Goddess Academy: The Complete Reverse Harem Collection

by Clara Hartley

  Why pigs?

  I surveyed my surroundings. A bright blue sky spread above me. I never thought I’d never see a sky that looked this pristine and clean. It stretched out with breathtaking clarity. I was on a cliff. I inched closer to the edge, then saw foamy seas crashing upon the rocks.

  Where were my vassals?

  I wiped my hands on my pants before cupping them over my mouth. “Hansel! Theo!”

  No response.

  “Liam? Devon!”

  All I heard in response was the crashing of the waves and the light whirring of a sea breeze. Where could they have possibly gone?

  I looked at Fenrir, then at the four pigs. Where had the pigs come from?

  Shortly after, there was a whooshing sound behind me. I looked over my shoulder, and Deimos stepped out from a black cloud, similar to the one I’d walked through.

  “Welcome to the Otherside, Caramel,” he said, spreading his arms out. His greeting was anything but warm, because everything he did sent coldness through me.

  Other than the clear skies, waves, and dirt ground, nothing of significance stood out. “The place seems kind of empty,” I said.

  “Which is why our parents want to leave so badly. They have peace and quiet, but too much of that becomes boring after a while.”

  “Where are my vassals?’

  “They are not important.”

  “What do you mean? Of course they are. Return them to me or—”

  “Or what?” Deimos said, his lips curling tauntingly. “This here is my and your parents domain. You don’t know your power and are subject to our will.”

  I winced. “Okay, must you sound like a threatening psychopath when you say that?”

  Deimos projected a shit-ton of cockiness, which made me want to punch him across the jaw.

  “Since I’m all the way over here, where are my parents?” Where was anything, really? The Otherside was so mind-numbingly empty that I feared it. It seemed so wild, and the unknown made me wary.

  Deimos pointed over my shoulder. “There’s Aphrodite.”

  My mother?

  I whipped my head around. There, behind me, was…

  Lydia?

  I blinked.

  That couldn’t be right. Lydia was my foster mother back on Earth. She was a businesswoman who sold cakes across large distribution chains. I thought of her as a nice lady who was slightly too work-oriented. Despite me being her foster child, she loved her company, Crazy Cakes, more than me.

  She definitely wasn’t my real mother. Or a god.

  “Hello, my child,” Aphrodite said, nearing me. “You must be surprised to see me.”

  “You’re not Aphrodite.” Up close, she looked slightly different, but the resemblance was still striking. It looked like Lydia had taken twenty years off her appearance. Instead of the ponytail I recalled, she wore her hair down. The warm brown eyes I remembered were a honey shade. Her lips were just as full, but her features far more seductive than I remembered.

  “I am.” She glanced at my back. “You have wings now, dear child. That’s interesting.”

  I looked over my shoulder and realized that they’d popped out. No wonder my back felt heavy.

  “That’s not the point,” I said. “Why do you look so much like Lydia?”

  “Because I am her and she is me.”

  I placed my hands on my head, suffering from third-degree mindfuck. “So you were my real mother all along?”

  “She’s my creation. Like you. But without Ares’s essence. I planted her on Earth before the Vassal War and used her to spy on the happenings of Earth. We have a mental connection, she and I, and she aids me greatly in keeping myself with the times.” She sighed. “I also think she’s a good way to escape this place, although I can’t use her mind for long enough. The Otherside is boring.”

  “So, she’s like a clone of you?” I asked.

  “Essentially.”

  “That makes it even stranger.”

  “I’ve been watching over you this whole time, Caramel. You’ve grown into something beautiful.” She looked at me like I was a project, not her daughter. Then again, Lydia had always looked at me the same way. Perhaps this was why. Aphrodite never saw me as a daughter to care for, but a creation to watch grow.

  At that moment, it struck me that I’d never be normal. I’d never feel the tender care or warmth of a real mother. Of a normal mother.

  I wasn’t human. So of course I wouldn’t be treated as one.

  “Where are my vassals?” I asked, hating to repeat myself. Their safety remained my main concern. They were my family now. Not Aphrodite. Not Deimos. I viewed them as a bunch of lunatics who only wanted to use me.

  Aphrodite flashed me a smug expression. “I never took them from you.”

  “Then where are they?”

  With her slender fingers, she gestured to the pigs in front of me. “I’m afraid their human forms weren’t strong enough to survive the transition of realms.”

  The facts of the situation took a long time to sink into my mind. The pigs? My vassals had turned into pigs?

  “Turn them back!” I strode up to Aphrodite and reached to grab her collar. She turned translucent, and my fingers went straight through her. She turned solid again right after.

  “You’re mine, now, daughter,” she said with a disgustingly sweet smile. “And with you here in the Otherside, I can finally use you properly.”

  My insides ran cold.

  Clotho was right. Deimos and my family couldn’t be trusted, and maybe coming here was the gravest mistake I could have made. Aphrodite looked at me like I was a weapon to be used, and my presence might just be what they needed to fulfill their goals. I wasn’t exactly sure what they wanted, but judging from Aphrodite’s conniving expression, it couldn’t be good.

  I had to fix this.

  I had to turn my vassals back to normal, because they certainly didn’t deserve to be pigs.

  “What’s the problem, daughter?” Aphrodite asked. “Aren’t you happy to see your mother?”

  “Not at all.”

  Sucking in a deep breath, I clutched the necklace that hung around my neck and called for Clotho.

  Book Four

  Prologue

  Four years ago

  I thumbed the pages of the book I held, my eyes running hungrily over its words. There were few books that captured my attention. I often hated to read. But the descriptions spelled out on this paperback ignited bright images in my mind. I had to get to the end of this story.

  Perhaps I should start reading more. The characters in the novel were easy to relate to, unlike my peers, whom I had to face every day. They’d shunned me after hearing stories about my outbursts. I didn’t fault them for that. When I recalled how the angrier sides of me had escaped, I got terrified too.

  Gods were fucking hot. At least, that was how they were described in these pages.

  They obviously didn’t exist in real life.

  They were alive now, however. Clearly depicted in the vestiges of my imagination.

  The book I read described them pretty well. I’d picked this novel up at the cafeteria’s desk yesterday after looking at its raunchy cover, and after reading its first line, I had to give it a shot.

  I couldn’t get enough.

  “Caramel Valencia,” a woman with a sharp voice said. I looked up from my romance novel and at the counselor. I shouldn’t be reading in the middle of a consultation, but I needed to get to the end. There was this whole fucked-up drama about the god, whom the main character loved, having a wife who wanted to destroy the world.

  Heavy shit.

  I was sitting on a red couch, situated inside the counselor’s room. The trouble kids in the orphanage always got sent here, me being one of them.

  “Caramel!”

  My head shot up again. I’d gotten so lost in the story that I’d dipped my attention back down.

  The social worker standing before me gave me a judgmental look. The orange glow from the d
im lighting above cast harsh shadows on her face, making her features even sharper and more grotesque than they already were.

  She seriously needed some moisturizing cream. Constantly shouting at parentless kids while being ignored couldn’t be good for her health.

  “Mhm?” I asked, lifting a brow. I didn’t really want to be here. I thought my posture made that evident.

  “Please,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose, “pay attention when I’m trying to give you feedback. You need to learn how to listen.”

  “I try to give my attention to things that interest me.”

  She scowled at my rudeness, but no guilt pervaded me. “I’m just worried about you. You’re usually so reserved and quiet, and I’ve been getting complaints from the other workers that you don’t get along well with the other children. Should you need me to step in, be assured that we have your best interests in mind.”

  I’d stayed at this orphanage for as long as I could remember. Other kids got fostered, but I must have had bad luck or something, because nobody ever picked me. I’d already grown up. Aged fifteen. Nobody was going to adopt someone that was about to graduate high school. The foster parents usually went for the younger ones. They were fresher, easier to make an impression on. Once kids got to the age of twelve, they started forming opinions. That meant more arguments and more trouble to deal with, and nobody wanted that.

  In my case, I’d grown bitter.

  Being unwanted all the time did that to me.

  The kids had stopped bullying me. They’d heard of the stories where I became a different version of myself. When I lost control. I’d sent a few of them to the hospital and was almost taken to juvie a few times due to the violence. I wasn’t sure whether juvie was any different to the orphanage. I got weird looks everywhere I went, mostly because of what I’d done.

  The violence.

  I couldn’t control it.

  It just came and went. It felt like there was someone inside me, waiting for her opportunity to emerge and take over my mind. I was afraid of her.

  Luckily, that side of me hadn’t come out for a couple years now, and I hoped it stayed that way.

  The social worker leaned forward and pinned me with her ochre gaze. “I’m on your side, Caramel. Know that. I see you as my own child, like I do the rest of the children here.”

  I withheld a scoff. Her child? She was flattering herself. Nobody had that much love to go around. That was probably why I’d never felt much of it.

  A mother.

  Would be nice to have one.

  But some things were better left to fiction. Like hot Greek gods with chiseled tits.

  Wait? Did I just compare mothers to Greek gods?

  Guess I did.

  “Everything’s fine,” I said to the social worker, closing my book and tucking it underneath my arm. My posture made it clear that I was ready to leave. “We don’t have to meet like this anymore. I can take care of myself.” And my loneliness. I’d learned how to cope with it. I enjoyed it, even. I liked watching other people get themselves into trouble, creating drama. Being on the sidelines gave me a clearer view of everything.

  It was also quieter.

  Too quiet.

  And that was probably why I was finding the hot alpha men in this romance novel so enticing. They kept me company.

  The counselor shook her head. She leaned back into her seat. “I’ll see you again same time, next week?”

  I rolled my eyes. She was going to look for me in my room and drag me here if I didn’t show up. I sighed, then nodded.

  “See you,” I replied curtly, before heading toward the exit.

  I walked through the corridors of Blackwater Orphanage. The hallways here seemed to grow narrower every year, the wallpaper duller, everything darker. I’d gotten bored of it. After being at the same place for so long, things had just started getting stale. I wanted out.

  Another three more years, then I couldn’t rely on the system anymore. I’d be eighteen, and I’d have to find my way, out in the grown-up world. Part of me was excited about that, the other part nervous. I’d heard of the terrible job market out there. The social workers told me they’d help me with finding a job, but that didn’t mean that the wall of responsibility I had to face wasn’t nerve-racking. I focused on the clicking of my shoes against the wooden floorboards, using the sound to distract me from my worries.

  I stopped by the quaint entertainment room of the orphanage. A group of kids were packed inside, their star-filled eyes glued onto the mid-sized LCD screen hung on the wall across them. Some of the younger ones had their jaws hanging open. One boy was so close to the screen that his head of black hair blocked everyone else’s view.

  There was a foosball table at the corner of the room, a few yards away from the screen. A pair of fraternal twins—Henry and Helen—shouted loud remarks at each other as they played.

  Most of the kids in the orphanage enjoyed keeping each other company. They huddled closely, arms wrapped around their companions’ shoulders. They didn’t have family, so they were each other’s family.

  I, however, didn’t belong.

  Just the runt of the litter.

  I liked telling myself that it was because I was so awesome, but maybe that was just me trying to mask the real heart of the issue. A smile was the best way to hide my troubles.

  I should leave and return to reading my novel. Lots of sexy time awaited me.

  A tapping on my shoulder caught my attention, so I spun around. The same social worker stood behind me. A bright smile spread across her cheeks. “Hey, Cara,” she said. “Good news.”

  I cocked my head in question.

  “Someone’s here asking to foster you.”

  I parted my lips, not processing her words. Foster me? With how old I was? That kind of thing just didn’t happen. “Sorry?”

  “She just came in with the papers. We suspected it last week, but the admin hadn’t gone through, so I didn’t want to get your hopes too high. We kept it all hush-hush because we didn’t want to promise too much, you know? Your new mother’s a very nice lady. And I have this feeling she’ll spoil you.”

  The kids were watching a horror flick, and a loud, ear-piercing scream shot through the room, interrupting our conversation. I stared at the social worker with a dumbfounded look, taking some time to process her words. “Spoil me?”

  She laughed sheepishly and scratched the back of her neck. “You see, she’s kind of wealthy.”

  “Rich.”

  “Lots of money. She owns a large chain of cake stores.”

  “Cakes?” I asked. Immediately, I imagined a warm, welcoming lady with frosting on the tip of her nose. Somewhat like Martha Stewart.

  “Have you heard of Crazy Cakes?”

  “Nope.”

  “Really? Which era have you been living in?” The social worker chuckled.

  “The one that’s different from everybody else, apparently,” I muttered.

  The social worker didn’t hear my comment. She moved on, leading me back the way I’d come from, down the hallway and toward the main office. “I’m going to miss you,” she said. “I’ve seen you grow up, and you’ve come so far.”

  “You weren’t even here that long.”

  “Two years is a long time for puberty.” Her heels clicked against the ground.

  “What’s her name?” I asked.

  “Lydia Valencia.”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “Which is surprising, because she’s been all over the papers with what she’s been doing with her company. Strange that she’d want to adopt someone. Maybe it’s in a bid to gain publicity.”

  I tasted something sour on my tongue. I was being used as a tool for publicity? I hoped Lydia didn’t make me call her Mother, Mom, or anything like that. Too artificial.

  I walked through smudged glass doors into a plain-looking study. Gray shelves. A cold look. The lighting here was strikingly dull—a plain fluorescent.

  Standin
g in the middle of the study was whom I assumed was my new foster mother. She had a thin-lipped expression and a hard stare. She was gorgeous, but not in a gentle way. She wore a pantsuit and had her blond hair tied in a neat ponytail. Her makeup was perfectly done, and the pair of glasses over her eyes finished the look of her stern exterior.

  In the short walk here, my hopes had grown. I thought that maybe I’d finally be able to enjoy a mother’s love. I’d grown curious about it. Through preschool, I saw the other kids in the playground happy, surrounded by familial attention. Was it wrong to want that?

  I thought that, with a new foster mother, I’d be given another chance at a happy family.

  My hope died the moment I set my eyes on Lydia.

  One

  Pigs.

  My vassals, Liam, Theo, Devon, and Hansel had turned into pink-skinned monsters. They were adorable, looking like juvenile oinkers, with curly tails and small snouts to match. They looked squeezable, rivaling the cuteness of stuffed toys, and I wouldn’t mind snuggling up to them.

  With that said, I much preferred them as my hunky, handsome men.

  And so, I called for Clotho, the mystical goddess who was said to have the power to create all things. She’d given me a necklace to summon her, stating that if I used it, she’d rescue us. Considering that she’d made both Haven and Earth, I assumed she’d have no trouble turning my vassals back to normal.

  I grabbed my necklace, willing for her to arrive. Fenrir, the bestial wolf of legend that I’d tamed by forcing it to fall in love with Liam, circled Liam’s pig form with a downcast expression. It looked confused, as if torn between wanting to love and being hungry. I sympathized with the poor thing.

  I’d be distraught too if made to fall in love with a juicy piece of steak.

  I awaited change, but nothing happened. Doubt niggled my mind.

  Why wasn’t Clotho coming? Was I doing something wrong with the necklace? Did she miss out a step or two when giving me instructions?

  Damn it.

  Before me stood a duo who were supposed to be my family—Aphrodite and Deimos. Ares, my father, hadn’t shown up yet, but I had a feeling I’d meet him soon. My parents were responsible for the instability of the Chiasma, a giant orb said to tie both realms, Haven and Earth, together, and fuel life and balance in all things.