Outcasts of Olympus: Book 2

Chapter One, Athena

When we finally landed in Paris, I was about ready to kill Leo. Of course, this was nothing new. He was always pushing our buttons, and he had actually gotten somewhat better after our adventure in Spain, but I still wanted to throttle him.

"Are we there yet?" Leo whined, despite being carried on Castor's back. I took a deep breath, trying not to snap at him. "Leo, we've only been walking for five minutes," I said tersely. "Now get off of Castor and use your own legs. We'll be there in about ten minutes or so."

Leo groaned and hopped off of Castor's back, and Castor fell back to walk with Evadne. Stella was walking next to me, looking around. "This place is so beautiful!" she said in awe. I nodded in agreement. Paris was a very beautiful city.

"Smells like the bathroom after Apollo used it... Girly with a hint of lavender," Leo commented. I rolled my eyes, shaking my head. Where he'd gotten that comparison, I had no idea, and I honestly didn't want to know. "Would you can it, Leo? Some of us are trying to enjoy this," Stella said, glaring at him in annoyance.

Leo raised his hands in surrender, and didn't push further. That was one way that he had done better since Spain. We only had to tell him to stop once, and he would do it without much argument. Most of the time.

"I'm with Stella on this, this place is awesome." Castor said, smiling while holding Evadne's hand. Evadne nodded happily by his side. She kept whipping her head around, trying to take everything in as quickly as possible. I could tell she would bring out her sketchbook first thing when we got to our hotel rooms.

"Oooh! Could we visit the Eiffel Tower?" Stella asked, turning to me and smiling. Her eyes shone with excitement, and I hated to have to say no to her. "I'm sorry," I said. "But this isn't a tourist stop. We're looking for one of our orbs, and we can't get distracted."

"We got distracted with Nick and had a stop at a diner--what's a little glance at the world's tallest mechanical pencil?" Leo asked, putting his hands in his pockets. I turned around to look at him. "The difference with Nick was that he was actually helping us reach our goal," I said. "Stopping at the Eiffel Tower won't do anything but slow us down right now. Maybe we can come back here once we've all got our powers back, but it just isn't an option at this point in time."

I saw Stella open her mouth, then decide to hold her tongue, but not Leo. "Sure, okay, Boss. We're in the City of fucking love and you won't even show some brotherly love? The city sure does change people, hmm?"

I frowned and turned away, staying silent. I had already felt bad about saying no to Stella, and that honestly just made me feel even worse about it. I looked over at her and tried to convey a silent apology. She just sighed and smiled slightly. "It's fine, I understand," she said quietly. I sighed with relief. "I promise," I whispered. "I'll take you once all this stuff has blown over, okay?"

I heard Leo mimic kissing noises with a quiet cackle from behind us, but Stella either didn't hear or ignored him, because she just smiled in reply. I really didn't understand why he kept doing that though. Whenever Stella and I would be talking, he would come up and raise his eyebrows or, like just now, make the weird kissing noises. I mean, I had sworn off love forever, so it wasn't happening even if I did think of her that way, which I didn't.

I hadn't really felt that way towards anyone since Pallas.

Suddenly, a girl popped in front of us. She had flowing dark brown hair halfway down her back, mesmerizing pink eyes, and dark brown skin. She was smiling, and it brought up a similar radiance to Nick's. "Hello!" she chirped. Leo literally jumped back in surprise with a yelp, forcing Castor to catch him in his arms.