Dark Gods: An Academy Bully Romance (Academy of the Gods Book 1)

by River Ramsey

  "Tell that to the dead guy!" I cried.

  Kunzite fell silent and Odin gave me a withering glare. "Ms. Ademone, I understand that you're upset, but try to control yourself. We've had quite enough of your spirited outbursts."

  Kunzite was listening curiously, and I knew the tables were turning against me. I wasn't about to let that silver-haired douchebag make me out to be the villain in all this. Maybe the Triad thought they ran the Academy, and maybe they were right, but there were laws in this world, and as many of them as I'd bent, I'd never committed murder. Even they had to answer to someone and this was my chance--my only chance--to see to it that they did.

  I owed Phrixus that, at least.

  "Hades is a pompous ass and I'd slap him again if I had the chance," I snapped. "He's been harassing me ever since. Him and his stupid Wild Hunt. When he saw me with Phrixus, he told me I'd made a mistake and that there would be consequences. How much more do you need?"

  "That's quite enough, Ms. Ademone," Odin said in a deep, growling tone that made me shiver in spite of myself. He turned to Kunzite, his demeanor shifting instantly. "Agent, is that all you need for now?"

  "Yes, but the Task Force will require further access to the school and its students as the investigation continues," she answered, closing her notebook.

  "And you shall have it," Odin said, standing to walk her to the door. "Thank you for getting here so quickly, and please, give me some time to contact the boy's parents. His twin is quite beside herself at the moment, as I'm sure you'd expect."

  "Of course," Kunzite said, nodding to him.

  The moment the door shut and I found myself alone with Odin, I knew I should have kept my mouth shut, but it was too late now and I was still burning with too much anger to try if I wanted to.

  Before he could start in on me, I decided to go on the offensive.

  "You know I didn't kill him," I said firmly. "Hades did it. It's plain as day, even you can't deny that."

  "The evidence is circumstantial at best," he said, sitting back on his desk with his broad arms folded. He wasn't quite as physically imposing as his eldest son, but he was even more intimidating. "Might I suggest that you avoid digging yourself even deeper into this hole by adding libel to the list of your offenses."

  I clenched my jaw just to keep my mouth shut for a few extra seconds while the words on the tip of my tongue molded themselves into something less inflammatory. "Why are you protecting him?" I demanded. "What does he have on you?"

  The spark of indignation in the Headmaster's eyes told me I'd failed in that attempt. "You are walking a fine line, Ms. Ademone. Sit down."

  I was about to protest when some invisible force pushed me back into my chair. I'd heard Odin's gifts were more than just his legendary wisdom, and while I still couldn't attest to that one, I'd now experienced his telekinetic abilities firsthand.

  "There is more at work here than you understand, and I would advise you to choose your words carefully," he said, pouring a glass from the scotch bottle on his desk.

  I watched warily as he poured another hand offered it to me. "Is this a trap?" I asked, taking it. "You have another Stone waiting behind that desk to bust me?"

  "We both know underage drinking is the least of your crimes," he said flatly, taking a sip from his own glass.

  I reluctantly threw one back. It burned on the way down, but it eased the sting of shock a little. I didn't know Phrixus well enough to feel any proper sense of grief, at least not yet, but there was still horror and confusion, made worse by the close proximity of his death to an encounter I should have been regretting by now.

  "Assuming you really do believe Hades is innocent, why?" I finally asked once I'd managed to get ahold of my temper.

  “Because he has an alibi,” Odin answered calmly.

  “An alibi? What, he was off bullying someone else at the time?”

  “Quite to the contrary,” he answered. “He wasn’t even at the Academy at the time of young Phrixus’ tragic demise, and he has proof.”

  “Proof?” I echoed in disbelief.

  “I’m afraid it’s not my truth to divulge,” said Odin. “If you really want to know, you could always ask him.”

  It was a challenge, and I knew it. Odin knew as well as anyone that Hades had made me the target of the entire school, and he’d done nothing more to stop it than he had with Marcellus or any of the others.

  “You started this whole thing,” I murmured, shaking my head. “Now it’s come to this, to the death of one of your own students, and yet you don’t even feel the slightest bit guilty, do you?”

  “You speak of things you don’t understand,” he said in a dangerous tone. “This school has its traditions, and I’m afraid to tell you, it’s not the only one. Our world was founded on them. Tradition builds character. It molds the psyche, and it culls the weak.”

  “Is that was this was?” I asked. “Culling the weak? Is that how you’re going to spin this to Helle and Phrixus’ parents?”

  Odin stood, stalking toward me with such force that I was braced to defend myself, but he stopped just short of me, his eyes glowing with rage. “You may not have respect for your elders, child, but you will learn it. You will answer the questions that are asked of you and nothing more, and if I hear another word from or about you from anyone else, there will be consequences. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Crystal. I know a threat when I hear one.”

  “A threat,” he chuckled, shaking his head. “You can see it that way if you like, or you can see it as a warning. And the person who bears those consequences won’t be you.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Don’t bring my mother into this.”

  “Oh, but you already have. Do you know why you didn’t come here last semester, Kore?” His question caught me off-guard, and he knew it. “Did you think you’d simply succeeded at dragging your heels and making yourself such a nuisance that your mother finally gave in?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You weren’t accepted,” he continued, his voice stern with the certainty of truth. “This Academy has strict standards and you, quite frankly, did not live up to them. Your mother came to me and begged for me to reconsider when she discovered your little pastime. She was petrified that word would get back to Cronus and he would break off the engagement.”

  His words hit me like a ton of bricks, and even though I couldn’t make sense of them, some part of me knew that he was telling the truth. That he didn’t care enough to lie. I was still reeling when he chose to go in for the kill.

  “Do you know why your mother is so desperate to marry you off to Hades?” he pressed, folding his hands in his lap. “Did you ever stop to wonder why Cronus would want his son to marry the daughter of a goddess who hasn’t been seen in Olympus for the last hundred years?”

  My mind was whirling and I shook my head, not because the question had never crossed my mind, but because I wanted him to stop. I wanted everything to just… stop. My hands were trembling around the nearly untouched glass in my hands and I was only holding on because I didn’t trust myself to set it down without dropping it. Everything was on the verge of shattering.

  “You may not like it, but there is one thing you and Hades have in common, one thing that binds you and sets you apart from all the others,” he said coldly. “There’s only one place in all the worlds where the gods can hide their dirty little secrets. Your acceptance to the Academy, and Hades’ for that matter, was meant to give you both the opportunity to adjust. To go willingly. But make no mistake, whether you squander your limited time and freedom here or not, you will both be spending the remainder of your lives in the Underworld. That is a fact.”

  My throat was bone dry and I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking. At this point, I wasn’t sure whether it was rage or some late reaction to Phrixus’ death. All I knew was the question on the tip of my tongue was one I shouldn’t ask--and wouldn’t, if I had any sense of self-preservation--but I also knew it was t
he one time I could actually count on an honest answer.

  “Hades said something the night I came here. The night of the party,” I said in a voice that sounded much steadier than I felt. “About Poseidon and my mother. Is it true? Is he my real father?”

  Odin didn’t seem surprised in the least by my question. He didn’t answer right away, either. He gave me just enough time to dread what was coming.

  “It’s true that your mother was involved with both Poseidon and Zeus,” he finally answered, and my heart bottomed out at his confirmation. “However, I’m afraid the scandal of your birth is far more involved than that.”

  I stared at him in confusion, my heart already raw and bleeding. “Then… who?”

  “Come, child. Surely some part of you already knows the answer to that question,” he scoffed. “After all, you’ve sown nothing but discord ever since you stepped foot in this place.”

  “No,” I said, leaping up from my chair. I shook my head and found myself backing toward the door. “You’re lying.”

  “And yet, I haven’t said a word.” He shrugged, taking another sip. “Truth recognizes itself. You are Ares’ daughter. There’s no doubt of that.”

  For the second time in my life--both of which had taken place within the Academy walls--I ran. I wasn’t even sure what I was running from. In any case, no one made any attempt to stop me as I fled the great wooden doors, but I made it no further than the garden before I collapsed with a strangled sob welling in my throat.

  Ares.

  It couldn’t be true. I didn’t want it to be true, even if it made sense of things I’d never been able to make sense of before. The fact that my mother, as concerned as she was with making a good impression on the other gods, led such a cloistered life away from them. My engagement to Hades.

  Now it all made sense.

  We really were a match made in Hell.

  19

  Fenrir

  I heard music in the air as I ran through the woods, a beast of silver fur and glowing black eyes. The woods surrounding the Academy provided adequate disguise from the fragile folk who populated Atlantis beyond the security of the Academy walls, which was a fortune, since I looked like the monster from Hell that I was.

  I’d been given an all-occasion pass Freshman year that entitled me to miss class without any questions asked, since the administration was already less than eager to go over its demigod quota, let alone with a student whose divine parentage wasn’t even humanoid. Running and hunting were the only dependable methods of keeping my animal nature in check, and when I was constantly surrounded by prey, doing so was a necessity.

  I hadn’t been created to learn, or socialize, or live any semblance of a proper existence, for that matter. I’d been created for one purpose and one alone: chaos. In the absence of a suitable reason to fulfill that purpose after my father’s death, I had been given a new one: protect Hades.

  Not killing him and everyone else in sight just came with the job description, so I ran, but there was something different about this night. The music in the air was different. It wasn’t the collective song of birds or the rush of the wind. Both were silent.

  This was a song I knew well. Death always favored a certain melody.

  I followed it, my paws beating a thunderous rhythm against the earth as I picked up my speed.

  Then, I found her. The source of the melody.

  She was in the garden, her small body hunched over and surrounded by thick black vines coming out of the earth and shaped around her like a cocoon. I stopped short, trying to process the strange sight before me. There was little I hadn't seen on Asgard or Earth, but this was certainly a first.

  The closer I drew, the more the melody rumbling through the earth sounded like a scream of torment. Kore seemed only half-conscious, her face marred with an expression of anguish as she huddled closer in on herself, as if she was trying to fight the crushing weight of the vines around her, even though she had to be in control of them.

  Didn't she?

  I hesitated, torn for the first time over what to do. Logic told me to run. My continued station at the Academy was contingent upon no one outside the administration ever seeing me in this form, especially not a student. Instinct told me to go to her. The same instinct that had drawn me to her from the moment she'd arrived on campus.

  The very thing that would drive me apart from my only purpose in this world if he ever found out the truth.

  Instinct won out and I loped forward, stopping only when her eyes met mine. They were full of confusion and fear, but the pain outweighed everything else. Whether she thought I'd come to kill her or free her, I didn't know, but either way, whatever darkness had overcome her took precedence. She pulled back violently, her spine arched as the veins wound themselves around her throat and arms. There was no doubt left in my mind that she was far from in control, but I didn't know how to help her.

  I began to tear at the vines with my fangs, but her groan of agony told me that was only making it worse and I stopped, forcing my beast to go back into the sheath of my human skin. This form was far more comfortable than the other, and getting the wolf to retreat when it was surrounded by chaos was a losing battle most of the time, but I finally managed to drop to my knees in front of her.

  "What's wrong?" I demanded, my voice guttural from disuse. "Tell me what you need."

  She shook her head, her eyes watering with what looked like blood, even though it was a dark cerulean blue. She wouldn't be the first deity who bled a color other than red, but it was usually the mark of one who had ancient blood in their veins. Ancient and powerful.

  Yet another unexpected development where the troublesome goddess was concerned.

  "I can't stop it," she said in a strangled voice, grasping at the vines choking her.

  "Yes, you can," I said with far more confidence than I had the right to. "This energy is coming from you, I can feel it. That means you can control it, you're just letting it control you."

  Irritation flashed in her eyes, but that was a good sign. Anger made a person fight. Anger wasn't surrender.

  Whatever this was, it was new to me, but it had the echoes of a struggle I knew well. With no better option, I decided to tell her the advice that had saved my life on more than one occasion, even if it was only from the monster within.

  "Whatever this is, it's trying to push you out," I told her, holding her gaze. "It can't unless you let it. It's your mind, your body. You're the one in control. Everything else is just an illusion."

  "Illusion?" Her voice cracked as the vines slowly began to loosen up. At least, it seemed like progress.

  "That's it," I coached, reaching out to touch her cheek. The spark was unmistakable, but I'd had long enough to brace myself against it. I'd known of the forbidden bond that existed between us from the moment we'd met, and I'd been avoiding her for the very fact that true contact would only strengthen it, but I had no other choice.

  Maybe it was delusion to tell myself that Hades would understand if he knew the truth. If he was here, but he wasn't. In the end, I had to follow the same instinct that had kept me alive for this long.

  The vines had finally begun to uncoil from her prone form, but the moment I saw the doubt enter her eyes, they resurged with a vengeance, gripping tighter than ever before.

  "No," I snarled, holding her face firmly in my grasp and forcing her eyes to meet mine. "You're losing ground. Take it back."

  "I can't," she gritted out, blue blood spilling down her cheeks. "It's too strong."

  I could hear the defeat in her voice, and that wasn't something that seemed to come easily to her. She was losing control, and fast. Soon, they'd take over entirely.

  There was no time and only one option I could think of, even if it would make her hate me all the more. Not that it mattered. It was the only thing that would shock her out of whatever state she'd fallen into.

  I leaned in and kissed her, allowing the energy of the bond to flow freely from my veins into her
aura. The shock of it had the effect I'd hoped for and she gasped as she pulled away, her eyes lit with rage, but the dark vines began to recoil.

  "What the hell was that?"

  I couldn't help but smirk. "Look."

  She looked down at the vines uncoiling and retreating back into the earth and pulled herself from their grasp. She fell forward and I caught her, but she recoiled from me just as hastily.

  "You kissed me."

  "You're welcome," I said flatly. "Now, you wanna tell me what that was all about?"

  She hesitated, looking back at the earth that was now just an innocent patch of grass dotted with small flowering weeds. As she got to her feet and brushed the grass off her skirt, she seemed as dismayed as I'd been when first stumbling upon the scene.

  "I don't know," she said, burying a hand in her tangled purple hair. "I don't remember what happened. I was running and I came out here, and..."

  "This hasn't ever happened before?" I asked, frowning as I got to my feet.

  She shook her head, and the troubled look on her face soon turned to embarrassment as her gaze traveled up my naked body. "So," she said hoarsely, rubbing her bruised throat. "That's your other form."

  "You prefer this one?" I asked wryly.

  She turned away from me and headed toward the garden gate, but I caught her wrist. "Wait."

  "What?" she snapped, jerking her hand away with a surprising amount of force for someone who'd nearly choked to death.

  "You weren't supposed to see me like that," I said firmly. "No one is. I need to know you're not going to go running to your girlfriends and blabbing about what you saw."

  Her eyes narrowed with spite she usually reserved for Hades. "In case you haven't noticed, I don't have 'girlfriends,' or friends for that matter, courtesy of your boy band."

  I snorted. "So I can trust your discretion? Considering I did save your life."

  "I would've figured something out if you hadn't come along," she muttered.

  "Whatever you say."

  She started to stalk off again, and I called, "You should probably talk to someone about that whole killer plant thing."