Grace of Gods Boxset: Reincarnated Greek Gods YA/NA Series

by Kyleigh Castronaro

  I grabbed the chains holding down his arms and started pulling at them. I recalled now that I should’ve thought to bring something with me to help with the task but what would break magically bound chains?

  “I’ve tried pulling them,” Aidan said dryly, staring down at me in a mixture of amusement and boredom.

  “Any other suggestions then?”

  He nodded his head, leaning back against the rock and closed his eyes for a moment. I stepped away, glancing at the sky in case the eagle was coming back. His ribs were almost fully healed now; it wouldn’t be long until the beast returned for its meal.

  I looked back at Aidan whose face was a perfect mask of concentration and his hand began glowing, clenched in a tight fist. The light in his hand grew and suddenly he was holding a sparking and crackling lightning bolt.

  “Take it.” He said through gritted teeth, holding it out to me.

  I shrunk back, shaking my head, “I can’t. I don’t have the power to hold it.”

  “Yes, you do. Zeus is Persephone’s dad, he won’t let it hurt her.”

  “How… How did you know I was Persephone?” Aidan opened his eyes at that point and gave me a look that immediately made me feel stupid.

  “It was evident Valentina, but everyone was under strict orders to let it play itself out.”

  “Atlas knew that Hades would kidnap me again? He knew and he forced all of you to let it happen.”

  “Well, we didn’t know that he would kidnap you and I wouldn’t have let it happen even if I did know. But Atlas said that certain things needed to happen for you to fully ascend to your Goddess. This isn’t the time to discuss it though, take the lightning bolt.”

  Swallowing hard I reached out and took the lightning bolt from him, shuddering at first as I touched it. I half expected it to electrocute me, but it didn’t do anything but warm my hand as I enclosed my fingers around it. Its power buzzed through me, making my body tingle.

  “Okay, you should only need to touch it to the chains and they will break.”

  I nodded, moving closer and choosing a point to touch that wasn’t close enough to his body to do damage. I didn’t want to risk that Aidan no longer being in control of the lightning somehow also took away his imperviousness to it.

  “You’re my dad.” I said as I touched the bolt to the chain, watching the whole rock shudder to fight its power.

  “In a way.”

  “My last dad kind of sucked at his job.” I said quietly, voicing something I had never once even let pass through my mind. I frowned to myself thinking about it and all the ways my mortal father had failed me.

  “Apparently do I.” I looked up at him and shook my head.

  “You said it yourself you didn’t know that Hades was going to kidnap me. Besides, it looks like it all worked out for the best.”

  “For now.” I touched the chains once more and they finally broke, a crack echoing through the mountains and I stepped back as Aidan pulled his hand free. I held out the lightning bolt to him to finish the job and with much less effort than I had used he released the rest of his appendages.

  The lightning bolt disappeared the moment he stopped needing it and Aidan collapsed forward, barely managing to catch himself on the rock before slipping down to his butt. He touched his ribs gingerly and closed his eyes with a soft sigh of relief.

  “We don’t have a lot of time...” I said softly. I didn’t want to rush him, but I didn’t exactly know if the Titans were going to follow me here or if someone had been charged with watching Aidan in case something like this happened. In either case, how much time did we have?

  Chapter 23

  “Where is Savannah?” I pulled the map out of my pocket and flipped it open, the wind tugging at it and threatening to pull it away. I bent down and pressed it on the ground, thinking about Savannah and it opened to reveal she was in a jungle somewhere. I swiped my hand over the image and it disappeared, leaving me a name: The Amazon.

  “Uh, not safe.”

  “How “not safe” is she?”

  “I’d say if the anacondas don’t get her, the poisonous spiders will... Never mind any mythological creature lurking in the darkness.”

  “What are you talking about Val?”

  “She’s in the Amazon and the longer she is away from Olympus, the weaker her power is.”

  “She has no power left.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When Lincoln almost killed her, she transferred what was left of her power to me to help me kill him. But her powers never regenerated and she’s been powerless since.”

  “She’s mortal?”

  “She’s mortal when she’s not in Olympus.”

  I bit down on my lip and held out my hand to him, “well, we have to get to her then and can’t waste any more time.” He nodded and reluctantly stood, each movement sending another shadow of pain across his face. I hoped he would be able to make it down the mountain to the nearest house, and I hoped there was still enough belief in the world that would give him the necessary power to heal.

  I turned and grabbed the map, stuffing it away again before starting to head down the mountain.

  “Is your plan to keep checking that map and going everywhere to find each God?”

  “Sort’ve.”

  “There’s got to be a faster way than that.”

  “Not within my abilities,” I said casually. Aidan grew silent after that, losing himself in his thoughts as he hopefully came up with a better plan than I had. I knew that he was right; it was too time consuming to track down every single God and Goddess cast out of Olympus. Not to mention if none of them knew we were coming for them there would be a good chance that we could lose them the moment we tried to get to them. If only there were some way to send out a message that only they would see, only they could understand and we could get them to all gather at Stonehenge.

  Keeping my balance as we descended the mountain proved to be harder than I thought. Often, I ended up slipping, grabbing onto some rock or another for stability and feeling the rock cut into my skin. I healed faster than Zeus and I wondered if that was because I wasn’t cut off from my power source like the Olympians were. Even if I had been cast out of Olympus, would I still retain my powers because technically my power source was from the Underworld.

  I kept thinking about my powers. What could I do besides make flowers grow, which in a time like this wasn’t helpful at all.

  “Griffin is going to meet us at Stonehenge and then the plan is to go into the Underworld where we can keep everyone gathered. I’m hoping that if we trick the Titans into following us down there we might be able to trap them there because only Griffin and I have the power to let people leave the Underworld.”

  “Griffin is a traitor,” Aidan said darkly from behind me. I stopped walking and turned around to face him, frowning deeply.

  “I’d appreciate it if you gave him the benefit of the doubt.”

  “He sold us out.”

  “He could stay in Olympus because he knew I was in the Underworld because he knew I would be able to come back and help you, help the others. He’s our eyes and ears and he’s risking himself to do that.”

  “I think you’re giving him too many benefits.” “He’s received no such thing if that’s what you’re insinuating.”

  “No, I mean I think you’re painting a naive portrait of him when he did it to save his own ass. Griffin-Hades is selfish through and through and his motivations are only selfish ones.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said stubbornly, turning away from him. “You’re biased because you’re Zeus and you two have a millennia worth of rivalry going on.”

  “Whatever you say Jailbait.”

  My footfalls were harder now, more like stomps as I petulantly pouted and carried on. I couldn’t believe that Aidan would disregard me like that, sticking to his own wrong opinion. I needed to help Griffin, to prove to the others somehow that he was better than they all thought because I knew he was.
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br />   “Valentina!” Aidan shouted my name like he had been doing it for a while and I stopped short, barely missing the sudden edge of the cliff as Aidan grabbed the back of my jacket and pulled me away.

  “You need to be careful.”

  “Sorry,” I said sheepishly, “I was mad.”

  “I could tell. Look, I’m sorry about Griffin but...” He frowned and sighed, the next thing he said making him look far more pained than his ribs ever had, “you’re right. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m biased because of what happened with Savannah.”

  “That was Hades, not Griffin,” I said pointedly, even if deep down inside I knew now that they were one in the same.

  “Right.” He said softly, guiding me away from the edge. Aidan began to speak again when a voice cut him off.

  “Well, look who escaped.” I glanced up in horror, seeing the same boy from Atlas’ office arms crossed and smirking at us. “Take him.” He nodded at Aidan and I turned around to see two others had joined him.

  “Oliver, thanks much for taking the time to join our meeting, do you mind?” Aidan turned around to see who had grabbed him, stepping into me trying to pull away. I stumbled forward giving Oliver the chance to catch me, holding me up.

  “Persephone, wasn’t it? Consort of Hades... And yet here you are, disobeying your husband by helping Zeus.” “A daughter’s love never strays,” I muttered, trying to shake off the grip he had developed on my arms. “Charming,” he said drily, spinning me around to face Aidan. “You’re going to play along Aidan.” He said, his tone indicating there was no room for arguments. Aidan scoffed, rolling his eyes.

  “Good luck getting me to.”

  Oliver sucked in a deep breath sharply, lifting me off the ground suddenly.

  “Hey!” I struggled, trying to fight him as he moved us both back over to the edge Aidan had barely saved me from.

  “Let me try again: you’re going to play along Aidan.” He gripped my arm tightly but at the same time he shoved me toward the edge, letting my body half dangle over it.

  “Stop!” I screamed trying to grab him, to grab anything I could pull myself back up.

  “Aidan?” Oliver asked passively, staring at Aidan whose eyes flicked from me to the Titan.

  “Go ahead,” he said, calling Oliver’s bluff. “There’s plenty more where she came from.”

  “Is that so?” Oliver’s grip loosened and I screamed, grabbing his arm, clinging to anything that might keep me from plunging to my death. I might be an immortal Goddess, but there was no way of knowing whether I could withstand falling thousands of feet cliff side. Aidan’s eyes quickly jumped to me, a little more panicked this time. Oliver’s hand slipped a little more as did my body over the edge and I felt another cry tear itself from my throat.

  “Aidan, stop... Please!”

  “Fine. Fine, I’ll play nice. Let her go.”

  “Let her go? Well, if you insist.” Oliver smirked and like that he let go of me. Waves of horror washed over me, my eyes slamming shut as I imagined myself free falling to my death. But that lightness in my stomach, the one typically associated with falling never came and I opened my eyes to find myself floating in midair.

  “Fascinating parlor trick,” Oliver said in wonder. I glared at him, swinging myself forward and jamming my legs right into his chest.

  “You jerk!”

  Oliver landed on his butt and I managed to release myself from the midair hold, falling on top of him in a heap. I scrambled around, trying to pin him down. I knew he was bigger than me, stronger too, I did the only thing I could think of and pressed my hands down into his neck.

  My stomach coiled, a darkness appeared suddenly encouraging me to press harder. It wanted me to cut off his airway and I wanted to as well. The other two Titans saw what I was doing and one of them released Aidan quickly, coming to help. Aidan took the chance to throw the other Titan off him, sending him over the edge before summoning another lightning bolt into his hand and throwing it directly into the back of the Titan reaching for me.

  “Jailbait, get off him.” My hands squeezed harder, watching in fascination as his face turned a deep shade of red before slowly turning purple. “Valentina!” I started, looking up at Aidan in surprise before glancing down at the man under me. I jumped back and climbed off him, running my hands down my jeans like I could wipe them clean.

  “Sorry.” I said, watching Aidan wield his lightning bolt and point it down in Oliver’s face.

  “You’re going to go back to Olympus now and you’re going to tell Soren that we’re coming. Tell him he was a fool to think we were going to sit back and let you destroy everything we’ve built.”

  Oliver laughed, not even shrinking back from the lightning bolt in his face, “you’re not as powerful as you think you are Zeus. You’re losing your grip and before you know it any hope you have of regaining your throne will be gone. Even if we don’t bring you down, there is another who will. Your time is up, you thought you could stall it by putting us all to sleep, but you’ve only sealed your fate.”

  Aidan’s jaw tightened and I saw him release the lightning bolt but Oliver disappeared before our eyes and the mountain cracked open where the bolt landed.

  “Who was he?” I said, looking up from the ground to Aidan.

  He stood frozen for a moment before slowly turning around to face me, “Prometheus.”

  “The Prometheus?”

  “Yes. It was his idea to bind me to the rock as a backup plan.”

  “He doesn’t let go of his grudges easily, does he?”

  “No, he doesn’t.” Aidan finally turned to look at me, surveying me for any damage before taking a deep breath. “What was that?” He nodded down at the blackened crack where Oliver had been.

  “I don’t know.” I muttered softly, feeling ashamed. “Something came over me, something wanted me to choke him...”

  “Well, whatever it was you need to get it in check. I don’t imagine murder is something your conscious will take lightly.” I frowned knowing immediately that he was right. I hoped it wasn’t Persephone that had made me do that; I also hoped it wasn’t something I was going to have to contend with for the rest of my life.

  “I know.” I said, nodding my head sullenly as I glanced back up at Aidan. “Are you okay? You look exhausted...”

  “Well, I’m not healing as fast as I would in Olympus and it’s taking me a lot longer to recharge from using my powers than usual.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.” He said, starting to walk again though there was a tired swagger to his movements.

  I couldn’t help but think smugly that if Zeus had put everyone to sleep to avoid his own fate he was as selfish as Hades was. If anything, I had learned in the Underworld it was that those fates the Moirai dealt out were final and no matter what you did there was no re-cutting of your thread. If there was someone who was going to bring down Zeus Aidan needed to accept that gracefully, it might be his only way of survival.

  Then again, Aidan was a fighter; he wasn’t going to go down without giving it his all. Even now, when I was sure he was exhausted and wanted nothing more to go somewhere and curl up to go to sleep, he trudged on.

  But to make matters worse the elements were beginning to reflect how Aidan was feeling. The sun was slowly swallowed up by hundreds of clouds that seemingly blew in from nowhere, making it even harder to see in front of us as we walked. Whatever turmoil Aidan was dealing with, it was withholding the sunlight from us.

  The sky rumbled overhead and I turned to look over at Aidan, “rain is not going to make this trek easier.”

  “I know.” He said shortly as another rumble of thunder shook the mountain. I stopped walking for a moment, casting my eyes back up to where we had come from and watched as the rocks shook in their place. They weren’t fastened tightly and I knew that, no matter how immortal we were, an avalanche would hurt.

  “Aidan, you need to get ahold of yourself.” “It won’t rain.” He said
firmly.

  “That’s fine, but it might hail rocks down on us if you keep letting thunder out.”

  This seemed to get through to him as he looked up in surprise at the rocks above of us. He nodded his head and although the clouds didn’t let up the thunder dulled down enough that they weren’t shaking the mountain anymore.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” “Nothing to talk about.”

  “I think there’s a lot to talk about and the problem is no one wants to start the conversation.”

  Aidan didn’t say anything for a moment as we continued to trek along. I wondered if this was his way of dropping the subject when he suddenly broke the silence once more.

  “It’s harder than you think Val.” He took a deep breath, “it’s harder than you’d think to accept that someone else’s baggage is suddenly yours, that everything you feel might not be you feeling it. It’s hard to accept the shit storm that comes from the other person might be their shit storm, but you must weather it without their navigation because they choose when to help you. If they help you.”

  “You love Savannah.”

  “I’m not talking about Savannah, but even with her I sometimes wonder if it’s me feeling that way or him. He still has these fits of jealousy when we see her talking to other people, any other person, and his immediate reaction is to do something hasty like find a girl to talk to himself. But I’m afraid that if I even give him that much of a leash he’ll go a mile and Savannah will not forgive me if we slip up again.

  But then there’s the whole being the King of the Gods thing… This is the second time in the month that we’ve even known about being Gods that someone has tried to take my power from me. Is this what my life is going to be like for the rest of eternity? A constant struggle to maintain my power until one day fate inevitably catches up to me? Because that’s what Oliver was saying, he was insinuating that no matter how hard I’m going to fight it’ll all be for naught one day. I can’t help but think what’s the point?”

  He kicked a stone under toe and watched it bounce down the steps we were descending, “not to mention it’s going to get old this constant threat of usurping. I love Savannah and for the first time in my life I’m with someone who I want to settle down with properly. I want to marry her and I want to have a family with her but can I do that if she’s always going to be threatened by that love? Or when we’re going to be constantly torn apart because I’m always going to be the target?