The Cloaked Maiden: A Reverse Harem Romance (Rise of the Ash Gods Book 2)

by Cara Wylde

  They were silent the rest of the way. Valentina couldn’t even enjoy the ride back to the hotel. She was too shaken to think of anything else. She almost regretted having gone to see Nergal at the nightclub then having accepted to go with him, up on that roof. She wanted it all to be a bad dream. What had she gotten herself into?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Where were you?”

  Valentina jumped in surprise, her hand flying to her chest. When she saw it was only Jove, fuming through his nose and ears, she closed the door behind her and got herself a bottle of freezing water from the mini fridge.

  “What are you doing in my room? How did you get in?”

  He ignored her questions. “You were with him, weren’t you? Nergal.”

  Valentina could swear he’d grown a few inches taller. What was it with him turning into a giant every time he got mad?

  “Yes. Am I not allowed to? You don’t have to babysit me, you know? I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine. You’re in danger, and your witch powers won’t be enough when that thing decides to come after you.”

  “Thing? What thing? Oh! The Cluster.” She stepped onto the balcony. When the infernal noise of the street below assaulted her ears, she wished she’d had taken a better room. “I just told Nergal I don’t believe the Thing is here. I’m still myself, aren’t I?”

  Jupiter rubbed his temple, took a deep breath and tried to calm down. He’d already established she was a bratty witch. What was a bratty witch to do when he wasn’t looking? Mess around with another god, of course. She was impossible!

  “Where’s your hobgoblin?” He leaned against the railing and pushed a box of chocolates into her hand. “I got you these.”

  “Oh?” She stared at the box as if she’d never seen chocolates in her life. “Thank you. Is this why... you went out?”

  “Yeah. You can only find them in the Grand Bazaar. They’re quite special. Try one.”

  She popped a medium-sized praline into her mouth, closed her eyes, and moaned at the rich, savory taste. She could feel Jupiter’s eyes on her, and she knew he was smiling. When she looked at him, his golden eyes were filled with something akin to wonder. No other man had ever looked at her like that. She blushed.

  “Delicious. Thanks.”

  “Where’s your hobgoblin?”

  “Crap! I forgot about Magny. Oh, dammit! He didn’t want to come with us because he’s afraid of motorcycles. I left him at the club and promised I’d go back to get him. I’m a horrible, horrible friend!”

  “That you are.” Magny poofed himself right under her nose, legs crossed and arms folded over his chest. “I waited for you! Imagine my surprise when only Death showed up.”

  “I’m so sorry, Magny. So sorry! You can’t even imagine. I just... I have so much on my mind.” She leaned over to grab his tiny hand in apology. “What’s that smell?” She sniffed loudly. “You smell like... cheap perfume.”

  He blushed to the tips of his ears, although it was barely visible with all that hair covering his face.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Magny! You smell like booze and lady’s perfume! I told you to stay away from the girls.”

  He squinted his eyes at her and huffed. “It’s not like they could see me! Why are you so bossy all of a sudden? You totally forgot me at the bar, and now you’re lecturing me about girls? I didn’t do anything, okay? I’m not some kind of monster. I just... err... I... you know. I watched them change.”

  “You did what?!” She took a step back. “That’s not cool. Not cool at all, Magny.” Jupiter started laughing, and she shot him a murderous look. “It’s not funny! A woman needs her privacy. If someone is watching, she has to know.” She stuck her finger into Magny’s plump, blushing face. “Bad hobgoblin! I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

  Magny gave a big sigh. “You’re acting as if I killed someone,” he mumbled. “It’s not a bid deal, okay? I was just curious to see how they even fit into those tiny things they wear on stage. I didn’t even like it.”

  “You didn’t like spying on them?” She laughed. “Oh, that’s grand. That fixes everything.”

  “Can I have a chocolate?”

  “No!” She pulled the box away. “Bad hobgoblins don’t deserve chocolate.”

  “But I told you I didn’t even like it,” he whined. “Come on! That’s some good Egyptian chocolate. Where did you get it? The Grand Bazaar?”

  “And I don’t believe you. You enjoyed watching those girls, and that makes me question our friendship.”

  “You left me there!”

  “And if I came to get you, what nastiness would I have witnessed?”

  “I did nothing wrong!”

  “Liar!”

  “Okay, as much as I enjoy this little show of yours, you two have to stop,” Jupiter said. “Now.”

  “But he...”

  “But she...”

  Jove nodded at Magny. “Yes, she! What was she doing while you were spying on the strippers?” He turned to Valentina, a questioning look on his handsome face. “Care to share with us, Keeper?”

  She pursed her lips and thought for a moment. She didn’t like being cornered like that. On the other hand, at this point, Jupiter and Magny were the only ones who could probably understand what she’d just been through.

  “Gideon,” she started in a low, serious tone, “I need to ask you something. And then I’ll tell you where I was. Nergal showed me something. And I will tell you all about it, but you have to answer me one question.”

  Jupiter crossed his arms over his bulky chest. He didn’t particularly like where this was going, but it sounded important. Regardless of how klutzy she was, Valentina was a smart witch and she had accomplished some impossible feats so far. Such as convincing two gods to get carded for her.

  “Shoot.”

  “You came here to ask Negal to do a job for you. What’s the job? Who do you want him to kill?”

  Jove’s black, thick eyebrows rose high on his perfect forehead.

  “And how do you know that? Did he tell you?”

  “No, I saw it... I mean, glimpses of it. I saw you talking to him in an alley, then I got a flash in his room, at the club. It was before he gave me his cloak.”

  “Oh, right. Your screwed-up time sensor. So, you’re not the only spy in this room.” He chuckled. “Magny spies on strippers, and you spy on gods.”

  “That’s not...” Wait. What was she apologizing for? “It wasn’t intentional. You know I can’t control it.”

  He nodded and thought for a moment. He let out a long sigh and, with it, started telling her his story.

  “You know how some gods and goddesses prefer to keep their full powers and roam the third dimension just the way they are, shift into animals, or take human forms once in a while? And then, there are others who choose to incarnate here as humans and live the human experience either fully or partially. Fully means they wipe their own memory too, and for the span of the human life they chose to have, they don’t remember who they are. Partially is when they want to remember their true nature as they grow old, from infant to toddler, from toddler to preschooler, and so on. Once they reach adulthood, they have full control of their powers and they can choose whether they want to stay young forever, or until they get bored of their human life, or grow old and die. Well, I’m one of those god aspects who wanted to be born as a human, remember who I am, and then stay young until I get bored. Which means that I have a human mother.”

  “Oh.” Valentina started playing with the ends of her long hair. It was a silly habit she turned to for comfort every time she felt nervous or like something was too much for her to keep up. “I guess Loki is the same as you?”

  Jove nodded. “I was born in the eighties. My mother abandoned me and I never looked for her. Not even when I grew old enough to realize who I am and what I can do. I didn’t care. The woman had served her purpose to
bring me into this world, and I wasn’t going to demand her love too. I got enough love and care from my foster mother, who was...” He cleared his throat. “Who still is the kindest person I have ever met.”

  “Still is? She’s not human, then?”

  “Oh, she’s human. An Ordinary. She took me in, raised me as her own child, and gave me the best education she could afford. She knew I was special, but no matter how hard she tried to understand how, she couldn’t figure it out. I never told her, either. Telling her wasn’t part of my initial plan. When we found out she was going to die of lung cancer, that plan changed. I couldn’t watch her die. Not when I knew I was Jupiter, the God of the Sky and Thunder. Not when it was in my power to save her. To make her immortal, like me. Or so I thought. It was foolish of me to believe I could change the way of the Universe. It was foolish of me to think I could mess with the natural rules and get away with it.”

  “What did you do, Gideon?” Valentina wrapped Death’s cloak tighter around her shoulders. It was scorching hot, but the chills creeping under her skin seemed to defy the weather.

  “I tried to save her. I tried to make her like me – healthy, young, immortal. I should have known better. Not even a god can take an Ordinary and turn her into something she is not. It’s not how the world works, and we are not above its laws. I messed up. Huge. At first, it seemed like it had worked. In a single day, she turned younger and stronger, and the doctors said there was no sign of cancer. The second day, she was back on her feet, looking the same as when she was twenty. I told her who I was and what I had done, how I’d saved her from certain death. The third day... that was the day when it all fell apart. She was sick again, her body shriveled back to its old, diseased form, the cancer was eating at her lungs once again, and she was back in bed, awaiting her death. I thought I had failed. I told her how sorry I was and how I knew she would soon get a chance at a new life. A better life. I told her about reincarnation and how all of it was real. Even now, I remember how she smiled up at me, tears in her eyes, squeezed my hand and told me that it was all right, she’d made peace with her illness and death didn’t frighten her. I stayed at her deathbed late into the night, made sure all the candles were lit so her soul would find its way to her next life. And just as she was giving her last breath, just as her whole body relaxed awaiting the inevitable, she sprung up, wide awake, the color returning to her pale cheeks at an alarming rate. I couldn’t understand what was happening. She couldn’t, either. In a matter of hours, she was turning young again, and the next morning, the doctors said the cancer was gone. I took her home. Maybe, just maybe, this time it had worked.”

  He made a pause and shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe his own story was real. He ran his hand through his dark hair, then leaned his whole weight on the railing. Valentina reached out and placed her hand on top of his.

  “Well, it didn’t. In three days, she was back on her deathbed, the cancer eating her from the inside. And as she got close to passing on, she once again sprung back to life, her body healing as if by miracle. Except... it wasn’t a miracle. None of it. It was like a curse! She couldn’t die! She still can’t die! Years and years of pain, suffering, frustration... Decades of reaching the threshold between life and death only to be turned away by forces neither of us could understand or control. My meddling with the laws of nature brought her in this stage where she’s constantly dying of cancer, but never dying for good, never getting to the end of the line. Three days of perfect health and youth, and then the cancer takes over. Hours of agony. Long, endless hours of struggling to give her last breath, and then she’s back on her feet again, dreading what she knows will come. Over and over again. Until the end of time, if such an end truly exists.” He chuckled sadly. “It doesn’t.” He looked at her hand covering his, intertwined his fingers with hers and looked up into her blue eyes. “Now you know, my witch. Time doesn’t begin and end. It just is. So, my mother is trapped. I trapped her. I did this to her. Yes, she is immortal now, you might argue. But she’s eternally sick and tortured. I didn’t save her. I condemned her to an eternal life of suffering.”

  Valentina nodded. “And you believe that Nergal can help. You believe that he can kill her, that one bullet to the head would erase all her karma and allow her to reincarnate in a new life.”

  “Yes. For over a hundred years, I’ve been looking for a solution. I did my research. I watched and learned, observed what the various death gods living in this dimension could do, and came to the conclusion that Nergal might just be my only hope. Her only hope.”

  “But he doesn’t want to help you.”

  “Did he tell you that?”

  Valentina shrugged. “I have my ways...”

  Jupiter let out a deep sigh. He looked in the distance at the pyramids gracing the horizon.

  “He doesn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “I believe his words were: it’s your mess, you clean it.”

  Valentina pulled her hand away. Not that she didn’t enjoy being so close and intimate with him, but her body was starting to react in ways that weren’t quite appropriate for the circumstances.

  “Then, what jobs does he actually accept? If he says no to this, and no to that, who does he kill? And how does he decide the target is a yes or a no?”

  Jove cocked an eyebrow. “He’s not going to eliminate his target in Cairo?”

  “N-no. I don’t think so. Didn’t he tell you?”

  He smiled. “Good. Because he shouldn’t. Last time I talked to him about it, he hadn’t decided yet. If you convinced him not to do it, then pat yourself on the back. That murderous scum doesn’t deserve a fresh, new start. Especially if it’s Kali’s desire. She’s one of the cruelest goddesses that are still around in the third dimension.”

  “But if he doesn’t kill him, he will kidnap again. He will murder some innocent victim, and... and...” She couldn’t say the words. She wouldn’t.

  “Okay, it’s obvious that I missed a lot,” Magny said, his round brown eyes shifting between the two. “You’re saying that Death is actually the good guy? That if he kills people, then it’s a good thing?”

  Valentina rolled her eyes. “I thought you were able to know things... just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “Without anyone having to tell you in detail.”

  “Yes, I can.” He motioned for her to lean forward, to his level. “Come here. Let me see.”

  She gave a sigh but did as he asked. One long, deep look into her eyes, and it was enough for Magny to catch up with what was happening. His power was similar to a god’s power, but more intuitive. His clairvoyance and claircongnizance always came in handy, but they did have limits sometimes. The hobgoblin himself hadn’t yet discovered what those limits were. It appeared that Valentina and Nergal had been on quite an adventure while he was wasting time at the nightclub, and he mentally cursed himself for having gotten distracted by the girls’ feminine charms. His initial plan had been to let them arrive where they were supposed to, then track down Valentina and poof himself there. That blonde! That tall blonde with her wasp waist and generous bosom! It was all her fault!

  “Magny, you can do something about Kali’s boyfriend, right?” Valentina’s whole face lit up. “We can’t let him strike again.”

  “Err...”

  “You can poof him into non-existence! You said so many times.”

  The hobgoblin rubbed his temple. “N-no. Actually, I can’t. I was just putting on a show, you know.” He chuckled in slight embarrassment. “Don’t get me wrong, there are many awesome things I can do. Just... not that. I can’t make a person disappear.”

  Valentina deflated a bit. In truth, she had suspected as much.

  “It’s never a good idea to mess with the laws of this world,” Jupiter said. “The third dimension is a special place, and so is this planet. Do yourselves a favor and take my foolishness as a cautionary tale.” He went back inside. The air outside had become too stuffy to breathe e
ven for him. “Oh, and... Valentina...”

  He rarely called her by her name. She turned on her heels to look into his beautiful, golden eyes. They sure rivaled the sun.

  “I know you want to do something about the murderer. You can’t. If he’s Kali’s latest crush, as Nergal says, then you have to promise me that you’ll stay away from him. I know you’re so good and sweet and righteous. I know you want to keep everyone safe. Not this time. If you do anything to hurt this man and Kali finds out, – and she will find out, trust me, – she will come after you. Sit this one out. Your mission is important.”

  “Says the guy who refuses to get inside his card...” Val laughed.

  Jupiter grinned. “Despite what you might think, I want you to succeed. If you endanger yourself by bringing down Kali’s wrath upon you, you endanger the mission. I know it’s hard to hear this, but in the grand scheme of things, saving the Mysteries of the Trionfi is more important than saving a bunch of Ordinary lives.”

  She pursed her lips. When he turned to leave, she didn’t stop him. All of a sudden, she didn’t like him very much. Ordinary lives... He’d said it as if they didn’t matter. As if normal humans didn’t matter, and they could very well be left to die.

  “He’s right, though,” Magny whispered. “I’ve heard stories about Kali.” He shuddered. “We should stay out of her way.”

  “Ugh!” Valentina stomped her foot then stormed into the room and grabbed the books on how to summon the tarot cards. “I bet Loki and Veles would say otherwise if they were here in flesh and bone, with their full powers. Jupiter chose a human body, but Nergal is a god down to his last cell. Why is he so afraid of Kali? You know what, Magny? I bet four gods could take down that... that bitch! So, I’m going to learn how to summon Loki and Veles properly, and then I’m going to fix this. With their help.”

  “I love your energy,” Magny chuckled awkwardly. “It’s great that you’re so determined, but maybe it’s for the wrong reason? Gideon has just told you not to meddle.”

  Valentina’s bright, angry eyes snapped to him. “Because he’s afraid! Because he tried to save his human mother, failed, and now he thinks all hell will break loose every time someone intervenes in the natural flow of things. Or what he believes is the natural flow of...” She shook her head frantically. “You know what? I think that’s BS. That man walking among us, kidnapping young men for his sick fantasies... No! That’s not natural. You’re a smart creature, Magny. How about this perspective? Everything happens for a reason, right? So, what if I found out about the murderer because I’m supposed to do something about him? How about that?”