The Revelation Page 5

I say nothing as my sulking wolf doesn’t appear to be in the mood to talk about his issues if the slight glare in his gaze is a hint. I take his silent warning and dismiss the situation, store it away to address at a later time. Which I will do because I don’t like Lycus suffering in this way.

  The kettle whistles.

  I stand.

  “I got it,” Ares says, pointing for me to sit back down. “It’s your birthday. I’m serving you.” He ventures to the stove and turns off the tea, pulling the steaming pot to the counter.

  A pop sounds at the sliding doors leading to the balcony. I think it might be a bird hitting the glass.

  “Don’t move,” Leonidas says.

  I turn my head and there it is, plain as daylight, a bobbing, gray orb. It looks similar to the form Ker took while we were at the bakery, but much smaller.

  It backs up, then thrusts straight for me, its circular form blasting into my chest.

  I gasp. I’m lightheaded and the room is spinning.

  Lycus leans forward just as I fall into his embrace.

  Turning twenty-one is starting off with a bang.

  Chapter 6

  I passed out. Totally, flat out, fainted for several seconds, or so I think it’s only been that long. I really don’t know. I’m moving now, I believe it’s Lycus who’s carrying me because I can still smell a faint trace of pine, but I also detect hints of citrus and sage, and since I’m keeping my eyes closed in an attempt to lessen this frickin’ dizziness, I don’t know for sure. Though it doesn’t really matter. I’d feel just as comfortable in the arms of Leonidas or Ares. I feel the same for each of my three Spartans, despite only knowing them for a few hours. Gods, but that sounds so demented. Who can fall for someone, much less three someones, in less than a day? And here I’m thinking Chaos is the one who’s lost her marbles.

  But I do like my three Spartans. Yes, they’re each unique in their own way, but I like them all the same.

  Whoever is carrying me bumps his arm into a wall. I give up a slight moan as pain rattles my chest thanks to the jarring motion. A strong hand pats my back.

  Comfort seeps into my veins.

  This is all so strange for me since I usually prefer to be a loner.

  My back sinks into my soft, pillowtop mattress.

  Taking a deep breath, pain flares in my torso.

  I claw at my ribs, the thing that’s inside me twists about my body, bumps my organs and muscles. It’s making a mess out of my innards.

  My eyelids fly open. “Get it out.” I don’t care what the guys have to do, I just want the damn thing out of my body. “What is it?” I ask as I thrash my head against the pillow, the agony inside me now escalating.

  “It’s one of Moros’s probes,” Lycus says. He tugs my sweatshirt up my torso and over my head. Cold air caresses my flesh. Goosebumps pebble on my arms as I feel their pull on my skin. I shiver.

  Ares pulls off my sneakers and socks, while Leonidas unzips my jeans, slips them off along with my lace panties.

  My temperature drops. I’m freezing as if I’ve just been dumped in a tub of ice. My teeth chatter. I’m cold from head to toe.

  I close my eyes once again, praying all this is nothing more than a dream. A very bad dream. Maybe when I wake up this thing in my chest will be gone or even better, never been here in the first place.

  “We have to warm her up,” Lycus says. I hear his voice but I’m so cold, I just keep my eyes shut and wrap my arms around me. I can’t even tell him yes.

  A shock bolsters a blast of heat up my calves as the touch of strong hands massage my legs. I know based on the feel, that its Leonidas. The power of his energy is immense. His hands move upward, skim my thighs. Heat veins through my muscles.

  I part my legs. I’m eager for more of whatever Leonidas cares to dish out. Anything to get me warm and jack up my temperature.

  My heart races.

  I claw once again at my chest, the thing inside me now bobbing between my ribs. It makes an awful companion.

  “Easy, Cupcake,” Ares whispers at my ear. The touch of bare skin graces my shoulder. He must have undressed.

  His strong arm drapes around my waist. He slowly moves his hand over my midriff and up to my bra. I feel his fingers as they unhook the clasp and push the lace from my breasts. My nipples pucker on the instant. A delicious pain tops my peaks.

  I don’t want him to stop.

  Obliging me, Ares draws circles around my protruding bud, his fingers teasing without mercy. I thrust my breast forward. The lick of a tongue caresses my right nipple. I moan and open my eyes.

  Ares is at my breast, suckling me, alternating between light pulls and harder, more severe tugs. I can’t get enough of his wonderous mouth.

  But between my legs, even more sinfully pleasurable things are happening. The flick of a finger, a large, firm finger, strokes my clit. Leonidas. My attention flies to that sacred place at the apex of my thighs. I buck my hips, begging for more of the Spartan’s addictive touch. He flicks me faster, rubs me with an intense pace. I grind myself against his hand, wanting all that he cares to give.

  “Oh…” This really shouldn’t be happening. But it is. And I’m going with it.

  I nibble my bottom lip. I’m slowly getting warm, but I still have that damn thing in my chest.

  Ares grazes his teeth across my right nipple.

  “Yes…,” it’s all I can say. I run my hand through his hair, pull him closer. Heat spreads through my arm and side.

  He glides his hand over to my left breast and rolls my nipple between his thumb and forefinger, working the now hard tip with a series of tender massages and full out pinches, even pulls my nipple until he extends it to the point of pain.

  I moan. His hands are incredible, but there’s more going on between my thighs and I’m not sure where to focus.

  A warm breath, followed by a lick, caresses my clit. I’ll take Leonidas’s tongue over his finger, any day. And he’s damn good with those digits. But the man is more talented than a god with his mouth.

  Moros’s bobbing entity flutters in my chest.

  I don’t know what to handle first, the scream rising in my throat thanks to the damn darkness invading my body, or the moan of pleasure that wants out thanks to the way Ares and Leonidas are working my body.

  Something bumps my heart. I gasp.

  “Don’t give in to it.” A soft whisper caresses my left ear. Lycus.

  I do as he says, but it’s not easy.

  Ares backs away, as does Leonidas.

  No… I want my guys back. Loss fills my soul, but I’m too shattered to call my Spartans to return.

  A heavy weight comes down on my body and strong hands push my legs farther apart.

  I open my eyes. Lycus is on top of me, his long, firm cock teases my slit.

  I part my legs wider and raise them as I buck my hips.

  He enters me with a single thrust.

  A slight moan escapes my lips as a tingle fills me. Lycus is large down there and he stuffs me to the point of me being stretched. But I welcome him. All of him.

  He pulls back and then slams forward once again. He picks up the pace, moving quicker and with more intent.

  I match his every move, eager to take whatever he’s got.

  As we ride this rhythm, the entity in my chest increases its swift moves. I suppress the cry rising from my core, fighting it like Lycus says to do, but I can take only so much.

  He keeps pounding away. “Look at me,” he says.

  I do as he says and stare up at him.

  He leans forward and brushes his lips against mine.

  I open for him, let him in.

  His tongue fills my mouth, tangles with mine and then explores my teeth. Fresh mint sates my taste buds.

  Something strange happens.

  Lycus takes a deep breath, through his mouth, sucks the air from my lungs…or so it seems, but I still breathe.

  He thrusts between my legs one more time, his huge cock returning to stuff
me.

  I moan. The pain in my chest now gone.

  Lycus lifts his head and rams me once again. He spills himself inside me. And he grunts. A low, guttural sound that’s all wild animal. All wolf.

  Spasms ripple through my body.

  I cry out.

  Warmth spreads across my skin, into my veins and muscles.

  Whatever was inside me is now gone. I sense no pain, no foreign entity in my chest.

  “You’re safe,” Lycus says, crashing on top of me.

  I reach up and wrap my arms around his neck.

  Ares returns to the bed, snuggling up to my right side. The heat coming off his body snakes into mine.

  Leonidas takes over the left half of the bed.

  Glad I have a king-size, or the four of us would never fit.

  I sigh. I never thought facing danger and then saving me, could be so pleasurable.

  Chapter 7

  After several hours of sleep, Lycus leaves me. He grabs a blanket and heads for the sofa in the living room.

  Ares follows, but opts for spending the rest of the night on the floor with a pillow and sheet.

  Only Leonidas remains in bed. A soft snore comes from his sleeping form.

  After tonight’s ordeal with Moros’s little visitor, I think Leonidas is right, my apartment isn’t safe anymore. Even with three battle-ready Spartans living within its walls. Which brings me back to my missing box. Moros wouldn’t have sent his brothers or that bobbing minion of an entity of his, if he didn’t think I was up to something. But I still have no clue where Hope and my box are. So why did he make such efforts to disrupt my life?

  Chaos.

  I know she’s probably telling all the gods she’s doing this because Moros and his brothers are her daughter’s sons, but she’s not the type of goddess to love or even care for anyone. She’s Chaos, for the gods’ sake. She probably has some other reason for stirring up all this discord, and I’ll bet it’s only for her personal gain. I wouldn’t put it past her to use her grandsons.

  I’m starting to really dislike my former professor and now current boss. Oh, crap, work. I can’t go back to the university now. Not after everything that took place today. I’m not safe there. But of all the places on this earth, save maybe for Greece itself and a handful of museums scattered across the globe, Thorel H. Lane’s collection is the finest group of scrolls, books, and artifacts linked to Greek Mythology. It’s the closest one can get to the ancient gods on this planet.

  My mind roams through a myriad of thoughts.

  Without a job I’ll never make next month’s rent. I have to figure a way around all this crap, figure how to remain working while also keeping distance between me and the professor.

  Chaos doesn’t do nights. She’s always been one for leaving promptly at five o’clock, which I never understood because everything else in her life always seems so scattered. Of course not having recognized the good professor as a goddess before yesterday, I had no clue about why she did what she did. All I knew was that she was never organized and constantly changed her mind. Discord rules her world.

  Visions of Zeus’s book return to my thoughts. I slide out of bed, careful not to wake Leonidas and just as careful not to step on Ares, and go find my clothes.

  I pluck my sweatshirt and jeans from the floor, but leave the socks and undies. I’m just going inside the other room.

  Leaving behind my two sleeping Spartans, I traipse down the hall and into the kitchen. Under the archway, I stare into the living room. Lycus is stretched out on the sofa, my fleece blanket draping his muscular form. I wonder about his story. No man is that quiet without reason and it kills me to sense that deep down somewhere in the darkest depths of his soul, he is suffering. What, exactly, I’m not sure. But he does have a dark spot inside him and I’d love to help him learn how to heal his wound. He saved me tonight. It’s the least I can do to repay him. I pray he eventually lets me in.

  I inch up to the coffee table and grab Zeus’s tome, pulling it in my direction.

  The previously gold-painted edges are now silver. I shrug. I suppose if a book can repair itself, it can shift its design.

  I plop my ass on the floor and start thumbing through the book’s pages, searching for some clue about the real Pandora. It sucks not knowing myself. I mean, I know what I like and what I hate, but I don’t know my soul. And until I find that box, I don’t believe I will ever know the true me.

  The heady scent of rose mixed with other spices assaults my nose. It has to be my neighbor again, making those damn candles. Shutting Zeus’s book, I rise and head for the door. Mary needs to know she can’t keep this up. Tonight, I’m awake, but most nights I’m not and the odor from her darn candles rouses me from the deepest of sleeps.

  It ends now.

  I’m out the door and crossing the hall. The fragrance grows stronger as I get closer to the other apartment. Something familiar strikes my sense of smell. It’s not the cinnamon, though I’m well aware of how common it is, but it’s more something in the rose scent. A faint trace of an odd note I can’t quite place. But it’s familiar to me and not just to my nose. My entire body is aware of its essence. It’s like I want to scratch my skin off just to get away from the smell that envelopes me.

  At Mary’s apartment, I raise my hand to knock, but the door opens on its own. “Hello?”

  I lean in, but refrain from crossing the threshold. “Anybody home?”

  The scent that permeates my apartment is far more intense in my neighbor’s place. And it definitely is some sort of spicy rose fragrance.

  Curiosity prompts me to go inside. I really shouldn’t. Going back home and calling the police would make the most sense, they can enter the apartment and search for the woman. But I really can’t help myself. I must know what is going on, plus I can’t risk the chance of outing myself and my Spartans. Calling the cops isn’t an option. But satisfying my curiosity is.

  Bad Pandora. Will I ever escape her? Probably not. One’s values are formed way before one’s twenty-first birthday, and considering my real age, I am so not going to learn new ways of living at this point.

  My feet shuffle ahead.

  The apartment is sparsely furnished, though I have to admit, I don’t remember it being this empty the first time I met Mary. But that was three years ago, when I first moved in after being accepted at college. I was lucky to get the apartment as all the others I looked at were quadruple the rent, in not-so-nice areas, and half the size. At first, I thought it too good to be true, but time proved me wrong. This has been a cozy building to live in, save for the darn fragrances Mary uses in her candle making.

  I wander through the living room which is totally void of all human life. I trek in to the kitchen. Same thing. I scan the counter top and appliances. The stove doesn’t even look used. If I didn’t see Mary coming and going every now and then, I’d almost say no one lives here. But I know that’s not true.

  The bedroom is next, and I really hate snooping like this, but the woman could be in danger. I also don’t see any of her candle making supplies like the ones she so proudly boasted about when we first met. It was the only time we actually had a real conversation.

  I walk down the hall and open the first bedroom’s door. My place is smaller, it’s on the one-bedroom side of the building, where Mary’s apartment has more footage and two bedrooms. In actuality, the building is two limestones joined as one. I imagine in its heyday, both buildings were luxurious single-family homes.

  I peer into the room, but the space is too dark to see anything, so I slap the wall with my palm and finally find a light switch. I flick it up. Much to my surprise, the room holds three single beds. What the hell? Never have I seen anyone coming and going from this place, save for Mary.

  Maybe I’ll find something in the other room. I go to switch off the light, but freeze as a slight noise thumps in the background.

  I listen. And hear it again. It’s coming from the closet. I search the room but find nothing I
can use as a make-shift weapon, so proceed unarmed.

  At the door, I grip the handle. I count to ten.

  With a deep breath, I pull the closet door open.

  Shock slams me like a semi. There are boxes and jars and containers of all sizes, stacked everywhere. A good number of them look to have been dismantled in some way, their lids partially melted, cut, and some even look chewed. Who would do this? And why?

  A sigh comes from somewhere behind me.

  I turn around, slowly. And meet Chaos. “I knew I’d have fun with you, Pandy,” she says.

  “What are you doing, here? Where is Mary, the woman who rents this apartment?”

  Chaos comes closer, her sandal-clad feet floating above the floor. A deep purple chiton cinched at the waist by a gold braided belt, drapes her body. Tonight, she looks every part the Greek goddess, even has a circlet of gold leaves weaved through her blond hair. “I only needed Mary long enough to make you believe this was the perfect place to live.”

  So, the gods lured me in here, too. Not just to the university. My heart breaks in two. “Is there anything about my life that is true?”

  Chaos twirls a strand of her long, blond hair, wrapping the ends around her right forefinger. “I’m not sure. The gods have been using you for so long, I don’t think any of us know the truth about you anymore.”

  I’m starting to realize why I change bodies so often. I’m probably running from the gods and if that is the case, then I also have to accept that they find me each time. I guess Dora, the woman I thought I was up until yesterday, was probably coming to her time’s end, but nothing in my memory makes me think I was about to realize the real me and go look for another body to inhabit.

  Something is different this time.

  I have my Spartans now. And I honestly don’t think I’ve had them in the past, because that I would remember, even in a new body. Though it probably is a good idea to ask them flat out. But for now, I must contend with Chaos and figure my way out of this little run-in with the crazy-ass goddess. “I have a right to my own life. To a life outside of the gods and I intend to live it. I’ll find a way to break away from all of you.”