But he kept away and I didn’t give in to the urge to visit him. I’d thought that the pain would lessen as each day passed, but it hadn’t. The hurt was just as raw and brutal as day one.

But I was . . . I was going about my life. I was mastering the elements and I was getting really kick-ass at the whole hand-to-hand fighting thing, able to stand on my own against Solos and Luke. I hated myself for thinking this, because it was so lame, like the lamest of the lame, but Seth would’ve been proud if he’d seen how I’d taken Solos down yesterday, sweeping his legs right out from underneath him.

I’d done a little dance.

I’d looked like a chicken with its head cut off, but I’d rocked that dance and I was going to rub it Solos’s face every chance I got.

After practices, I avoided the garden. What once had been a brief respite from all the crap now made me feel uncomfortable, like I needed to bury my face in a pillow and never resurface. But Seth hadn’t scared off Colin.

Glancing over to where he sat, legs stretched out in front of him and his back against a tree, he was intent on whatever he was reading. On the other side, Luke was studying and Deacon, well, he was not even pretending to study. While Luke held the textbook open, pressed against his chest, Deacon had his head in Luke’s lap. For a few minutes, he’d napped. Now, every couple of seconds, he flicked his fingers off the back of the textbook. Luke had either the concentration of a cobra or the patience of a saint, because he hadn’t punched Deacon yet.

I looked down at the textbook I’d swiped from Deacon’s room a few days ago, after we did our daily librarian check. It was Myth and History 101, a true account of their history, which was pretty much a Lifetime movie with cheating couples who were immortal and had superpowers. Every one of the gods pretty much hooked up with anything that walked, and I mean, anything that walked.

Anything.

I shuddered just thinking about the section on my father. Good gods, I was traumatized. Like there had been this nymph who literally turned herself into a tree to get away from Apollo.

Turned. Herself. Into. A. Tree.

Then there was this poor guy who got turned into a bush or something, and that’s not even the worst of it.

Not even.

My father put the “who” in whore.