I sigh. Maybe I can never escape Zeus.
Then again, how much power do the Olympians really have? After all, the ancient Greek Pantheon isn’t exactly top of the god chain anymore. Yet, if they had no powers whatsoever, I doubt Chaos would have given me Zeus’s book. She also didn’t elaborate on her little snicker about how she was going to have fun with me while we played this game. I really should have gotten more information from her.
Gods, but I have so many questions and not a single frickin’ answer. I need to find the reason behind Kaye’s luring me into the world of the Greek myths, find the motive behind her actions because I’m sure it isn’t just so I can redeem my sinful action of unleashing hell on earth. What does Chaos gain from that? Nothing. She has to have another reason for wanting me in this game
A queasy sensation settles in my gut.
I better learn everything I need to know, fast. Because something deep down in the very pit of my core is saying I’m heading for trouble. And not the kind of trouble a human immortal can get out of on her own.
Chapter 3
After downing a microwaved bowl of mac and cheese, I grab Zeus’s book and pad into the bedroom. Now that I know the mighty ruler of Olympus and his minions are watching me, I don’t trust leaving such a magickal tome out of sight. Who knows what the book can do? Or what truly lives within its pages? Though I guess anything can happen to it while I’m asleep, unless I take it to bed with me, which is so not happening. The book will just have to settle for being left on the nightstand.
I shuffle over to the bed, click on the wall lamp that juts out from above the headboard, and swing its brass arm so its light shines on the nightstand. At least I won’t be leaving the book in the dark, which is a lot more than I can say the gods did for me.
Picklepusses.
Pushing the alarm clock out of the way so I can still see the blue neon numbers from bed, I set the book down just off the nightstand’s corner edge. As I pull my hand away, a small shock kisses my fingers. I laugh. Before this morning I was just Dora, the college graduate who was hoping to eventually get a job at the Met or some other prestigious museum, working in the Greek Mythology department. Now I’m a living, breathing part of mythology. Who would have thought? I doubt I’ll ever truly get used to the idea.
Looking away from the nightstand, I shuck off my jeans and sweater and stare down at my pink fuzzy socks. I bet they don’t have fuzzy socks on Mount Olympus. A frightening thought enters my mind. Can Zeus ever call me home? Make me leave the only world I know? I’d never want to leave earth, even if my life isn’t fabulous and perfect, but just average. Average is perfect in my view when I compare it to world of the gods. In the least, it’s a lot less complicated and a lot safer.
I shake my head and force the thought from my mind. I’m thinking way too much about these damn mythological beasts. Sleep is what I need. A nice eight hours of uninterrupted peace.
Pulling back the pink and white striped comforter and sheet, I hop into bed. My memory foam pillow feels like heaven, which is not the same as Olympus. Bed is my domain. My gods-free domain.
My eyelids slowly close.
Heat seeps into my back and stirs me from my sleep. I move to turn over, but my shoulder has nowhere to go.
I curve my spine, feel a hunk of firm muscle resting against it.
A heavy weight drapes over my midriff.
What the hell?
I open my eyelids and come face to face with a metal helmet propped on the pillow in front of me. A Spartan helmet to be exact, and not one of those reenactment replicas, but the real deal. I know because I’ve worked with several pieces of authentic Spartan gear in the university’s collection. This one even has a dent on the skull.
Thoughts of Zeus’s book pop into my mind.
My gaze flies to the nightstand, my heart beating erratically.
Luckily, the massive volume is still in the same spot where I had left it last night, though I can’t say everything else is the same. There’s a lot more in my room now than when I went to bed, namely a pair of long legs with well-muscled thighs covered up in jeans. My gaze inches upward. I blush. The man who belongs to these legs is just as much the real deal as is the helmet sitting on my pillow. This guy has a full package and I do mean full.
Gods, there are intruders in my apartment. Even in my bed. And I’m ogling a dude’s crotch. Pandora is never going to learn.
Little imp.
I should be calling nine-one-one, but the landline is in the kitchen. I can’t even use my damn cell phone because brilliant girl that I am, I left the darn thing in my purse. In the vestibule.
Stupid Pandora.
Maybe if I shout loud enough, my neighbor will hear me. But that will also call attention to me and that might not be what I want, now that I know I’m Pandora. What would the gods do if I call the cops? Oh, crap. I just need to face it. I’m in a heap of shit with no way out.
I shut my eyes and pray the goons will just take my money and whatever measly pieces of jewelry I have in the trinket box on the dresser, and be gone. Though I doubt the guy at my back is here just to rob me.
“Of course we are not here to rob you, Pandora,” a very deep, very male, voice says.
I open my eyes. Slowly.
A tall guy—I’m guessing six two, maybe even taller—dressed in black leather pants, black sweater and matching boots, walks in to the room, his hands bearing a tray with a plate of food and a glass of apple juice. “How do you know what I’m thinking?”
“It’s a gift,” the dude says. “It’s part of who we are. Eventually, you’ll be able to read our minds, too, but for now, it’s just one way and you’ll have to live with it. But I promise we’ll try our best to keep out of your head.”
I don’t even know how to respond to the revelation, so I say nothing.
Mr. Breakfast saunters closer. “I didn’t know what you eat first thing in the morning, so I cooked you up eggs, pancakes, toast, bacon, sausage, and a serving of sliced orange.” He sets the tray on the nightstand, next to Zeus’s tome.
The other guy, the one with the nice package, saunters over to the doorway and leans against the jamb, folds his arms over his chest. He says nothing, but the pensive look in his deep brown eyes reaches into my soul. I think he’s staring right through me.
I swallow. “Who are you? And what do you want?”
“Shouldn’t we be asking you that?” Mr. Breakfast asks. “You’re the one who summoned the three of us.”
Summoned? What the heck is Adonis talking about? “I didn’t summon anyone.” I don’t even know how to summon a soul.
“You did,” the brooding guy at the door says. “Last night.”
The dude who whipped me up breakfast agrees with his friend. He even nods. “We’re your Spartans, Pandora. Here to protect you.”
Chaos’s warning about watching what I say and do, resonates through my head. Shit. I should have never said that little poem about slumber, death, and Spartans. But who would have thought my words would come into being? Now I have two massively muscled Spartans standing in my room, and probably another at my back, in my bed. Three protectors as the one dude said. This can’t be real. “When you say you’re here to protect me, you mean as in guardians? As in, to keep me safe?”
“Exactly.”
I don’t think I’m going to like this, because if I have three guardians, then that means trouble is right around the corner. And if I need three Spartans as my protectors, then that trouble has to be huge. I’m not sure what to do about this, but for now, I just keep staring at the guy who cooked me breakfast.
“I’m Leonidas,” he says. “And no, I’m not the famous Leonidas, but I did serve with him. And yes, the three of us are immortals.” He stretches over the bed and slaps the guy sleeping behind me.
The man bolts up. “Aw…fuck. I must have dozed off.”
I glance over my shoulder only to find a very sexy dude, also as tall as the other two warriors. He’s dressed
almost identical to Leonidas, except his sweater is beige rather than black. He also has blond, shaggy hair, and a boyish looking face. But still, just as sinfully sexy as Leonidas and the moody guy.
I must be dreaming. Why else would I think there are real live Spartan warriors in my bedroom? They don’t even look the part, not a single Spartan thing about any of them, save for the helmet that’s still perched on the pillow in front of me.
I gaze at the dude standing at the door.
“That’s my brother Lycus,” Leonidas says, bringing my attention back to him, his brilliant blue eyes staring right at me. “He’s wolf, so consider yourself forewarned.”
I think each of these Spartans needs to come with a warning label. A very large warning label, if the illicit thoughts running through my head are any inclination of where my mind is going to end up going—and probably my body, too—if this whole scenario turns out to be true.
Leonidas takes a seat by the window on the far wall across from the end of my bed, his tall, well-muscled body dwarfing my dainty pink and white striped side chair. He’s massive, all bulk and raw sex appeal. And he’s handsome in that rugged yet sophisticated way, like he can head up a major corporation, but still ride a Harley on the weekends. His shiny, not quite shoulder-length black hair, glistens in the morning sun as a beam cuts across my room. I wonder how long these guys have been here because the curtains were not open when I went to bed.
Lycus walks over, the scent of his cologne stealing my focus. He smells of real pine trees, a whole forest of them, and not that cheap imitation crap discount stores pass off as holiday room spray. He grabs the helmet from the pillow in front of me and tosses it across the bed to the guy at my back who is only now just getting off the mattress.
“How many times do I have to tell you, Ares,” Lycus says, “Keep your shit together.”
The now named Ares walks around the bed and makes his way to the nightstand, goes right for the food and plucks a strip of bacon off the plate. A hint of sage and fresh basil reaches my nose. Gods, but even shaggy-haired dude smells good.
“Leave Pandora’s breakfast alone,” Leonidas says. “There’s plenty more in the kitchen to stuff your ugly face with.”
As if I could eat now. Well, maybe I could, but not what’s in the plate on the nightstand. Between Leonidas, Lycus, and now Ares, I don’t know who is more delicious. I am so screwed.
Ares winks at me. He grabs a second piece of bacon.
I pull the sheet up and tuck it under my chin. Save for my pink lace bra and panties and fuzzy pink socks, I don’t have a stich of clothes on. I’m suddenly very aware of my near nakedness. “So why are you here?”
“To help you find your missing box,” Lycus says. He has incredible hair, a chocolate brown so dark it’s nearly black. It’s also about as long as Leonidas’s and Ares’s hair.
I can easily visualize all three on a battlefield, their massive, muscled bodies decked out in helmets, flowing red capes, and those ancient open-toed boots. I bet they each once carried a spear and matching shield, too. Shields were huge to Spartan warriors, so much so, if a man lost his, he was disgraced.
I’m not so sure I’m comfortable with having three immortal dudes guarding my back.
Lycus offers me a serious stare, though I can’t imagine he’d give anything different. He seems the serious, quiet type. “Moros wants your box as much as you do. And while I don’t mean any disrespect to your knowledge or the years you put into your degree, Moros is the god of Dark Destiny. He’s the one who sends you to your death. We’re the guys that can help you stay alive while you search for your box.”
“Yeah, and we can help find the box, too, Pumpkin,” Ares adds.
I doubt I have much choice but to accept all this. Or in the least, see if it’s all real. My hunky trio seems to know a lot about me. “Okay,” I say. “We’ll try this for a few days. But if it doesn’t work out, I have to find a way to send the three of you back.”
Ares grins. “Oh, it will work out, Sweet Cakes. Trust me.”
I don’t trust anyone or anything at the moment. Especially myself. Never mind three dudes who jumped from a page in a book and I do bet that is where they came from. From that image on the page with that damn spell. Though, had I known it was a spell, maybe I wouldn’t have said it aloud.
Right. Who am I fooling? Being Pandora, I would have said those words out loud regardless of what I thought would have happened. Curiosity is such a bitch. Naughty Pandy.
Chaos said I’m not a goddess, but she didn’t say I didn’t have powers. And apparently, I do have some because I made that spell come alive and look what that brought me. Maybe I have a lot more powers than the gods want me to realize. That would make sense. The gods wouldn’t want me to use any abilities that could fight them or overpower them. But I also don’t have an instruction manual to being Pandora, so I guess I am just going to have to learn my secrets as I go along. Hopefully they will pop up as I need them.
A strange notion settles in my nerves.
It’s one thing for me to embark on this journey to find the true me—the true Pandora—and in the process, locate my missing box. But to do it with three, sinfully sexy Spartan warriors in tow, I’m not so sure that’s a wise choice. What if we all end up in trouble? Or doomed by Moros?
Though I will admit, my ass is probably in a heap of shit just for having summoned my Spartan dudes, so worrying over this now, seems a bit late.
I’m so going to pay for this one.
Chapter 4
After showering and tossing on a pair of jeans and my favorite gray sweatshirt, I head into the living room, hoping for a cup of tea and some more talk with my Spartan protectors, but instead of gunning for the kettle on the stove in the kitchen, I’m frozen in the archway between the two rooms, my gaze lingering on the three tall men huddled over the coffee table.
My gut does an odd flip. So not a good thing. I may not be a goddess, but I definitely have some kind of sixth sense thing going on inside me. Always have. And I know a bad thing when I see one. Well, I know it as long as it’s not me, personally. I’ve never been good at detecting my own mishaps.
I stare at the trio, their voices barely above a whisper so I can’t make out their conversation. But they are engrossed in whatever they’re talking about.
A bad vibe settles in my core.
Three grown men, specifically three immortal men who have lived for thousands of years and fought some of the toughest armies this earth has ever given rise to, really should be able to keep themselves out of trouble in modern day times. At least for a few minutes. It hasn’t even been an hour since they left my bedroom.
“She’s going to kill us,” Ares says, his voice no longer at a whisper.
Oh, gods, this has to be bad. Especially if he’s talking about me, because I wouldn’t hurt a fly, never mind three hunky Spartan dudes. But thanks to the unsettling feeling in my gut I’m pretty sure Ares does means me.
Leonidas straightens. He turns around, pushes up the sleeves of his sweater. “We have a small problem.”
Yep. Definitely me. My gut drops. This has to be worse than bad because men never think in terms of small. “We or just you three?” I make a circling motion with my forefinger.
Ares grins. “He means all four of us. We’re in this mess together now, Princess.”
I love how blondie uses all these sweet names for me: Pumpkin, Princess, Sweet Cakes. Does he really think that will keep me from losing my cool? Whatever the hell Leo and his boys have gotten themselves into while I was in the shower, sweet-talk will not get them out of it. I don’t believe in sugarcoating serious issues.
I inch forward.
Leonidas blocks my path. “You should have a seat.” He places one strong hand on my shoulder. A surge of energy from his fingers flows into my body the second he touches me. It snakes down, glides over my left breast forcing my nipple to pucker, then it continues over my stomach, and finally dips below, all the way to the apex at
my thighs and licks my nub. I clench.
Leo remains standing, seemingly unfazed. I don’t know if that is on purpose or not, but I am not going to bring up what just happened.
Ignoring the wonderous sensation that just zinged through my body, I forge ahead. With a soft nudge, I push past Leonidas and come to a sudden stop the second my right foot steps in front of my left.
On the coffee table lay Zeus’s book. It’s splayed open and missing several pages, two of which are laying on the floor in a haphazard manner. A dagger is sticking up from the tome’s center.
Full throttle panic rushes my soul. “What did you do?”
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Leonidas says. He hovers over me, his warm breath fanning my neck. A trace of citrus cologne wafts under my nose. I like the way the man smells, but I can’t dismiss the disaster he and his men have made of Zeus’s book.
“Whose dagger is that?”
Ares locks his arms behind his back, his flirtatious nature suddenly suppressed.
Leonidas, too, apparently has lost his tongue, which leaves only the brooding Lycus. Of the three, I really would rather deal with Ares or Leo.
“Thanatos was here,” the wolf says. “I cut him down, sent him back to the Underworld before he had the chance to fully emerge from the page.” Lycus reaches for his dagger and pulls it free, leaves a wide tear in the parchment leaf. The rip seals itself up almost instantly.
I stare at the book, my mouth gaping. The pages that are laying on the floor, rise and re-stitch themselves to the book’s spine.
“Did you do that?” I turn to Lycus.
“No. The book has the power to repair itself.” He averts his gaze and focuses on the sheath dangling from his belt. He slides the dagger in to it.
“If Thanatos attempted to come through the book, then I must be somehow close to either finding my lost box or nearing a clue to locating it.” I wait for someone to comment, but get no answers. My bare feet are freezing on the room’s hardwood floor. I wiggle my toes and focus on Leonidas. I hope he has at least a bit of advice for me on this matter because I’m shooting blind where Zeus’s darn tome is concerned. “What would have triggered Thanatos to try to come through?”
The Revelation Page 3
