by April Zyon
EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®
www.evernightpublishing.com
Copyright© 2017 April Zyon
ISBN: 978-1-77339-248-6
Cover Artist: Jay Aheer
Editor: Amanda Jean
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
Thank you, Tracie for all the help with the Beta Reading you do for me, and thank you, Amanda for all of the editorial help that you've given me and all of your patience. Thank you, Evernight for being the amazing publisher that you are and for continuing to make my dreams come true.
FIRST CONTACT
Heroes of Olympus, 1
April Zyon
Copyright © 2017
Chapter One
Location: Classified
It felt good to be back on American soil. While Mikhail thought of himself as more Russian than American, America had been his home for all his life and always would be.
Mikhail stepped out of the steamy bathroom and finished toweling off as he padded into the locker room. Nodding to his teammates who were scattered around in various states of undress, he grabbed up a pair of jeans and pulled them on.
Three weeks since their mission to extract the CIA operative from Greece without anyone, official or not, the wiser. While it hadn’t been smooth, they’d gotten in and out without alerting anyone they’d ever been there. Bad guys notwithstanding, of course.
He buttoned up his fly and crammed his feet into a pair of boots. Mikhail pulled on his shirt before dropping to sit on the bench to do up his boots.
They’d been in endless meetings and sessions to debrief since they’d gotten out of Greece with the operative. All they knew about her was her code name for the op, Sugar. Not exactly fitting given the venom she’d directed their way the entire flight out of the country and then back to the States. But then again, she hadn’t looked all that happy before they’d met her.
What her mission had been in the country, Mikhail couldn’t say. But since they were currently on friendly terms with Greece, who the fuck knew. Especially when it came to the spooks. Those guys just loved to root around in the darkest of corners looking for enemies and, if they couldn’t find any, making new ones.
He stomped his feet a little to settle the boots in place. Just as he grabbed his leather jacket, the door into the locker room crashed open and four MPs came in.
“Sorry, sirs. The admiral has requested your presence immediately.”
Mikhail knew it wasn’t an actual “request.” No one, an admiral especially, needed four heavily armed MPs to pass on a “request.” No, it was an order, and he bet if it weren’t obeyed the MPs had very specific and detailed instructions about what to do.
He shrugged on his jacket and leaned against his locker as his cohorts finished dressing. None of them were in any apparent rush. While the MPs had said immediately, and he knew the admiral had meant yesterday, they weren’t going to just give in. That wasn’t how they were made. His fellow team members gravitated into their duos, as usual. He wasn’t surprised when Gareth shot him a small, crooked grin. The men weren’t couples, but they all worked together very well and—at least where he and Gareth were concerned—shared women more often than not.
Rubbing a hand over his mouth, he hid his smirk as James “Fury” Ashton asked Owen “Viper” Lueger which shirt went with his eyes better. Always pushing the envelope, that one. When Mikhail caught the look on the MPs faces and the way they were fiddling with their sidearms, he cleared his throat. He gave his team a couple of signals out of sight of the MPs.
It got everyone moving faster. If a bunch of highly trained military cops were that twitchy, something big was going down. No need to provoke them more than absolutely necessary.
As they left the locker room as a unit, Mikhail noticed they all exchanged the same look. He knew no one had a clue what was going on and that they didn’t like it—especially since they’d all just been told they had three weeks’ leave. Which, in their minds, meant they got to leave, no questions asked.
Not good.
****
Twenty minutes later, Mikhail could not believe how fucking right he’d been. “Excuse me, sir. I mean zero disrespect, sir, but are you off your fucking rocker?” he asked.
His teammates all nodded. Yeah, every single one of them had been thinking it. Mikhail was just craziest of the bunch to say it out loud. It was part of his rep, and he did love living up to his rep.
“I wish,” Admiral Weller said. He rubbed a hand over his military-regulation cut and looked at them all.
Mikhail couldn’t believe how old Admiral Weller looked right then. Sharing a worried look with Nolan, he shook his head. “Sir, this is crazy. I might buy that Nolan might believe in the Greek gods, growing up as he had, but coming from you…” He shook his head again. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m not buying it.”
“You’d better,” a new voice said. One that was deep, bowels-of-hell deep, and sent a shiver down Mikhail’s spine.
Mikhail spun and looked up—yeah, up—at seven-and-a-half feet of solid muscle covered in leather. Holy shit, where the fuck did this guy come from?
“Olympus by way of Athens,” the large male said. He turned his blacker-than-night eyes to the admiral. “Andrew, sorry I’m late. Had a small family matter to attend to.”
“No apologies needed, come on in and grab a seat. I think I’ll let you tell them the rest of this, as they don’t seem to be taking me seriously.”
The large man chuckled and—no joke—Mikhail could have sworn the room actually pitched and rolled like the deck of a battleship on high seas.
“They are trained to believe what they can see, hear, and touch, Andrew. Of course, they are not going to just take you at your word.” He walked around them, surprisingly light on his feet, and took the seat the admiral had offered.
Mikhail saw the same what-the-fuck expression on Nolan’s face that had to be on his own. The guy, on a first-name basis with the admiral, seemed to be buying into the same delusion, too. This would be interesting to hear. He wondered why no one was questioning the unvoiced questions, but these men knew him well enough to know that he would fill them all in later on everything.
“It’s not a delusion, Mikhail,” the guy said. “The Greek gods are real, all of us.”
“So, we’re to believe you’re one?” Lincoln “Saber” Jamison asked.
“Yes.”
“Right,” Thomas “Brick” Gordon drawled out in his Southern manner. “Which one, just so we keep it all straight and shit?”
The admiral’s expression showed his discomfort. Not a look one expected of a career military man who’d been through more wars than most could lay claim to—and all on the front lines for the most part.
“Ares,” the male said.
“God of War,” Stefan “Orion” Patras said softly. “Son of Zeus and Hera.”
“Bingo,” the big male said. “Got it in one. Which, considering your heritage, I’d be truly miffed if you hadn’t.”
Shooting his Greek teammate a look, Mikhail shook his head. “Okay, I have a question, if we’re all going to play along with this delusion.”
“It’s no delusion and yes, the gods are real.” Ares, or whoever the fuck he was, got up fro
m his chair. He pushed it out of the way and settled with his feet spread so they were right under his shoulders.
A flash of light and they were staring at the guy in full battle regalia. As in, ancient armor with one hell of a big-ass sword in hand, tip to the floor. Oddly enough, the guy seemed even bigger.
He walked straight toward Mikhail.
Standing his ground, Mikhail notched his chin up to keep eye contact with the guy. A lot harder than he’d thought, now that the guy’s eyes were silver pools, much like a whirlpool, trying to suck him in.
“Military men are always the hardest to convince,” the god said. Then he smiled, showing perfectly white teeth, and lifted a hand. “Let’s see if I can’t convince you, shall we?”
Mikhail would have protested, but he wasn’t quick enough. The god’s hand landed on his shoulder, and Mikhail suddenly felt like he was being torn apart and rebuilt molecule by molecule. He saw the beginning of the world, Zeus’s creation of man, the “birth” of the other gods and times in history that even scientists and the best historians could only make educated guesses about. He saw battlefields, Ares in the thick of them, covered in blood and gore.
Mikhail watched as cities burned, crumbled into dust, and civilizations fell. He watched the march of the Roman Empire across Europe and their eventual retreat. Cities rose, fell, changed, grew, and technology began to emerge.
Then they were back in the room, in the present, and he was staring up into a pair of swirling silver eyes.
The hand on his shoulder squeezed before falling away. “Believe now?” the deep voice asked softly.
Mikhail groped for a chair and fell into one. Shivering, he couldn’t tear his eyes off the guy. “What the fuck?”
Ares just nodded. “Good. Now we’re getting somewhere.” Another flash and he was back in his leather and striding back to the head of the table. “Gentlemen, sit,” he told the rest of the team. “We have a lot to discuss and very little time.”
He could feel the worried eyes of his teammates on him, but he couldn’t say anything. Mikhail’s mind continued fighting to make sense of all he’d just witnessed. And he was failing miserably.
****
“Your trip was a success then, brother?”
Ares nodded and turned to face the golden man. The two opposites: were dark and light, yet they were brothers. “They’ll begin their training immediately. They’re wary but open after all I showed them. It will be hard on them.”
“But the rewards are great,” Apollo said. Tipping his head, he vanished from the chamber.
Yes, the rewards were great, but so were the risks. The team of SEALs and Rangers had agreed to become the world’s only defense against evil. They would come to Olympus for training. Not only would their minds be opened to knowledge that would alter them, but their very presence in the hallowed halls would change them even more. They would not be mere humans any longer. No, they would be so much more. Their lineages would shine through once again, proving who they were. Ares just hoped it would be enough. While they didn’t know it, these men were Scions of power: they were all descendants of the gods themselves.
Ares had laid it all out for them, explained about the mistakes his father had made in the early years. The vampires and weres that, with his father’s growing illness, were able to break free of the prisons they’d been placed within. Very nice prisons, but prisons nonetheless.
Each of the mortal men had agreed after Mikhail had. The sniper had been the hardest sell, thus why Ares had shown the man everything he had to prove his claims were fact and not fiction.
One year on Olympus—that was all he had to prepare them. One year to get them to the next level of battle preparedness. It sounded like a lot of time, but it would pass all too quickly.
Time passed quickly on Olympus, one year to every four on Earth. Ares would have to sequester the team in a special section. He needed to buy more time. It wouldn’t be a lot. It had to be enough. If it weren’t…
Sighing, he looked down at the toes of his boots. If it weren’t enough, then everything would be lost. Including the one true soulmate to each of the pairs of men. He had watched them carefully while the twelve men had been on Olympus, even before. The men had natural yins and yangs in each other. They also had a predilection for sharing women, which was a bonus in Ares’s opinion.
He hadn’t told them about the woman yet. He couldn’t, not until they were on Olympus and they had drunk of the spring. The water of the spring would protect them from the damage Olympus could wreak upon a human form. But it would also begin their transformation—into what, Ares couldn’t say. All he knew for certain was they would not be the same men as those due to arrive in three days.
They would be more, and if this worked, they would be exactly what the Earth needed in order to stay a human realm. All human life depended on it. And so did the gods’ very existence.
Chapter Two
October 2016
Camilla Berry looked up at the class before her and smiled. Kindergarten. She loved teaching these kids. Their minds just starting to open, their little beings just starting to shape. She loved being part of that shaping, being part of something so epic it would help mold the children into productive and responsible adults. She loved being a stepping stone in creating these young and impressionable little beings into something more.
“Yes, Sam?”
Sam was six with flame-red hair, pale skin, and more freckles than Carter had peanuts. Utterly adorable. “Ms. Berry, can I go to the bathroom? One,” he said before she could ask.
Camilla retrieved the little wooden pass and held it out with a grin. “And how are you doing on your worksheet?” she asked as he walked toward her.
“I’m almost done,” he stated proudly.
“Really? That’s wonderful. Bring it up so that I can look at it while you go?”
The child grabbed his work and brought it up to her, placing it in her hand while taking the key from her desk. Once he left the classroom, she began to look over his homework.
Camilla wasn’t surprised the work appeared off: the kid was at a high school level in math and science, but when it came to his English assignments, he had the worst time. Right now, he had all of his Es backwards and his Ss were written as 5s instead of the letter. She was positive Sam had a form of dyslexia. However, his parents refused to have him tested. It was so frustrating to her, as a teacher, to be hitting the wall she was.
When he came back in, Camilla watched him slip into his seat after collecting his paper from her. She saw from the look on his face that he knew the paper wasn’t correct but didn’t know how to fix it; Camilla knew that she would have to speak to his parents about getting him the help that he needed—again.
****
The day went on just as a typical day at school should. Working late, Camilla had everything set up and ready for the return to school after the Christmas break.
Smiling as she looked at the little presents from her to the kids that had been left on all the tables, she finally ensured that the windows were secure before walking out of the room, locking the door behind her. Looking at her watch, she sighed. She’d stayed too late again, which meant she would be driving at night. Which she hated.
After unlocking the door to her car, she settled into the seat and leaned back, if only for a moment. Closing her eyes, she breathed in and out of her nose, simply enjoying the peace, the quiet, and the scent of jasmine that filled her car. Thank you, air fresheners.
When she opened her eyes once more, however, it was to a shocking scene before her. She was certain she didn’t see that right. She didn’t see a hairy manbeast. No, that wasn’t possible. What she saw before her couldn’t possibly be there.
Like an idiot, she opened her car door, grabbed her mini-LED flashlight, and shone it around after flipping on the brights of her car. “Hello?” Camilla called in confusion. “Come on guys, this isn’t funny. It’s nowhere near Halloween,” she muttered.
****
“Civilian in play,” Mikhail said over the mic from his perch where he watched everyone and everything.
“Damn it, why do they always do the stupid thing?” Nolan grumbled. “Fury, who do we have on the playing field?”
“I have two—no, make that three—furry tangos. The one in front of her and two others coming up fast from the south. They look like they mean business,” James reported.
“Wolf, you’d better have those new bullets loaded,” Nolan said to Mikhail.
“Locked and loaded, Sphinx. Give me the go, no go here,” Mikhail said quietly.
Gareth shared a look with Nolan. It was a call they’d have to make. The area, heavily populated with civilians, meant they couldn’t allow the weres to get away. And they definitely couldn’t let them harm, or make off, with the civilian.
Ares had been damned specific about that. Camilla Berry, grade school teacher, had to be saved and protected at all costs. No matter what those costs were.
Gareth nodded and turned back to the woman, who was just standing there. “I’ve got the woman.”
“Wolf, take the shots as soon as Gunner gives the go. Boys, watch the wings for any stragglers we don’t see. There are only three of them.”
Something they’d learned the hard way over the last four years was the weres, especially the wolves, preferred to hunt in packs. They never went out to play with fewer than a dozen, but usually many more. Gareth gave Nolan a thumbs-up and began to work his way into a better position.
Gareth knew he would have to go barreling straight through, scoop her up, and just keep on going. His alignment had to be perfect, while allowing for any moves she might make, would make. He knew civilians, they always moved at the wrong fucking time, and always in the wrong fucking way. “Positions?” he asked into the mic.
