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

by Kyleigh Castronaro

  Rushing back to her side, I grabbed her face this time, kissing her burnt lips. They didn’t move against mine as they normally did. I breathed and I pushed, forcing my magic into her. She was going to wake up, she was going to be better.

  Nothing.

  There was nothing.

  She said nothing. She didn’t do anything. Nothing.

  “Fuck!” I stood again, eyes wild this time, zoning in on

  Asher as he threw another bomb-like power at Aidan. While he was distracted, I would get the upper hand.

  Not even considering tactic, grace or agility, I ran and I launched myself at him. The world exploded around me in a bright light and everything I understood as reality disappeared. I was floating in a ball of light, there was nothing. I was nothing. My heart soared. Valentina was nothing. We could be together again!

  The bubble popped and I felt the world around me collapse again as I landed in a heap on the ground.

  “Jesus!” Aidan was beside me, checking me over. “He blew you up.”

  “Huh?”

  “Asher blew you up and here you are, not even a scratch.”

  “Asher,” I said dumbly, slow to remember everything for a moment. My heart was still racing. Why was it racing? There was somewhere I needed to be. Somewhere I needed to go. What was it?

  “Asher, yeah, the coward ran. Throwing some half-assed threat over his shoulder. Won’t be the last time I see him, I’m sure.”

  “Asher.”

  “Griffin, are you okay?”

  “Life-force,” I gasped, sitting up and grabbing Aidan by the face.

  “Griff—” Aidan’s facial features froze, a look of horror passing over it as I sucked and drained. This is what I need to do. And I had to take it back to Valentina.

  “Griff- in…”

  “Valentina?” I pulled back, turning to look around the room wildly. Aidan slumped beside me, still alive, but much weaker than before. I stood, turning myself around and around again until I found my bearings.

  “Valentina.” I found her, falling to her side and trying the same tactics repeatedly. They never worked. Nothing was working. Why wasn’t it working?

  “No, God please no. This isn’t real. Let me wake up.” My face twisted with heartbreak and anger as I pulled her against me, hugging her to my chest even as I felt more of her crumble under my touch. I was losing her.

  Why was I losing her? Why had he killed her? I didn’t understand it. I wanted to wake Soren up again, do it all over again, but this time beg him to tell me why.

  “Griffin,” Aidan’s voice was closer, he didn’t sound better, he sounded angry. I didn’t have to apologize. He didn’t need that much life-force. Val did though.

  “Griffin, who is that?” His tone betrayed him. He knew. He didn’t want the truth. I didn’t want to say it. I shook my head, holding her tighter as a sob escaped me. It echoed in the cavernous room. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. She was a Goddess, she was supposed to heal. Why wasn’t she healing?

  “Griffin.” Aidan pulled me back from the cacophony of my thoughts. “You need to let her go, you’re destroying her.” He touched my shoulder and I reacted. Her body slipped from my arms, banging against the ground as another handful of chunks fell off. I turned wildly, blindly aiming for anything to hit on him.

  “Hey.” He grabbed my arm, twisting me and the fight right out of me. My body doubled over and I fell into a ball, sobbing harder. This wasn’t real. I was going to wake up. This day was a dream, an awful, terrible dream and I would wake up. “Hey.” His hand fell on my back and awkwardly patted it. “I’m sorry.”

  Why was he sorry? This was my fault. If I were stronger, better, anything... I wouldn’t have been able to be thrown. I would’ve been at her side, protecting her, taking the blow for her.

  “Aidan?” Distantly I remembered telling Savannah to wait for us. She must’ve wondered what we were doing when Asher left. “Oh. Oh no. No. That’s not. Please…” She stopped talking, another sob stifled. I could hear she was crying, but she was trying not to.

  I wished she wouldn’t cry, it made this more real.

  “Okay. C’mon, we need to get home. Savannah, help Griffin. I’ll… Get Val.” Another cry of anguish escaped my throat, it sounded like the cry of a beast. It didn’t belong to me, it couldn’t.

  Savannah’s arm wrapped around my shoulders while the other came to my chest and she forced me to my feet. Through my own tears, I saw hers staining her cheeks as she tightened her features, resolving herself to be strong for me. Why? She hated me.

  “C’mon. It’s not far now.” She pushed the door of the building open and led me out onto the street. Ten steps and we crossed through the portal. This time the lurch made me heave, but there wasn’t anything else in my stomach to bring up. Except guilt, self-hatred, and loathing.

  As soon as we arrived, people were hovering around waiting for us. Asking questions, I didn’t have the answers to, or the heart to, lie. I shrugged Savannah off and moved silently past everyone, my head hung as I moved through them into the darkness that happily swallowed them. Echoes of our tale bounced back to me as Savannah explained what happened, then cries and sobs when they saw the state of my soulmate. I couldn’t bear their grief with my own, so I walked until the silence was deafening. When I reached the throne room, one look at those seats was too much. I overturned them, smashing them to bits as I threw the pieces around the room. I was acting like a child having a temper tantrum, but I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t contain the grief anymore. I had to let it out and this was the only other way I knew how, without drugs and alcohol.

  Aidan entered the room silently, still holding her. The others would be along shortly.

  “If I summoned her, would she come?” I asked, looking up from my knees.

  “I don’t know, Griffin. Do you want her to come? You’d have to send her away eventually.”

  This was true. But then, as the Prince of the Underworld, couldn’t I just keep summoning her time and again?

  I looked helplessly at my destroyed throne. Would I even be able to summon her without it? How do I fix it? What makes this better? As someone who had been around a lot of deaths and handled a lot of grief, I didn’t have the answer to my own questions. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I closed my eyes, begging Hades to tell me, but when I opened them, I wasn’t any more enlightened than before. But the thrones were fixed.

  “Typical. I can fix chairs, but I can’t fix her.”

  Aidan looked over at me, shaking his head. He wanted to say something, and I had the feeling I might punch him in the mouth if he did.

  “Where do you want her?” He asked instead. Closing my eyes, I pictured a sarcophagus, made of gold and covered in flowers and vines from her garden. Around it were candles as high as the coffin itself, burning and illuminating her. But in my mind she looked like herself and not the crumbling ashy girl in Aidan’s arms.

  “Here?” I opened my eyes and the sarcophagus was there. Aidan was already moving toward it and set her down gently. His hand hovered over her face and I watched him. Savannah was right. He had loved her, in his own mysterious way. But she was mine.

  The other Gods started to file into the room, creating a half circle around her as everyone stared at her. I didn’t blame them if they couldn’t comprehend the reality of this situation. It didn’t look like her, so it couldn’t be her. I wanted so desperately to believe it. But it was a lie.

  My grief turned to numbness as I moved over to her head, staring down at her lips. One of them had lost its shape, caving in slightly on itself. I wanted to reach out and mold her back into shape, but it would do more harm than good.

  “Now what do we do?” Someone spoke, I didn’t immediately recognize the face. Jed, a voice in the back of my mind reminded me. He had been friends with Valentina. She spoke highly of him. He cared for her.

  “We hold a funeral rite, like the Greeks would’ve,” someone else spoke, but again, the voice w
as lost on me. I wanted them to go away, I didn’t want to share this moment with anyone else but her. Then, the evil voice said I wanted to switch this moment for anyone else but her. Gods, if only I could.

  “Does anyone want to say anything?” I looked up at Savannah, something leading in her tone. Everyone was staring at me. They wanted me to go first. Just yesterday, this group of Gods hated me, and now they waited with bated breath for my speech about the woman I loved and lost. I swallowed hard and looked back down at her, shaking my head softly. I wasn’t ready for that. Let them say their words if they needed to. I would speak them in my heart where I knew Valentina would hear them loudest.

  “Val was…” Someone’s voice broke. I didn’t care who it was. Their pain wasn’t worse than mine. “Val was a light in a dark room.” Then their voice became nonsense. I didn’t care what they were saying. It wasn’t the right words or the right sentiment. She was so much more than just words. Words would never do her justice.

  I should never have let her go. I should have never abandoned her when Soren took her the first time. She needed me, and I wasn’t there. Now this was happening. She was trapped under that black tar, it was holding her hostage now. I needed to find a way to break it.

  “Valentina never stopped smiling. I have never met a person who never stopped smiling. She was so blessedly optimistic that even when there didn’t seem to be a chance in hell it was going to work, she believed for the both of you.”

  If I just cracked it off, if I could peel back the layers until I found her. My hands hovered over her face, shaking and uncertain.

  “Griffin?” Savannah spoke softly, appearing at my side. My fingers trembled as they touched her face, tracing what was left of her cheek bones and her little chin. “Griffin,” Savannah sounded sterner this time, like I was being naughty and needed to be scolded.

  “She’s trapped,” my voice caught in my throat, parched. I was parched.

  “She’s gone, Griffin.” I shook my head. No, it wasn’t right she was a Goddess. She was immortal. She wasn’t gone, she was stuck. Why didn’t anyone else see that? Why wouldn’t they help? My frustration grew and my fingers curled away from her face, my nails biting into the callused flesh of my palm. The pain was focusing. I pressed harder and the building ache in my heart eased a little.

  “You should say something, it’ll help you feel better.” I turned to look at Savannah, I wanted to ask why she was being so nice to me, and then

  I remembered. Oh right, my soulmate was dead.

  “Val…” I stared at her, “I didn’t get the chance to say it enough, but I love you. I think in a strange way, I’ve always known I love you. The first time we met, after you’d spent weeks hiding from me and taking care of me, you took my breath away and I knew. You were it. The whole reason for my life. But I ruin everything I touch. And you were no exception. I ruined you… And I’m sorry. It should be me here and not you. I should be the one who is trapped and alone forever with no one crowding around to say their condolences, because I didn’t deserve the love you offered me. I would trade places with you if I could. I would give my life ten times over just to bring back your smile and your beautiful laugh.”

  “It’s not your fault, Griffin.”

  My head snapped to the side to stare at Savannah, “you don’t know that. You weren’t there.”

  Savannah’s face tightened and she shook her head, “no, I wasn’t. But I learned very recently that you would’ve never done something to deliberately hurt her. She told me that, and she believed that so strongly…” She bit her lip and took a deep breath, “whatever you think happened, is probably just your mind spinning your guilt. But you shouldn’t let it win. It wasn’t your fault and none of us here think it was your fault.”

  My eyes flicked up to look at the other Gods. They were all staring at me, some with their eyes bowed and others with their gazes staring right through me. I felt my stomach tighten and I shook my head, looking down at the blackened face below me.

  “She didn’t deserve a death like that.”

  “She shouldn’t have died in the first place.” Savannah touched my elbow. “Asher must’ve done something, it makes no sense why she died when she was immortal. Asher is the only one among us that knows the magic better than we do, almost as well as Atlas. He did something, I’m sure of it.” I turned to look at her, staring at her trying to process what she was saying, but her words felt empty. I could hear them, but I couldn’t understand them.

  Asher… Asher did this? But it was Soren, she had crumbled under Soren’s fireball. The fireball he must’ve gotten from Oliver.

  Zane had killed Oliver. But Asher was orchestrating everyone. Maybe he had done this. Maybe he killed the wrong person.

  I looked up suddenly, staring at Savannah, “I have an idea.” She nodded her head, dropping his arm as she stepped back toward Aidan. A flicker of worry crossed over her features, but she didn’t say anything. Turning quickly I moved over to my throne and gripped the arms as I lowered myself into the chair.

  “Soren—” I paused, damn I didn’t know his full name.

  “Rogers.” I looked up, Aidan nodded his head at me. He knew what I was doing.

  “Soren Rogers, I summon you to the throne room.” Everyone was staring at me this time. They were enraptured by the power of my words and the command I held in this place. Maybe the last twenty-four hours had changed something about their opinion of me. Or maybe, Valentina had been doing something behind the scenes to convince everyone that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t as bad a guy as they believed. But here and now, they were waiting for my command to work and it seemed more and more like Soren was deliberately ignoring me to undermine my authority in the Underworld. But he couldn’t hide for long, I was the Prince of Darkness, and when I called your name —you came to me.

  “Soren!” I commanded his name, backing it with even more power. It rippled through the room and then, just like Aidan’s mother, there was a knock on the great door. Everyone turned quickly to face the door and I stood up from my throne. I nodded at Zane, who had already pulled his sword out and moved toward the door with caution. He paused for a moment before grabbing the handle and tugging the door open. Beyond it stood Soren looking exactly like he did right before I killed him. Even his shape appeared to be real.

  For a moment, my heart skipped. I thought that maybe he hadn’t died that he had just been brought to the Underworld, until we found him a new body. But then I forgot- Soren was the mortal, not the Titan. The Titan might be able to be replaced, but not the human.

  “Enter,” I said, moving toward him, crossing my arms defensively over my chest. Soren at least had the decency to appear ashamed of his actions.

  “Hi… Everyone,” he said, keeping his head bowed and his eyes cast to the floor. Cliché as it was, you could’ve heard a pin drop, because I was certain no one was even breathing as they looked on Valentina’s murderer. His eyes jumped up briefly to check if people were even still there, then he saw Valentina laid on the sarcophagus at my side. He swallowed a lump and looked away again.

  “I suppose you’re going to —”

  “No. I’m not here to cast judgment on you. Actually, I have half a mind to leave you wandering for the rest of your existence because you don’t even deserve the reprieve of knowing your judgment has been cast.”

  “I’m sorr—”

  “Do not talk unless directly asked a question. Do you understand?”

  He nodded sharply, forcing his eyes back down to the floor, so he didn’t have to look at me.

  “Good. How did you kill Valentina?”

  “It wasn’t really me, it hasn’t been me for a while.”

  “I don’t care about your conscience, or your attempts to absolve yourself from what you did. I want to know how you killed her.”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that.” Aidan and Savannah stepped up next to me. Aidan looked just as angry, but he was in a lot less control than I was, ironically.
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  “Start from the beginning then,” Savannah said sharply.

  “Okay.” He swallowed, licking his lips and nodded. “Alright. Well, Atlas came to get me while I was at work.”

  “Past this, to the point when Crius took over.”

  “Yeah, okay, well Crius was always there. He was this voice in the back of my head. Sort’ve like a Jiminy Cricket, you know? He would tell me to do things, and other times, tell me not to do something. I just thought it was like my conscience and never thought much of it. Until he started asking me to do things I didn’t think were morally correct. When I didn’t do it, he stepped in and did it himself. I think that was the point when he realized he didn’t really need me as a middle man; that he was perfectly capable of doing it all himself without my help. So he came more and more frequently, until it was at the point where I couldn’t even send myself back into control. I had to succumb to him. I was stuck in my own head, watching my hands do things I would’ve never consented to do. I could hear everything they were planning and I couldn’t stop it.”

  “If you feel so bad about what you did, now is your chance to set things right. Tell us everything you know about Asher.”

  “Asher is… Old. He’s been around since the 1600s or something. I think that was the first-time Atlas released the souls into the world, and during that time Zeus impregnated a lady in England. So Asher was born in the lap of luxury. He was never denied anything, but by the time he was sixteen, he realized it wasn’t just because of who his “parents” were that made people’s wills bend to him. He had this uncanny ability to make people do what he wanted just by telling it to them. It was the Zeus-affect. The Godliness inside of him that people recognized and innately answered to. Atlas came to him when he was twenty and told him about who his real father, telling him that he would be able to live for a very long time, but he wasn’t immortal. To become immortal he had to kill his own father, contain his father’s immortality, then he would be able to live forever.”

  “So that is what this is all about?” Savannah had grabbed Aidan’s wrist, holding it tightly in horror. Soren shrugged slightly.