Reborn Series Box Set (Books 1-3.5)

by S. L. Stacy

  “So you don’t like Zeus and Hera either, ” I say. “I know some people plotting a rebellion if you want in.”

  Farrah’s eyes, as piercing and hard as jade, flicker back to me. “Sarcasm is an unattractive quality, Siobhan. Zeus and Hera had several children together—Ares being one of them,” she continues. “But that was never enough. Zeus was obsessed with creating the most perfect being, and the union of their genes just didn’t seem to be doing the trick. So he confined himself in his—well, I guess you would call it a laboratory—until he had engineered the most perfect Olympian.

  “And he was successful. He named his new daughter Athena. She was pretty—not as beautiful as me, but quite lovely—athletic, intelligent, wise and brave, and she could do just about anything she put her mind to. The favor and attention Zeus showered on Athena made Hera extremely jealous, and she wanted to create a perfect child of her own to show her husband up. Only she screwed it up, and her son grew up lame and deformed. He was so ugly Hera could barely stand the sight of him, so she banished him to Earth when he was still a young boy.”

  I grimace. “That’s a bit harsh.”

  “During his exile, he developed his skills as a blacksmith and craftsman. To cut a long story short, Zeus and many of the other Olympians admired his abilities, and Hera was forced to agree to allow Hephaestus to return. Zeus tried to make it up to Hephaestus by marrying him off to the most beautiful woman on Olympus.”

  Tilting my head to one side, I pretend to consider this. “I wonder who that was.”

  “I was supposed to marry Ares,” Farrah recalls. “It was still an arranged marriage, intended to unite our families. Ares was handsome, strong and exciting. I thought I was in love with him. When I learned I was going to marry his hideous half-brother instead, I cried every day up until the wedding. We may have been husband and wife on paper, but Hephaestus wouldn’t have my heart for a long time. The way I acted, I’m sure I didn’t have his, either. I made sure I was unfaithful every chance I got. Ares and I continued our affair. There was Nike’s father, of course. The occasional human. At some point, I lost count,” she admits, shrugging.

  “What changed?”

  “I can’t point to any particular moment of revelation. It was a gradual understanding. Ares is spontaneous, sexy and insatiable.” Farrah’s eyes take on a faraway look. “When I was young, I thought that I didn’t need or want anything more than that, but it grew emotionally exhausting. He would never have been able to truly settle down even if that were still an option for us. Although Ares had relationships with our children, Hephaestus and I raised them. Hephaestus was a great father. Little by little, I stopped distracting myself with fleeting affairs and pleasures and got to know my husband. He turned out to be quite wonderful. Even beautiful, in his own way.” Farrah flicks her thumb underneath her eye, but not before I catch the tear spilling onto her cheek. I look away quickly. I’ve never seen Farrah come close to crying before. I kind of assumed she didn’t have tear ducts.

  “Deep. Dependable. Steadfast. That’s the kind of love you should hope for,” she says as she gets up. “I can’t say I wish it for you because—to be honest—I don’t really care. But you should want it for yourself.”

  She retreats back into her room, leaving me alone in the living room. I stare into space for a few minutes, unable to make my legs take me upstairs to get ready for dinner. All of those things she said about love—I do want them for myself. Actually, I think I may have had them, once, long ago—in another life.

  Chapter 7

  “Looks like someone let a Gamma out of its cage,” a caustic voice calls out as I’m walking across the Greek Quad. I look over at the Alpha Rho house. Rebecca and a few of her sisters are hanging over the railing of their patio, sipping on colorful drinks with little umbrellas in them. “It looks angry. We’d better get back inside.” Her sisters squeal with laughter.

  “That reminds me,” I say, going over to them. “I should thank you.”

  “For what?” Rebecca raises a skeptical but curious eyebrow.

  “For posting the photos, of course. I have to admit, you had me a little worried after the committee meeting. But if passive aggressive attacks on our reputation are the best you can do, we have nothing to worry about.”

  One of Rebecca’s sisters almost drops her cup over the railing. “We didn’t post anything!”

  “Then I guess you really are all talk.” I shrug and start to walk away.

  “Siobhan, wait!” Rebecca’s cry makes me pause. “Seriously, we didn’t post them. It was just good timing. Or, I guess in your case, bad timing.”

  “You can’t expect me to believe you had nothing to do with it.” I ball my hands into tense fists, keeping them glued at my sides. I figured they would try to deny it. Some of the other Alpha Rhos might really not know what Rebecca and Samantha are up to. But the look of alarm on Rebecca’s face is pushing my irritation over the edge.

  “That’s ridiculous! We wouldn’t have pictures of your formal!”

  “Right, because no one from your house was there.” Even as I say the last few words, I wish them back into my mouth. Jaws drop one by one as my insinuation sinks in.

  “So you’re blaming Genie for taking scandalous photos of your formal? Then, what, we confiscated the camera off of her dead body?”

  “I—I don’t know,” I falter, willing the earth to swallow me up. “No—of course that’s not what I’m saying. One of you could have snuck in. Or you could have bribed someone’s date to take them.” The accusations are starting to sound far-fetched, even to me.

  “Fine. Believe what you want.” Rebecca sniffs but keeps her voice steady. “You can’t prove it.”

  “Maybe not. But we can get even.”

  “I can’t wait to find out what vengeful scheme Victoria comes up with. Maybe she’ll invite us over for some cookies and milk so we can talk it out!” Tossing a wave of blue-black hair over her shoulder, Rebecca turns and goes back into the Alpha Rho house through the side door, her sisters following closely at her heels.

  I kick a chunk of gravel as hard as I can and watch it skid across the sidewalk. It’s an unsatisfying outlet for the anger and uncertainty dueling inside of me. Without really knowing why, I find myself walking in the direction of the Sigma Iota house instead of the bus stop. One of the brothers comes outside just as I’m stomping up to the doorstep. He holds open the door for me.

  “Thanks,” I say. I recognize him as one of their youngest members, but I can’t remember his name. He lets go of the door, and it shuts with a bang behind me.

  “Hello! Anybody here?” I call out into the empty living room. The décor is elegantly masculine: black leather couches, dark wood furniture and chrome accents. A large, empty black ceramic vase sits on the floor to one side of a fake fireplace. On the mantel is a decorative pewter shield, marble figurines of a boar and wolf and a plaque inscribed with their open motto: “Sigma Iota: duty, honor, justice.”

  Although handsome, I’m pretty sure their entire downstairs is a biohazard. There are empty pizza boxes and Chinese food cartons strewn all over the floor and tables. Fruit flies hover above the overflowing trash can. It smells like someone sprayed Axe to freshen the air. Even the stairs leading to the second floor are caked with dust and grime. Beneath their tailored suits and winning smiles, the Sigma Iotas are really just a bunch of messy boys.

  “Hello!” I yell up the stairs, putting a cautious foot on the first step. Perfect silence answers me. I walk up slowly and pause on the second floor landing, taking out my phone.

  “We can’t do it!”

  A muffled shout coming from behind a closed bedroom door makes me fumble my phone. I save it before it falls to the floor. I don’t think it would survive being dropped twice in two days.

  “We won’t do it!” The timbre is familiar, but I can’t tell who it is yet.

  “You will do it,” hisses a second voice, higher-pitched—maybe female. “You don’t have any other choice!”


  “I don’t want to hurt anyone!”

  “She won’t get hurt. But we have to maintain the balance. Otherwise, our worlds will—”

  “No! Forget it. We’re done here!” The door bursts open, and Alec stalks out. His broad shoulders are hunched, his face buried in his hands behind a fall of silky black hair. I glance inside the bedroom as the door swings shut. As far as I can see, it’s empty. Alec sweeps his hands back through his hair, and his dark eyes lock on me.

  “Siobhan!” he gasps. “What are you doing up here? I mean—what’s up?” He brings his hands down and digs them into the pockets of his black dress pants.

  “I was just looking for you or Sam or…anyone, really,” I say. “Everything okay? I thought I heard yelling.”

  “Oh, everything’s fine. That was just the TV,” he insists. Footsteps echo on the staircase. I look back just as Sam swaggers into the hall.

  “Siobhan,” Sam says. “What brings you to our humble abode?”

  I push aside the strange conversation for the time being. “I need your help. Well—we need your help.”

  “This wouldn’t have anything to do with a humiliating set of photos posted to The Grapevine, would it?”

  “It’s the Alpha Rhos’ fault,” I say. “We need to get back at them.”

  “Well, you’ve come to the right place.” Sam rubs his hands together eagerly. “Revenge is our specialty.”

  “I thought foam parties were your specialty.”

  “We’re well-rounded. As to the exact form this revenge will take…we’ll have to ponder and get back to you.”

  “We could always use…the tape,” Alec suggests, giving Sam a knowing look.

  “Ah, the tape!” Sam cries. “Do you think he would let us post it?”

  “Tape? What tape?” I press them.

  “I told you about my roommate hooking up with Rebecca,” Alec says, and I nod. “What I didn’t tell you is that she told him to record it.”

  “They made a sex tape?”

  “He wants a little revenge himself. I have a feeling he’ll only be too happy to make it public.”

  “He won’t be embarrassed?”

  “Of everyone knowing he had sex with a hot girl?” Alec shakes his head. Unfortunately, he’s probably right—men aren’t usually the ones who have to worry about their reputations in this kind of situation.

  “I don’t want any of you guys getting in trouble for helping us,” I say, feeling indecisive. The photos threaten the reputation of my sorority as a whole—posting the video is a personal attack on Rebecca. It’s not really fair.

  “We’ll take care of it,” Sam assures me. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

  “The room was dark, anyway,” says Alec. “You can barely tell who’s in it.”

  “You guys watched it?” They shrug and nod. “Ugh. Boys are such perverts.”

  “We’ll have the video up by tomorrow morning,” Sam promises me through a chuckle.

  “And one more thing. My sisters can’t know I was here. Not even Carly,” I emphasize, meeting Alec’s gaze. “Victoria just wants to sit back and do nothing, but I think most of the girls agree that we need to go on the offensive. I’m taking matters into my own hands.”

  “Our lips are sealed.” Sam pinches his thumb and forefinger together and symbolically draws them across his mouth. I look at Alec pointedly.

  “What, do you want to pinky swear? I won’t say a word. Not even to Carly,” he vows.

  “Thanks, guys.” I look down at my phone. It’s fifteen to seven. “I have to get going.”

  “We’ll walk you down,” says Sam. As he walks past me back to the stairs, I notice the gold shield pin attached to the lapel of his suit. I glance casually at Alec falling into step next to me: He’s wearing his badge, too. I force my eyes ahead, remembering the inviting sparkle of Carly’s pendant. Carly had touched it as if it choked her. Liz had pleaded with her to take it off.

  Seeing it also stirs my memory of Jasper’s “army”—of Sam chatting with the other minions, laughing with them, seeming at ease with them. Of the night I barged into Jasper’s office and discovered them preparing to attack us at our formal, their glassy eyes brimming with reverence for Jasper and Apate.

  As we walk down the stairs, part of me wants to call off what we’ve just planned—the part of me that’s getting a lump in her throat right now. Gutless Siobhan. Human Siobhan. Crawls-around-on-the-floor-crying-because-her-boyfriend-is-gone Siobhan. I swallow over the lump and crush her feeble objections. The Alpha Rhos started this. They hit us.

  We’ll hit back harder.

  “Siobhan.” Carly gets up from where she’s sitting on the couch as we come down the last few steps. “I thought you were going out to dinner with your…other friends.”

  “I am. I just stopped by so Sam and I could talk mixing again.” To my own surprise, the lie slips easily from my tongue.

  “Oh. Cool.” As Alec engulfs her in a hug, Carly’s baby blue eyes linger on me, a quizzical slant to her eyebrows.

  “We’re thinking bowling,” Sam plays along. He yanks open the front door and leans against it. “Where are you and these ‘other friends’ having dinner?”

  “At The End of the World,” I sigh dramatically. “You should join us.”

  Sam shakes his head regrettably. “No can do. There is much to be done before tomorrow night’s festivities…which the Gammas are cordially invited to, of course.”

  “Come on, Sam,” Carly groans. “You know we’re not supposed to go to fraternity parties during rush weekend.”

  “Well, if you’re feeling naughty, the party starts at ten.”

  “She’s coming,” Alec says, lightly spanking Carly’s butt. She turns wide eyes on him that look like they could burn a hole through his head. “If she wants to,” he adds.

  “Is there a theme?” I ask.

  “It’s a…Wear as Little as Possible Party,” Sam decides. Carly and I roll our eyes.

  “Have fun with that,” I tell him and whisk out the door.

  ***

  A hipster wearing skinny jeans and a flannel shirt leans against the brick wall of The End of the World. An orange beanie is pulled low on his forehead, covering his eyebrows. He hits me with a blast of cigarette smoke as I approach the front door. I gag audibly. I don’t understand how people still smoke.

  Inside, the smell of cigarettes persists, warring with the aroma of fried food and a strange metallic scent. The dress code is black, denim, black, brown and more black while every shade on the visible spectrum is represented in hair dye. Somber piano music drifts over the din of voices. I scan the room for Jimmy and Anna, my eyes resting on a tall, lean figure sitting at the bar. He has his back to me, but the rigid, regal way he holds himself is familiar. His hair is dark, slightly curled and careless. My heart falls into my stomach.

  Not again.

  He turns his head slowly to look over his shoulder. Two midnight blue eyes pierce through me—

  I blink.

  The stool is empty.

  Taking a deep breath, I walk up to the bar and slide onto one of the leather cushioned stools. The metallic smell is stronger here, making me cough.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  I turn to my right. A girl around my age with lots of fiery red hair and cleavage is studying my face. “You’re as white as a sheet.”

  “I…” That damn lump is back in my throat. “It’s nothing.” Thinking I saw him outside the library was one thing. We had done the ceremony just the night before. Even the auditorium I can rationalize. I associate him with that class. I don’t know why I thought I saw him outside the Student Union last night, but it was still on campus. Okay, so I ran into him here, once. And after more mundane break ups, people still sometimes think they see their ex when it’s really someone else, don’t they?

  But I swear he was right here. Sitting at this bar.

  “Suit yourself,” the girl says. She leans across the counter and cranes her nec
k to the left, trying to see into the kitchen. “The service is a little slow tonight.”

  A short man wearing a snug black t-shirt and tight jeans emerges from the kitchen. His curly brown hair is thick and unruly, his eyes hidden behind a pair of sunglasses.

  “Can I get you something to…” he starts to ask me, trailing off as his eyes look the other girl up and down. “You know, I wasn’t kidding the first million times I said you weren’t welcome here.” He slams his fist down on the counter in front of her. “Get the hell out!”

  “Dude!” She shrinks back from the bar, wide eyes staring at his fist. “I just came in for a drink!”

  “Don’t play innocent in front of her.” His head cocks in my direction. “Show her.” But I already know.

  One moment, the redhead’s green eyes flicker between the bartender and his hand, still balled into an angry fist.

  The next, Apate slides off the stool the redhead once occupied, obsidian hair snaking over her white shoulders. She leers at the bartender.

  “You’re such a party pooper, Lou,” she says, pouting.

  “There are hundreds of bars in Shadesburg and the surrounding area. Go to one of them,” he tells her.

  “There’s just something special about this one.” She looks wistfully around the room. “But I only go where I’m appreciated.”

  “That must be difficult to do, considering you’re not appreciated anywhere.” I bring a hand to my lips, not sure of where the retort sprang from.

  Apate glares at me like a cat that’s just been dunked in a tub full of water. Then, her signature smirk resurfaces. “Well, I must be off. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies,” she cries to the two women sitting on the other side of her. They jump and scowl at her. “Good night, sweet ladies. Good night, good night!” she calls over and over again until the crowded room swallows her up. I can’t remember where I’ve heard those lines before.