery or hungover. You can hang onto the hot fae warrior for the day," she said with a smile.

"I'm going to go with hungover. Maybe get some water into you with all the pastry you're inhaling."

Chrissy flipped her off. "I drink heaps of water, asshole."

"You have crystals in your water bottle. I worry about you."

"Whatever. I'll see you at lunch."

Elise frowned as she watched her walk away, her eyes eventually drifting back to the card.

"Looks like it's just you and me and the adventure of all the scanning from the last Staff Quarterly Review."

The vicious fae only smiled a little wider.