Vicious Champion
Games of the Gods Book Two
Nikki Kardnov
Cadence Price
Tortoise House Press
Copyright © 2020 Nikki Kardnov and Cadence Price
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
Also by Nikki Kardnov
About Nikki Kardnov
About Cadence Price
Prologue
Hades wanders down a corridor so deeply dark it makes even the God of the Underworld uncomfortable.
In all of his eons of existence, he’s only dared tread this path a few times before and each time had been more frustrating than the last. He pulls at the cuffs of his tailored black suit jacket, stepping forward with a confidence he only partly feels.
Things have been strange lately. Too many questions and far too few explanations.
He needs answers. He needs to feel in control again.
When he reaches a bend in the darkness, he puts his hands up in front of him. He senses the veiled doorway more than sees it and when his hands finally touch the smooth glass-like surface, he knows he’s reached his destination.
The veil shimmers away revealing a pool in a rocky cavern.
Small diamond lights dart back and forth within the liquid. It’s not water, exactly, but as it only exists in this one cave, a better name has not been given it.
Hades pulls off his jacket and lays it on an outcropping of rock. Then he unbuttons his crisp black shirt and adds it to the pile along with his pants.
When he’s down to just his boxer briefs, he goes to the first step that descends into the pool. Just as he’s about to plunge beneath the water, a ripple vibrates over the surface followed by a clearing of the throat that seems to come from deep within the well.
Hades rolls his eyes and takes off his last remaining piece of clothing. “Is that better?” he says to the cavern now that he’s standing there stark naked.
When the water is still, he dives into the heart of the pool.
The liquid moves along his skin like silk. His arms cut through the water as he goes deeper and deeper still.
The deeper he goes the brighter it becomes and then—
He opens his eyes. He’s sitting on the floor in a small cavern. Above, the diamond lights from the water crisscross over the walls like a pattern of continuously falling stars. He hears the cough again, this time behind him and when he turns around, he finds three women seated at a large loom, their hands deftly weaving in and out of the giant tapestry before them.
Clotho. Lachesis. Atropos.
The Three Fates.
The women cannot be more different from one another and yet Hades can’t tell which one is which. He’s never been able to. It’s as though their consciousness is not permanently tethered to their physical bodies and the three spirits flit in and out of the hosts on a whim.
Hades stands and bows deeply, even though it rankles him to do so. “Your Graces,” he says.
“Hades has come to see us, sisters,” the woman that looks like a withered crone rasps.
“What an honor,” says the one who looks like a young girl. A mischievous glint twinkles in her violet eyes as she drags her gaze over Hades’s body from heel to crown.
“What is it that we can do for the great and mighty Lord of the Underworld?” asks the middle one. She has warmth in her eyes, but a sharp reprimand in her tone.
“I have come to beg your wisdom, Lady Graces,” Hades says smoothly, knowing how easily the Fates can be offended. He doesn’t have time to mince words, but he’s in no mood for playing a long, drawn-out game with them.
“Our wisdom?” asks the crone.
“Or our knowledge?” challenges the young one.
“Or do you demand both?” asks the mother.
“I’ve come with no demands.” Hades holds his hands before him as if he’s trying to quell the bucking of a horse. “I simply require your assistance.”
“You are a god, Lord Hades.” The crone’s fingers are flying over the tapestry at a speed that does not fit her withered fingers.
“We are merely observers and weavers.” The young one starts pulling at a thread, holding it out as the mother cuts it, as a chill spears through the air and toward the wall of lights.
“You are more than that,” Hades says. “Don’t play me for a fool.” There’s a growl in the back of his throat and he can feel the embers firing in his eyes. He clamps it down, but not quickly enough.
“And yet you insult us by interrupting our work?” the mother asks, her silver eyes whirling like the liquid above them.
Hades bites back a sigh of exasperation.
The crone stares at him with a gaze that is bottomless. “What is it you want to know?”
“Once, many years ago, you said my father was destined to be overthrown by his children. And so it came to pass. For over two millennium, Cronus has been safely locked away in Tartarus and now he’s free. What do you say to it now? How do I find him? Who is destined to defeat him? What does he want?” The questions pour out of him like water. He can’t seem to stop them. It makes him look afraid.
He is afraid.
The mother raises a brow. “Do you not know? The key is already in your midst.”
“What does that mean?” Hades asks.
The crone holds out a thread. The young one clips it. “It means that fate will play out the way it is meant to play out and having the answers or no answers will not change it.”
Hades growls again.
The young one twitters. “You have what you need, child of Cronus,” she says mockingly.
Heat races to Hades’s fingertips, but the power gutters out like a flame starved of oxygen. His power doesn’t work here. He always forgets this. He forgets it until he needs it. “You are the ones weaving this path,” he says. “Can you tell me nothing of value? What of the Hearthtender? Does she have a role in this? Why can she control the Underworld hounds? Is she—”
“Your time is up, Lord Hades,” says the crone.
“Heed our words,” says the mother.
“You’ve given me nothing to heed,” he barks out.
“Your path is ahead of you,” teases the young one. “Now you must follow it.”
Before Hades can snap a retort, he is yanked back through the pool, up, up throug
h the silken water and dropped like a stone again on the cavern’s floor.
He sits up and shakes the primordial wetness from his hair.
“Fates be damned,” he mutters as he redresses. A rumble sounds from the pool. He whirls around. “I know you can hear me!”
He storms to the veil and slams his face directly into the hard surface.
Laughter erupts from the water behind him. With a scowl, he places his hand out before him to test the veil and it melts back into the darkness, a curse on the tip of his tongue.
If the Fates won’t tell him what he needs to know, perhaps they’ll tell someone else.
Chapter 1
“Tarter, give that back!”
The dog goes running across the library with Max’s book clutched between his sharp teeth. Goddess-above I hope it’s not an important book because I can already see Tarter’s slobber soaking through the pages.
I let out a low, shrill whistle and the dog stops and sits back on his haunches. “Give it here.” His tail swishes over the threadbare rug as he gently, slowly deposits the book at my feet.
When I hand it back, Max cringes. “No thanks,” he says. “I thought that dog was Russ.”
I toss the book into the trash can. “Nope. That’s Tarter.” I point at his boxy head and at the triangle of smoky gray fur between his eyes. “He has this spot here when he’s...well, corporeal.”
Max shudders as Tarter runs out into the adjoining hallway, his long body shifting seamlessly back into shadow. “I still can’t believe you have Underworld hounds as pets.”
“You’re not the only one.”
Someone out in the hall shrieks. I whistle again and Tarter comes tearing back into the room. Max and I go to the library’s back corner where a sofa and two wingback chairs sit in front of the giant oval window that overlooks the Dark Wood. Russ is curled up on the sofa so Max steers clear and drops into one of the wingbacks.
I sit on the center cushion of the sofa and Tarter bounds up beside me and then Russ readjusts so her head is sitting on my lap.
I’ve never been the kind of person that cared much for pets. Clea had a few birds when we were growing up but I was too afraid of killing them with a touch so I kept my distance. Since Tarter and Russ are literally of the Underworld, I suspect it would take a lot for me to kill them.
Now, these shadow dogs are growing on me. It definitely doesn’t hurt that they seem to hate every person on this plane except for me.
I used to think I wasn’t a prideful sort of woman, but it turns out that isn’t true. The best way to boost your self-confidence is to get a pair of hell hounds that are loyal only to you.
Three days ago, when I won our second trial at Hades’s House and moved on to the final trial, the dogs followed me home from the minotaur’s maze. Later, Hades and his men tried to restrain them in the dungeon, but guess who they submitted to?
They followed me up to my room that night and have barely left my side in the days since. They growl at anyone who even looks at me and Tarter almost bit Nereus in the hall yesterday, which, while it got me a scathing look from Nereus, caused me incredible internal joy. If I hadn’t already decided to keep them, the fact that they tried to attack Nereus made it a for-certain kind of love.
I reach over and scratch Tarter behind the ears. He feels solid beneath my hand. His chest rises and falls with real breath. But is he alive? I can’t tell.
“Those dogs are beasts,” Max says.
Tarter raises his head and growls at Max.
“Stop that!” I scold. “Max is our friend.”
As if she understands me, Russ gets up and walks over to Max. He freezes and she gives his hand a half-hearted lick before returning to her prone position on the floor at his feet.
“You have to admit,” I say smiling at them, “they’re pretty cute.”
“You do belong in Hades’s House after all,” Max says with disbelief. “Because those are two of the most terrifying dogs I’ve ever seen. And I’ve met Cerberus.”
“Oh, come on, for shadowy creatures from the Underworld, they’re sweet!”
“They are sweet to you.” Max corrects. “I’m fairly certain they’re planning to eat the rest of us.”
I wish they’d eat just one person in particular. I don’t even want to think his name.
“Don’t worry, Max,” I joke, “I’ll protect you from the big, bad shadow dogs.”
“Shadow demons, more like.”
“Oh I don’t know. I think they’re misunderstood.” I look at the dogs again. Their forms slip back into shadow as they sleep. Great swaths of dark mist rise from them as they doze.
Max wrinkles his nose. “You’re insane. And I say that with as much love as I can muster while staring down two terrifying beasts that are only sparing my life because you…told them to? This really is crazy. But who knows, maybe they’ll give you an advantage in the last trial.”
I stiffen at mention of the trial. We’ve already begun preparations. I’ve started training with Professor Monstrat every afternoon. But will it be enough? I’ve got a lot of ground to cover and a lot of time to make up for.
Because my opponent is practically a prince of Hades’s House.
An elitist snob whose stupid smug face is unfairly gorgeous and whose heart is as rotten as corpse fruit.
It’s only a matter of time now until I’ll go up against Haven fucking Knightfall in the final trial of Hades’s House.
Shit, I thought his name.
And thinking his name brings on the memories from days ago, memories I’d rather forget. Me saving Haven’s life. Haven taking all the credit for it and then acting like I should thank him.
My body goes hot as my traitorous mind conjures an image of Haven’s stupid beautiful face. The way his eyes went cold when he looked at me from the comfort of his infirmary bed when he told his older brother that it was him who defeated the shadowmen in the minotaur maze.
I go hotter still when I picture the way his mouth curled like he was inviting me to play the game. The way his voice scratched when he said, “Come on, Hearthtender. There’s no one left to impress...”
Out of all the people I could possibly have saved, why did it have to be Haven Knightfall? Why did he even need saving? Isn’t that kind of the Knightfall deal—that they’re impossible to defeat and are assured victory in everything they attempt?
A Knightfall shouldn’t have needed an orphaned nobody with uncontrollable magic to save them. And yet, Haven would’ve been taken by that maze just like everyone else if I hadn’t stepped in.
I should have let him die there. Instead of worrying about my last trial now, I’d be celebrating a victory while singlehandedly bringing down the divine nonpareil.
But even as I indulge in this fantasy, in the darkest part of my heart, I know I never could have let that happen. Not that I have a reasonable explanation for it. Haven has stabbed me in the back multiple times. He’s proven that he’s only out to save himself. And yet…
Why do I feel this way?!
“Ana!” Max’s shout snaps me out of my thoughts.
Tarter and Russ are both standing at their full height, shadowy forms ablaze, backs to me as though they’re preparing for battle. Across the room, one of Hades’s soldiers steps in from the hall and them immediately backs out again as Russ lets out a low growl of warning. I wonder for a moment if they would have this effect on every god and goddess’s house or if it’s just here in Hades’s House.
I reach out to pet the two dogs. “It’s okay,” I croon, trying to calm them and myself. “There’s no danger. We’re okay. Calm down.” The dogs shift back into physical form as I stroke their backs.
“What…” Max stammers, “what just happened?”
“With the dogs? I’m not really—”
“With all of it.” Max gestures at the sofa cushions on either side of me where there are now two neat blackened handprints in the material.
“Great,” I mutter. “Another flare of power
that I didn’t want and can’t control. I hope no one is particularly attached to this sofa.”
Tarter gets up and starts sniffing at my handprints. He licks over the burned areas like I’ve left him a treat.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Max says, his voice catching. “This is fine. Everything is fine.”
I throw up my hands. “I should just quit now. I can’t defeat Haven if I can’t control my own magic.”
“You can’t quit! Besides—”
A throat clears from the doorway. Both dogs leap to attention, hackles raised.
“Oh gods,” the messenger squeaks. He’s frozen in place, eyes wide and mouth trembling. There’s a slip of paper clutched in his hand.
I stand up and pull back on the collars I made for the dogs out of old black leather belts Max found for me. “Heel,” I say, because I think that’s what I read once in a book somewhere. “Let him through.”
Tarter and Russ go quiet, but they don’t budge from their guarded position.
Still shaking, the messenger tosses the slip of paper at me, before bowing quickly and running from the room. I scoop up the folded message.
Meet me in the gallery in ten minutes. -Monstrat
“I have to go,” I tell Max. “Watch these guys for me while I’m gone?” I look both of the dogs in the eye. “We don’t eat Max. Or bite Max. Or damage Max in any way, okay? Max is our friend.” Tarter and Russ come forward and nuzzle my outstretched hand in what I take for acknowledgement. Max looks horrified.
Vicious Champion (Games of the Gods Book 2) Page 1
