Releasing the Gods

by Leia Stone

  Oh great. I’d freaking let some psycho murderer with family issues out of jail. And he thought he had powers. Why did I have to climb that cliff?

  “Hey man, what the fuck?” Matt’s voice suddenly rose up into the cave.

  The mountain carrying me growled and I swiveled my head up to look at the group of stunned faces. My friends had reached the mouth of the cave. Friends who must have been climbing and missed me flying out of the cave and then back into it. #ThankFuck

  Friends who were now open mouthed at the sight of me over the shoulder of this gladiator.

  Think fast. He would probably kill them all.

  “So … I dropped acid in all of your drinks. Surprise!” I yelled as the dude started to descend the mountain with me on his shoulder.

  “What!” Shauna looked at her hands as if expecting them to melt.

  I nodded. “Yep! So this guy isn’t real. Call me in the morning!” Somehow we were already down on the ground, so the last part came out as a shout.

  “Put me down, giant!” I punched where I imagined one of his kidneys should be.

  He didn’t seem to mind, continuing to walk with me over his shoulder, bee-lining it for the road. “Where’s your horse?” he queried, and I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing. I was way too drunk for this.

  “My horse? Good one. Now put me down before I barf on your back.” Things were starting to spin, and I suddenly felt sick.

  With a grunt, he lowered me to my feet and then his face swam into view. “Do you still live with your parents? We need to go to your house and regroup while I think of what to do.”

  My parents? A pang of sadness sliced across my chest. As an orphan, the word parent wasn’t something I’d heard in relation to me often.

  I shook my head. “No parents. I live alone.”

  He screwed up his face at that. “Married?”

  I crossed my arms. “No.”

  “An unmarried woman living alone? How do you manage?”

  This freaking guy.

  “Look, buddy, I’m going to call you an Uber and tell him to take you to a hotel. It’s like … an inn if we’re speaking in ancient misogynistic terms.”

  He nodded. “An inn would be fine. We need to go.”

  Peering around, as if expecting a horse to show up, he looked down the street as I ordered the Uber on my phone.

  I shook my head. “We are not going anywhere together. You just tried to kill me. I’m going home. You are going to the inn.”

  He peered down at me and that warmth that was there before spread once again throughout my limbs. He didn’t look a day over twenty-six ... cobalt blue eyes and dark messy hair…

  He started to walk away.

  Okay.

  “Bye, psycho!” I shouted, feeling bolder now that he was moving away from me. When he was about five feet from me, that feeling of being attached to an elastic band pulled at my stomach and I was hurled forward after him. He stopped and spun, wearing a sadistic yet sexy grin.

  “We are going to the inn.”

  Fuck me.

  The Uber pulled up and I knew we weren’t going to the inn. I didn’t have money for a hotel. I was going to have to take this … creature, WHO I WAS APPARENTLY ATTACHED TO, to my house.

  The giant man stared at the Uber like it was an alien spaceship and I couldn’t help but grin. “Get in. Your horse has arrived.”

  Thank God it was an SUV. I didn’t think this guy would fit into a compact car.

  I opened the door and he ducked his head, lowering into the car and looking around like he’d never seen anything like this. Maybe he hadn’t … obviously he hadn't. For the first time I started to feel genuine fear. This guy had walked out of a haunted cave wall and asked me what year it was before inquiring about my horse. I don’t think I could deny something seriously messed up was going on here.

  “Please take my human and I to the nearest inn,” he told Chuck. Our Uber.

  Oh my God.

  Chuck’s eyes widened and I gave a nervous laugh as I sidled next to my giant. “He’s … method acting. You can take us here.” I quickly changed the location of the nearest hotel to my home address and Chuck took off down the road.

  Giant startled as the car moved, his hand reaching out to the door to steady himself. I was just enjoying his discomfort when he relaxed and started to look around. “You travel like this every day?” he asked, looking left and right.

  Chuck’s eyes flew to mine in the mirror.

  Sixteen completely embarrassing questions and ten nervous laughs later, we landed at my tiny studio apartment.

  “Thanks, Chuck!” I told the driver.

  “Do we pay him?” Giant started to rummage around in his pockets.

  “I did.” I held up my phone.

  He frowned.

  “Come on. My neighbor’s a tool. I don’t want him to see you.”

  Jacob would ask five hundred questions and probably call the cops like the little narc that he was. At the tender age of thirty he still lived with his mom and played ten hours of video games a day. He asked me out the first day I got here and I politely said no. Ever since then, he’d had it out for me. He threw shade on all my Instagram posts, and I’d like nothing more than to see my new giant dude murderer throw his head into a wall.

  Maybe another time. #BucketList

  I let us into the apartment, and the second I unlocked the door and spun around, the dude was holding a blue fiery ball of … magic?

  I covered my face. “Don’t hurt me!”

  “Move,” he commanded.

  I leapt to the side and he chucked the blue ball at my front door. It splashed against it and then started to grow outward, crawling across the ceiling and walls.

  “What the hell is that?” I asked in a rush.

  He frowned. “Wards. To keep the others from finding me. My powers are still dangerously low, but I can handle a few wards.”

  “Wards?” Powers?

  He growled in frustration, and grasping my head in his hands like it was a golf ball, both meaty hands wrapped around my face, a buzzing feeling vibrated throughout my body.

  “What are you doing?” I shrieked, trying to kick him.

  “Shhh. Don’t move. I need to extract the knowledge of your time or we won’t be able to communicate properly. Clearly I’ve missed a lot.”

  Extract. He said extract. I was going to faint.

  A frown pulled at his lips. “Great. You’re drunk. Half of what I get will probably be wrong.”

  Oh my God, this wasn’t happening.

  “Everything in my head is right. I’m what you might consider a genius of this time.” All lies. I was average. Everywhere except in my bra size. Those annoying bitches were Ds, but that also helped the ‘Gram, so I wouldn’t hate on my girls too much.

  By now the blue stuff had crawled across the ceiling and walls, but only halfway before stopping. Dude growled. “This is not right. My powers shouldn’t be this drained.” His eyes landed on mine and he released my head.

  “Grab me like that again and I’ll…” I’ve never threatened someone who was bigger and more badass than me, only shrimpy girls in junior high.

  “You’ll what, human? Make me pose for your pornography site?”

  I gasped. “What?”

  He tapped his big head. “I saw everything. You take naked pictures of yourself and put it on … Insta something, in an effort to one day make money.”

  My cheeks flamed red. “I do not! I’m not naked,” I shouted. “I’m modeling fashionable swimwear!”

  He shrugged. “Where I come from, there is one word for a woman who does that.”

  “You better be about to say model!” I shouted again. I was going to punch this guy.

  “A prostitute,” he countered. “I don’t judge. You do you, as your people say.”

  Oh my God, this wasn't happening.

  “Look, you need to break this … tether … that has us bound and get the hell out of my house!” I pointed
at the door.

  He just shook his head. “I owe you a life debt for releasing me. At this stage, I do not know how to break it, but I will figure that out. Until then, I must keep you alive, because if you die, so do I.”

  Oh.

  Shit.

  He stood and took a step closer as I backed up. “So … you’re telling me, I can’t get more than five feet from you for … who knows how long…?”

  He ignored me, choosing to look around my tiny apartment instead. “This is where you live?” he asked, unable to hide the grimace from his face. “How have you survived? I see no servants. No…”

  I snorted, cutting him off. “Yeah, in my world, I’m the servant, big man.”

  His expression was unreadable as he stared at me again. “Servant and prostitute. Quite the combination there.”

  Fuck you, dude. “This is a judgment free zone, asshole,” I told him, crossing my arms. “I don’t judge you on the fact that you’ve spent … did you say a thousand years … in a cave? And you don’t judge me for being a tiny bit shallow and without any real life-skills.” Narrowing my eyes, I was the one to step closer now. “Deal?”

  “No,” he said immediately.

  Throwing my hands in the air, I spun around and stormed toward the bathroom. Or tried to at least. He didn’t move with me, which meant I was basically just lifting my legs in the air, running in place and not going anywhere.

  “I need to shower,” I snapped at him.

  His gaze went a little unfocused, like he was thinking, and then he nodded. “Right, cleaning yourself is important. Humans are such primitive, dirty beings.”

  At this stage I was beyond being offended by him, and I decided to just fuck with him a bit. “For sure, big man. Can you sit outside the door so I don’t feel like I’m being torn into two?”

  He nodded, as if he was acknowledging this and agreeing.

  The moment I got inside, I shut and locked the door, not that my flimsy little lock would keep him out if he decided to come in, but it made me feel a bit better. Stripping off my clothes, I turned the shower on as hot as it went. As I stepped in, I felt a tugging on my body—we were clearly right at the end of the distance—but I wasn’t writhing in pain, so it was working.

  Grabbing my body wash, I washed off the sand, blood, and dirt from my beach and cliff falling experience, and as I did most nights I showered, I sang as loudly as I could. Life was too short not to sing your way through it.

  My song choice this time, though, was purely designed to annoy the big dude, so I started with Spice Girls. By the time I moved on to my hair, I was in the middle of a full-on concert, mixing it up between Spice Up Your Life and Wannabe. I jumped when a heavy hand slammed against the door.

  “What the hell is happening in there, human?”

  Snorting under my breath, I didn’t even want to acknowledge why he continued to call me human. Somehow, and I really didn’t know how, I had some sort of mythological creature attached to me, one that was at least a thousand years old, lived in a cave, and was the tallest person I’d ever seen.

  What the hell was he? A vampire? A demon? A gladiator with an attitude problem?

  I racked my brain for any other fantasy stories I knew but came up blank. I had a secret obsession with indie romance stories, because you never knew what you were going to get, but I stuck mostly with sports and high school romance. Nothing really fantasy. I lived for the real life-like dramas.

  Sure as shit tonight, though, I was checking myself out some Viking fantasy.

  “Are you a Viking?” I shouted, rinsing off the last of my soap, still humming loudly.

  There was no reply, and if it wasn’t for the tugging sensation on my body still, I might have thought he’d disappeared.

  Turning the water off, I climbed out and wrapped a towel around myself, before brushing my teeth at the sink and then strolling over to open the door. Pulling it open, I gasped as I came face to face—okay, face to chest—with the dude. He had the fiercest, most pissed-off look on his too gorgeous face, and I was trying to figure out what it was this time.

  “If I could kill you, human, I would,” he said from between gritted teeth.

  “What? What did I do now?”

  He stepped into my personal space and I was suddenly very aware of the skimpy towel I wore. The only thing I wore.

  “Your singing was the worst thing I have ever heard. And I’ve tortured people as a job.”

  I gulped. “Well, that doesn’t sound like something you should put on your resume.”

  He paused. “You are very odd, even for a human. Too peppy in my opinion.”

  Peppy? Hah. He should see me on my period when I’ve run out of chocolate. I’d show him peppy then.

  I shrugged. “I guess, that’s true. I am odd and peppy. I’ve always been this way, just taking everything in stride. But something tells me you’re going to test that part of my personality.”

  His eyes ran across me, and it was like he finally noticed that I was a chick with boobs. “You are a female of breeding age. Why are you alone? Are you defective?”

  I snorted. “Depends who you ask. If it’s my two ex-boyfriends, then it’s a solid yes. They will have plenty to tell you. Maybe we should organize a meeting with all of them and you can lament my shortcomings.”

  His huge hand wrapped around my mouth. “I regret asking. You never shut the hell up.”

  His strong hold over my mouth was a little intimidating, but he didn’t appear to be deliberately trying to hurt me, more like he wasn’t aware of his own strength. Wrenching my face back away from him, I shot him a glare.

  “What are you?” I couldn’t not ask any longer; even my ability to accept weird shit had reached its point. “Who are you?”

  He regarded me for a few long moments. We weren't going to be rid of each other anytime soon, so might as well get to know each other a little.

  I didn’t expect him to answer.

  “I am Cronus. A Titan. Of the Greek pantheon.”

  #HeAnswered #WTFIsATitan

  I gulped. We’d learned a little of the Greek gods in high school. I thought for many long minutes, the alcohol still making my brain all cloudy. “Titans,” I murmured. “You’re like … before the Greek gods, right? Did they kill you or something?” God, thinking hurt sometimes.

  His expression was deadpan. “Genius, you said? I can definitely see that.”

  Sarcastic bastard. “Are you seriously trying to tell me that you’re a god?”

  He shook his head. “Technically, no. We are the Titans. That’s our classification. The gods are lesser beings that were borne of us.”

  Probably wasn’t a good time to point out that those lesser beings had killed them all. Not that he confirmed it, but the lack of retort against my statement told me everything.

  “However,” he continued, “the limitation of your brain probably makes it easier if you just think of me as a god.” Brief pause. “One of the strongest of the gods.”

  With the arrogance of a god to back it up.

  “Right. The strongest. Explain to me again why you were locked in that cave portal thing?”

  Darkness descended over his face, jaw rigid. “Zeus killed my brothers and sisters, but he was not strong enough to kill me, so I was imprisoned. They worked to overthrow us because they wanted to rule the world.” His expression was the stuff of nightmares. “We were weakened fighting against something that had the potential to destroy the world. They took advantage of that.”

  Well, fuck.

  #HistoryNeverLies #ExceptItDoes

  Chapter 3

  After he dropped his “Greek gods and Titans exist” bomb, I changed the subject. I was still mildly drunk and felt making a plate of microwave nachos was in order. He ate them all. So I made myself another plate. He ate those too. He basically ate everything in my kitchen with the fever of a starving raccoon before I decided I just needed to get some sleep and pass out. He didn’t complain when I threw a pillow on the floo
r and told him to sleep there. Only mumbled something about “How does a prostitute have honor about who she lays with…?”

  Dick.

  It wasn’t long before I fell fast asleep, hoping I would wake up and find that this was all a dream.

  “Get up, lazy human!” a deep male voice roared over me.

  Grogginess pulled at my limbs as I forced myself to peel my eyes open.

  Good god.

  A literal sorta god apparently.

  A god that looked devastatingly sexy with messy sleep hair.

  It was real. No acid trip, no drunken blackout. Everything. Was. Real.

  I moaned and rolled over. “Let me sleep. I’m hungover.” A low but persistent headache throbbed at the base of my skull. “Not to mention I hoped you were a bad dream, so now I’m depressed.”

  A sudden yanking motion pulled at my stomach, and then I was ripped from the bed, falling to the floor.

  “Hey! Don’t fuck with my sleep,” I growled at him. “If we’re going to be roommates or whatever, you need to let a girl sleep or there will be hell to pay.”

  He thought I was peppy? Not on your fucking life. I needed at least ten hours every single night or I was the devil incarnate.

  His eyes hooded a little as the side of his mouth twitched. “There may be a warrior in you yet, human.”

  I sat up and crossed my arms, giving him the staredown. My gaze flicked to the clock to see that it was only 6 A.M.

  Oh hell no.

  “Come back in four hours. Here, play on my phone.” I handed him my phone, before standing and crawling back into bed. The second I lay back down, an incredible burning pain ripped through my body. My eyes flew open to see Cronus, weird as fuck name, Titan … god ... whatever, bent on one knee, flinching in pain.

  “Owww! Stop, okay I’m up,” I roared.

  “I’m. Not. Doing it.” He grimaced. I thought I’d seen him mad before, but it was nothing compared to the wrath I saw on his face now.

  “They’re here,” he said ominously.

  Chills ran up my arms. “Who?” My voice cracked.

  The pain was receding now, and something told me that he felt it way more than I did.

  “The gods. Zeus’s little bitches. One of them just dropped into this city.”