𝟬𝟮𝟯. the one holding the silver knife**

AERA WAS A DOG PERSON, but she didn't like wolves. She preferred cute, obedient dogs like Pomeranians or Yorkies. Dogs you could carry around in a tote bag and take to the hair salon with you. The king of wolves was not one of those. He was not very cute or obedient.

Firstly, he wore a mangled crown of bones on top of his greasy, ragged hair which was the color of dog droppings. His robes were stitched (extremely poorly, Aera might add) with tattered fur—wolf, rabbit, raccoon, deer, and several others Aera would have been able to identify if she joined the Girls Scouts in elementary school instead of Polka Dot Club (where they studied the history of polka dots and their effects on the fashion industry).

But the most hideous part of the wolf man was his face. His thin pale skin was pulled tight over his skull so that he looked like a Harry Potter villain going to a furry convention. His teeth were sharpened like fangs. His eyes glowed bright red like his wolves'—and they fixed on Jason with absolute hatred.

Rolling her eyes, Aera reached into Jason's bag and began fixing her uneven fingernails with a nail file. Typical of him to assume the alpha in the group was a male.

Jason rose and summoned his sword. Leo and Coach Hedge got to their feet too. Piper tried, but her legs wobbled beneath her.

"Stay seated," Aera told her boredly. "This has nothing to do with us girls." She hadn't budged from her seat next to Piper at the dwindling campfire. Her fingernails required her immediate attention..

Piper tried to regain her balance but eventually sat back down at the fire with her. She gritted her teeth and whispered harshly to Aera, "This is stupid. Sitting by the fire. I don't need anyone to protect me—"

"Ecce," the wolf said in some foreign language, "filli Romani!"

"Speak English, wolf man!" Hedge bellowed.

The wolf man growled. "Tell your faun to mind his tongue, son of Rome. Or he'll be my first snack."

"See?" Aera murmured to Piper behind a hand, so only she could hear. "Men are so barbaric. Just let them do their little alpha male standoff thing. They'll be back to normal soon."

Piper observed them curiously, ignoring Aera's advice. Aera suspected she was still mad about their last conversation.

"Faun is the Roman name for satyr," Piper mused quietly. "But who is this guy? And how do we defeat them?"

"Beats me." Aera shrugged. She held her hand toward the firelight to get a better look of them. "Should I do an almond shape or a coffin shape next?"

"Coffin," Piper answered lowly. "What myth is he from?"

"How should I know—"

"So it's true." Aera glanced up right as the wolf man was studying their group. His nostrils twitched. He probably caught whiff of Aera's gorgeous vanilla and rose scented perfume. Piper stiffened. "Two daughters of Aphrodite. A son of Hephaestus. A faun. And a child of Rome, of Lord Jupiter, no less. All together, without killing each other. How interesting."

Aera stifled a laugh, still filing her nails. "We're doing roll call now?"

Piper's voice was a ragged breath in Aera's ear. "How does he know who we are?"

Aera didn't understand why she sounded so nervous. The wolf man paid no attention to the two little girls huddled by the campfire, which gave them the perfect advantage.

"He's probably a fan," Aera gossiped. "As children of Aphrodite, we have lots of those."

Piper shifted uncomfortably. "From the looks of it, he seems like an anti-fan."

"Aw, baby's first hater," Aera cooed. "This'll be perfect training for you. Children of Aphrodite have lots of those, too."

"You were told about us?" Jason demanded, still acting all big and noble. "By whom?"

"You were told about us?" Aera mocked in a low, deep voice. "By whom?"

Piper didn't smile but a muscle at the corner of her lips jumped.

Meanwhile the boys were still sucked into their little standoff.

The man snarled—perhaps a laugh, perhaps a challenge. "Oh, we've been patrolling for you all across the west, demigod, hoping we'd be the first to find you. The giant king will reward me well when he rises. I am Lycaon, king of the wolves. And my pack is hungry."

The wolves snarled in the darkness.

Aera let out a loud yawn.

Lycaon craned his neck toward them, seeming to notice Aera and Piper for the first time.

Jason perceived Lycaon's hungry gaze and put himself in front of the girls. Ever the hero.

"Leave," he ordered. "There's no food for you here."

"Unless you want tofu burgers," Leo offered.

Lycaon bared his fangs. Aera held back a laugh. Wolf man was so goofy.

"I don't think he's a tofu fan," Piper whispered to Aera.

"Tragic," Aera said nonchalantly, peering at his sickly skin. "He could use the calcium."

Despite her visible anxiety, Piper pressed her palm into her mouth. Maybe she was still loopy from the woodland healing magic Coach did on her. She was trying to muffle her snicker. Aera pursed her own lips to keep herself from bursting into laughter.

"You two there," Lycaon barked at Aera and Piper. "What are you giggling at?"

"Oh, nothing!" Aera said cheerfully, waving a hand at him. "Just how stupid you look with your furry little getup. It doesn't match the..." Aera gestured to the stretched out skin on his face. "...alien-shaped head. Are you trying to be Lord Voldemort or Bigfoot?"

Piper gasped and slapped Aera's arm. "That's what he looks like! Voldemort!"

"Right?" Aera said excitedly.

"Insolent girl," Whatever the wolf's name was, snarled, his red eyes glowing with rage. "You shall be our first snack!"

"Not now." Aera shooed him away with her hand, unbothered. "I'm almost done with my left hand. Then I gotta do Piper's."

Lycoan started for Aera, but Jason immediately blocked his path with his sword.

"Watch it," Jason said protectively.

A feral growl came from Lycaon's throat. "If I had my way, I'd kill you first, son of Jupiter. Your father made me what I am. I was the powerful mortal king of Arcadia, with fifty fine sons, and Zeus slew them all with his lightning bolts."

"Ha," Coach Hedge said. "For good reason!"

Jason glanced over his shoulder. "Coach, you know this clown?"

"Oh, good one, Jason!" Aera praised, clapping in delight. "Wolfie belongs in a circus. He's so dramatic."

"I know," Piper answered, suddenly sober and solemn. Aera sighed. She liked Piper better when she was loopy and unserious.

"Lycaon invited Zeus to dinner," she explained. "But the king wasn't sure it was really Zeus. So to test his powers, Lycaon tried to feed him human flesh. Zeus got outraged—"

"And killed my sons!" Lycaon howled. The wolves behind him howled too. Aera choked back another laugh.

"So Zeus turned him into a wolf," Piper stated, shaking beside Aera. "They call...they call werewolves lycanthropes, named after him, the first werewolf."

"The king of wolves," Coach Hedge finished. "An immortal, smelly, vicious mutt."

"Oh, not bad, Coach," Aera commented, slightly impressed. "Immortal, smelly, vicious mutt isn't a perfect roast, but it's, like, medium rare?"

"Aera, can you be serious for, like, two seconds?" Piper chided.

Lycaon growled. "I will tear you both apart!"

"No." Aera wrinkled her nose in disgust. "What do I look like? Jason?"

"I'm right here," Jason said dubiously.

"Hi," Leo said, raising his hand. "Not to crash the party, but Leo's also here."

"Oh, you want some goat, buddy?" The old goat glared at the wolf, stretching his arms and cracking his neck. "'Cause I'll give you goat."

"Stop it!" Jason snapped at him. He blinked and turned back to the wolf. "Lycaon, you said you wanted to kill me first, but...?"

"Sadly, Child of Rome, you are spoken for. Since this one"—he waggled his claws at Piper—"has failed to kill you, you are to be delivered alive to the Wolf House. One of my compatriots has asked for the honor of killing you and the other child of Aphrodite herself."

"She wants both of us dead?" Aera asked in disbelief. "What is this? Kill one, get one free? My death is a lot more expensive than that!"

Piper raised her eyebrows like, you sure about that? Aera gasped, totally offended.

Leo patted her shoulder. "Don't worry. You'll get used to it."

Jason shook his head. "Who's your compatriot?"

The wolf king snorted, but it wasn't the adorable pig kind Aera liked. "Oh, a great admirer of yours. Apparently, you made quite an impression on her. She will take care of you both soon enough, and really I cannot complain. Spilling your blood at the Wolf House should mark my new territory quite well. Lupa will think twice about challenging my pack."

"Who's Lupa?" Aera blurted. Jason went completely rigid. His heartbeat accelerated. It hadn't gotten that fast even when the wolves showed up to challenge him. Weird.

Aera decided to just rip the band-aid off. "Is Lupa a girlfriend you forgot in your past?"

Jason got even more stiff.

"Jason?"

"No," Jason said with a dead finality. "She's not."

Aera leaned over and whispered to Piper, "Why's he being so weird?"

"How should I know—"

Lycaon's red eyes crinkled with humor. Not a pretty sight Aera wanted to see. "You speak an awful lot for a little girl."

Aera grimaced. "You smell an awful lot for an oversized canine."

Lycaon's mouth twitched into a cruel sneer. "My compatriot instructed nothing of your body. Only that you were alive. Perhaps, we'll tear off each of your limbs before I deliver you to her."

Aera wagged her nail file at him. "I'd like to see you try."

"No."

Aera turned.

Piper got to her feet unsteadily, her knife shaking in her hand.

"You're going to leave now," Piper said to the wolf man, "before we destroy you."

Aera could tell she was trying to put power into her words, but she was too weak right now. Shivering in her blankets, pale and sweaty and barely able to hold a knife, Aera's heart wrung at the sight of her. Piper was in pain and she was still trying to be strong.

"You're a queen, Piper!" Aera wiped a tear out of the corner of her eye. "A queen!"

Lycaon scoffed. "A brave try, girl. I admire that. Perhaps I'll make your end quick. Only the son of Jupiter and one daughter of Aphrodite are needed alive. The rest of you, I'm afraid, are dinner."

Jason took a bold step forward. "You're not killing anyone. Not without going through me."

Lycaon howled and extended his claws. Jason slashed at him, but his golden sword passed straight through as if the wolf king wasn't there.

Lycaon laughed. "Gold, bronze, steel—none of these are any good against my wolves, son of Jupiter."

"Silver!" Piper cried. "Aren't werewolves hurt by silver?"

"Aera!" Jason called out. "Don't you have something silver?"

Aera groaned and reached into Jason's pack, trading her nail file for the silver dagger she had nicked from Midas. Well, it was more like a butter knife than a real weapon. It was the only thing that wasn't gold at Midas' mansion. A meager price for the beloved skincare products she lost.

Wolves leaped into the firelight. Hedge charged forward with an elated "Woot!" But Aera struck first.

She shot to her feet and went straight for their alpha. He was fast, but he underestimated Aera's speed. And the silver knife she was holding. Aera dashed forward and slashed at his face.

Truthfully, she was going for his throat, but the dirty dog flinched so hard when she saw the glint of her silver knife. He yelled in pain and backed out of the cave. When he remerged from the darkness, a charred, smoking gash was steaming across the width of his cheek.

His wolves howled with him, as though sharing his pain. The two in the front bared their fangs and drew forward. Out of the corner of her eye, Aera noticed Leo put up his hammer and slip something else from his tool belt—a glass bottle full of clear liquid. That had to be explosive, right? Oh, things were about to get interesting now.

"Easy," Lycaon crooned to his restless pack, but Aera could see him hiding his wince. "This is but the bite of a flea." He glowered at Aera. "You have one small knife. You cannot defeat my pack with that."

"Can't I?" she smirked. "You seem to know a lot about one of the demigods you've been ordered to capture but not the other. Why is that?"

"You are not a threat."

"I'm the one holding the silver knife, aren't I?"

Aera relished the sight of color draining out of his already pale face. She strode toward the enemy, so that Jason wasn't shielding her anymore. Jason reached for her but she dodged his arm. Ugh, why was he still trying to protect her?

Piper seemed to understand the assignment better than he did.

"Your compatriot failed to mention something," Piper told him, loud and clear from afar. "She's not just any daughter of Aphrodite. That's Aera Kim, Ravager of Olympus. Thorn of the gods."

A flicker of recognition ignited in Lycaon's eyes.

"So you know of me already?" Aera said smugly. "Good. That'll save me a lot of bragging."

"Yes, I know you, girl," Lycaon hissed venomously. "You overthrew your own king! The Titans made you everything that you are now. You are nothing but a slimy coward."

Anger boiled inside Aera. Despite her dispassionate demeanor, Aera hated that Lycaon underestimated her. She hated that he had been wary of Jason first and not her. She hated that he thought he knew everything about her.

But Aera kept her cool. She tucked the knife away in her snow jacket. "You're a wolf. Can't you smell it? The blood still fresh on my hands from last summer. I turned the worst monsters in Tartarus into my own circus of flying monkeys. I made the very god who cursed you tremble in fear. What do you think I can do to a couple of wild dogs?"

"A bluff," Lycaon scoffed, shaking his head. "You are nothing without the Titans."

Aera made sure not to break eye contact with him. She concentrated on the sound of his heartbeat and imagined the arteries in his chest twisting around his heart like vines. Lycaon yelped in pain, clawing at his chest.

"What..." he gasped. "...what are you doing?"

Aera took a calm step forward, anger growing hotter in her gut. Lycaon's wolves whimpered and tried to come forward to their king's aid. Aera shot them a deadly glare that had them stopping to lower their heads in submission.

"Do you even know all the ways a demon like you can be killed?" She focused on the urgent pulsing of Lycaon's heart and willed it to slow. "The surest way is silver, of course. But that would be too easy. How about..." She placed a finger on her chin in thought. "...choking on your own blood?"

Aera curled that hand in a fist. Lycaon doubled over, and coughed out a giant scarlet patch that splattered over the cave wall.

"Hey, glamour girl!" Coach Bush shouted. "Save some for me!"

"Aera," Jason said next to her, his voice suddenly sounding frantic. "I don't think you should—"

Aera wasn't listening. Her body tingled with power as she came forward. "Rupturing your internal organs?" She burst open her fist. Lycaon crumpled to the ground, clutching his stomach.

"Has she always been this scary?" Aera heard Leo ask Piper somewhere behind her.

"I don't know," Piper whispered. "But it's working."

"Stop..." Lycaon wheezed, turning purple from the pressure. "...stop...!"

But Aera didn't want to stop.

Aera wanted to see the agony in the wolf king's eyes. She wanted him to feel the helplessness of being killed. The strength leave his lithe body. Anger was swallowing Aera whole. The other wolves growled timidly at her, but she knew they couldn't do anything with their alpha's life in her palm.

"Or my favorite!" Aera said with a wicked delight. "Tearing your heart out slowly until you beg for death."

Aera closed in on the king of wolves. But before she could touch him, a group of heartbeats suddenly echoed in her ears. Then a ripping sound cut through the wind—like a piece of tearing cardboard. A long stick sprouted from the neck of the nearest wolf—the shaft of a silver arrow. The wolf writhed and fell, melting into a puddle of shadow.

Aera jumped back. Leo was the only one prepared. He didn't miss a beat. The second Aera was out of the way, he threw his glass bottle and it shattered on the ground, splattering liquid all over the wolves—the unmistakable smell of gasoline. He shot a burst of fire at the puddle, and a wall of flames erupted, keeping them separate from the wolves and the arrows. Jason pulled Aera away from the fire.

"Aw, c'mon," Coach Hedge complained. "I can't hit them if they're way over there."

"What are you doing?" Jason asked Aera.

"This isn't me!"

More arrows. More wolves fell. The pack broke in confusion. Through the flames, Aera spotted an arrow flashing toward Lycaon, but the wolf king caught it in midair. Then he yelled in pain. When he dropped the arrow, his palm was smoking. Another arrow caught him in the shoulder, and the wolf king staggered. The flames began to sputter out.

"Curse them!" Lycaon yelled. He growled at his pack, and the wolves turned and ran. Lycaon fixed Aera with those glowing red eyes. "This isn't over, girl."

Aera smirked. "Who said we had to part here?"

Before anyone could stop her, Aera leaped over the smallest puddle of fire. The wolf king's eyes almost popped out of their sockets. He stumbled back in a clumsy retreat, dodging arrows, as Aera pursued him out into the storm. Silver arrows whizzed by her ears like racing flies. She heard her friends yelling after her, but it was no use. Aera loved a good chase.

The snowstorm was thick and cold. Snow pattered against Aera's snow jacket in rapid succession like bullets from an automatic rifle. She pulled her hood over head and condensed her attention to Lycaon's pulse. Somewhere around her, she heard more wolves baying, but the sound was different—less threatening, more like hunting dogs on the scent. Ugh, Lycaon was her prey. She didn't want these other wolves to interfere.

Lycaon ran fast when he was scared. Aera could hear his breathing speeding up but the howling of the wind was seriously distracting. It mitigated her senses and kept blowing her in different directions. The snow cloaked his figure trudging through the forest.

Eventually, she lost Lycaon's pulse entirely. Aera stopped where she was. She was in the middle of the snowstorm. She had no idea where she was now or how far she was from the cave.

Aera tried to retrace her footsteps, but there were strangely none in the snow. She called out Piper's name, Jason's name, Leo's, and even Hedge's, but to no avail. She was stranded.

Just her luck.

Whichever path Aera was endeavoring now was forged solely by the blizzard. She held onto the vague intuition she was still somewhere in Omaha where the wind spirits had taken them before Jason lost sight of the vapor trail, but she wasn't sure which way was the right way. The more she hiked, the more disoriented her senses became, blurring in the glacial tempest.

Aera might have spent the rest of that evening being annoyed in that snowy forest like some poorly written female lead in an adventure movie where only men could be the stars, had the wind not so hastily flipped directions. It was as if the icy wind was urging her to the left, riveting her attention towards a cluster of trees. The trees in the forest were super creepy. They had no leaves, and loomed over her ominously. Tree nymphs had always been Aera's favorite nymphs, but these trees were dead, lifeless towers of sap and bark.

A shadow crept from behind one of the barren trees in the center. Its silhouette was hard to make out in the snowstorm but Aera could recognize that long, curly hair anywhere. Aera almost couldn't believe her eyes when she saw her.

Aera, the girl whispered through the icy wind. Aera.

The wind current got stronger, yanking her body around like a ragdoll. Aera covered her face with her forearm but it did little to combat the snow flying wildly into her eyes. Aera pushed against the wind with all her might. She had to get to her. She couldn't let her disappear.

Come to me, the chilly whisper beckoned. Find me just as you did before.

The words almost cracked Aera's skull open. A serrating pain struck the back of her head. Aera lost her balance as black spots swayed in her vision. She flailed in the wind and took hold of whatever she could—a mangly tree branch. What slipped out of the cracks wasn't blood, but a memory.

Aera remembered something as she held onto the branch. Not a location or a face but words. A conversation.

It was a conversation between her and Jason.

"You're not special," she sneered. "You're just another hero with big arms and an even bigger head."

"So what does that make you?" he shot back. "A villain with small arms and a smaller head? You're not any better. At least the work I'm doing is going to make a difference. It's gonna help people."

"Help them what? Die of boredom?"

"Look, you can either join us or die by us. Your choice."

"Oh, trust me, killing me will be a lot easier. But even that won't be a catwalk for you."

"Don't you mean cakewalk?"

"I said what I said."

Their voices faded away. The pain in Aera's head intensified. Aera lost all feeling in her hands and released the branch, tumbling into the snow. The wind blew in a new direction as a new image emerged.

Aera swung open the door to her hotel suite and left the "Do Not Disturb" sign dangling on the doorknob. Her feet were killing her in these totally glamorous, and totally necessary six-inch high heels.

Finally. She was finally away from those ugly Roman losers. Now she could relax on her holiday in peace.

After kicking off her heels by the door, Aera padded into the living area of the suite. The lights automatically flickered on, illuminating a truly horrendous sight in Aera's eyes.

Lounging on the couch with his dirty shoes propped rudely on the coffee table was one very audacious Jason Grace. He even had the death wish to wave casually at her, in the same old ugly purple t-shirt Aera got shudders just looking at and his light blond hair slicked back like a butler's. Aera squinted at him. How did he get in here? Breaking into other people's lairs was her thing.

"What are you doing?" Aera tightened her jaw. "I didn't order room service." She threw her handbag toward the sofa. Jason's arm shot out and caught it with aggravating ease.

An eyebrow slightly raised, Jason neatly fixed the silver chain strap and set the handbag on the couch next to him with an eerie calmness that put Aera on edge. He lifted his head, shooting her a wry, almost shy smile. Oh, how she would love to wipe that look off his face with her fist.

"Let's make this nice and clean then," Jason remarked. He brought out a golden coin and flipped it. The coin morphed midair and landed in his hand a long, gleaming sword. Show-off.

Aera grabbed the knife hidden in the vase by the entrance and lunged.

The memory vanished as quickly as it came. Aera exhaled. She found herself face-deep in the snow, numb from the cold. It was so freezing, the snow began to burn at her skin. Aera put her hand on her chest and forced herself to hone in on her heartbeat, commanding it to speed up.

As she generated warmth in her body, Aera tried to make sense of what she just recalled. So she had met Jason in that week she didn't remember. From the sound of it, he was trying to recruit her into some collective, she declined, and he was all in his feelings, getting hurt by it. Wah. Wah. Wah. Typical of a son of Zeus to think "no" means "yes" and "get lost" means "take me, I'm yours".

But with looks like that, why would Aera say no to Jason? She was a very go-with-the-flow demigod as long as the flow included her charming the fluff off everyone she met and looking absolutely, divinely radiant. Jason was exactly the kind of boy she would go after for a little fun. Was he really that boring that she had wanted to ditch him as soon as she met him?

More importantly, that girl she saw in the trees...where did she go? Aera had to find her. She tried to pick herself up, only fall back down again. Her strength betrayed her will.

All these questions made Aera's brain feel like it was splitting into two. The blizzard didn't help at all. Aera could feel her consciousness slipping the longer she stayed trapped in the winter gale. Her mind was on fire, but her body was faint and freezing. Aera was going to die out here. At least she had seen her one last time.

Aera collapsed in the snow. The last thing she remembered was the two golden eyes of a small wolf tilting its head at her before everything went dark.