How to Worship a Goddess by Stephanie Julian Page B

demon’s head from its body to kill it.” Hard-Ass looked straight into his eyes. “You either rip it off or you slice it off.”
    Okay. This conversation had just stepped over into the land of Bigfoot and ancient aliens, both of which Brand loved to watch on cheesy TV shows but neither of which he believed to be real.
    And yet the woman he’d spent the night having sex with thought she was a goddess.
    â€œSo what does that make you? Captain Jack Harkness?”
    Did he actually see amusement glint in Hard-Ass’s gaze at Brand’s reference to Torchwood ?
    â€œOh!” Tess clapped her hands, just once. “I love that TV show. That guy is just too cute. But no, Cal is Cimmerian.”
    Cimmerian. Where the hell had he heard that name before…
    Oh, no way. No fucking way. “Wait. Are you seriously telling me he’s Conan the fucking Barbarian?”
    Tessa laughed in a sunny burst of sound, while Lucy’s husky chuckle played over his skin like smoke.
    Hard-Ass rolled his eyes. “Fuck you, jackwad. Who the hell is this guy, anyway?”
    Brand stood, noting that he had at least two or three inches and probably twenty pounds of muscle on the other guy. “Brand Stevenson.”
    Cal shrugged. “Okay, so who the hell cares?”
    â€œWell, I think Lucy cares.” Tessa laid her hand on the guy’s arm and squeezed. “No harming the pretty eteri , Cal. You’re a hockey player, right, Brand?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œOoh, I love athletes.” Tessa smiled and raised her eyebrows at Lucy, which made Brand smile at her. And made Hard-Ass the Barbarian scowl that much harder at him.
    â€œFuck, at least you’re not a pansy-ass baseball player.” Hard-Ass turned and shook his head at Lucy. “Seriously, my lady, you can’t keep him. You gotta throw him back. He’s in no way prepared for what’s coming. I was barely able to protect Tessa and, yeah,” he glared at Brand, “I’m Conan the fucking Barbarian.”
    â€œThen I guess it’s a good thing I don’t need protection.” Lucy shook her head. “I don’t believe Charun would be so stupid as to attack me. I retain too much power for him or one of his demons to get the jump on me.”
    â€œI wouldn’t be too sure about that.” Tessa gnawed at her bottom lip. “I know over the years I… I lost most of my abilities and that made me vulnerable to attack. But just because you have some of your powers doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be worried. He’s sending his demons to do his dirty work, and they’re powerful, possibly more powerful than you. They’ve not been fading away on his plane for more than two millennia. They’ve been gaining strength in Aitás.”
    As the room fell silent, Brand’s head swam with an overload of information. Were the pretty blonde goddess and Hard-Ass the Fucking Barbarian really talking about demons? Probably not demons in the Christian sense of the word, which was all Brand—whose parents had never attended church in his lifetime—knew about.
    Jesus, what other powers did Lucy possess? And where the hell was Cimmeria? He thought Robert E. Howard had made up those stories about Conan. He’d devoured those books as a kid.
    What did that make Hard-Ass? Was he human? Or something else? He looked human. Hell, Lucy and Tessa looked human, too, but they claimed to be goddesses.
    Questions. Too many damn questions.
    And that crack about him not being able to protect Lucy—and Lucy’s obvious belief that he couldn’t—had hit a little too close to his manhood. He took a fucking beating three nights a week on the ice. His body was rock solid with muscle and able to withstand more physical pain than most of his fellow players.
    But if they were talking about actual demons with superpowers… Well, hell, could they be right? Maybe he wouldn’t be