by Charlie Hart
Their Phoenix
Daughters of Olympus
Charlie Hart
Anastasia James
Contents
Introduction
Copyright
Before
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
After
Spades Hotel
Also by Charlie Hart
Preview of Protecting
Also by Anastasia James
Preview of Chosen
Introduction
Daughters Of Olympus is a five book, paranormal romance, reverse harem series.
Land. Sky. Sea. Underworld.
All four are at odds—and only the Daughters of Olympus can bring them together to save mankind.
They may have ancient blood coursing through their veins, but in their hearts they are everyday women struggling to survive … not knowing how to harness their potential.
Love is the last thing on their minds. But the seductive men sent to guide them have no doubt in their ability.
It might sound good in theory … but these women don’t know one another, let alone their hidden talents.
Now they must rise up and claim their rightful place in history, with the men sworn to protect them.
The fight is on.
Copyright
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Edited by
Teresa Banschbach
ICanEdit4U
Copyright © and 2018 by Charlie Hart and Anastasia James
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Before
Naively I thought I could have it all.
For some, love has limits.
But a mother’s love has no bounds.
Do you feel it, Daughters?
The love I have for you?
You, sweet girl, were so small, so slight.
I could hold you in the palm of my hand.
Your eyes were dark but your heart was light, and I begged Gaia not to leave you alone.
You needed someone strong by your side. You were so weak, so fragile.
Have you found your strength yet, Daughter?
You need it now, more than ever.
No one deserves to be alone in this world, but here I am, a prisoner.
Don’t become one too.
Break the cage; don’t let someone else swallow the key.
Fly, Daughter.
Spread your wings.
It’s time for you to soar.
1
Lark
The audience gasps with excitement as I move across the stage. My fingers grasp the trapeze at just the right moment and they exhale their relief. I never worry whether I’ll make the distance.
I’m the girl who can fly. It goes against the laws of physics, and yet it’s the truth.
I can’t, like, flap my arms and fly off into the sunset, but I can defy gravity for a few seconds or so at a time. When I jump from one part of the set to the next, I move through the air in a fluid motion that makes people do a double take.
Before my feet hit the ground, I know I’ve got the job.
The biggest show in Vegas.
Applause consumes me and the house lights flicker on. The smile on the casting director, Mark’s, face confirms my suspicions.
Every eye in the room is on me as I take a bow. I nailed it. I feel it in my bones and feel it in the energy of the room. This is my moment to shine, and I don’t crumble under the pressure. Mom saw it clearly, in her crystal ball, that this stage would be mine.
And now, after several auditions, each one more demanding than the last as the casino brought in more and more investors to watch me soar across the stage, I’ve made my dream a reality.
After I exit the stage and go out to the house, Mark squeezes my shoulders, grinning. “You’re gonna make us millions.”
I feel heat rise to my cheeks as I absorb his compliment. My mother hates that I’m choosing this path, but this isn’t about her. This is about me. About my dreams coming true.
“So, what’s next?” I ask, my voice seeming so small in this massive auditorium.
“Next you meet your cast.”
Once dressed in my regular clothes–a simple blue sundress and flip-flops–I join Mark and a team from the casino in a conference room of the Spades Royale, the casino where I will be headlining.
Apparently, the hiring team has spent the last few weeks deciding on the cast that would perform with me.
“You hired them already? Are you sure we will work well together?” I ask. After signing the contract, I feel nervous suddenly at the prospect of working with a team. My own team. I never perform with other people. And shouldn’t I have at least had a trial run with the potential performers before the casino hired the entire cast?
“More than sure, Lark,” the theater director, Tanya, assures me. “These guys are perfect. One look at them and it was impossible to wait to offer them a contract. They signed this morning. If we hadn’t snatched them up, someone like Simon Cowell would have been here beating down their door by morning.”
“They’re that amazing?” I swallow, a little offended. Which is ridiculous, considering I just landed the job of a lifetime. “What makes these guys so special? Don’t tell me they fly, too?”
The people around the conference table chuckle, as if I’m some naive girl who hasn’t a clue.
Which would be a fair assessment. I may have grown up in Las Vegas, but that doesn’t mean I’ve experienced much. Mom makes sure of that. Even though I’m twenty-one, I still live with her, under her rules.
And she has a lot of them.
“You’ll have to see the guys perform for yourself,” Mark says, pulling me from my thoughts. “It’s gonna be great, Lark, I promise. But before you call your mom and tell her the good news, there are few things left to deal with. Meeting the guys and seeing your new place.”
“Oh, I know a hotel suite is a part of the contract, but I don’t want it. Not now, at least. You know how Mom is.”
Mark nods, knowing my mother better than most people. He was the first person to see my act in a third-rate hotel off the strip and to take a chance on me as a performer. He know
s just how intense Mom can get, and how unhappy she was about me auditioning. She would rather keep me behind a locked door than on center stage.
“If you change your mind, just ask. Your mom doesn’t expect you to stay in her nest forever.”
“Maybe,” I say, but I twist my lips, doubting that. Mom has rules to keep me safe, and I know right now she’s probably placed a half-dozen protection spells on me. “But there’s really only one thing that matters right now if I want to make this show the best thing to ever come to Vegas. I want to meet my cast.”
“Figured you’d say that,” Mark says with a grin, rapping his knuckles on the conference table. The people at the table stand, congratulating me again, and we all head out toward the lobby.
The Spades Royale hotel is magnificent. It’s the most luxurious hotel on the strip, and the owner and his wife are Vegas royalty. Everyone knows Ace and Emmy–he wears black Armani suits and allegedly has old ties with the mob, and she’s like Victoria Beckham x 100. Classy, gorgeous, and a mother of three.
My mom has been giving Emmy tarot readings for years, and every time she stops by the house, I sigh longingly at the life she’s made for herself. She used to a waitress at the Spades Royale, and now she’s a Vegas princess with a gorgeous husband and the life fairy tales are made of.
Looking down at myself, I cringe at my basic... well, everything. I may have just signed a contract for the hottest ticket in Vegas, but I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do to fit into this world. I spent twenty-one years living by Mom’s rules. Never leave home after dark. Always look both ways. Keep the doors locked. Those are the more normal ones. The other ones, like, keep the attic window open, toss salt over your left shoulder when your arms ache, and never, ever go outside during a storm–those are the ones that remind me my mother is a witch.
As we leave the lobby and head toward the hotel suite of my new cast, I feel like her rules are outdated. Now, I have a job and a life. My future is an outstretched wing.
For years I went along with being her caged bird, knowing that deep down she wanted the best for me. And I for her. Some people are close to their moms–mine is like a sister to me. Still, no matter how close we’ve been, she’s always held the lock and the key.
As I walk into the room to meet my future fellow performers, I know with everything in me that I’m ready to be free.
2
Vaughn
Lark walks into the room and suddenly everything clicks into place. She is the light I’ve been wanting, the sun to my moon. All the romantic clichés you could come up with–there she is. An angel fallen from Heaven–that is Lark.
The casting director, Mark O’Leary, holds up his phone. “Oh, damn. Sorry, I’ve gotta take this. Introduce yourselves.” Lark looks at him with confusion written on her face. “You’ll be fine, Lark. They don’t bite,” he says warmly, before slipping out the door.
“Hey,” she says tentatively, taking another step closer. “I’m Lark.”
I stand up from the couch in our suite’s living room. We were hired yesterday and already the Spades Royale has us put up in the fanciest place I’ve ever set foot in. I move to walk toward her, but North moves past me, his long stride putting him ahead of me.
“I’m North,” he says smoothly. “It’s an honor to meet you.”
I try not to roll my eyes. We were all called here, to her, together, but sometimes it’s a hard pill to swallow. The idea that these men are her sworn protectors same as I am.
But I want to do more than protect her. I want to be hers – mind, body, and soul.
People say love at first sight isn’t real, but the moment I watched the video clip, the one Gaia showed us a week ago, I knew she was made for me.
“Nice to meet you,” she says softly. Tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, she lifts her chin, ever so slightly, taking in the room. “And who is everyone else?”
“I’m Brecken, at your service,” the guy to my right tells her, not letting North’s swagger take him down a notch. He offers her his hand and she takes it.
“Great to meet you,” she says.
Then Sawyer stands and gives her a smirk, “The pleasure’s all ours, little bird.”
She twists her lips, assessing him, and I like how she isn’t easily won over by his confident lines. “Though she be but little, she is fierce,” she says.
If I thought I fell for her at first sight, I was wrong. That wasn’t love–this is. Is she truly standing here, quoting Shakespeare, putting Sawyer, of all people, in his place?
“Touché,” he says, walking toward her. Without pause, he lifts her chin with a finger. “I’m Sawyer, and baby, I’ll be the wind beneath your wings.”
I snort then, because really, who the hell does he think he is? We may be from the same flock, but this man is flying solo. No way is Lark gonna fall for this act.
“You’re too sweet,” she tells Sawyer, her face softening to his. “I was nervous to meet all of you, but you’re helping me feel more at ease.”
My eyes fly to hers. No way. She’s my girl. Sawyer can’t walk in here and take her under his wing in one fell swoop.
“Nervous to meet us?” I ask. She has it all backward. We are the ones who should be bowing to her. While we don’t know why Gaia called upon us for this mission, we take it seriously. Since we were born as hawk shifters, we’ve been taught to respect the ancient legends; the stories that give our people a place on Earth.
And our land is threatened, now more than ever, as disasters continue to ravage the planet. Unexplained natural disasters have been coming for us, all of us–man and creatures alike. If we can do our part to help stop it, while Gaia works her magic, then we are all in danger. It’s our duty. Our honor.
And when Gaia showed us who we were vowing to protect, I nearly fell over. Lark takes my breath away.
Maybe it’s not manly to talk like this. To admit that I’m hers–hook, line, and sinker–but I am. I know I really must be wrecked for this girl. I can hardly remember how to talk. She has me all flustered like a fucking schoolboy.
Then Arrow, the most cautious guy I know, steps forward and introduces himself without missing a beat.
“And who are you?” Lark asks, moving past the other men and standing before me. She is so small, so slight, and her name suits her perfectly. She’s like a bird, able to fit in my arms perfectly. She smiles up at me, my broad shoulders seeming to take up too much space. While I’m the most built of all us guys, right now I wish I were five inches shorter; the last thing I want to do is intimidate her with my size.
I clench my jaw, wishing I could quote Shakespeare also. Or say something eloquent, something smooth. Something funny or memorable. Instead, I’m just me. A man, standing before a woman, knowing I’d lay my life down for her, yet unable to explain what she already means to me.
I’d frighten her away.
“You okay?” she asks, tilting her chin to the side, taking me in.
Knowing I need to say something, I finally manage to tell her my name. “I’m Vaughn.” I pop my knuckles nervously. People always think that just because I’m the big guy, I’m dense or something. But it’s not that. It’s just that my words sound better in my head and when I say them out loud, they get all jumbled.
And with Lark, I don’t want to mess anything up.
She smiles up at me, having no idea that we were sent to keep her safe.
She has no idea how special she is.
“So, who is gonna show off first?” she asks, looking around at us. “I’m dying to see what you guys did to make everyone at the casino swoon so fast.”
I exhale, relief flooding my body. If she wants fancy speeches or witty banter, I can’t deliver. But if she wants to see what I can do with my body, I won’t let her down.
“Come on, Lark,” I say, taking her hand. “Show me the stage.”
3
Lark
The crew is not what I expected. First of all, they are all men.
Do I really get to work closely with these guys for the next however many months? My body rolls with excitement at the thought. Not sure what that says about me, but I honestly never thought I would take one look at the cast and forget how to think.
They are unreal. And when I lead them to the massive stage that the Spades Royale built specifically for this show, I’m practically giddy with anticipation, but then I wonder if they can really be everything Mark promises.
I need to see it with my own eyes.
When they throw off their jackets, pull off tee shirts and slip off shoes, the pressure that begins to mount is almost too much for me to take. I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited to see what other performers could do. Then I take a good look at their bodies–ripped and chiseled, carved from something ancient; something fierce.
There isn’t a soft edge in sight. Closest to me is Vaughn with his dominating size, and bright blue eyes, and when he reaches for a trapeze bar to test the suspension I can’t help but notice his impressive biceps.