Goddess Academy: The Complete Reverse Harem Collection

by Clara Hartley

  Adrenaline spiked through Hansel.

  “You three are to placate Caramel if she does wake,” Hera said. “I’m sure, with the amount of time you’ve spent with her, she is willing to listen to you. Don’t speak of this meeting with her. That would be problematic. I can’t trust you three to keep your mouths shut. Apologies for having to subjugate you to my will.”

  Hansel fought back. He unleashed a gust of wind, knocking away as many vassals as he could. Theo summoned rocks. They smashed against their opponents. But the other vassals controlled the elements too, and Hansel, Theo, and Devon were outnumbered.

  The other vassals, however, did not have the same sense of purpose Hansel felt.

  Hansel and the others fought for Cara.

  The Burning had worn Hansel down. His limbs felt heavy and his movements dragged, but his desire to protect his loved one flared through him, aided by the maelstrom of emotions that boiled in his chest. The bracelets hovered at the edge of the battle, like vultures waiting to eat them up once the action ended.

  The three held their own, lasting for an impressive ten minutes. It was child’s play compared to the horrors at the Burning. Still, the futility of it was just the same.

  After it was all over, Hansel found his hands locked behind his back. Agness had unleashed her powers and snaked her golden vines around his arms. She pulled him down and kept him subdued, together with Devon and Theo.

  They’d lost. Understandably. The three of them weren’t even gods. They couldn’t stand against so much power.

  Hera’s bracelets locked over their wrists, making them her slaves. “I’m sorry that you don’t agree with our actions, but we goddesses have the best interests of Haven in mind. This is for protection, and if you won’t cooperate, things will be difficult.”

  Hansel spat at his feet.

  “Rudeness is not tolerated.”

  Hera clicked her fingers. A burning sensation singed Hansel’s wrist. Unimaginable pain crawled up his forearm, sending him screaming to the ground.

  “Please stop making this harder than it has to be,” Hera said. “At least I can promise you that I won’t be sending you to the concentration camps if you cooperate. Perhaps that might be better incentive. You can serve a different goddess. A less volatile one.”

  “We would go there if it were to save Cara,” Devon said.

  Devon’s father straightened and spoke from the crowd. “Do not be stupid, son. She is merely a woman. You have a whole future ahead of you. That is too much to sacrifice for one person.”

  Agness gave Devon a disappointed look.

  “You three are tools,” Hera said. “If a tool is useless or broken, I won’t use it. Fail to cooperate, and you will never see Cara again.”

  Hansel’s stomach pitched.

  Silence fell between them as he considered Hera’s threat.

  “We’ll listen,” Hansel said. The vines around his forearms felt too tight. He struggled against them, but his attempt was futile. His resolve caved. He didn’t want to be torn away from Cara. “I apologize for my disobedience. I will do as you ask.”

  Hera smiled for the first time that meeting. “That’s what I like to hear.”

  Time dragged on. It felt like a millennium had passed before Hansel was allowed back in Cara’s room. The council meeting went on longer than expected. In it, they’d gone through the details of Cara’s death.

  The location.

  The methods.

  What was more efficient.

  Hansel, Devon, and Theo had to sit through every excruciating moment of it.

  Hansel usually did not have a temper. His calm demeanor came from having so many siblings to take care of. The little ones were the hardest to deal with. They’d climb over him whenever he attempted to get them to settle down. His siblings would rather have a food fight than eat.

  He was distracting himself with thoughts of home. Mentally, the discussions had drained him. He hadn’t gotten a chance to clean up or find some shuteye after the Burning. The bad news kept coming, hitting him like bricks each time.

  “That thing creeps me the fuck out,” Devon said. His gaze flitted to his top right.

  There, an eyeball hovered. Its pupils were as black as midnight, and thin tentacles wiggled from its bottom. When it blinked, a glossy, veiny layer of skin glided over its gooey surface. It belonged to Clotho. The eye hovered next to them, ensuring they didn’t speak out of line when with Cara. They also had enchantments tattooed on the backs of their necks, meant to keep them silenced. The goddesses were being extra wary. They’d left no room for the vassals to wriggle out of this situation.

  “Must we really watch her die?” Theo said. The friendly giant no longer wore a smile.

  “We’ll find a way around it,” Hansel said.

  They had little time to. The goddesses had decided upon the method of death. In three hours, Cara was to be taken to the purple fields that stretched behind the council building. The goddesses would all be there. They would send all their powers to Zeus’s charm, channeling them toward Cara. With the combined efforts of the goddesses, they hoped their magic would be enough to take her out, ridding them of a common enemy.

  The truce would last for another week, an incubation period to ensure that Cara was properly taken care of. After that, the second Vassal War would ensue, and the clashes and bloodshed would continue. It didn’t matter if Cara joined or not.

  It was all very convenient.

  For the goddesses, at least.

  Hansel wished to cry. But he’d numbed those weak emotions long ago. He knew that crying would not do any good. He had to problem-solve and figure a way out of this situation.

  He would think of all possible ways to stop Cara from dying, and even if he failed, he had to make her last moments as enjoyable as possible. He wanted nothing more than to give her bliss, making her the happiest woman alive.

  But how was he to do that when she was nothing but a lifeless version of herself?

  Fate was cruel. He couldn’t even enjoy his last moments with her.

  “If she doesn’t bloody wake up before all this,” Theo said, “I’m going to kill her.”

  “Good luck with that,” Devon replied. “I heard that it’s quite difficult.”

  Hansel’s heart pounded erratically when they opened the door to Cara’s room. He needed to kiss and hold her. Her presence and warmth would remind him that she was safe and his.

  But when the entrance swung open and they looked upon her bed, it was empty.

  The stained-glass windows of the balcony were wide open. The curtains billowed upward, pushed by the cool breeze that came from outside.

  “H-hello?” someone with a meek voice said.

  Hansel placed his hand on the hilt of his dagger.

  The same servant who had summoned them to the goddess council came out of hiding. She held her hands to her chest. Her hair fell in loose, frazzled curls around her shoulders, and her eyes were wide. “She… she woke up. Angry. My sisters escaped as quickly as they could, but the door was too far away, and so I had to hide. I… I was terrified. She saw me. I thought…” She swallowed and shut her eyes. “I thought I was going to die.”

  “Where did she go?”

  With a quivering finger, the servant pointed toward the open window.

  Hansel’s chest tightened.

  Resolve spiked through him.

  They needed to find Cara.

  Chapter 14

  Cara

  Where was I?

  I knew I’d woken up as the angry little girl a few hours ago. She’d grown mad, annoyed about how I had subdued her by being shutting down my emotions. She couldn’t tolerate the blank state for long.

  I was dressed in loose, goddess-like clothing. My skirt looked like it was made of chiffon. It sparkled, just like the sea of stars above me. My red wings dragged behind me, weighing down my back. I walked next to a riverbank. My surroundings were calm and peaceful, unlike the turmoil of my heart.

&nb
sp; I cursed myself for being such a worrywart. What happened to not caring and being happy?

  What I’d wrought at the chiasma had given me PTSD, however. I didn’t think I’d ever go back to the carefree girl I’d once been. The trauma had made me lose that part of myself, and I missed her. I wanted to go back to being weak. At least then, I had hope.

  Funny how power could be so scary.

  Physically, I was in great condition. My senses were heightened and I thought I could continue walking for miles and days. But emotionally?

  Yeah. I didn’t even have ice cream to help me.

  Stupid gods.

  They were supposed to have the answers, but they only caused a fuck-ton of problems. I wouldn’t be this abomination if not for their greed and wars and everything.

  I didn’t wear any shoes, and my toes dug into the grass beneath me. The grass in Haven was soft compared to the scratchy textures on Earth. I took deep breaths and tried to let the cooling sensation calm me.

  Nope.

  Didn’t work.

  I was still worried as fuck.

  And I didn’t have a clue where I’d ended up.

  The angry little girl had flown me to somewhere unknown. Like at the chiasma, I’d lost control of my body. She had free rein. With it, she flew and flew. This place looked pretty, but it’d be better if I could put a name to it.

  A flock of geese traveled in a tight formation, darting from the river and across the sky. They continued onward despite the cold night, and I thought about how nice it’d be to join them. To be a stupid bird so I didn’t have a sense of remorse.

  I scrunched up the chiffon of my skirt and sighed.

  I saw no point in continuing to walk. I was going nowhere. I trekked onward until I found a willow tree next to the endless riverbank. Its leaves sagged down, reaching toward the grass. It was weeping, just as I was. I found a comfortable spot next to it and sat.

  What now?

  “Is that all you want to do?” I asked the angry little girl inside me. Talking to myself—I’d turned into the very definition of crazy. Then again, I used to do that before, alter ego or not. “Destroy everything?”

  She was sleeping, of course, and so she didn’t answer. She and I weren’t on speaking terms yet.

  I slumped back onto the tree and folded one leg over the other. Crickets chirped, their sounds amplified by the quiet of the night. I missed my vassals like crazy. They were more calming than ice cream. But I shouldn’t go back to them.

  The image of Liam’s body, all mangled and beaten, still hadn’t left me.

  I reached for my neck. There, Clotho’s necklace still hung, the amulet resting on my chest. Maybe I should call for her and give myself up. It was better that the power inside me got destroyed. If I had to go with it, then so be it. I loved living, but I wouldn’t do it at the expense of others. I wrapped my hand over the accessory and reached out to Clotho, wanting to summon her.

  The angry little girl forced herself through my thoughts again, taking control of my body. She had grown far too adept at doing that.

  My hand fell from the amulet and to my side.

  “Don’t you dare,” I said, but it wasn’t me talking. “We belong to Nyx.”

  Nyx? I recalled Hera mentioning her name. Aphrodite was trying to summon her.

  “Mother Nyx. Ruler of the night. We must serve her.”

  Mother? How many mothers was a girl supposed to have? For an orphan, I seemed to have an awful lot of them. I tried to frown, but I couldn’t, because the girl had control over my body.

  As soon as my alter ego made the proclamation, the skies above me began booming with thunder. The colorful stars shifted, moving in huge waves, as if dancing. The winds around me grew stronger. My alter ego folded my wings inward so the winds wouldn’t lift me from my spot.

  The leaves of the willow tree were thrown around erratically.

  My alter ego remained unfazed at the happenings around us. She stood and walked from the willow tree, closing in on the riverbank. I noticed the waters running more quickly, crashing and forming waves against the rocks.

  The water coalesced. It stopped flowing downstream. The sparkles from the stars ran downward from the sky and toward the grass. It seemed like the elements had taken a life of their own. I was merely a helpless bystander, lost in the disarray of it all.

  The winds continued to beat against my skin, threatening to take me off my feet, but the angry little girl held her ground.

  She laughed.

  A thin, hollow sound.

  “Mother Nyx,” she said.

  The winds stopped. She unfurled her wings, spreading them out in what I assumed might be a magnificent crimson display. She bowed, paying respects to nothing at all.

  Water rose from the river’s whirlpool. Two lines meandered from it, swirling and blending with the glitter from the stars. A shimmering image of a woman formed. She was translucent, the surface of her image like glass. Despite her lack of color, I thought her beauty rivaled that of Clotho. Perhaps even defeated it, since her resplendence came from nature itself.

  I bowed, or rather, the girl who had control of my body did. She lowered her knees to the ground, then placed both her hands at her forehead in what seemed to be a greeting gesture. “I’ve been waiting for your arrival.”

  Mother Nyx had no pupils. Water lashed out in front of her. “I am not yet complete. I need Apollo to come take me, then together, the moon and sun can reform the world.” Her voice was low. It sounded like the crashing of the waves, or the singing of winds through tree canopies.

  “I will retrieve Apollo for you.”

  “He is split,” Nyx said. A weary sigh, in the form of soft mists, came from her lips. “Torn into too many pieces. Combine him, then we can fix things.”

  “I feel rage for you, Mother Nyx,” the girl said. “You do not deserve this.”

  “I understand, my dear child, but you must control your anger. We need you too.”

  “Give me direction.”

  The water entity floated forward. She lifted a translucent hand and placed it on my head. I sensed her power traveling through me. It was like ice. She was beautiful, but in a cold way. Devoid of emotion.

  “Tomorrow, go back to the chiasma. Apollo should be more awake then. He will have little memory of his old self. He has spent too long as an energy source, after all. Give up yourself for to him to make him stronger. He should know how to lead you then.”

  “Give myself up…” I sensed the little girl’s reluctance. “But I have only just woken, Mother Nyx.”

  The coldness Nyx’s hand emitted grew icier. She leaned down, then planted a kiss on the girl’s forehead. “I know, dear child. And I’m sorry for the sacrifice you must make. But big plans are in the works. The goddesses, the vassals—they don’t know what’s coming, fumbling in their ways. You have to remember that you are merely a cog in a very large wheel.”

  The little girl grew angrier. Rage exploded out of her. She screamed, a high-pitched sound that belonged to a banshee. Her wings spread out behind her back, and dark fire shot from her fingertips. It raced across the landscape, licking the soft grass and the willow tree, engulfing it completely.

  Even the waters burned. They turned black.

  “Ple…eeease understaaand…” Mother Nyx disappeared. The water crashed onto the riverbank and was swallowed by the dark fire, just like everything else.

  The girl burned and singed and destroyed until there was nothing left. The small life forms around her stood no chance. They turned to ash almost at once.

  And when she was done, she panted heavily. Her whole body shook. Despite unleashing her rage, she was just as furious as before. Tears streaked down her face. And she gritted her jaw so tightly that she sensed pain in her ears. She didn’t want to die.

  She had only just been let out. She was only beginning to experience some fun.

  She fell to her knees, shaking and gasping for air. A crimson feather, torn from her wings, brushe
d her face. She flicked it away.

  It took a long time for her to calm.

  After all that, in the wake of her destruction, a single thought sputtered through her mind.

  Acceptance.

  Soon, the girl would have to find Apollo.

  Book Five

  Prologue

  A thousand years ago

  The sun rose over the horizon of the broken world. Apollo took in a deep breath. As he sighed, his breath formed mist in the icy air. The world was dying, and the Gods needed a way to see that it was fixed.

  His time drew near.

  He knew what he had to do to keep the realms intact. If he refused to sacrifice himself, Haven would collapse, turning to nothing and becoming one with the cosmos.

  He turned to his closest companion. Nyx had been with his trusted friend for as long as his immortal mind could remember. She had hair as dark as night. Her skin was a creamy white, soft and just like snow. She took her hand in his as her eyes searched across the distance. Dust billowed upward from the barren expanse. The world was disintegrating, becoming nothing. The gods themselves were going to suffer the same fate if things weren’t resolved quickly. Man, animal, flora, and all living things—they would perish too if the plan didn’t come to pass.

  Nyx glanced at him, thick eyelashes fluttering over her moon-like eyes. “Zeus thanks you for your decision. You won’t have to do this forever, old friend.”

  “I’m not sure when I will see you again.” Apollo ran his thumb across Nyx’s smooth hand.

  “I will be with you,” Nyx replied. “In spirit. Us gods will keep the balance as you will. I’m just sad that your conscience cannot stay like ours will.”

  “Such is the fate of the anchor.” Apollo’s shoulders slumped as he accepted his fate.

  He turned from Nyx’s alluring face, redirecting his attention to the shattering landscape. The gods had taken too much from the world in their bid for power. People had died in swaths, crippled by the unsustainable way they’d lived. Now, to do right by their mistakes, the gods had to give themselves up, paying for their sins. They would sacrifice their bodies and use their essence to fuel a new world.