by Hati Bell
Contents
Title
Synopsis
Quote
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Coming up next
Author's note
Mythical list
THE
AMAZON
AND THE
BEAST
Copyright © 2017 by Hati Bell
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
All trademarks are the property of their owners.
Editor: Tamara Geraeds
Copy editor: Melissa Hollingsworth
Cover by: Andrew Dobell from www.creativeedgestudios.co.uk
THE AMAZON
Kellsey Callahan has everything an amazon could wish for–kick-ass brothers, a rock chicks crew, and a pet Kraken. Everything except her childhood crush Leroy Leandros. He wouldn’t even touch her when she jumped into his bed, naked, as a surprise, eight years ago.
THE BEAST
Cursed by a goddess, Leroy turns into a savage beast three days a year. Having murdered countless people, he ended his rampage only when he locked himself in a cage. His raging beast was prepared for anything: except for a captivating amazon.
When during a game of Truth or Dare Kellsey’s challenged to steal a kiss from Leroy, she decides to shoot him with Cupid’s arrow. It’s just a cute little arrow. What could possibly go wrong?
“Just because a Kraken has killer claws, fangs, and
poisonous skin doesn’t mean he’s bloody dangerous.”
- Kellsey Callahan
PROLOGUE
In the Chaos dimension…
He found the baby in the trash. Riz looked down on rosy skin and a tuft of jet-black hair that was put in a basket. It was lucky that the vermin hadn’t gotten to it yet, but that luck wouldn’t last much longer.
The medusas had already smelled the fresh meat and slithered to their prey. Their snake-like bodies curled up aggressively and their tongues slid out of their hissing mouths.
Tasssty.
Juicccy.
Sssuck the marrow from the bones.
It wouldn’t be long before the women, with the bodies of snakes, pounced on the baby before they had to share it with hungry wolves or giant scorpions.
A gust of wind rushed past him and then a familiar voice sounded.
“Hey, boss, what’d you find?” Ronin had already drawn his sword.
The boy could barely stand still. He was like a vibrating shade next to the other four boy soldiers who had gathered around the infant.
Riz stepped forward to claim the baby and the medusas crept away hissing.
One of them was left hanging too long and ended up under the oversize paw of the young werewolf Kuno. When the medusa was crushed, Kuno climbed onto the garbage dump and circled the baby. It was in the wolf’s nature to protect a pup, but the baby was no pup. No one on Chaos was as they first seemed. It was just another unwanted child the parents had gotten rid of. Chaos was, after all, the dimension where cast-off mythos were dumped.
Riz knew the werewolf probably didn’t understand this, and he wasn’t sure if he could explain it to him. He’d found Kuno as a pup, and he had never seen him in his human form. Chaos was a dangerous place to walk around as a human given that they were such weak creatures. Though, to be honest, compared to his glory days he himself was almost as weak as a human. That is, as long as he was trapped in this hellish dimension. An old bitterness crept up from his stomach and settled in his heart.
“How could anyone throw away a baby?” Qasim asked indignantly.
“They tossed us out too,” Kartal muttered.
“Not me. My father loved me,” Ronin said. He sounded proud and a bit forlorn. “It was my uncle who dumped me here.” His fingers tightened on his sword. “One day I’m gonna find him and kill him.”
The other boys nodded in solidarity.
“But we weren’t thrown away when we were this young,” Qasim argued. “Nobody sends a baby to Chaos.”
Riz realized that the boy was right. “I don’t think this is a regular baby,” he said.
“We can use him–” Kartal began.
“–to make more fireballs, boss,” Qasim continued. “A baby’s energy is pure and powerful.”
“Oh, no, not more fireballs,” Ronin groaned. “What is it with you djinn and fireballs? If you want to kill something you should just cut off its head.” He made a swishing motion with his sword. “Like this.”
“When we saved your ass from that swarm of medusas–” Kartal said.
“–you were all too happy with our fireballs.” Qasim snickered.
“Like a couple of slimy snakes could even touch me. I danced circles around those low bellies,” Ronin said, offended. “We should just kill the puny thing. He won’t survive the night anyway.”
The suggestion earned him a growl from Kuno. The werewolf leaned over the baby and began to lick it. Miraculously, the little one kept sleeping.
Riz thought about the proposal by the djinn twins. They were always looking for new fuel to feed their magic. An infant’s soul, regardless of its race, contained a purity which yielded a lot of power.
His eyes moved to the youngest of their group, who until now had kept silent. Levi, the dhampir, stood at a distance, as always.
“We should give him to Moloch.” Levi finally spoke. “In exchange for water. Our water well is almost dried up. We’ve already lost too many soldiers while defending it.”
His suggestion didn’t surprise Riz. Dhampirs were born as humans and were vulnerable until they reached the age when their body was at its strongest and became immortal. Only then were they able to turn mortals into vampires so they could provide them with blood. As the weakest among them, Levi had learned at an early age to use brains over brawn. The abuse that he’d experienced in the slave halls of Chaos had taught him to negotiate. First, over his own body. Now, also over that of the child’s.
Kuno bared his razor-sharp teeth and positioned himself in front of the baby.
“Moloch!” Ronin hissed and he made a stabbing motion with his sword. “I’d rather kill this thing myself.”
Riz pondered his options. He knew that the boys would fall in line, whatever he decided. As the oldest and strongest among them, he had been automatically selected by them as their leader. They were the last five of his army. He’d trained them by teaching them how to fight. So he was surrounded by only the best warriors Chaos had to offer. To test their endurance and loyalty, he had tortured them for days, but none of them broke. With the baby, their group consisted of seven mythos, a sacred number. Would it be enough to escape from this cursed dimension?
He looked to the north, where the wasteland of black ruins sl
owly changed in the high gates of the icy realm of Hel. The unattainable goddess guarded her domain with an icy fist. In the south, the black ruins gradually changed into scorched sand and showed the way to a dark tower where Moloch reigned with fire and ash.
The baby wouldn’t last a day in Chaos, not even an hour. Time in this dimension went by slowly. It would take a hundred years before the child was old enough to defend himself. The rest of the boys had been teenagers when Riz started training them. The baby was just an extra mouth to feed. Killing him would be an act of mercy. Unfortunately, he was not merciful.
“Water,” Levi repeated tightly.
“Fireballs,” the djinn said in unison.
The most shocking was Kuno’s reaction, though. For the first time, the werewolf shifted into a man. He took the baby in his arms.
The boy’s mouths dropped open. They all stared at Kuno’s massive frame. His silver hair fell in long strands down his broad shoulders. It was clear that the blood of the wolf god flowed through his veins.
“You’re huge, brother,” Kartal said, impressed. “And here I thought you always walked around like a wolf because as a human you were puny.”
Kuno licked the baby’s face. It would take some time before he lost his wolf-like habits. “Brother,” he said, with which he claimed the newborn.
Riz studied the rest of the boys. Stealing a claimed pup from an alpha werewolf was highly dangerous.
“What’s a baby good for anyway?” Kartal asked.
“We could all teach him a thing or two,” Qasim suggested.
“I can teach him to fight with a sword like my father taught me,” Ronin said and his chest swelled.
“I can build him a cage,” Kartal said, stroking his blue Mohawk. The djinn could build anything from steel.
“So no one can eat him until he’s strong enough,” Qasim finished his thought.
Riz continued to be amazed at how quickly the boys closed their ranks. How different it had been in his family. The only time they’d ever worked together was to banish him when he refused to bow down to them. Then, they had practically erased any trace of his existence from history.
“What are we gonna call him?” Ronin asked. The boy had clearly accepted the baby and wanted to give it a place amongst them. “He’s going to be a warrior like us, so his name should sound really important.”
“Achilles,” the djinn said immediately.
Riz was starting to regret telling the boys myths and legends. Those stories were meant as life lessons, not to name a pet. He had wanted to teach them that a warrior needed more than just his strength and weapons.
Kuno cradled the baby in his massive arms. The blanket the baby was wrapped in fell down and revealed a new surprise.
Ronin gasped. “It’s a girl!” he shouted accusingly.
Riz stiffened when he saw two tiny symbols, a hieroglyph and the sign of Ares, on the baby’s buttocks. He was about to make his decision when the baby opened her eyes.
Her gold-colored pupils flickered for a moment and his breath caught in his throat. She wasn’t just a girl–she was an amazon. Riz suddenly knew exactly why his gaze had been drawn to the trash dump and how the little one ended up in this dimension.
The boys moved closer to the baby, staring at her, mesmerized.
Riz saw it happen right before his eyes: the shock that went through Levi when the baby wrapped him around her finger, Ronin, who lowered his sword, the twins, whose eyes turned soft.
Then, the baby did something much more dangerous: she smiled, and her newfound brothers changed into her willing slaves.
1
KELLSEY
Oban, Scotland, twenty-four years later…
Kellsey looked down at the wooden arrow in her hand. “Shouldn’t Cupid’s arrow be made of gold, dotted with hearts or something? This looks more like something Robin Hood would use.” She hadn’t expected an angelic choir when she had taken the arrow from the vault, but this just looked sad.
“You could ask your brother,” Shay suggested, and she jumped on the windowsill beside the kitchen island. “Oh, wait, then you’d have to tell him that you stole something from his safe.”
“Borrowed,” Kellsey corrected her. Stealing and borrowing was practically the same with the Callahans. She handed the arrow to Vicky so she could use it in her witch’s brew.
“Are you really going to stick that arrow in Leroy’s ass?” Shay continued. “Can I be there when you do it? Can I? Please?”
Was she really going to do this? Use a love arrow to make Leroy Leandros fall in love with her? Even if it was an artificial love?
After a millisecond of pondering she nodded. Absolutely! All was fair in love and war. Especially when she was challenged.
“Someone has to put that arrogant fairy in her place,” she said defensively. “I have a reputation to uphold.” Which was why she hadn’t been able to refuse when Lea had challenged her during a game of Truth or Dare to steal a kiss from Leroy. On the hood of his beloved Jeep, during the annual Blood Games, where everyone could bear witness.
Vicky cleared her throat while she continued to stir in her cauldron. “Are you sure Lea’s challenge is the only reason?”
Kellsey put on her most innocent face. “What other reason could I possibly have?”
Shay snorted. “Maybe because you’ve been chasing Leroy’s ass since you could crawl?”
“I have not!”
“Watch it; your nose is growing,” Shay said as she grabbed a lollipop from a kitchen drawer.
“Why not just explain it to him?” Vicky suggested as she threw a rose and a peacock feather in the cauldron.
“What’s the challenge in that?” Kellsey asked, not surprised by cautious Vicky’s suggestion. The black witch feared her own shadow. That is, unless you crushed one of her plants. Then she turned into the Hulk.
“It’s safer,” Vicky said. “We don’t even know what kind of mythos he is.”
“He’s Greek, right?” Shay noted. “Maybe he’s a centaur. You think he’s hung like a horse?”
Kellsey rolled her eyes. “He’s not a centaur. They’re practically extinct.” Which was a damn shame, because riding on the back of a centaur was on her bucket list.
“What if he turns out to be a dragon?” Vicky continued. “He could burn the place down. Your brothers won’t be happy if the Asylum collapses, and they have to rebuild it again.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Shay said as she waved her lollipop. “Remember that time when you hid a hydra in the dungeon?”
Kellsey sent her an annoyed look. “How could I have known that Hermy would grow so fast? Or that he would slip into Levi’s bed?” If she’d known that she would have kept the baby hydra far away from him. Of course, it didn’t help when Levi decapitated the hydra and continued to decapitate him until poor Hermy had nine heads.
“Just like you didn’t know your Kraken would outgrow the tub in the basement?” Shay asked sweetly.
Kellsey winced. She didn’t like to be reminded of that incident. “Well….”
“Kellsey was practically a toddler when that happened,” Vicky defended her. “She probably didn’t understand Krik when he told her that he would soon outgrow the bathtub.”
If only that were true. She had been seven when Krik told her that he needed more space. Understanding Krik and telling her brothers that they were about to be living with a gigantic sea creature, however, were two different things. By the time she had gathered her courage to tell them, Krik had burst from the joints of the basement. He had taken half of the basement with him, as his giant tentacles had beaten it to smithereens. Something her brothers liked to remind her of, a lot. They were never going to let her live that down.
“This is Leroy we’re talking about,” Kellsey hastily changed the subject. “He doesn’t have any mysteries or surprises that could cause unexpected problems.”
His reliability was one of the things she liked most about him. And his muscular arm
s. He had the sexiest arms. She pictured him traveling through the jungle, swinging from vine to vine in search of an ancient temple with a hidden treasure. Sadly, so far that picture had remained a fantasy, because he had refused to take her on one of his trips.
“Then why doesn’t he ever appear in his mythos form?” Shay asked suspiciously.
“He’s a nomad. Maybe he’s on the run from his old clan,” Kellsey countered. At least, she thought he was a nomad. She hadn’t seen a clan mark on his body. Hers was placed on her right wrist. Not all mythos wore it in the same place, though.
“Or perhaps he’s being hunted because he’s the last of his kind,” Vicky said softly, her eyes full of shadows.
“Or maybe he’s a hybrid, and he’s ashamed of it,” Shay said stiffly. Her pupils flared into smoldering pools of red and then changed back into a frosty white. Being half frost giantess, half djinn made her an unusual combination of fire and ice.
“Leroy doesn’t strike me as the type that gets hunted.” He was more the hunter. “He doesn’t strike me as the type who’s ashamed to be a hybrid either,” she said. But for some inexplicable reason, he kept his true nature hidden.
“The potion’s almost ready,” Vicky said. “Once it has cooled, it’s ready to be used.”
“Cool is my middle name,” Shay said as she dipped an icy finger into the cauldron.
“I thought it was Lolly,” Kellsey said innocently. Everyone knew of her love for salmiak lollipops.
Shay frowned. “Shut up, Achilles.”
Kellsey pulled a face. “Sometimes you can be so mean.”
“Mean is my default setting,” Shay said. Her corset creaked as she bent over and grabbed another lollipop from the kitchen drawer.
“So, how long will the arrow work?” Kellsey asked. She’d kind of bragged that she’d win the dare within twenty-four hours.
“It’ll work for twenty-four hours instead of a century,” Vicky said and she took the arrow out of the purple concoction.
