Page 1 of Protected By Artemis
Chapter 1
Artemis
If a job was worth doing, it’s worth doing right.
At least, that’s how the saying went. But for Artemis, right wasn’t good enough.
Rightwas a mediocre way of thinking.
No, for the goddess of the hunt, everything had to beperfect.
And that especially applied when it came to her family.
However, not everyone had gotten the memo, but that’s why she was here, after all.
“Ribs? Sausage? Fish andchips?” Artemis crossed her arms over her chest as she examined the printed menu on the wall. “That’s what you’re serving?”
The tall, burly man—who was supposedly the ‘chef’ of this operation—straightened his shoulders. With his dark brows slashed downwards and his massive frame towering over her by almost a foot, anyone would have been intimidated by the man.
But not Artemis.
“Do you know whose wedding this is?” she asked firmly.
“This is thematingceremony of my Alpha’s sister,” he replied in a gruff voice. “And this ismykitchen.”
“And the groom is my brother. Apollo. You know, the god of the sun?”
The man did not flinch at all, but Artemis supposed when one was an over six-foot-five-inch tall, muscle-bound shifter who could turn into a large wolf with sharp teeth and claws, few things made one flinch.
Good luck, brother dear, hope you know what you’re doing getting involved with this bunch.
But then again, in the thousands of years they had existed, Artemis had never seen her brother so happy. Apollo had always been carefree, happy-go-lucky, and refused to settle down with any girl. Then he met Geri, and he’d fallen hard.
And Geri, despite being an incredibly intelligent, beautiful, and reasonable woman, had chosen Apollo to be her mate. Or her wolf did, since she was a shifter. Artemis shrugged internally, as, being a goddess, she didn’t quite understand the ways of shifters.
She was, however, ecstatic to be gaining a sister in Geri. Since Apollo was an immortal god, the only way they could be together was for Geri to become one of them. Thankfully, the other gods and goddesses of Olympus agreed to give Geri the golden apple of immortality. It was usually an honor reserved for demi-gods—a child of a god and mortal, or a mortal who truly deserved it—but they wanted to give it a shot anyway.
Artemis gave herself a mental pat on the back, as she had been instrumental in convincing the council to allow this to happen. She made the case that Apollo and Geri’s circumstances were special, after all. He was the chosen mate of a shifter, and it would have been cruel to Apollo to watch Geri die, and he would also suffer if the bond were to be broken. She also argued that nature had deemed the bonding sacred in the first place, as per shifter law, and that it would be going against nature to keep them apart.
The council ruled in their favor; however, that did come with one stipulation—that Geri live in Olympus for one year withoutleaving so that she could understand what it meant to be one of them. Geri, of course, agreed, but she also wanted to have her wedding with her family and pack on the Upperworld before she came to Olympus.
This was why Artemis was here, in the middle of nowhere in Alaska, trying to salvage this event, and battling one bull-headed chef.
When she arrived here this morning, Geri asked—no, practically begged—for her help. “Please, whatever you can do, I’d appreciate it,” Geri had said. “Everyone’s so busy, I’m sure they could use a hand.”
And so, Artemis would lend a hand—even if some people didn’t realize they needed it.
The standoff between goddess and shifter stretched on, with neither budging.
She decided to switch her tactic. “I think we can do better than this.”
“We?” His voice rose. “Didn’t you hear me when I said this wasmykitchen?”
Artemis smiled her sweetest smile at him. “Which means you can still remedy this. “Instead of fish and chips, how about…a ceviche instead?” She clapped her hands together. “We can plate it with some fresh tomatoes and?—”
“What do you think this is, missy, The Ritz?”
No one would make that mistake, Artemis said to herself as she glanced around the roomy yet rustic kitchen. While the rest of the spacious cabin—more like a mansion, really—was updated and modern, the kitchen was another story. Cast iron and copper pots and pans hung over what looked like a wood-burning stove. The stained and scarred surface of the large prep table in the middle of the room had seen better days. Metal tongs, wooden spoons, carving forks, and other medieval-looking tools hung on hooks on one wall.