War of the Gods Complete Series Boxed Set

by Meg Xuemei X

  “My hair!” Mellissa screamed. “She’s burned my hair!”

  “You’re extremely lucky Cass only wanted you bald,” Ambrosia said, suppressing a laugh. “And Cass isn’t one who cares about rules.”

  She praised me for disregarding the rules now. But when I had ignored the rules her princes set, she had given me a stink eye. Everyone had their own double standard. Anyway, I shrugged it off. If I stuck to a view of black and white, I’d only end up in a world of hurt.

  “Irritate her again,” Ambrosia said, “and I don’t know what she’ll do. No one can stop her. So fuck off, you sorry lot.”

  The gang stared at me in horror. Then without a second glance, they ran.

  A bald Mellissa staggered after them.

  “Hey,” I shouted after them. “Don’t run away from me! Come the fuck back. I’m not done yet. I have questions that need to be answered. I need to know where—”

  I clammed up as I eyed the fae guards. The crowd had scattered further away when they saw Hector arrive.

  “Didn’t I say that—” I started.

  “Yeah, you don’t need anyone to hold your hand,” Hector snorted, “and see what happens.”

  “How come this was my fault again?” I said. “I told them to pick on someone their own size.”

  “And they picked the plus size,” Hector said.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Are you humoring me?”

  “You’re a menace to society,” Ambrosia said with a laugh. “We aren’t here to protect you, Cass, but to protect others from you. We can’t just let you burn down the entire Academy.”

  I rolled my eyes. I didn’t have time to argue with them. I wouldn’t want to be late for the class, which was important to me.

  I wheeled toward Amber. She’d collected all of her books from the ground and hugged them to her flat chest. She had small boobs.

  All the time, she stared at me like I was some kind of wonder or a monster. I couldn’t tell which.

  “Cool, you’re still here,” I said. “I have a use for you.”

  “You came,” she said dreamily. “You finally came, Cassandra Saélihn.”

  Wait! Neither Hector nor Ambrosia had mentioned my full name. And no one here should have known me. How did she?

  No matter, I snapped fingers before her face. “Wake up! Now tell me where on earth the history classroom is?”

  Amber suddenly moved, and before anyone could stop her, she clutched my arm.

  “Hey,” I said, about to shrug her off.

  People really liked to touch me for no reason, but I didn’t like strangers to do it.

  Amber’s eyes turned pure white, and she started to emit a string of sentences that sounded like alien language. Damn! The girl was truly a witch. I gently pried her hand off my arm. She was gripping me and making me uncomfortable.

  Just then Reysalor strode toward us as if his raggedly handsome ass was on fire.

  Where did he come from? The good thing was that all the nearby spectators had cleared away. Every student gave him a wide berth. They knew who he was, and he intimidated them.

  “The girl is a soothsayer,” Reysalor said, sucking in a breath.

  “What did she say?” I asked.

  “She knows who you are,” he said. “She celebrates your coming on behalf of—I missed that part.”

  “How did you know?” I stared at Reys suspiciously. “You never told me you could understand oracle languages.”

  “It’s the old Earth tongue,” he said. “It’s required for the fae royal house.”

  Great. Now I felt more insecure since I only knew less than a handful of languages.

  Suddenly, Amber stopped her weird mumble. Her eyes rolled back to normal.

  Thank goodness!

  “Old Earth tongue is your native language, Cassandra Saélihn,” Amber said. “If you pay attention, you’ll understand it all. I was sent here for you.”

  Reysalor looked around. “Let’s go to a secure place to sort this out.”

  “I need to go to class!” I said. “We can sort out whatever later. I might already be late.”

  “You’ll come with me to the class,” Amber said. “I was sent to guide you and protect you.”

  “Oh, really? You couldn’t even fend off a small-time gang, and I had to save your skinny ass.”

  A sheep thought she could lead a wolf. I would point it out when she became more delusional. Right now, I let it go. She looked so fragile, and I didn’t want to hurt her delicate feelings.

  She stared at me with confusion as if reading my mind. “Why do I need to fight when I have you? You’re the warrior, and I’m the seer.”

  Wonderful. This one assumed she was the brain and I the muscle.

  Then the timid girl disappeared, and in her place was a sheep with fangs. She dragged me toward a pale green building.

  “Bring Cass and the girl back when their class is over,” Reysalor said on a sigh.

  “No, Reys,” I said. “After the class, I have other activities.”

  “What activities, Cass baby?” Reys purred, following us into the long corridor.

  “That’s my business, and I intend to keep it my business.” I waved him and his fae warriors back. “Don’t follow me. I don’t want anyone to associate me with you. I want to stand on my own feet, and you’re important and scary in this place.”

  Reysalor shook his head, laughed, and strode away.

  His sexy purr and laughter lingered in my head, and my heart fluttered like wings of light, even when the sheep led me to the door of the classroom.

  13

  It turned out that Amber and I shared the history class.

  I stopped at the open doorway, turned on my heels, and blocked Hector and Ambrosia. “Why are you two still here?”

  When Reys had walked off, I’d been so distracted by his sexiness, then by Amber the chatterbox, that I hadn’t paid attention to the fae guards trailing after me.

  Amber hadn’t stopped talking to me, telling me the history of the Academy among other things, as if she wanted to shove all the knowledge down my throat in one punch. Had she known in her visions that I’d been caged and lacked education?

  But who cared about the past? I did not care for my own one iota. The Academy had been built, fine, why must we dig into how it was done? The point was that it was done. Over. Let’s move on.

  In her enthusiasm, Amber didn’t notice how my eyes glazed over and her monologues passed by my ears like irrelevant wind.

  Even so, I was careful walking by her side, trying my best not to touch her by accident while I carried half of her heavy books. I didn’t want her to roll her eyeballs to the back of her head and turn white and then call me the coming One.

  Hector blinked. “I think we’re here for the history class.”

  Amber darted her meek, brown eyes between the battle-hardened fae warriors and me. She was the type who was uncomfortable with confrontation, but I thrived on resolving conflicts.

  I sent the warriors my potent glare. “I can’t let you two share the class with me. It’s my class. And you aren’t even enrolled or paid for. Plus, if the professor—” I paused for a second. Was a professor the right term or would teacher be just fine? I went for the more respectful one. “If the professor kicks you out, it’ll reflect badly on me.”

  Hector chuckled, and everyone inside the class quieted down. No one joined his chortles. The students were scared of him, evidently.

  Ambrosia smirked. “No one will kick us out. No one dares.”

  “The point is you can’t come in,” I said with determination. “This is now my territory. I’ll speak with Reys and Pyrder sternly and firmly tonight about setting some boundaries.”

  “All right, Cass,” Hector said, still laughing, and put his hands up in the air in a compromising gesture. “You can have your territory. We’ll just stay outside then.”

  “Why don’t you return to Reys? He must have something for you to do.”

  “Nay, we stic
k with you,” Hector said. “It’s more fun. And if you decide to destroy the classroom or the whole building, we’ll need to get the situation under control.”

  “Shush!” I darted my eyes around wildly. I really didn’t need them to spread my reputation like that. Plus, the demolishment of the Misery Twist club was totally the gods’ fault. I didn’t do anything to that club other than ordered a cursed cocktail.

  Then I heard heavy, purposeful footsteps echoing in the corridor. The professor must be coming, and I didn’t want to leave a bad impression.

  “Go, go,” I hissed at Hector and Ambrosia. I hushed them away like they were annoying chickens and jogged after Amber deep into the class.

  The room had rows of wood desks and chairs, just like most of the classrooms I’d dream-visited. The class was nearly full, with perhaps over eighty students, and every one of them gawked at us, watching the unfortunate drama. I looked around, flashing a grin to no one and every one at the same time.

  I had no idea where to sit. I usually didn’t care about the rules of the seating, but here was a sacred classroom!

  The good thing was that Amber knew about the seating and found us ones, and I rushed toward her. To my relief, when I settled down beside her, I saw that my fae guards were gone.

  Amber put a large, thick book on the middle of the desk and opened it two-thirds through. Evidently, she was kind enough to share the textbook with me. I sent her a grateful glance before I trained my eyes on the pages crawling with black letters, of which I recognized none.

  My face flamed, but I kept staring at the page, rolling my gaze line by line, as if reading the best story ever, until a lanky man in a gray and red robe stepped up to the podium.

  “Mr. Helmer is our history instructor,” Amber whispered in my ear. “He’s snobby, and he loves to punish. Just be careful.”

  Mr. Helmer looked down his nose at the class as if we were gremlins. He probably picked his nose a lot to have such big nostrils, which appeared even larger because of his long, narrow face.

  The entire class quieted as I asked in alarm, “Punish, how?”

  Mr. Helmer trained his cold, hazel eyes on me, and I instantly lowered myself in my seat until my eyes were level with the brim of the desk. If I were any taller, it wouldn’t be doable.

  I wasn’t the cowering type, but this was a classroom!

  Luckily, Mr. Helmer registered my cowering and swept his gaze away from me in contempt. “No one informed me that there’s a new student in my class,” he said. “No matter, the two-tone eyed girl isn’t important enough to be on the list. She may be gone before we even learn her name.”

  My heart turned to ice. If I got kicked out of the school because they found out I wasn’t qualified, I wouldn’t know what to do with all the humiliation. Any day, anyone could realize that I was a phony and I couldn’t even spell my own name.

  I’d better sit up straighter then and learn stuff quickly.

  “Class,” Mr. Helmer scanned the others, no longer paying any attention to me, which was good. “We’ll talk more of the history of the Olympian gods.” He paused to drink tonic from a bottle before continuing. “Since we have a couple of new students, I’ll do a little recap. The Olympians are a family of gods. The second-generation gods, led by Zeus, gained supremacy in a ten-year-long war against the first generation of ruling gods, the Titans.

  “The twelve major gods as we know now are Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Hermes, and Dionysus.”

  He went on and on. I knew all the names of the gods already. I had genetic memories that were triggered by Phobos’ torture and the potent effect of the poison of the Devil’s Love. Plus, Alaric filled in a lot of blank spots as well. I wasn’t one who loved to dwell on repeated information. And for some reason, I didn’t like to talk about gods too much. I had other interests and other things to do than listen to the stories of them all the time.

  My eyes started to glaze over.

  My mind returned to the class when Mr. Helmer mentioned the God of Death, my possible dad, who either wanted to have me killed or to steal my awesome powers.

  “Hades is also a major god and the brother of Zeus,” Mr. Helmer lectured in a droning voice. “But he resides in the underworld instead of Olympus, so he isn’t usually considered one of the Olympians.” And then he moved on to the minor gods like Phobos. He talked about the God of Terror as if he’d been sipping wine with the god in the Olympus garden.

  Since I’d hung out with Phobos for a couple of weeks, I knew Mr. Helmer got all the facts wrong. After his forty minutes of monologues, I completely lost interest in his tales of the gods. If I could write, I would pass notes to Amber to kill time, but since I couldn’t read or write, I decided to doze off for a few minutes.

  It wouldn’t hurt.

  And I needed a nap. After Phobos had taken off, my body wasn’t as energized as when I was getting boosts from him. Actually, part of my body was shutting down, suffering withdrawal. I hadn’t told any of my mates, not wanting them to hover over me like mother hens.

  The four of them already watched me like four eagles on a single egg on the ground.

  Besides, I’d stayed up late last night watching a DVD comedy movie from Pyrder’s collection, catching up on the old world that I’d missed in the cage. DVD was like a relic now. The entertainment industry was the first to go when the gods returned. Hollywood was dust and dirt under their feet now.

  I was dream-visiting a mortal city, which I hadn’t done much after I reached adulthood at the age of nine, when Amber pinched me awake.

  Yeah, the sheep dared pinch me while I watched a fat human cop slip on the peel of a banana in a Chicago street.

  My immature chuckle died on my lips.

  I peeled open an eye and slanted a glance at her panicked look.

  “What? Did I drool?” I whispered as I wiped my mouth.

  “Quiet,” she hushed me. “And sit straight now.”

  Fuck it. I remained hunched. I was tired. It didn’t help that Amber disrupted my dream. Mr. Helmer was still droning on anyway. Would he ever stop?

  “Are all classes like this?” I asked in a low voice. “Do you think they have a crafts class, where I can make clay pots?”

  “So you can throw clay pots at the gods?” she asked in derision.

  “Now you’re being a comedian, sheep,” I said. I had the talent of turning everyone into one.

  The whole class suddenly turned deathly quiet. Mr. Helmer had stopped talking.

  Shit. Now he heard me.

  Just as I snapped my head up toward him, musing on how to make up to him, he stalked toward us, his fish eyes fuming.

  A bronze whip was coiled in his left hand.

  “Hooey,” I cried out and jumped up to stand on the chair. “What the fuck is that?”

  “A whip,” someone offered.

  “Thanks, Captain Obvious,” I said. “Everyone knows it’s a whip.

  “It’s a magical whip,” a boy around sixteen said, and winced. “It hurts like thorn hell.”

  I didn’t know what thorn hell was, but the blue-haired boy with freckles on his fair face must have had a firsthand experience. Judging from how meek he looked now, the whip must have helped shape who he was.

  “Pardon me,” I asked, “Is it legal to carry a magical whip in a classroom, Mr. Helmer?”

  “My class, my rules!” Mr. Helmer held the hilt, the whip cracking the air.

  Helmer seemed mad as a mean bitch at my series of questions. And he wasn’t one who liked to answer questions from the likes of me.

  Was he going to whip me? In my first class?

  I shook my head as if I stumbled into an unexpected bad dream.

  “This isn’t happening, right?” I asked in panic and earned a few sympathetic looks and more smirks from the students.

  I turned to the instructor and put on the meekest expression I could come up with.

  “May I ask what kind of magic you
r whip carries, Mr. Helmer?” I wanted to know.

  Meanwhile, I sent a brush of my own magic to feel the makeup of the whip’s power. Its aura was harsh metal, one of the Earth elements. However, the magic was somehow twisted and foul. He must have thrown a lot of dark spell into it.

  Fuck!

  Mr. Helmer was a bad mage, who practiced human sacrifice to infuse his black magic.

  That was why everyone had whimpered at the sight of the whip.

  And Amber had warned me Mr. Helmer loved to punish. I knew why now. He gleaned power from others’ pain and suffering.

  I cringed atop the seat, but there was no way to cower back.

  I was the target.

  “You want to know what magic my whip holds, little human girl?” he said, narrowing his eyes with a cold smile. “You’ll see, and then you’ll learn to respect your elders.”

  The mage wasn’t too smart if he couldn’t tell what I was.

  “Uh, Mr. Helmer,” I said. “I’m not really a little human girl, though I don’t mind being a human. But I have to tell you that you got it all wrong. And you also got it all wrong about the Olympian gods. Little Phobos isn’t as tough as you believed. He can be nasty, for sure, and always up to no good, but he has cried and screamed like a toddler.”

  “You show no respect to the gods!” Mr. Helmer yelled at me.

  I blinked. “But I thought we were here to learn to kick their asses, not wipe their asses.”

  Gods needed to wipe their asses too, right? But from Mr. Helmer’s look, I could tell he was too distraught to figure it out.

  “I’ve had enough of your insolence,” Mr. Helmer hissed like his whip. “I’ve never suffered such disrespect in my twenty years of teaching, and by a human!”

  He had to insist I was a human. That was totally fine. The mortals fascinated me. They had a short life span, but many of them burned brightly. And they were amazing with all sorts of clever inventions. The gods should never have come to their world to fuck it all up.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Helmer,” I said, peeking down at him, since I was still standing tall on my chair. “I have a knack for bringing out the worst in people. But could you manage to cool your jets? Can we talk about the issue in a peaceful way before resorting to unnecessary violence? What did I do to ruffle your feathers? Not that you have feathers. No offense intended. This is my first class and first school, and I was so looking forward to every second of it. So, what went wrong?”