Free Goddess in the Middle by Stephanie Julian Page A

with a sinuous grace he’d either not noticed before or that she hadn’t had. Maybe she’d picked that up after sex with him.
    Maneuvering until he sat on the edge of his bed, he watched Amity crawl onto the bed with Remy, sitting on her knees next to him. Her lips began to move, though he couldn’t make out what she was saying. She held her hands over Remy’s chest then moved them down to his thighs then back up again to his head.
    Her eyes narrowed and her expression set in lines of intense concentration. And her hands began to shine.
    And he didn’t mean with the dull glow he could produce when he and Remy worked together to create a rudimentary healing spell. Healing was one of the hardest spells they’d mastered, though they didn’t have a one hundred percent cure rate.
    After nearly twenty years of working spells together, you’d think they would’ve come closer to being able to fix more than broken bones, the simplest cuts and scrapes, and the occasional puncture wound.
    They had much better luck with offensive and defensive spells—disabling locks, jamming weapons, mass displacement and elemental manipulation.
    Apparently, being the culmination of a centuries-old prophecy had made him and Remy more than one-trick ponies. But it’d also gotten their families killed. Something they could never allow themselves to forget.
    Which wouldn’t matter one bit if Amity couldn’t cure Remy. Her hands still shone but they’d dimmed a bit as she let them rest directly on his abdomen. Rom watched Remy’s chest rise and fall in a fast, shallow pattern. Not good. Especially not when combined with the pallor of his skin.
    Should he pray to the Great Mother Goddess to give Amity the strength to heal Remy? Rom hadn’t prayed in years. It did no good. The Involuti , the five founding gods of the Etruscan pantheon, had retreated from their plane of existence hundreds of years ago. They’d deserted their people and the rest of the pantheon and they didn’t deserve to be worshipped.
    Unlike this goddess. She deserved an entire nation of worshippers.
    He didn’t know how long it’d been since she’d started working on Remy but Rom could tell his cousin’s skin tone had lost that death-pale hue. His breathing had become steadier, deeper, and his body appeared more relaxed.
    Amity’s eyes were closed, and Rom let himself watch her now instead of Remy. She didn’t appear to be suffering any ill effects from healing his cousin, though it seemed to take forever.
    Rom’s gaze shot to the window for a second, not surprised to see the sun had risen. It had to be close to seven or eight in the morning.
    He should go to the kitchen and make them something to eat. They’d probably be starving afterward.
    Hell, he was, but he didn’t want to leave them alone in case Amity needed him for something. To make sure she didn’t fall over in exhaustion.
    Or if she needed a booster shot of sex.
    Yeah, like that’s gonna happen.
    Shaking the thought out of his head, he forced himself to move slowly. He didn’t want to disturb or startle her, but she didn’t appear to notice him at all when he headed for the door. Leaving it open, he went straight to the kitchen.
    The kitchen was his domain. The extent of Remy’s cooking ability was a peanut butter sandwich, but Rom could create a meal any five-star restaurant would be happy to serve.
    He enjoyed being in the kitchen. There was something about cooking that gave him a sense of relaxation that nothing else did. Wherever they happened to land, Rom always made sure the place had a kitchen so he could cook if he had the time.
    Honestly, he’d rather cook than run past a drive-up window every night. And Remy had learned not to bitch when Rom decided they were having duck or buffalo for dinner. He’d even gotten Remy to enjoy pâte over the years.
    Now, Rom decided to go for comfort foods. Meatloaf, mashed garlic potatoes with blue cheese, roasted Brussels sprouts, and maybe pie for