The other Grace/HoO fanfiction

(14) A Hungry Pack Of Wolves

"Wolves. They sound close." Piper stated. Like, no shit sherlock, everyone had guessed that by now. Layla turned her bronze coin into a sword and stood up next Leo.

"Stay here. We'll protect you." Jason said to Piper also standing up. Piper didn't seem to like the idea but didn't protest.

A pair of glowing yellow eyes appeared in the darkness. Then another. And another. Until a dozen Wolves were starring at them hungrily. They were about to stike when Jason stepped forward. He said something in Latin that made the wolves back away into the darkness.

Leo whistled softly. "Dude, I gotta study Latin. What'd you say, Jason?"

"Whatever it was, it wasn't good enough. Look." Layla pointed at the Wolves that were slowly beginning to approach them again. "You have to go. I'll hold them as much as I can."

"They'll rip you apart." Piper argued.

"Nah. I'll be good." She shrugged.

"We'll stick together." Jason said. "We're not leaving anyone behind."

At that moment a silluete of a man appeared in the darkness. He had greasy hair and a wore crown made of finger bones. He was tall and muscular. The most disturbing thing on him was his face. It was pale and thin like a skull. His teeth were sharpened like fangs and his eyes were bright red and fixed on Jason. As he walked towards them, the Wolves parted to let him go through and some even bowed out of respect.

"Ecce, filli Romani." He said in Latin.

"In English, wolf man." Layla commanded.  "It won't hurt you if you plan how to kill us in a language we know, will it?"

"Tell your friend to mind her tongue, son of Rome. Or she'll be my first snack." The man snarled. "So it's true. A child of Afrodite. A son of Hephaestus. A child of Zeus. And child of Rome, of lord Jupiter, no less. All together, without killing each other. How interesting." Nobody pointed out that the guy had reffered to Jason as son of Jupiter instead of Zeus, but it surprised Layla. 

"We're you told about us? By whom?" Jason demanded.

"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 growled in agreement.

When Layla studied mythology back at camp, she did it for fun. She never thought that the things she learnt would actually be useful. They had helped her however many times already throughout the quest. For example, now she knew that Lycaon more than anything hated children of Zeus, like her and Jason, and had a very good reason to do so. Zeus was the one who turned him into the disgusting wolf-resembling thing he was. He had also killed Lycaon 50 sons with a lighting bolt.

"Leave." Jason ordered. "there's not food for you in here."

"Unless you want tofu burgers." Leo offered. Lycaon bared his teeth. Apparently he wasn't the biggest tofu fan.

"If I had a way," Lycaon said. "I'd kill you first, son of Jupiter, like your father did my sons, to give him a taste of his own medicine."

Again Layla was surprised. Lycaon didn't seem interested in killing her, even though she was a daughter of Zeus. Not that she minded, of course, but still it was suspicious. Thinking Piper's dream she realized that Enceladus hadn't mentioned killing her, either. Wasn't she part of the quest as well?

"You invited Zeus to dinner." Layla remembered. "But you weren't sure it was really him. So, to test his powers, you tried to feed him human flesh. Zeus got outraged-"