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

by Cara Wylde

  Valentina laughed out loud. “Oh, Magny, I missed you too.”

  He stuck out his tongue. “Let’s get Hades and get out of here. I’ve seen enough already.”

  “Goddess, I’m tired.” She stretched and yawned. “And also hungry.”

  Magny poofed on top of the bike. “I’m surprised you didn’t die.” He patted Megaera. “Good girl. You really did take care of the crazy witch.”

  Valentina stretched her legs for a while, then took out her tarot deck and placed the Magician, the Emperor, the Hanged Man, and Death on the grass, under the starry sky. By now, she had become very comfortable with the spell. She performed it effortlessly, and the four gods stepped out of their cards.

  “So, how did Megaera treat you?”

  Val jumped into Nergal’s arms, and he lifted her up and spun her in the air.

  “Oh my Goddess, it was amazing! I never thought I’d do that! Insane! But amazing!”

  He kissed her forehead and released her.

  “You’re cute when you’re so hyped.”

  Loki stepped forward and cupped her cheek with a warm, slightly trembling hand.

  “You rode that thing here? Love, that’s death on two wheels! And not the kind of Death I agree to share you with.” He threw Nergal a murderous look.

  She smiled at him reassuringly. “It was great. And I was in no danger at all. But thank you for worrying about me.” She lifted herself on her toes and kissed him briefly on the lips.

  After she’d hugged Nergal and kissed Loki, she couldn’t possibly ignore Jove and Veles. After a moment of tenderness with all her four Ash Gods, and many fake gagging sounds coming from Magny, they decided it was time to go through with their plan. The hobgoblin took his place on Val’s shoulder, and Loki did his trick where he searched the dimensions for the one they were looking for. It was important to first be in the right place in the third dimension, and then any of the four gods could use their multi-dimensional vision to identify the final destination. Hades was in the fifth dimension. The Trickster took Valentina’s hand, and they both swooshed through a vortex that wasn’t very different from what Kali had used to transport Val around. With the only exception that this one gave her terrible nausea and reminded her how she hadn’t reacted well to traveling to the ninth dimension to find Veles, either. As they landed in front of the Hermit’s cottage, Valentina doubled over, her hands on her knees and eyes closed, and waited for the feeling of whooshing and spinning to subside. Jupiter, Veles, and Nergal joined them soon. Magny poofed himself away, up on a tree branch. He needed space and air. Multi-dimensional travel didn’t agree with him, either.

  The wooden, creaking door of the cabin opened, and the Hermit stood on the threshold, his body a dark shadow in the light pouring from the gas lamp he had left on the table. If the frown on his young, handsome face was any indication, he wasn’t expecting visitors and he wasn’t in the mood to entertain any intruders.

  “No one has taught you people about common courtesy? For instance, don’t show up uninvited?”

  “Who are you calling people?” Jove chuckled. He stepped forward, a growing grin on his face, and patted Hades on the shoulder. “Long time no see. How have you been?”

  The Hermit’s voice turned warmer. “Good. Minding my own business. You?”

  Jupiter spread his arms and laughed. “Minding everyone else’s business except my own. You know how it is.”

  Hades cocked an eyebrow. “With you? Yes.”

  Valentina watched their friendly interaction with keen interest. According to Greek mythology, Hades and the King of Gods, Zeus, were brothers. Jupiter was the counterpart of Zeus to the Ancient Romans, so it was interesting that even though they came from different cultures, the two of them seemed to have almost a brotherly connection. As if they were... half-brothers. She found it fascinating. Just as fascinating as the fact that it was now clear to her the Trionfi Chiari had more than one god of the Underworld. There was Nergal, then there was Hades... And if she thought about it... Oh! Some aspects of Veles were associated in mythology with the harvest and the cycle of life and death, and then she knew she would one day meet Osiris, too. She’d never considered this, but maybe there was something to it. Now, if she only knew who the goddesses of the Trionfi Scuri were! She could bet her pretty bum that most of them were connected to the Underworld, too. Life and death, the natural passing of time, regeneration and rebirth...

  “Still with us, love?”

  Loki wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her toward the cabin. She jumped at his touch, then relaxed. It was strange to have four men constantly follow her, worry for her, take care of her, and push her forward when she had doubts about completing the mission Fate had placed on her shoulders. She’d have to get used to it. As she entered the cabin, this time at the Hermit’s invitation, she threw him a quick side glance. Would Hades join them, too? Would her four lovers soon become five? And then... four more to go? She smiled at the thought. Well, it wasn’t a bad life if she considered all the advantages of having nine strong men by her side instead of one, as the norm was.

  The door closed behind her, and she was now crammed in a small room with five men who were looking at her as if she had all the answers of the Universe. Magny poofed himself on the table and proceeded to examine a bowl of something with utmost interest. Apparently, they had interrupted the Hermit’s dinner.

  Hades clasped his hands behind his back and stared Valentina down with his intense silver eyes. His brows were furrowed, and his jaw was set.

  “We meet again. Not of my own accord. Which is not surprising. It seems to me, Keeper of the Spades, that you don’t care much about what others want. You live by your own rules, and the rest have to comply. All right, so be it. Why are you here?”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “We were thinking... I was thinking...” She swallowed hard, not knowing what to say and how. “I’m wearing Death’s cloak.”

  “I can see that,” Hades said plainly.

  “It’s because I managed to... err...” She sighed. There was no other way to put it. What was done was done, and now she had to take responsibility and face the consequences. What kind of klutzy witch damaged her time sensor? “I did past-life regression and somehow I traveled to too many of my past lives and relived too many of my own deaths. That affected my time sensor. As in... it’s now off. Without Death’s cloak, I keep flashing between the past, the present, and the future, and my body can’t take it. I don’t know how to control it. I can’t. I tried, but breathing exercises don’t work, and I don’t know any sigil or spell to turn my time sensor back on. Because you’re... well... you’re who you are, the embodiment of the Hermit, the archetype of the one who isolates himself from the world to contemplate it from afar, I thought... I mean, they thought,” she motioned toward her lovers, who had spread out in the room as best as they could, “that you might know something about it.”

  The god’s hands moved from behind his back to cross over his chest. He took his time to study her from head to toe and think about what she’d just told him, and it struck him just how different she was. Different from other women, but also from other men – humans, gods, and everything in between. Not that he’d been around other beings in the past couple of centuries... Still, Hades remembered humans to be uninteresting and tiresome. Perfectly ignorable. In the grand scheme of things, they had a great purpose in the third dimension, but until that purpose was fulfilled, Hades was content to observe from the sidelines. Valentina De Rossi. Keeper of the Spades. There was something about her. It was enough to look into her deep blue eyes to see what she’d been through in the past couple of months. She’d secured four gods so far, and god aspects, as a rule, weren’t easy to manipulate into directly fighting the good fight and save the world. Now she wanted him, too. She was here for him. She was leading with this sad story about how she’d turned off her time sensor, and even though it was true and she did need all the help she coul
d get, convincing him to take his place in the Hermit card was a much more important goal. He almost felt tempted to let her try. He closed his eyes for a second and mentally slapped himself. If he allowed himself to play this cat and mouse game, then she might win. She’d done it before. And then what?

  “I can’t help you,” he finally said. He turned around and sat at the table, pulling the bowl of food toward him.

  Valentina’s heart sank. It wasn’t just the fact that he couldn’t fix her time sensor, it was the way he said it and the way he moved, as if he’d just built a wall between them, at a snap of his fingers, and now he was behind it, and she was on the outside, trying to look in. But there was no window and no door. When a Hermit decided he was through with the world, then no external energy could dissuade him. Val felt like she’d lost the battle before it had even started, before she had had a chance to familiarize herself with the rules. She marched to the table determined, placed her hands square on its worn surface, and leaned forward. When she spoke, there was barely contained fire in her voice.

  “Are you sure? If there’s anyone who has the knowledge...”

  His silver eyes bore into hers. “I don’t have it. Gods can do whatever they please with their time sensor. It’s in our nature. We’ve earned it, too. Before we became gods, we were creatures of the fourth dimension, we were mere Ordinaries in the third dimension, we were psychics and Keepers, we worked and evolved, cleared our karma, and we were born again as gods. One cannot skip these stages, Valentina De Rossi. What you did to your time sensor... it feels like you’re trying to skip a few steps.”

  Her chest, neck and cheeks turned red with embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to. It wasn’t intentional. I’m not trying to...” She shrugged. “I’m not trying to trick the natural flow of things.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you’re trying or not trying to do. I can’t help you.”

  She sighed. In frustration, she pulled off her hood, unbraided her hair, and let it flow down her back in rich, lush waves. The simple gesture of running her fingers through her long hair, pulling at the knots and arranging it neatly over her right shoulder helped her relax and think more clearly.

  Hades forgot about his food. Not that he’d particularly wanted to go back to his dinner in the first place, since the untimely arrival of his guests had killed his appetite. He watched Valentina play with her hair, her sky-blue eyes searching the room aimlessly, as if she were in another dimension just then, her mind wandering, looking for solutions, while her beautiful, young body was stuck in that old, dirty cabin, with a stubborn god who could have helped her if only he’d have gotten over his own ego. He’d thought she was different earlier. He found her fascinating now.

  “All right, all right,” she whispered. “But you do have so much knowledge. Maybe... Maybe you know something about how to get one’s Higher Self back.”

  Hades blinked in confusion. “What?”

  Her eyes returned to his. “Look. I know you can see it, if you just look hard enough. See her.”

  He furrowed his brows.

  “There’s this being attached to my energy field. Her name is Ravenna. For many years, I thought she was my Higher Self, and I’ve recently learned that she’s not. My Higher Self is still within me, buried deep, overpowered by Ravenna, and I don’t know how to get her back. At the same time...” She hesitated.

  Hades pushed his bowl away and leaned over the table, his eyes searching hers. He wanted to know. He wanted to understand. And she let him. For a few long minutes, it was as if he was in a movie theater, alone, and her blue eyes were the screen. He saw her life in scenes and flashes. Trained as a Keeper of the Spades, fated to save the Trionfi Chiari and the entire Tarot, she was the promise of a new future. But she wouldn’t be able to do it alone. She wasn’t meant to. Separated from her most divine self since birth, she’d fought her way to the top, hoping to become a High Keeper one day. He knew she would be much more than a High Keeper of her coven. But there was a long way to go. It was true he knew nothing about her time sensor, but Ravenna... Maybe he could help her banish her twin sister’s Higher Self, so she could get her own back and finally be complete.

  “At the same time what?” he asked.

  She let out a deep sigh. “I can’t let her vanish. She made me promise I would first find a way for her to stay in the third dimension. Her human body died when I reabsorbed my twin in our mother’s womb, so she has no body now. I’m the reason she’s still around. She’s attached to me, and once I reconnect with my Higher Self, she will have to move on. But how? Where?”

  The Hermit cocked an eyebrow. “You do realize she’s made your life harder than it was supposed to be, right? Ravenna is not your ally. She might have helped you here and there, but she’s mostly hindered you, your powers, and your judgement. She buried your Higher Self so deep within your subconscious that you can’t even feel her anymore, know for sure that she’s still there... And she’s lied to you for years, letting you believe that she, Ravenna, was your Higher Self. So, if I may ask... Why do you want to help her? You reabsorbed her before you were born. It’s not your fault. It is what it is. So... why?”

  Valentina shrugged. “I don’t know. We got close, I guess. She’s not evil. She’s just lonely. I can’t imagine how it must be to exist as energy attached to someone else’s body. I feel...”

  “Pity?”

  “No. Compassion. I feel compassion for her.”

  Hades nodded. He couldn’t argue with that. In fact, she’d just grown in his eyes. Valentina’s compassion toward the entity that had haunted her since birth showed what kind of person she was. And Hades had to admit – he liked that person.

  He pushed his chair away from the table and stood up.

  “It’s not easy... what you’re asking.”

  Valentina’s face lit up. “But it’s not impossible, right?”

  Hades smiled. “No. It is quite possible, in fact. We just have to proceed carefully and mindfully.”

  She rounded the table and stopped in front of him. Her fingers were itching to touch his face, her body was urging her to step closer and thank him with a proper hug. And maybe a kiss. She fought to control the heat spreading in her belly and the desire to show him just how much she appreciated his help. But wait. He hadn’t helped yet. She was getting ahead of herself, and his handsome face and gorgeous body were at fault.

  “How exactly are we going to proceed?”

  “Patience, Keeper of the Spades.” He smiled mysteriously. “Isn’t patience one of your virtues?”

  She blushed, remembering how she’d almost failed the Test. Okay, scratch that. She’d failed it, and the King of Swords had helped her cheat. In truth, she should have gone through all the cards of the Suit of Swords and learn their virtues. Patience was the field of the Four of Swords. She’d never gotten to the Four, unfortunately. So, no, she didn’t quite know how to be patient.

  “It is...” she whispered reluctantly.

  Hades laughed out loud. The sound of his laugh filled the room and raised the vibration instantly, as if by magic. He laughed like a young boy laughed as he ran through the woods, in pursuit of the girl he liked.

  Valentina’s eyes grew wide with wonder. Now she wanted to hug him even more. Take him in her arms and never let go. She’d never thought that Hades, the Greek God of the Dead, could be such a delight to be around. When he wanted to, of course. If she thought about it, he was more bi-polar than her. One moment, he acted like a true Hermit, all grumpy and unpleasant, almost about to shoo them out of his house, and the next, his entire face brightened up and he laughed like he didn’t have a care in the world, and everything was beautiful and peachy. Being around him was like riding a roller coaster.

  “Liar,” he said. “You’re many things, Valentina De Rossi, but patient is not one of them.” He walked to the door, motioning for her to follow him. “Come. I want you to meet someone. While I think about your predicament with Ravenna, I
believe there’s someone here, in these woods, who can help you with your other problem.”

  Valentina followed Hades, and Loki, Veles, Jupiter, and Nergal followed her, diligently. She wondered what was going through their minds. Loki seemed particularly crabby, and he wasn’t doing much to hide it, but at least he kept his mouth shut, realizing that Valentina really needed the Hermit’s help. Veles was serene, as always. Nothing ever seemed to bother him. Oh, if only all gods were like him! No pettiness, no jealousy, no over-inflated ego... The world would have been a better place. Nergal was oddly silent. Val felt like the only reason why he was fine with Hades was because she was still wearing his cloak, so he still felt useful. And Jove was pretty satisfied with the situation. As they all followed Hades deeper and deeper into the woods, the God of the Sky busied himself with inspecting the trees and the plants and gathering wild flowers in a neat bouquet. He caught up with Valentina, who was still a bratty witch in his book, and offered her the flowers. She blinked in confusion and almost asked him if there was something wrong, because he was sure as hell acting unusual. She swallowed her words and muttered a “thank you”, instead. Since when was Jove the romantic one? When he leaned in to place a sweet kiss on her temple, Hades furrowed his brows and cleared his throat. That was when it struck her. Jove and Hades might have been friends, but when it came to her, there was still competition.

  They walked for half an hour, Valentina holding her cloak up as to not catch on the fallen leaves and branches. Magny was perched on her shoulder, as usual, almost hugging her face, his tiny heart jumping at every noise.

  “Seriously? You’re afraid of the dark?” Val said through gritted teeth. She would have been much more comfortable if he didn’t hold on to her for dear life.