Chapter Thirty-Nine.

The first thing Cameron was aware of when he woke up was an intense pressure in his room, which told him that a High God was present. Knowing his luck, it was his father, especially after his threat the day before. Cracking open an eye, he groaned.

It was his father, who was sitting in a chair, smiling at him warmly.

"Good morning, son!" Ulrima said.

"I'm going back to sleep," Cameron turned over, closing his eye.

"I just wanted to congratulate you," Ulrima stood and walked over to the bed, before climbing up on it, picking his protesting son up and squeezing him tightly. "You managed to single-handedly put an end to a heavenly war and unbind your divinity! You passed the test!"

"The test?" Cameron gasped. "Choking me!"

"Nonsense!" Ulrima released his son, who collapsed on the bed, gasping heavily. "If I were choking you, you wouldn't have been able to talk!"

Cameron finished catching his breath, then gave his father an incredulous look.

"Test?" He said. "What test?"

"To see how you handle yourself!" Ulrima clapped him on the shoulder. "I put all of my children through it, even the immortal ones! Not only did you handle yourself just fine, but you even managed to unbind your divinity on your own! Of all my children, you're only the eight hundred and seventeenth to ever do that!"

"Uh," Cameron backed up a little bit on his bed. "How many children do you have?"

"Alive, or total?"

"Never mind," Cameron answered as he remembered what his father was a god of.

"Seven-"

"No!" Cameron exclaimed. "Don't say it! Don't you dare!"

"The voices?" Ulrima asked, and Cameron glared at him. "You aren't my first child to hear them, son. They're quite interesting, aren't they?"

"They're annoying," Cameron grumbled.

"Well, they're yours," Ulrima ruffled his son's hair. "Whoops!"

The god then fixed his son's hair, and Cameron just groaned.

"We're having a party at my place," Ulrima said. "To celebrate you passing the test. Come on."

"But-" Cameron began to protest, only to find himself in another bedroom, on a rather large bed with a massive, heart-shaped headboard, with red and pink sheets, blankets, and pillows.

Looking around, the room matched the lovey-dovey color and pattern scheme. He let out a frustrated groan as his father hopped off the bed and walked over to the closet, returning with pink briefs and socks, red pants, and a pink button-up, adding a pink belt with a red heart for the buckle and a pair of crimson boots with pink laces to the mix as he set them on the bed.

"These should fit you!" He said. "Come meet us down in the ballroom."

Ulrima vanished, and Cameron groaned, looking out the window. Massive gardens were outside of it. He was in the back of the house, he guessed.

Knowing he wasn't going to get out of the party, Cameron changed into the outfit, then wandered the house until he found the grand ballroom on the first floor, a room with rich, dark brown wooden floors and crimson pillars around the edge, the walls a mix of red and pink.

Tables covered with pink tablecloths were filled with food and drinks, and the grand room itself was packed with gods, demigods, angels, and nephilim, and the sheer power in the room gave him a headache.

The voices introduced him to some of the guests as they congratulated him, if they forgot to introduce themselves. That was the only reason he even knew some of the beings there were gods.

Eventually, he found his father, who was dancing with a woman with long, dark brown hair, golden eyes, and beautiful, flawless skin. She was dressed in a green summer dress that Cameron recognized the brand of.

Mostly because Adam had taken him to a dress store during one of their training sessions. When he realized the dress's brand, he looked around, then groaned.

They were on Earth. His father, a literal god, had a house on Earth. A mansion on Earth.

"Son!" Ulrima exclaimed, spotting Cameron. "Come! Meet your mother! Well, step-mother! This is my beautiful wife!"

"Um, hi," Cameron said.

"You can call me whatever you wish," she told Cameron with a sweet voice, and he blushed deeply. "You're cuter than some of his other children."

"Yeah, but I'm betting the ones who aren't cute are just plain hot. He is a god of beauty."

"Hush!" Cameron hissed, and his step-mother laughed, causing him to blush some more.

"I know about the voices," she said. "They're one of the few products of the union between your father and I."

Cameron blushed again as he realized the implication of that, then a realization hit him.

"What?" Cameron looked stunned for a moment. "Wait – do you mean that you and him are their parents?"

"In a sense," she answered. "We were among the first gods to ever form, and were second only to the High Gods of Order and Chaos to ascend to such status. We don't usually work together, but one of the times we did, the aether formed, and eventually, those voices you hear, which teach spells to those who make the appropriate offerings. Or, in your case, simply as you wish it, if it's one they can."

"Oh," Cameron said. "So, um… don't give me the details on how you made them."

"It's nothing like that," she told him. "An experiment of ours, to help the mortals. Come, dance with me."

"You're a lot taller than me," Cameron grumbled.

"Maybe," she stepped up to him, taking his hands. "But I can make do."

"I can't dance."

"You're the son of the High God of Love," she told him. "Dancing is in your genes."

As she moved, Cameron found that he could, indeed, dance, even though he'd never done so before. Just another thing being a demigod granted him, he supposed. He did have to wonder why he was dancing at a party, though. Was it a party, like his father claimed, or a dance of some sort?

A lot of the guests were dancing, though many were also chatting in groups around the room.

After the dance with his step-mother, Cameron wandered around the room, not really sure what to do. All of the guests he passed by congratulated him on passing the test, though he still wasn't too sure why it was such a big deal.

For more than two hours, Cameron wandered the room, trying to figure out what was going on and what to do, only to not be given any answers. Mostly because he was too intimidated to ask, and everyone else seemed interested in dancing, eating, drinking, or talking.

Eventually, Cameron walked over to his step-mother, and hung around as she talked with a duo of gods he was pretty sure were married. He wasn't too sure, though, since it was just a feeling he had. Were he to voice the feeling at that moment, he'd find out that with his divinity unlocked, he could sense the way people feel towards each other, as well as whether or not they were under some form of marriage.

"Yes?" His step-mother looked down at him with a warm smile as the two gods went off to speak with some angels.

"Um," Cameron said. "My friends are probably worried, since I didn't get to tell them where I'm going, and I don't even know why I'm here."

"Again?" She asked, then looked around until she found her husband. "Ulrima! You were supposed to let him tell his friends where he was going to be!"

"Oops!" He called back, waving at her. "I'm sure they'll figure it out!"

She rolled her eyes, then looked back to Cameron.

"I am so sorry about that," she smiled, placing a hand on his shoulder, and he shifted a little at her touch. "He forgets quite often. Your father does love his parties."

"Okay," Cameron shifted again. "So he was just looking for a reason to party?"

"A little," she answered. "But also because you're only the fourth of his to unbind his divinity and pass the test before becoming an adult of his own. Nearly all of his children who do both of those do so between when they become an adult and when their society declares them so."

"How often does someone fail the test?" Cameron asks. "It's to see how we handle ourselves without our divinity, right?"

"Indeed," she answers. "Though you can fail it at any point before the society you live in considers you an adult based on their own narrow minds or in rare cases like yours, unbind your divinity. The way of failure is simple: rely on the higher powers, seek out the higher powers for help, other such things, and die."

"But I had higher powers helping me?"

"You weren't constantly coming to us," she said. "Nor were we directly involved. Ulrima descended to visit you during it, but only because he couldn't take not seeing you anymore. He and I both agree that you're his cutest son so far."

Cameron's face instantly flamed with that comment.

"I'll send you home," she said. "Think of the person you want to be with, and the path will form."

Cameron screwed up his face in confusion, and she repeated it, so he thought about Eden, since it was Eden's apartment he was living in. A moment later, he found himself standing beside Eden, who jumped in shock.

"Ah, crap," Cameron looked down at his outfit. "I'm still in this hideous thing. Hey! They have my pajamas!"

He ran off to his room, leaving Eden and Adam confused and Alex laughing.

"His father must have kidnapped him," Alex told the boys. "I forgot that Ulrima did that."

"Did what?"

"Cam unbound his divinity," Alex said. "Which means that he probably wanted to throw a party to celebrate Cam having his divinity at last. It is not uncommon for him to do that. He's a god, he looks for reasons to celebrate."

"Oh," Adam sighed. "Well, that explains how he got in after I warded the apartment. I can't exactly ward it against gods."

"We suspected it was a god," Eden said. "One who decided to go after him personally."

"Yeah, like that'd work," Adam scoffed. "Cam has his divinity unbound. He's stronger than most regular gods."

"In hindsight," Alex said. "I still should've expected that. I do have Ulrima's number, so I could've just-"

"You what?" Adam stared at his grandfather. "How do you have his number?"

"Ulrima has a property here on Earth," Alex said. "He invited me to one of his celebrations a few years ago. Tried getting me to marry half his children present. And on that note, I should no longer be present, since Cam's been found. I'm going to head to my apprentices, then back to my island. You two have a good day."

Adam and Eden opened their mouths to respond, only to stop, as Alex had already left. Shaking their heads, they looked at each other, then at Cameron, who had come out of his room wearing dark green jeans and a dark blue tee.

"Your cousin disappeared while you were gone," Adam told him. "Not sure if he's still looking. Eden, you should-"

"He was at the party," Cameron told them. "He's probably going to be gone for awhile."

"He doesn't seem like the kind of person who'd be at a party," Eden commented.

"He was at the party," Cameron said. "He left after he saw me there."

"Ah," Eden said. "Do you know where he went?"

"Probably to another room?" Cameron answered.

"Why do you think that?" Eden asked.

"Because he wasn't alone," Cameron's face was crimson. "Are we still training today, Adam? Or can I relax until it's time to head to Seph's?"

"Seph's?" Adam asked. "Wait – are you talking about the vampire?"

"Yeah."

"You made the deal with him?"

"I was getting chased by traffickers," Cameron nodded. "He-I managed to get a phone and call him for help. He was the only thing I knew. So I made the agreement. He's helped me learn compulsion, even though I don't want to use it."

Adam rubbed his temples.

"Seph owes me a big one," Adam said. "Do you want to have lessons with him and feed him your blood?"

"No," came the immediate answer.

Adam expected that. Cameron hated silkspeech and compulsion, and going through the lessons must have been agonizing for the kid. However many of them he'd gone through. It was probably a good thing, in his opinion, since Cameron's heritage, natural affinity for mind magic, and divinity meant that he could override nearly any mental barrier against compulsion.

And as he knew from experience, using compulsion spells could become addictive. It took him nearly two centuries to stop using it regularly after he'd become addicted to the power it gave.

"I'll call him, then," Adam said. "And get some rest, you're still weak from being imprisoned for two weeks."

Adam disappeared, and Cameron looked at Eden.

"I'm not that weak," he said.

"He meant out-of-practice moving around," Eden explained. "And from hunger."

Cameron's stomach rumbled, echoing its agreement, and Eden laughed.

"I'll fix you something to eat," he said.