Goddess of Love (Goddess Summoning #5)(92)

"She's feeding us healthy food...." Venus muttered.

"I heard that," Pea said.

"No problem." Griffin grabbed the box from the pantry and put it on the kitchen table.

"Venus, would you get the chips out of there for me?"

"Yes, darling, as long as you don't try to make me eat them," Venus said sweetly.

"Very funny." Pea went back to chopping celery for the potato salad while Venus searched through the box.

"Pea, darling, isn't this the book you used to summon my aid?"

Pea turned. "Yep, that's it. Wonder how it got in that box?"

"So this is what started it all." Griffin took the ornately bound leather book from Venus.

"Discover the Goddess Within - Unleash Venus and Open Your Life to Love by Juno Panhellenius. Now that's a mouthful."

As if someone had punched her in the stomach, all of the air left Venus's body.

"What?!" She and Vulcan gasped the word together.

He hobbled over to the table and took the book from Griffin. Venus was shaking her head over and over and over. "I had no idea. Absolutely no idea."

"You'd never seen the book until now?" Vulcan asked her.

"Never. Pea was reciting the invocation from memory. I simply can't believe this."

"What is it?" Concerned, Pea had joined them at the table. "What's wrong?"

Venus looked at her mortal friend. "It's the author. I know her." She faltered and added, "And him."

"We know them," Vulcan said. "Actually Griffin knows them now, too."

"What are you two talking about?" asked Griffin.

Venus pointed at the name, printed in beautiful raised metallic script across the cover of the book. "Juno is one of the many names Hera uses. And Panhellenius means 'God of all the Greeks.' It's one of Zeus's epithets."

"The old manipulators! They were behind this all along," Vulcan said incredulously.

"We've had their blessing this whole time, and we didn't realize it," Venus said. Pea looked at her beloved husband, who had gone through so much to find his happiness. "That means they love you, they still love you, very, very much," Pea said.

"Actually," Venus added, wrapping her arm around her mortal friend's shoulder. "It means they love all of us, and that we all have the blessing of the king and queen of the Olympians."

And as the four friends smiled at one another, thunder rolled playfully across the cloudless Oklahoma sky.