Once a Myth (Goddess Isles Book 1)

by Pepper Winters

  Jess, or Jealousy—whichever name she preferred—pressed her shoulder to mine as we skipped over the hot sand and sighed in relief the moment we entered the shallows. Her touch drenched me in a sensation of kinship. Of belonging. I missed my friends from school. Ever since starting the travelling adventure with Scott, we hadn’t been in one place long enough to evolve single night acquaintances into long-term friends.

  But there, standing in the warm, licking tide on the picture-perfect beach with our shoulders touching, I didn’t feel so trapped. So lost. So confused.

  “I can understand why you wouldn’t want to say goodbye to this place,” I murmured, unable to tear my eyes off the horizon as a pod of dolphins broke the glassy surface, gliding past like ballerinas of the ocean.

  The water was so clear, the reef around the island danced and refracted, one moment glowing in sunshine and anemones, the next dressed in shadow from a passing shoal of fish.

  It was hard to focus on the underwater universe. Hazy and hidden beneath the surface, it was so different to ours, governed by totally foreign laws where even gravity wasn’t welcome. Yet just because we weren’t adapted to live there didn’t mean others didn’t find their purpose and place within the towers of coral and carpets of sand.

  Maybe there was wisdom in that.

  Wisdom to know that while I didn’t feel as if I could survive on this island—that I was totally a fish out of water—somehow others flourished and found solitude.

  Jess sighed, shielding her eyes from the intensity of the sunshine. “It truly is magical. But it’s not just the island that makes me want to stay. It’s not just the ability of learning to grow your own food or the simplicity of living in the tropics…I want to stay because—”

  I looked at her, doing my best not to seem overly eager. “Because…?”

  I wanted to know.

  I wanted to know why she’d stopped.

  She caught my gaze and smiled lopsidedly. “I can tell you…can’t I?” Her eyes narrowed, searching mine as if rifling through my soul for answers. Answers she approved of before she nodded. “I want to stay because Sullivan isn’t what you think. He’s a workaholic. He’s a genius for what he’s created. Yet…instead of enjoying his own creations, he just keeps working.” Her voice quietened to a whisper. “He needs someone who isn’t after his drugs, his body, or his legacy. For a while now…that was me. All I ask of him is that I can stay. I’ll clean the villas or cook in the restaurant if he doesn’t want me as a goddess anymore. I’ll take any job he needs me to do. But most of all…I want to stay, because eventually, he’s going to break, and someone he can trust should be there to pick up the pieces.”

  “Break?”

  She nodded. “He’s been on a path that isn’t sustainable ever since I met him…and it’s getting worse.” She sighed, turning to face the sea again. “Before, he used to laugh. Now, he barely ever smiles. Before, he seemed human. Now…I’m not so sure.”

  Giving me a quick nudge, she sighed again, “I guess I just don’t want him to crash and burn, that’s all. We all have limits.”

  “And why do you think he’s reaching his?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She ran fingers through her hair, cupping her curls so muggy air could lick away the glistening sweat on her nape. “Just a feeling.” Dropping her hair, she turned to me. “Anyway, that’s a dark topic for another day. Let’s talk about you. Anything you want to know? Anything you want help with?”

  I wanted to talk more about Sully, but I refused to come across as those other girls—fascinated and fanciful, hanging onto every word about him. My concerns about Sully stemmed entirely from self-preservation.

  Glancing down the beach, left and right, I stiffened as two men appeared from the pathway. Dark sunglasses shielded their eyes while one wore a baseball hat over salt and pepper hair and the other let his floppy blond mess stick to his heat-damp forehead.

  “Oh, no.” Jealousy grabbed my hand, linking her fingers with mine. “Guests.”

  “Are they not allowed to see us?” My stomach churned as the men waved and started toward us. One shorter than the other, both wearing board-shorts and t-shirts ready to be peeled off for a swim. Perhaps they would be more interested in water sports than two stranded goddesses.

  “They are. Some nights we have mingles and mixers. But usually, Sullivan likes to keep us away, purely to ramp up the anticipation of Euphoria…for both parties.”

  “What is Euphoria?” I asked quickly, aware our time of privacy was quickly depleting with each of the men’s flip-flopped steps. “I’ve heard about it so often but still have no idea.”

  Jess smiled, a knowing almost patronizing gleam in her gaze. “Euphoria is…euphoria.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means it’s a place created entirely by Sullivan. I told you he was a genius. He can take a fantasy and turn it into a reality. Everything you think you know…is gone. Everything you think is impossible is suddenly the only thing that makes sense.” She let my hand go after a tight squeeze. “Honestly, the only way to know is to try it.”

  “And if I don’t want to?”

  She gave me an understanding look. “You don’t have a choice.”

  “Do you really have sex with four men a month?” The guests were drawing closer, making me rush.

  “Yes.” She nodded with no shame or hardship. “Once a week in Euphoria is more than enough. Sullivan looks after us in that respect.”

  “Looks after you?” My eyebrows soared into my hair. “He forces you to sleep with—”

  “Elixir makes it anything but forced, Jinx.” She smiled a secret smile. “You’ll know what I mean when you try it. Nothing about your time with a guest will be anything but sheer, insurmountable bliss.”

  I chewed on my tongue, unwilling to tell her Sully had already fed me the nasty, noxious drug. That I’d found it an invasion of everything I stood for. That it was perverse and putrid and every other foul word I could use to describe something that shouldn’t exist.

  “If it’s so good, why aren’t you expected to serve more than once a week?”

  My question dripped with accusation, but Jess just smiled her contented smile and said, “Because you need the week to recover. Your body is unbelievably sore. Your immune system depleted. Your energy levels non-existent. You live more vibrantly and more freely in the hours you’re in Euphoria than you do in a year of your life outside.” She wrapped an arm around me, hugging me quickly. “You just have to trust. Trust that it won’t be terrible.”

  Letting me go, she slipped from honest confidant into sensual madam, welcoming the guests as they arrived in the shallows where we stood. “Hello, Mr. Grammer. Hello, Mr. Wordworth. I hope you’re enjoying your stay so far.”

  One man grinned, carefree and handsome, making me wonder why he’d pay for sex when he’d receive it willingly from most. His salt and pepper hair made him distinguished while his trim body kept him attractive. “Hello, goddesses. How are you two beautiful creatures on this stunning day?” His face split into a broad smile as if he had a secret he couldn’t wait to spill.

  My hackles shot up. All I wanted to do was run in the opposite direction.

  Jess bowed her head politely, smiling with invitation. “We’re fine. How are you?”

  “Never been better.”

  The man with the floppy blond hair couldn’t take his eyes off me. He stripped me bare with his gaze. He pinned me to the sand with intensity.

  I immediately disliked him.

  Instantly disgusted that he thought he had any right to look at me like I was some highly expensive dessert to a main course he’d already devoured.

  “Hello, Jinx.” He smiled with smug satisfaction. “Pleasure to see you’re looking well recovered.”

  “Were you ill?” Jess asked, true concern painting her tone.

  “She was weak from her arrival, I believe,” the man replied on my behalf. “But back to full fitness now.” He looked me
up and down. His sunglasses couldn’t hide the lust or hunger on his face. “At least…I hope.”

  Why the hell was he so interested in my well-being? And how did he know I hadn’t been feeling well?

  When I didn’t speak, he reached out and took my hand.

  My skin crawled as he bowed over my knuckles and kissed them gently. He bowed low, lower still. The move wasn’t mocking like when Sully did it. His bow was full of worship. The authenticity of his awe made me shiver with foreboding.

  No.

  Not him.

  Don’t let it be him.

  Letting me go, he confirmed my worst suspicion. “I’ve been counting the hours for our date tomorrow night, Jinx. I wish it was tonight, I must admit.” He whistled quietly, drinking in my black bikini and lacy kimono. “You are the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Never again would I wear such revealing clothes, even in the unbearable humidity and heat of this place. I would find the sack jumper I’d arrived in and never take it off.

  The other man cleared his throat. “I might have to extend my stay, Goddess Jinx, and request your company a week from now…seeing as I lost the bidding war this time around.”

  “Bidding war?” The startled question squeaked out before I could stop myself.

  “Yes.” The salt and pepper gentleman purred. “We both requested the honour of sharing your first night in Euphoria. I was too slow to lock in the price that Sinclair offered.”

  A flurry of snowflakes landed on my shoulders, melting instantly and oozing icy fingers down my back. “What price?”

  How much was my honour worth to that monster who’d bought me?

  The blond man shook his head. “Money and pleasure are two separate things. We don’t need to cheapen the enjoyment we’ll find together by naming a number.”

  I backed away. “There won’t be any enjoyment from my end. I assure you.”

  The guy grinned, flashing perfect white teeth. “That isn’t the understanding I have. You will be under the influence of Sinclair’s elixir, and he assured me that whatever we indulge in will be…mutually satisfying.”

  I wanted to be sick.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  I should’ve been using every waking moment to find a way off this heinous place. Instead, I’d allowed Sully to fog my mind with wonderings about him. Permitted the beauty of this place to suck me deeper into its web.

  How stupid could I be?

  How could I forget my role here?

  I stumbled in the sand.

  The man’s hand lashed out, locking around my elbow and giving me balance. I appreciated his help, but I couldn’t stand him touching me.

  Ripping out of his control, I swayed and looked at both of them with disbelief. I looked at Jess too. Unable to believe the puzzle that this girl and these men weren’t enemies but…somehow symbiotic friends.

  I wanted nothing to do with it.

  I want to go home.

  “Ex-excuse me.” Swallowing back a wash of stomach acid, I bolted up the beach.

  The bottoms of my soles burned from the hot sand. My breath caught in my tight chest. The air was too syrupy and heavy to stop my light-headedness.

  By the time I got to my villa, tears plummeted down my cheeks, and I collapsed behind my door, blocking it with my body, creating a lock that didn’t have a key so I couldn’t be fetched, couldn’t be taken, couldn’t be used in Euphoria.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “SIR?”

  I looked up from a text-heavy email full of theories, formulas, and questions from my scientists on where to go next with my latest concoction. This drug wasn’t for pleasure or control. It wasn’t for personal use or financial gain. This was purely philanthropic: a cure for cancer.

  So many of the big pharmas spent more money on lobbying the giant industries that promoted food and lifestyle-causing cancer rather than investing in teams to cure it. In their minds, disease was great for their bottom line. Profit, profit, profit. In my mind…I owed a bit of good karma for everything I’d become.

  Cricking my neck from sitting at my desk since dawn, I pinched the bridge of my nose and cursed the faint headache brewing. I couldn’t blame dehydration or screen time because I’d worked much longer hours before. The pain behind my eyes was caused by the knowledge that in a few short hours, Jinx…Eleanor…would step into Euphoria and be fucked by another man.

  Not just once.

  Not twice.

  Probably well over—

  Don’t fucking think about it.

  He’s paid.

  He’s owed.

  She’s serving him.

  “What is it, Cal?” I dropped my hand and peered at him. He’d taken off his suit jacket, leaving him in a white shirt and ice blue tie. His cufflinks winked with silver stars as he passed me the dossier.

  The dossier.

  “Markus finished outlining his fantasy. Want me to input the parameters, or will you?”

  My hands fisted around the folder. What sort of heathenous, wicked role-play would he have her endure? What world would I have to be the architect of to ensure he got his money’s worth?

  “I’ll do it.” My voice came out thick and black.

  “You sure?”

  I looked up, narrowed eyed and threatening. “I said…I’ll do it.”

  “Fine.” He held up his hands in surrender, then his lips twitched into a smirk. “It’s an interesting request. A first, that’s for sure.”

  I didn’t like firsts.

  I didn’t like hearing about fetishes that I hadn’t come across before. Especially fetishes that included Jinx being the main meal.

  Waving him away, I waited until he’d exited and closed my office door before flipping open the file.

  Markus Grammer.

  Forty-four years.

  Sexual health, clean.

  General health, average.

  Health and safety wavier, signed.

  Agreement that he enters Euphoria at his own risk, signed.

  Payment, in full.

  Programming, ready to begin.

  Gritting my teeth, I turned the next page.

  A flurry of green and yellow shot through my open driftwood doors, followed by an indignant chirp.

  “Ah, great. Just fucking great.” I looked up just as Pika dive-bombed the file and started attacking the corners as if demon-possessed. “Hey! Oi. Stop it.” Flicking the annoyingly energetic caique parrot off my reading material, I shook my hand, trying to dislodge his tight little claws as he wrapped around my middle finger, deciding to attack me instead.

  Raising my hand, I huffed as he dangled upside down, his bright black eyes inquisitive, intelligent, and far too naughty to get away with the murder he managed on a daily basis. “Coconuts. Goddess. Sex! Sex. Sexxxxx.”

  God, why did I ever teach him how to talk?

  “Pika…we’ve had this conversation.”

  He honestly laughed in my goddamn face and proceeded to gnaw on my fingernail. His little wings spread out as I shook my hand again, trying to break his tenacious grip. “Let me go.”

  He chirped. Then trilled. Then squawked and carried on a conversation as if I could understand every caw. After his noisy argument about why he never behaved nor did what I asked, he let my finger go, plopped onto my desk, and rolled onto his back, giving me his white fluffy belly and yellow chest.

  “Hello. Please. Now!” His scaly legs waggled, just tempting me to scratch him.

  “No way am I falling for that game again.” Grabbing my pen, I poked him in the stomach, only for him to curl around the expensive limited edition implement and flap and squawk, biting and scratching as if he wouldn’t stop until ink spilled in death.

  Despite myself, a smile tugged at my lips.

  Pika…was special.

  I’d rescued him, like most animals that hid within my jungles on Goddess Isles. Some I brought to this island, so I could keep an eye on them, and others, I let loose on the more uninhabited
shores, letting them revert to the way nature intended.

  But Pika…he’d been an egg when we met. So had his sister, Skittles. They’d been born in the lab—totally random from the caique parrot my father’s scientists had been testing acne medicine on. The parrot had lost all her feathers. She’d been depressed, lonely, and intensely sick from what humans did to her. No one knew she’d been fertilized before she’d been brought in from another lab.

  I’d found four eggs in the bottom of her wire cage early one morning. Two had smashed. Two were whole. For the first time in forever, I’d felt the familiar empathy that’d gotten me in so much trouble in my youth.

  Before anyone arrived, I’d scooped the eggs up, placed them in a disease incubator where Petri dishes grew sickness rather than nurtured life, then smuggled them home when no one was looking.

  It’d been a full-on job looking after the eggs.

  And then the hatchlings? Fuck me, they were even harder. I’d had to take the week off work to feed them every few hours until they left the naked, ugly alien stage and became pin cushions with quill-like feathers.

  The week after Pika and Skittles came into my life…my parents died, and the company became mine.

  The day I took control, I’d made changes to Sinclair and Sinclair Group. Lots and lots of fucking changes. I reclaimed a piece of myself again. I began to make up for all the shit that I’d done wrong.

  Pika hopped away from annihilating my pen, knocked over the stapler, got his talons stuck in the tape dispenser, and ripped a laptop key out of the keyboard before I could stop him.

  He was carnage on wings.

  A little hurricane of nightmares.

  “Pika.” I tried to grab him, only for his cute green wings to snap open, shoot him into the air, and deposit him on the top of my head. There, he grabbed strands of my hair and hung upside down over my forehead, putting our eyes within millimetres of each other.

  He squawked and bit my nose.

  I gave up.

  Slouching in my chair, I spread my hands the way I knew he liked and allowed him to distract me from the fantasy I had to code and the knowledge that Jinx was one hour closer to being consumed.