Tyranny: Goddesses of Delphi

by Gemma Brocato

  “Hey, Clio.” Zeke Patterson, the library’s head security officer, greeted her. “It’s unusual to see you here this time of night.”

  At one time she’d been a little more than friendly with the man. But they’d lacked the chemistry to make her want to escalate their coffee dates to any kind of real date. However, they’d managed to maintain their friendship, an arrangement Clio valued more.

  Her existence was linked to human mortality. She lived and died on a mortal timetable. This was her one-hundred and twenty-seventh mortal lifetime. And from the time women could enroll in college, she had. She loved the chance to influence her classmates.

  Since graduating in this incarnation, though, her track record with men had been dismal. This time around, she’d only inspired her senior year boyfriend to cheat on her with a sorority sister instead of proposing marriage, as Clio had been hinting for him to do. She should have known something was off when she had hesitated to use her goddess gift to nudge him harder as Aerie, the Muse of Love, had suggested. Thank the goddess she’d resisted her younger sister’s prompts. Otherwise, she’d have ended up married to the jerk. Still, in the end, Clio’s heart and her confidence had splintered. She’d held most men at arm’s length ever since.

  Overhead lights cast shadows on Zeke’s ruggedly handsome face and accentuated the red-gold strands in his blond hair. The sound of a baseball game on the iPad on the desk filled the quiet air.

  Clio gave him a warm smile as she scanned her badge. “Evening, Zeke. I have some research to do and figured I’d get a start on it.”

  Zeke reached over to swing the gate open. “No time like the present, right?”

  She scooted through the barrier. Pausing beside him, she peeked over his shoulder at the game score. “Hey, we’re winning.” She snagged a stack of messages from her mail slot and rifled through them. Requests for special editions and cards from appreciative patrons thanking her for her assistance. A phone message from the university president. Really, the man needed to learn to navigate the college’s e-mail system.

  “We were down by two in the third, but the Demons struck back like their tails were on fire.” Zeke tilted the tablet to give Clio a better view. “Where are you going to be working tonight? Want to make sure not to sneak up and scare you on my rounds.”

  “Appreciate that.” He’d been good about making enough noise to wake the dead since the first time he’d materialized in the room where she’d been lost in a project. He’d scared ten years off her life. A drop in the bucket really. “I’ll be in the Ancient Civ room.”

  “Busy room tonight.”

  Clio glanced at the screen on the computer monitor. Her heart sped up at the sight of Jax’s name on the line above hers. “Professor Callahan is there?”

  Zeke pointed to his check-in time. “Been up there for a couple of hours.”

  Anticipation pinged around her belly like a leaf being blown in a breeze. “Well, I better get to it.”

  “Have fun.” His attention back on the game, Zeke waved absently over his shoulder as she departed.

  The night lighting at the library was eerie. The chandeliers had been turned off at closing time. Wall sconces created scattered pools of light on the floor and guided her toward the staircase. The marble steps, worn smooth in spots by years of use, were shadowed and spooky. As many times as she’d been here late at night, she never lost the urge to race up the stairs two at a time. Her imagination always conjured goblins or spirits, nipping at her heels as she climbed. She also never lost the compulsion to laugh at her imaginings.

  Cresting the stairs to the second floor, she continued to the third, the strap of her backpack clutched between her fingers. Even though she knew exactly who was in the library at the moment, her nerves pinched the base of her scalp, stinging like red-hot needles. The words of Pierus’s e-mail seared her mind. And when did a long-dormant demi-god learn about e-mail?

  Reaching the third floor, she rounded the balustrade and pressed a hand against her breastbone. Her heart banged against her ribs. Nerves or anticipation? Pausing a moment, she rolled her shoulders, as if that would help her shrug off her anxiety. At the end of the long hall, a puddle of light spilled from the open door of the Ancient Civ room. Good thing she knew Jax occupied the room. Otherwise, she might scurry back down the steps to the safety Zeke represented.

  She moved quietly toward the door. As she approached, she noticed the soothing alto tones of a lyre. Before entering, she paused and leaned her back against the wall by the door, listening to the sound that had filled all her childhoods. Was Jax listening to the ancient melodies as inspiration for his research? It was a trick Clio had used to great effect when focusing on a problem. When a rich baritone voice joined the accompaniment, Clio realized he was singing.

  Something primal swirled in her belly. Pressing a hand against the butterflies, a smile tugged the corners of her mouth. Words sung in an ancient Greek dialect flowed through the cracks around the partially opened door. She easily translated the lyrics that paid homage to a woman’s body, and she wondered if he understood the words or was merely reciting.

  Inside the room, a loud thunk was followed by a soft curse, again in another nearly forgotten language. Suppressing a chuckle, and not wanting to startle Jax, Clio knocked on the doorframe before she swung into the room.

  “Good evening, Professor,” she greeted him as she advanced toward the table where he was madly mopping up spilled liquid.

  Jax’s head flew up sharply, his eyes wide under dark brows. A smile formed on his lips when he caught sight of her.

  “Hello.” He stopped wiping up his mess, and the spill leeched toward an antique volume lying on the corner of the table.

  Clio hurried across the room. She plucked a stack of napkins off the nearby table. Wadding them up, she blotted the brown liquid away. “Jax, you aren’t supposed to have drinks in this room.”

  Dull red seeped into his cheeks. He grabbed the upended to-go cup and joined her in cleaning up his spill. “Sorry, I meant to leave it outside the door. But I did bring extra napkins, just in case.” He shoved the soggy mess into the cup then tipped it toward her. She crammed the wet papers into the opening.

  While he threw it into the trash bin by the door, Clio moved the texts he’d been working with to another table, just to be safe. The room plunged into silence as soon as he turned off the playback on his phone.

  “Hey, I liked that.” She beamed a smile his direction. “There aren’t any rules against music. Especially if it fits the period of the room you’re working in.”

  Shrugging, Jax restarted the music app. Dulcet tones filled the silence quite nicely. He set the phone down and turned to face her. “Well, it definitely fits this room.”

  “I heard you singing. Do you actually know ancient Greek or do you just have the words memorized?” She fussed with the corners of the stack of books, aligning them as she leaned one hip against the table.

  “I...um, I’m proficient in several ‘lost’ languages. Mycenaean Greek is just one of them.” He crossed the small space between them in three strides and stopped by her side. “I’ve loved linguistics since I read my first Tolkien book where he created his own language. It helps with, uh, helped with my last job.”

  Even though he stood a good foot away from her, heat from his body invaded her space, wrapping her in warmth. She’d forfeit one of her lifetimes to sink into his arms in a real embrace. She strained his direction before common sense beat down her fanciful longings. She needed to get to her research soon or she’d be here all night. But flirting a little while longer wouldn’t hurt.

  She eased her butt onto the table and swung her legs. “Helped? Past tense?”

  Nodding, he crossed his arms over his chest. His bulging muscles strained the seams of his tight T-shirt. Sure didn’t look like most of the other faculty professors. “Yeah. My previous employer required it.”

  “Did you work for a translation service?” She felt a little like Christoph
er Robin, trying to pry Winnie the Pooh’s nose from the honey jar.

  “No.”

  “Come on, spill it,” she encouraged with a grin.

  With a barely perceptible lift to his shoulders, he darted his eyes to the side. Her smile apparently trumped his resistance. “I worked for an international think tank. My job was to advise the government how not to repeat past mistakes. Being able to translate ancient accounts of the events leading up to war was key.” He blinked his eyes hard and shifted his weight back on his heels.

  Clio idly wondered if he’d ever read something she’d inspired. Maybe even one of the ancient texts she’d written herself.

  His words penetrated into her wandering thoughts. Repeat past mistakes. She stopped swinging her legs and gripped the edge of the table. Could it be this simple? Was Jax the man Pierus had foretold as the one to aid her in this challenge? She nudged again. “What kinds of mistakes?”

  Brows raised, he clasped his hands together and spread his legs. “My specialty was in analyzing the build-up behind one country invading another, and the potential impact on the general population from said invasion.”

  He was talking now. Clio pulled the edge off her mental prodding. “And you traded all that glamour for a job as a history prof. What happened?”

  “You don’t really want to know this, do you?” A frown creased his brow. She longed to reach out and smooth it away.

  Instead, since it was possible the fate of the world depended on her focusing, she stayed on task. “Jax, I’m a librarian. I like to know all kinds of things.”

  At his mulish expression, she decided it was time for a little nudge. Clio focused her energy and sent him a mental image of him spilling his guts to her. She justified it by telling herself it was like speed dating. Gotta get the information out there fast.

  He tipped his head and regarded her, running his gaze like a silk scarf over her body. “In a word, burn-out. I spent way too much oxygen trying to convince the people responsible to listen and take action. They lost interest in hearing what I had to say.” He sat on the table next to her.

  Curling his fingers around the table edge right beside hers, he did a little nudging of his own, his shoulder to hers. He studied her with his deep amber gaze. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Typically, I don’t talk about my previous occupation.”

  She smiled brightly at him. “I’m easy to talk to? You want to avoid your research at all costs? Just had to unburden your soul and I’m handy?”

  “All those things. But you forgot mesmerizingly beautiful. A cold war spy would want to spill his secrets to you.” He dipped his gaze to her mouth.

  Licking her lips, she leaned away from him. As much as she wanted him to kiss her, she needed him to finish his story. “They didn’t listen so you quit? You just gave up?”

  He jumped up and grabbed a book from the stack on the table next to him. His fingers whitened on the heavy leather cover as he opened and closed it, a sign of his agitation. It seemed an eternity before he rolled his head from side to side and answered. “I didn’t give up. I just lost the ability to—no, the interest—in asking ‘what if.’ No matter how hard I tried, I didn’t seem able to make a difference. I didn’t need the stress.” He shrugged and turned away.

  His words electrified her. There it was. Confirmation that Jax was the man Pierus’s e-mail had foretold. At least, he seemed to be the one who could guide her in the challenge. Now the bad weather made sense. The sudden squall the day they’d met and the increasingly wet weather were portents.

  But why would Pierus manipulate the weather? Unless he was leading up to invoking awful storms to aid the Five Nations. A storm of any kind might hamper effort to offer humanitarian aid overseas. It could also lead to power outages here, making her job more difficult. But, would it make that big of a difference to her challenge?

  She recalled the day she’d met Jax. During a break in the storm, the sun had peeked through, bathing him in a supernatural bluish glow. Like someone was shining a big spotlight on him.

  But how in the name of the goddesses was she supposed to explain this messed up situation to a man who no longer believed in the magic of what if?

  She straightened her spine and then slipped off the table. By laying a hand on his arm, she drew his gaze back to her. “Jax, you can’t stop believing in yourself. It only takes one man to alter the course of history. Unfortunately, it’s almost always an evil man. Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon. Even farther back...Attila, Genghis Khan, Alexander. Why shouldn’t you be one of the good guys?”

  “Don’t care about being one of the good guys.” Jax stroked his hands from her shoulders to her fingertips and back. His whispery touch and husky voice raised goose bumps on her arms. “I’d like to be your guy.”

  He lowered his head, hesitating a brief instant before slanting his lips over hers. The warm tender press of his mouth decimated her ability to think. When he curled both hands around her neck and stroked his thumbs along her jaw, a slow, melting sensation claimed her midriff. He changed the angle of his head and deepened the kiss, intensifying the current between them. Clio rested her hands on his biceps, flexing her fingers into the hard muscles playing under his supple skin.

  He didn’t press any closer to her body, didn’t try to close the miniscule gap between his chest and hers. His kiss was oddly friendly, yet steamy. Pulling his mouth from hers, he held her gaze, a smile lurking on his lips. Her stomach did a slow roll at the hungry look in his eyes and her body strained toward his. Threading his fingers through her hair, he reclaimed her mouth. This time, his kiss was deep and slow and drugging.

  Rain began pelting the window, rattling it in its frame. A sudden thunderous explosion boomed in the small room, followed quickly by a vibrant flash of light. The scent of ozone filled the room. She jerked backward. The tug on her scalp was painful when Jax didn’t immediately relax his grip. “Ouch!” Her eyes watered.

  “Oh, God, I’m sorry.” Jax stroked his hand on her head, his touch soothing.

  “For pulling my hair or for kissing me?” She tangled her fingers with his and pulled their joined hands away from the stinging spot.

  “Well, I’m not sorry for kissing you,” Jax answered, his tone playful.

  Thunder rumbled again, and the lights flickered and dimmed. His fingers tightened on hers as they waited for the power to return to full strength. A flash from the lightning splashed wickedly across the ceiling.

  Clio gasped when she spied the form of a man in the block of light coming from the bank of windows on the opposite side of the room. Pierus! Hands raised, palms facing together, his spectral outline vibrated on the ceiling in time with her quivering heart. She tightened her grip on Jax’s hand and glanced at the window. Crazy, but she almost expected to see the god hovering outside, three floors up, like something out of a bad horror movie. Nothing.

  “You’re not afraid of the storm, are you?” he questioned, pulling her hand to his lips and kissing her knuckles.

  “No. Maybe.” Clio focused her attention on the wall over Jax’s shoulder.

  Lightning flared again, and this time the shadow included a large, menacing bird sitting on his shoulder.

  She whipped around, bouncing off Jax’s chest as she did. Bracing her hands on the table, she stared out the glass, waiting for the next flash to see if Pierus was in fact framed in the opening. Maybe he was only visible during the flares. The seconds ticked slowly away. What was taking so long?

  Jax steadied her with one warm hand between her shoulder blades, the other on her hip. “Are you okay?”

  Bright light illuminated the room again. Nothing appeared outside the window.

  Oh, she was afraid, but not of the storm. She feared for the safety of the world if she lost this challenge. The sizzling kiss between her and Jax, coupled with the abrupt reappearance of the storm and the shadow of a megalomaniac with one of his bitchy daughters perched on his shoulder, were proof that her challenge had begun. And Jax was the m
an destined to help her.

  “I’m fine. Just startled is all,” she lied.

  The lights stabilized in the library, and the storm dissipated. Pierus had made his presence known and, for now, she hoped he’d be content to sit back and watch, waiting for his chance to defeat her and her sisters.

  God, it seemed so melodramatic to say the fate of the world rested on her ability to get this charming man, standing protectively at her back, to ask what if once again. To envision the magic he could work in the world. But if Tyranny transformed back to goddess form, she wouldn’t be satisfied by what was happening in Eastern Europe. Like wildfire, she’d spread her evil ways through each continent.

  The lyre music from his phone switched to a cello concerto she recognized from a symphony she’d attended in the eighteenth century. Imagine explaining to him that her sister, Terri, was responsible for Schumann being able to complete his best work in just two weeks.

  She glanced at him to find his beautiful eyes filled with concern. She gave him a slight smile. “We should probably try to work while the lights are on.”

  “Actually, I was finishing up as you came in. Five minutes later, and I would’ve been gone.”

  “Clearly my timing is inspired.” Clio laughed.

  His warm chuckle wrapped around her heart and cinched in close, leaving her breathless and hot for the man.

  “I can stay to help with your project. I’m an excellent research assistant. What are you working on, by the way?”

  She sobered. “A student request came in today. She needs, um...” Oh, jeez, she was going to have to think fast for a reason other than the end of the world as they knew it. “She needs information pertaining to architecture and its influence on cinematic expression.”

  And oh, holy hell, that almost sounded reasonable.

  “Well, I can’t help you out there. Not my area of expertise.” He grasped her hand and tugged her against his chest. “Here is something I’m good at, though...”

  He lowered his head and licked along her bottom lip. When she opened in response, he delved inside, stroking his tongue along hers. The sensuous rasp lassoed her belly and pulled her girl parts taut like an invisible, erotic tether. She slid her arms around his shoulders and returned his kiss, lick for lick, nibble for nibble. He gathered her close, near enough to feel his erection through their clothes. Between her legs, heat surged, begging for a full release.