by I. T. Lucas
Dark Power Untamed
The Children Of The Gods Book 50
I. T. Lucas
Contents
1. Cassandra
2. Onegus
3. Bowen
4. Kian
5. Vlad
6. Kian
7. Arwel
8. Onegus
9. Cassandra
10. Bowen
11. Onegus
12. Cassandra
13. Onegus
14. Cassandra
15. Onegus
16. Cassandra
17. Onegus
18. Eleanor
19. Vlad
20. Cassandra
21. Onegus
22. Cassandra
23. Onegus
24. Cassandra
25. Vlad
26. Margaret
27. Bowen
28. Margaret
29. Bowen
30. Eleanor
31. Kian
32. Eleanor
33. Arwel
34. Margaret
35. Bowen
36. Cassandra
37. Onegus
38. Cassandra
39. Onegus
40. Cassandra
41. Onegus
42. Cassandra
43. Onegus
44. Cassandra
45. Onegus
46. Cassandra
47. Emmett
48. Margaret
49. Eleanor
50. Bowen
51. Cassandra
52. Onegus
53. Cassandra
54. Onegus
55. Cassandra
56. Onegus
57. Cassandra
58. Vlad
59. Onegus
60. Vlad
61. Cassandra
62. Onegus
63. Vlad
64. Margaret
65. Bowen
66. Margaret
67. Bowen
68. Vlad
69. Margaret
70. Bowen
71. Margaret
72. Bowen
73. Margaret
74. Vlad
75. Margaret
76. Bowen
77. Cassandra
The Children of the Gods Series
The Perfect Match Series
Also by I. T. Lucas
FOR EXCLUSIVE PEEKS
1
Cassandra
“Look at that ass,” whispered the guy standing in line behind Cassandra. “I want to sink my teeth into those fleshy cushions.”
She rolled her eyes but didn’t react. It wasn’t the first time guys had made lewd comments behind her back, and most times she pretended not to hear them and did not engage.
“I want to sink something else between them,” his friend said, without even trying to lower his voice.
Her hands fisted at her sides.
It was one thing to whisper vulgarities to a friend. It was another thing to make sure that she heard it. It was rude in the extreme and a call to battle.
One the jerks would not win.
Her temper rising, Cassandra considered her options. She could turn around and lash out at the buttheads, releasing some of the negative energy that had built up and preventing it from reaching an explosive level, or she could pretend that she hadn’t heard them. The problem with that was if her anger kept building, she would lose control over it.
Bad things happened when she allowed the pressure to accumulate without releasing at least some of the steam. At best, electronic devices around her malfunctioned, inanimate objects toppled and shattered, or glass cracked and exploded. At worst… she didn’t want to think about that. Letting herself dwell on it would ruin what had been so far a relatively decent day.
The artwork for the next Surprise Box launch was finally done, which was why she’d allowed herself a small break and had gone out of the office to grab a cup of coffee. But instead of enjoying a few moments of peace, she had some jerks standing behind her and talking about what they would like to do to her ass.
“That’s a really fine piece of ass,” said a third one as he joined her club of admirers.
Out of the three, his comment was the least offensive, but it was the last straw.
Turning around, she glared down at them. “You know that I can hear you, right?”
Her intimidating pose had the pimply teenagers take a step back. With the three-inch heels she had on, Cassandra was over six feet tall and towered over them. Combine that with her hard glare, and the little jerks were probably shaking in their fashionable sneakers.
The boys were sixteen or seventeen at the most, and seeing how young they were, some of her anger dissipated, enough to significantly reduce the danger of things exploding in her vicinity.
Still, they should know better than to trash talk about a woman, especially one who was old enough to be their mother. Well, only if she had had triplets at seventeen, but still, if they were hers, they never would have dared to talk like that.
She blamed their parents. They had done a piss-poor job of raising them.
One of the three lifted his hands in a sign of peace. “We meant no disrespect. It’s just guy talk.”
As the other two took another step back and cowered behind the leader, she leaned down to level him with one of her deadly stares. “How would you like it if a bunch of girls commented on the shape of your butt and what they wanted to do with it?”
He smirked. “I would love it.”
She had to give him points for guts. Her glares had grown men cower before her, and yet the skinny, pimply boy looked her straight in the eyes and kept smirking.
“What if a bunch of pimply whelps made comments like that about your mother or sister?”
His smirk melted away. “I wouldn’t like that.”
“There you go. A word of advice that will save you a lot of grief in the future. Don’t say anything that you wouldn’t want others to say about the important women in your life.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He lowered his eyes.
“Cassy,” the barista called. “Your usual?”
She turned around and smiled. “How are you doing, Dylan?”
“I’m good.” Leaning sideways, he peered at the three boys, who were keeping a proper distance from her. “Were they bothering you?”
“They needed a lesson in manners.”
He chuckled. “I bet you gave them one to remember.”
“I hope so.” She handed him her card. “One venti mocha Frappuccino, please.”
“A venti? Are you celebrating?” He swiped it and then gave it back together with the receipt.
The thing was probably a thousand calories, but she’d earned the right to indulge. “Yeah, I’m celebrating having a few moments to myself.”
“Good for you. Every minute that is not miserable is worth celebrating.”
“Amen to that.” She collected her drink and waved at Dylan. “I’ll see you again tomorrow, and if not, have a great weekend.”
“You too.”
Outside the wind had picked up, whipping the few strands of hair that had escaped her messy bun into her face, and as she crossed the street back to the office, it started raining. Cassandra ran the rest of the way, careful not to spill her drink or slide and land in a puddle. That would certainly ruin the rest of her day.
Once inside, she climbed the stairs to the second floor and opened the glass double doors. Striding through the firm’s large common room, she ignored the unfriendly glares some cast her way, and the indifference of others, as w
ell as the fake smiles of those who thought to gain favor with the firm’s VP.
Cassandra had almost made it to the sanctuary of her private office when Kevin’s personal assistant waved her down. “Cassandra! The boss was looking for you. He wants to see you in his office.”
“Crap,” she muttered under her breath and turned to walk in the other direction.
She loved Kevin, but the guy liked to talk, and right now she didn’t have the patience for his so-called brainstorming, which was mainly about him throwing ideas around and using her as his sounding board. She planned on leaving at a reasonable time today and not taking work home with her. Perhaps she would even humor her mother and join her to watch that mini-series she was obsessing about.
“You wanted to see me?” Cassandra walked into Kevin’s sprawling office, pulled out one of the fancy Art Deco chairs, and plopped tiredly onto it.
Whoever thought that the job of a creative director was glamorous didn’t know how difficult it was to be in charge of ten unmotivated snowflakes, who for one reason or another kept dropping the ball on her left and right. Picking up the slack, she was working sixteen-hour days, taking work home, and barely making it in time for the monthly mystery boxes rollouts.
Kevin flashed her one of his charming smiles. “I hope you don’t have any plans for Saturday evening.”
“Why?” She narrowed her eyes at him.
“I need you to accompany me to the charity gala.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he lifted his hand to stop her. “Josie can’t make it. She has a concert the same night, and I need a stand-in.”
If his wife had a performance scheduled, he would have known about it months in advance.
Cassandra wouldn’t be surprised if Josie just wasn’t in the mood to do the whole dog and pony show again. The woman was a saint for tolerating being paraded around and presented as her husband’s muse, the inspiration for the company’s Fifty Shades of Beauty cosmetics line.
Kevin was a businessman to his core, and he used every advantage available to him, including his beautiful wife who was a world-renowned cellist. He loved telling the story of how he’d been inspired to create foundations to match every skin tone because of her. When Josie couldn’t find the right one for her dark olive complexion with reddish undertones, he’d had an aha moment.
In reality, that moment had been more about realizing the marketing potential of a unique angle than formulating a perfect shade for his wife.
“And you find out about it now? What the hell, Kevin?” Cassandra pushed to her feet. “Find someone else to go with you.”
Who else had turned him down that he waited until the last moment to ask her?
Besides, Cassandra’s days of posing for the camera were over. She still looked good, but she couldn’t compare to the young girls they used to model their cosmetics. Kevin could ask any of them, and they would be thrilled to attend the gala with him and have their pictures plastered all over social media.
“Cassy, please, sit down. I need you to do this for me.”
Damn him and his pleading tone. She hated when he did that, but after all that Kevin had done for her, she couldn’t refuse him, and the bastard knew it.
“I don’t want to be a stand-in for Josie. What are you going to tell the crowd? That you created the line for me?”
“I did.”
She rolled her eyes. “You hired me after that. Besides, your wife is famous, and everyone knows what she looks like. I can’t pretend to be her.”
“I’m not asking you to.” Leaning back, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Since even now you are wearing my foundation on your beautiful face, I can slightly alter my regular speech and say that I created it for you.” He smirked. “Just not exclusively.”
Ugh. Being paraded around by Kevin, her face stretched in a fake smile for hours, was Cassandra’s personal definition of hell.
She probably wasn’t going to win the argument, but that didn’t mean that she was going to stop until she had exhausted every excuse possible to wiggle out of the damn event.
“Take one of the models. They all use your cosmetics, and they would love to hobnob with the rich and famous at a posh charity gala.”
Assuming a sheepish expression, Kevin raked his fingers through his thinning hair. “I can’t take an eighteen-year-old to the event. The media would eat me alive. The damn gossip magazines would publish articles about me taking advantage of the young women working for me, or worse, that I’m cheating on my wife with them. You are my vice president and the company’s creative director, and other than Josie, you are the only one I can take. Besides, just like my wife, you embody the type of woman I created the line for. Strong, successful, and absolutely stunning.”
Finally, she realized what he was after. He was going to use her to promote their best-selling foundation shade.
He was such a greedy, manipulative prick, but he paid her generously and gave her near-complete autonomy over the marketing creatives.
She owed him.
“I get it. My spice latte skin tone is a perfect match for your bestselling foundation. You want to show me off to promote it.”
He didn’t deny it. “Come on, Cassy, say yes.”
Huffing out a breath, she uncrossed her arms and picked up her Frappuccino. “I don’t have anything appropriate to wear.”
“Take a day off tomorrow and use the company credit card to buy everything you need. Dress, shoes, jewelry, the works.”
She arched a brow. “Budget?”
“Up to ten grand.” He smiled. “But knowing you, you’ll find stuff on sale at a fraction of the cost. You just can’t stomach wasting money.”
“That’s because I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth.”
“Neither did I, but I worked hard for what I have, and I don’t mind spending it on the things I like.”
She shrugged. “It’s your money. You can do with it as you wish. But I’m not going to treat it any differently just because it doesn’t come out of my own pocket.”
“I know. But do me a favor and don’t buy a dress at a thrift store. For this Saturday evening, you represent the company. Get something that will have the media photographers chasing you around like a bunch of rabid dogs.”
She grimaced. “Calling them rabid dogs is uncalled for. Most are just trying to make a living like everyone else.”
“I have a love-hate relationship with the media,” Kevin admitted.
“Of course, you do. You want the free publicity when it suits you, but you don’t want them around when it doesn’t.”
His mouth twisted in distaste. “Some of them are nasty bastards.”
“Regrettably, that’s true.”
Cassandra had met some slimy photographers, but even as an eighteen-year-old model, she’d known how to deal with them. If they pissed her off, their pricey cameras had suffered irreparable damage.
Kevin shrugged. “I want your picture plastered over all the beauty magazines.”
“I get it. You want to generate free publicity, and my story is interesting.” The model turned executive who’d helped Fifty Shades of Beauty grow exponentially.
Kevin smirked. “Precisely.”
“You are aware that the entire staff is going to hate me even more for this.”
“Refusing to come is not going to make them like you better. You have a nasty attitude, and they are resentful because I let you get away with it. But mostly, they are just jealous of your success.”
“That’s why I don’t bother trying to be nicer. It’s not going to help anyway, and I’d rather they feared me.”
The staff had a lot of reasons to hate her. She’d joined the company at eighteen as a model, but Kevin had recognized her talent early on, and he had promoted her ahead of people with college degrees and much more experience in the field. When he’d made her his VP and raised her salary to a quarter of a million, two other senior staff members had quit.
Her bitchy attitude didn’t w
in her any popularity contests either, but she wasn’t about to apologize for that. Cassandra demanded from others a fraction of what she demanded from herself, and yet they routinely failed to produce even that.
What did they expect? Praise?
Not from her.
Kevin was the politician, the one who smoothed things over and calmed the hysterical snowflakes after she’d melted them with the heat of her wrath.
Several petitions had been submitted to have her fired, and when Kevin had refused, they had started whispering that she was his lover. Some even went as far as saying that she had him bewitched.
Given what she was capable of when her temper flared, she might indeed wield dark magic, just not the kind that could bewitch a guy into loving her. If she could do that, she wouldn’t be single at the ripe old age of thirty-four.
Besides, Kevin was happily married, and her relationship with him was purely professional.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He and Josie were also her friends, and Cassandra valued that no less than the incredible break they had given her professionally. Just like her, the two of them had risen from nothing and had worked their fingers to the bone to get to where they were today.