Kiss of the Goddess (Grecian Goddess Trilogy Book 1)

by Tessa Cole

  “She’s exhausted,” I told them.

  Del and Keph nodded, while Aethan looked a little put out. Of the four of us, the satyr was the worst around women. He had the unfortunate combination of being easily aroused and awkward with the opposite sex. That meant that, as much as he wanted to be with every woman he saw, he was often disappointed.

  “Let’s get a room and rest, then we can talk,” Keph said in that usual slow and steady manner of his, his deep voice always calming.

  “Agreed,” I said and we began to make our way back to Masia. “And you should all know. There is more going on here.”

  “Oh?” Del asked.

  “One of the last to be healed was a seer and had a prophetic vision when the goddess healed him. Something about there being a darkness behind this disease. It knows of her now and will come for her… And it’s not going to be nice when it does.”

  They stared at me as if they didn’t know what to say about that, and I understood their predicament. I didn’t know what to say about Goddess Annie or the prophesy, either.

  The quiet solemnity with which we walked back to town was indeed odd for us. We were sent to Masia to meet with our three counterparts, partly because we enjoyed a rousing conversation or argument. This silence spoke to our immediate and intense reverence for this strange woman among us and our fear of the darkness now hunting her.

  I looked down at the form in my arms and shook my head. The Goddess Annie Chambers was an enigma. First, she was taller by a head than most of the women in these parts, almost as tall as Aethan. Second, her form was that of a woman caught between maiden and matron. She had the narrow waist of a maiden, combined with the full hips, thighs, and bust of a matron. It was an alluring combination, perhaps hinting at the goddess’s sexual prowess and youthful energy.

  At the thought, I felt the stirrings of arousal just as I had when I’d first met her on the beach and when she’d embraced me, pressing her divine body against mine.

  My heart quickened. I was not usually one who caroused and sought women to pleasure. That was more Del and Aethan’s thing. There had to be something special about a woman for me to join with them, and so very much about Annie was special.

  There was her pale red hair, a color I’d not seen before. Certainly, many of the nymphai peoples had brightly colored hair, but not anything like Annie’s. My own people had a fairly uniform blond or pale brown. Tritons, like Del, tended to darker shades, blacks, or deep blue or greens, or shades of coral, while Aethan’s people, the satyrs of the Theophylian Plains had varied coloring, from white to black, as well as light brown to Aethan’s dark red.

  Odder still was the fine speckling over Annie’s cheeks, shoulders, arms, back, chest and stomach. This dappled skin was similar to some of Aethan’s kind, when in horse form. A dappled hide wasn’t uncommon, but it generally didn’t transfer to the satyr form. These spots seemed to accentuate her beauty, the perfect accent on the pale skin beneath.

  She was like the legends of amazon women of old: tall and strong, beautiful in their surety and confidence, ferocious in battle. I had yet to see Annie Chambers in battle, but given how she’d thrown herself into the healing of those sick people, I had no doubt of her fierceness.

  Then there were her strange garments: lacey webbing over her breast and loins that was so very seductive. There was little reason for people to cover themselves in this warm climate. Generally, there were only two reasons a woman might do so, and both applied to Annie. Some healers wore coverings, like that panai woman back at the sick camp, and Annie was a healing goddess… though the nurse’s coverings were usually white and Annie’s were pink.

  The second reason a woman might cover herself was to make herself more alluring to men. It made her mysterious and seductive — causing a man’s mind to imagine her features, think about her, instead of passing over her like all the other women.

  And I was certainly thinking about the goddess in my arms. These strange coverings at her breasts and loins hid just enough to make my blood boil, while also showing enough to make imagining the rest very easy. A thoroughly captivating combination.

  Yet another in her long list of mysteries, was her obsession with dreams. Though I wondered if perhaps this was how the gods came to us. In their dreams?

  That made a certain sense to me. The gods had not been here in many generations. Perhaps they had not slept or dreamed in that time.

  Or perhaps it was just Annie Chambers who slipped into the mortal realm in her dreams.

  I didn’t know, and I knew trying to understand the ways of the gods in general was a good way to make my head spin.

  We reached the Sailor’s Rest Public House, and Del — always the most generous with his ample wealth — paid for a room for the night.

  We took Annie up to our assigned room on the second floor. It was small, barely wide enough to hold two beds and a small table between them, but it was also probably the largest room in the inn.

  I gently laid her on one of the beds, and, feeling protective and wishing to stay close and guard her, I sat at the foot of the bed.

  Keph sat on the floor, as usual, his back to the closed door, while Del and Aethan each sat on opposite ends of the other bed.

  “I call to order the sixteenth session of the meeting of emissaries,” Del said formally. “Well, my good men, other than the excitement of today, what have you been up to?”

  “Pardon,” I interrupted. “Shouldn’t we speak of this excitement? I’m concerned about the goddess and this coming darkness. We were the ones who told her about the camp. It’s our fault she’s drawn the attention of this foul entity, whatever it is.”

  “Agreed,” Aethan said. “She’s certainly the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in the last six months.” His excitement was plain to see. Of course I knew several satyrs and they always seemed half aroused. Even the women among them seemed in a near perpetual state of stimulation, so Aethan’s current condition wasn’t unexpected.

  I’d been interested in a satyr woman once, long ago when’d I’d been young. She’d been a beautiful roan with the most exquisite blue-gray skin and blue-black hair. And very lusty. I’d nearly always come away exhausted from our encounters.

  I dragged my mind back to the topic at hand. “Aethan, please. She’s been targeted by this sickness-bringing entity because of us. We told her to go to that camp and now she’s in danger.” I couldn’t stop a little passion slipping into my voice despite wanting to appear calm and serious.

  “Agreed,” Keph said in that leisurely, rumbling bass of his. “Do you or Del know where she came from?”

  “I do,” Del said. “Sort of. There I was, enjoying some sun on a hot rock, fresh from my trip up from Galniosia when I heard something and turned. Truth be told, I didn’t see it happen in the moment, but she was stumbling away from what had been a tall standing stone next to me. She couldn’t have come from anywhere other than the heavens or out of that rock. I’d made sure I was alone before I began my sunning. I like the silence of listening to the waves. Then there she was, out of nowhere.”

  “My folk can move through stone,” Keph said with an intrigued look.

  “But she looks nothing like your people,” Del said quickly. “Her skin is soft and pale and she’s nowhere near as big as any of your titan women.”

  “Small,” Keph agreed. Though he then gave a half-smile. “But… not too small.”

  I caught the heat in those silver-lined black eyes of his. For a moment I was just a bit jealous. One session with Keph would ruin the goddess for the rest of us. None of us could compete with his… size. Yet, I could understand his attraction. I felt it too. Which was odd. Both Keph and I were the least likely to seek out a woman for casual sex, yet both of us were caught up with Annie’s energy.

  “So, she’s a goddess of healing and sex and dreams and stone?” Aethan mused, his gaze sliding up to the ceiling in thought. “I’ve never heard of anything like that before.”

  “An
d her name,” Del said with a shake of his head. “It’s unlike any goddess I’ve ever heard of. Ani. Anichambers. I supposed that’s sort of like Aphrodite.”

  “Odd name aside, you can’t deny what she did today,” I said, the events still fresh in my mind. “She cured those people of that devastating illness.”

  “But do the gods often get so… tired?” Aethan asked.

  That seemed odd to me as well. She’d fought through her exhaustion with great conviction, but in all the tales I knew of gods, the gods didn’t tire.

  But then perhaps that’s just how those old tales came across after hundreds of years of telling.

  “Can we really know the gods? I’ve certainly never met one. Perhaps they are more like us than we know,” I said.

  The others, having never met any other gods either, all nodded or shrugged, generally accepting this.

  “So, what do we do with her?” Del asked.

  “She demanded our pleasure,” Aethan said, quick to remind everyone. “We must oblige her. I’ll go first.” He rose and took a step to cross the room.

  I rose to meet him before he could wake her.

  “Let her sleep.” I would have asked if he’d want some overly excitable woman to interrupt his sleep, but I feared his answer to that question would not be the same as mine.

  He huffed, but backed off. “I’ll be first when she wakes then.”

  “We’ll let her choose which of us will begin,” Keph said, ending the debate in a single sentence because no one argued with Keph. The large man’s love-tap to Aethan’s face earlier that day had been extremely restrained and had still had the man reeling and broken his nose. The titan could punch through solid stone and not even bruise his rock-like knuckles.

  I sat back at Annie Chamber’s feet, my gaze drawn to her once again. Indeed, all our gazes were upon her.

  So mysterious and magical, strange and wonderful.

  “We need to protect her,” I said, knowing it in my heart.

  “Agreed,” Del said. “You’re right. It’s our fault she’s in danger. We need to keep her close and keep this darkness, whatever it is, away from her.”

  “Agreed,” Keph rumbled.

  “I’m in,” Aethan said eagerly. His choice of words didn’t escape me. I was certain he very much wanted to be in.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Then it’s set. We’ll keep her from the darkness.”

  The others nodded, sealing the pact.

  “So,” Del said, lounging back against the wall behind him. “Seeing as our goddess isn’t going anywhere for a while, I figure we have some time to go over any news from the realms of Nikandra. I’ll go first. Things are going swimmingly in Galniosia.” Del snorted at his own joke while Aethan groaned and I rolled my eyes. “We’ve heard back from the court of the Atargatine merfolk and secured a political alliance. Our dashing prince narrowly escaped a political marriage. That honor will fall to his younger brother, now fated to marry some distant princess.” He shuddered and I couldn’t help shuddering with him.

  I understood the necessity of a political marriage. Peace between various factions among our peoples rested on family bonds, but I hated the idea of spending the rest of my life with someone I didn’t know and from his shudder, Del did as well.

  “For his sake,” Del said, “I hope she’s kind and gentle. He’s not an overly forward man, the young prince. It’s sad really. But he’s accepted his fate, actually seems to be looking forward to it. He’s sent the princess one of his works of art as a betrothal present.”

  “At least he’s trying to make the situation more comfortable,” Keph said.

  “Yeah, for what it’s worth,” Del replied, his tone clear that he thought a piece of art wasn’t going to make the situation less awkward. He shrugged and continued with his report. “The Whale-folk of the deep Poseidic Ocean are worried about the many storms this year out on the open waters. They fear it portends dark times ahead. I think they’re a superstitious lot and these are just storms.” He pursed his lips and frowned. “Anything else?” he asked himself, lost in thought for a moment then shrugged. “Closer to home, all is quiet in the Okanid archipelago. The waters are clear and calm and the other islands are still no fun at all. Mostly backward folk, still caught up in rites to the gods and such.”

  I could attest to this last bit. The other smaller islands of the Okanid Island Chain were not as progressive in their beliefs and thinking. The folk still strongly believed in the old gods and followed their rituals — gruesome as some of them might be — to the letter.

  I sighed. Yet there were some here on Nikandra who sought to return to those old ways. Mostly elders, and mostly men. I didn’t understand it, personally.

  I listened as the others went through their reports. Aethan spoke of a disease beginning to affect the people on the plains, and I couldn’t help wondering if this was the same illness that Goddess Annie had just healed. This wasn’t a good omen at all. Yet that seemed the most pressing of his concerns. The rest of his time he spoke of women he’d been with. I highly suspected — knowing him as I did — that most of what he said were just tales and fantasies.

  Keph’s report was slow and stoic, like the large man himself. It seemed not much was affecting the stone titans who lived under the Ophion Mountains.

  Then it came to me, and with a sigh, I leaned forward to rest my elbows on my knees and set my chin atop my clasped hands. I sat there for a long moment before I spoke, not looking forward to what I had to announce.

  “The council of elders has chosen who will replace my father as sky general when he retires.”

  “You sound upset,” Aethan said cautiously. “Did they not choose you?”

  “I’m upset because they did choose me.” And that meant everything was going to change. I’d tried to forget about it, pretend I was still just a captain, commanding a flight of one hundred erinai, and the excitement with Annie Chambers earlier that day had done well to distract me. But now it all came back. “This will probably be my last meeting with you all.” And that’s what I hated the most about this promotion.

  “Oh?” Del asked with a furrow brow. “But…?” He left the question hanging.

  “Who will replace me? I don’t know yet. Given the erinai nature, I’m sure he’ll be no fun at all. And don’t get your hopes up that it might be a woman. Again, given some of our backward ways, that’s unlikely. Even if it were a woman, I highly doubt she’d be interested in entertaining any of you.”

  There were nods from the others. From my own reports as well as general awareness, they knew what my people were like. Of all those on Nikandra, the erinai were the most outdated in their thinking. They were insular and cold to most other races, and thought themselves superior because of their ability to fly. Something about being lords of the skies made them think they were lords of all peoples.

  I wasn’t particularly fond or proud of my family and heritage. It hadn’t even been that long ago that we’d warred with the plains-folk — Aethan’s people. These meetings of the four largest nations of Nikandra were a direct result of those wars and a hope on all parts to keep such things from happening again.

  With me leaving this position as emissary, I was afraid such talks would cease to be.

  The four of us had all been told by our elders that we needed to be strong in these talks, negotiate trade deals and political alliances — to the advantage of our home nations. And the four of us generally ignored such negotiations and spent our time together drinking, talking, and carousing. It was how we’d become such fast friends.

  There was the occasional talk of trade and politics, but it generally went smoothly because of our tightknit group. Mostly we went back to our respective peoples and told them that no negotiations were possible, perhaps next season. And they accepted that, thinking the other nations were all too staunch in their ways.

  I had no clue what would happen if any one of us was replaced. It could be catastrophic to keeping the balance — albeit not m
oving forward balance, but balance nonetheless — between our nations.

  A heavy silence filled the room for a long moment, then Keph, in his way, simply said, “We’ll miss you.”

  That comment, and the earnestness that I knew was behind it, nearly brought me to tears. “I’ll miss you all as well.”

  We didn’t speak any more of it after that.

  Since we all wished to watch over Goddess Annie Chambers, and since we all desperately needed a drink, we ordered wine and ale and had it sent up to the room.

  It was late — perhaps even early the next morning — when we all fell into a hazy drunken sleep. I half-thought-half-dreamed of Goddess Annie healing those people, a soft sheen of sweat making her pale skin glisten as her body slowly sagged with exhaustion.

  She’d given too much, healing too many people too quickly and—

  Someone yelped and I jerked upright, my pulse suddenly racing, my senses yanking me awake, and my eyes flying open.

  Far-too-bright sunlight streamed through the single window of the room — which we’d forgotten to shutter — making me hiss and squint, my gaze instantly jumping to the goddess.

  She sat in the bed, backed up against the wall as far away from me as she could get, her knees pulled up, her arms around them hugging them tight against her chest. She looked terrified, her large golden-brown eyes wild.

  “This isn’t a dream is it?” she said, voice trembling.

  Chapter 6

  Annie

  I was sure of it now. This wasn’t a dream. And if it wasn’t a dream, then where in hell was I and who were these naked men in my room?

  I had just been dreaming, living in a world of strange and wonderful and scary things, and now I was awake.

  I knew I was awake.

  Except I was still in the world of strange, wonderful, and scary things.

  And while I’d had that experience before of waking in a dream and still being in the dream, this time felt different.