Grace of Gods Boxset: Reincarnated Greek Gods YA/NA Series

by Kyleigh Castronaro

  “Zeus.” Griffin muttered under his breath, rolling his eyes and collecting the whiskey bottle straight from the table. Not even bothering to have the decency to fill up his cup, he simply swigged from the bottle.

  Zeus? I turned back to the immaculate model of a man, watching Charlotte appear out of nowhere – the other man completely gone from her mind as her arm draped over his and she leaned in to press a kiss to his cheek. He didn’t seem to mind, if anything he seemed to welcome it and I wondered if they were dating. Then again, I couldn’t imagine that much arrogance in one relationship, they might end up combusting.

  “That’s Zeus?” Well, it made sense why he walked like he owned the place. Technically he did – right?

  “Yeah, the King of the Gods himself. Couldn’t you tell?” There was certainly no love lost between this sad boy and the jaw dropping flawless specimen before us.

  “Mhmmm…” I said absently as I flashed an uncertain grin in Zeus’ direction as he turned to notice me finally.

  He held my gaze, recognition flashing through his Mediterranean blue eyes as a small genuine smile crossed his lips. It was absorbed quickly thereafter by his trademark smirk but it was enough to leave me shaken.

  Then he took a step toward me and the world seemed to stop. No one else in the room mattered. Hell, I didn’t even notice Griffin shrink away to avoid him because in this fraction of a second it was he and I, and everything was perfect – even me.

  “Hey.” He said as he stopped in front of me, Charlotte jumping to the forefront to maintain his attention.

  “This is Savannah. She’s the last one.” Zeus’ eyebrow raised slightly and he stared at me pensively all of the sudden. His eyes made me feel like he was stripping me bare in front of everyone and laying out the pieces of my soul for their personal scrutiny.

  I was terrified and excited but I didn’t know whether I should run or kiss him. My head said run while my heart said kiss, and yet I remained steadfast until he spoke. His dark sultry voice felt like it wrapped me up in a velvet cloak and whisked me away to a cold, winter forest where it was us and the moonlight.

  “You’re in the penthouse with me.” I nodded dumbly, all ability to speak having left me and he smirked. I waited with bated breath for his next words to come, clinging to the seconds in desperation to know what else he would say but there was nothing. He simply turned, wrapped an arm around Charlotte and the two of them walked away. Once more I was the fleeting condensation on the cold glass: all at once there and then, instantly insignificant.

  The room grew cold the moment he walked away from me. If not for the flood of people that appeared now that Zeus had given me the stamp of approval, I might have gone unnoticed for the rest of the night.

  The next few hours blurred together and though I met everyone, some knowing their Gods and others still waiting, I couldn’t get Zeus off my mind. Worse still, was the fact that I didn’t even know his name. But maybe he wanted that. Maybe he liked being King of the Gods and like me, would rather wear that mask than be who he was before he got here.

  My head was buzzing with names, facts and Gods by the time I got the chance to be by myself and process it all. I searched the room for Zeus but he seemed to have left again and the atmosphere had returned to normal once more. Well, as normal as it could be for a bunch of young adults who had recently been told they were Gods… Which, retrospectively probably isn’t all that normal.

  They partied like it was a frat party: drinking, laughing and I watched several pairs leave the room together discreetly. What was the point to being brought back as Gods and Goddesses if all we were doing was being carefree humans? I know Atlas spoke about being “normal” as this was what the Gods were but the story said that the Gods would be brought back when it was time. Time for what? Were we in danger or was Earth in danger and we had to save it?

  Gathering a plate of fruit and vegetables along with another cocktail I made my way over to one of the thrones and sat down, balancing the plate in my lap.

  From what I could tell there was a mixed reception about the news with this group of people. Some wholeheartedly accepted the idea they were Gods and embraced the future Atlas offered them, while others were reluctant and disbelieving because of the lack of real proof. But no one seemed to wonder why this was happening to us right now.

  I had also learned that there weren’t Olympians here. In fact, when Zeus’ spell had put the souls of the major Gods in the Earth and the lesser Gods into the sky, the retrieval spell for the Gods in Earth worked for the lesser Gods as well.

  Some people here were muses, handmaidens to the Gods. Others were lesser deities like Nike and Hermes. Atlas had even released Titans like Cronos himself, and Prometheus. I suspected that his ‘accidental’ releasing of Titans hadn’t in fact been an accident and merely his way of freeing some of his brethren. And as far as I could tell, they seemed harmless enough. Then again, I didn’t know Titans as a species particularly well, for obvious reasons.

  As I picked at the grapes on my plate I mentally tracked all the supposed Gods I had met, if only to narrow down the pool of suspects for my own identity crisis.

  There were six females and I knew of three: Athena, Aphrodite (who had turned out, no shock, to be a real model and about as beautiful as I found the throne room to be) and Hestia (who was a sweet, unassuming type that gave me the impression she was born in the wrong era because she would have made a perfect 50s housewife). This left me with three options: Hera, Artemis and Demeter.

  Hera was Queen of the Gods and the consort of Zeus. This much I knew. I couldn’t recall her having a specific domain that she oversaw and I stole a glance at her frieze, which offered me a scene of two people being hand fasted together.

  Marriage, women… She was the poster girl for postmodern feminism. Another depiction at the bottom told me she was also a patron God of childbirth and I frowned slightly to myself. While I had been studying nursing with the intention of becoming a midwife there was no way I was Queen of the Gods. I couldn’t command a room like Zeus had and I didn’t have the beauty to compete with Aphrodite like Hera had in the battle of Troy.

  Then there was Artemis. Twin sister to Apollo and the Goddess of animals, the moon and hunting. I liked animals but I was a day type of person. And hunting was not something I would willingly engage in. Animals were okay as food if I wasn’t the one doing the killing. That pretty much scrapped Artemis for me, we had nothing in common.

  Demeter was insignificant and only made an appearance in mythology because her daughter was kidnapped and raped by Hades. I was sure she must have had a domain she oversaw but I doubted it was anything interesting. The more I thought about it the more Demeter made sense as my Goddess. I was insignificant. There was nothing special about me, and my penchant for midwifery could be stemmed from my Goddess’ love for her daughter. I studied her frieze, taking in the grains and plants in the image. I helped my mum garden in the springtime that could count too.

  Maybe that’s why everyone had stared at me. They thought I was Demeter, the worthless Goddess. They probably wanted to know what point there was in bringing me back. Zeus was probably only interested in me because they had a thing one time… Well, good luck with that King of the Gods.

  “Hey.” I looked up in surprise at Charlotte who had reappeared in front of me. I was surprised more by the fact that she hadn’t left earlier with Zeus but then again maybe my first impression of them was wrong. Maybe she liked him but he didn’t reciprocate.

  “Hi.” I smiled and she smiled back with that unnerving, strange smile of hers.

  “I’m having a pool party tomorrow for the girls. We can all get to know each other and maybe help the ones who don’t know who they are figure it out – like you! I wanted to extend the invitation.” I smiled, hoping she genuinely meant well despite how uncomfortable that smile of hers made me.

  “Sounds fun. There’s a pool here?” Atlas had overlooked that in our initial tour. Not that he had shown me aro
und the facilities in detail. Now that I thought about it, he hadn’t shown me anything but this room and my apartment. How was I supposed to know anything or was that sort of knowledge bestowed upon me when my Goddess appeared?

  “Yeah, there’s a hot water spring in the underbelly of the mountain. Sort of like a Jacuzzi but Hunter turns it cool for us.”

  “Hunter…” I repeated trying to recall if I had met him.

  “He’s Poseidon. I heard he ran off with a nymph before we got here.” She spoke casually about all these things as though Greek Gods and nymphs were the norm. I suppose they were now but she had adjusted easily to all this change, I envied her.

  “Right. That makes sense. I guess I’ll meet him tomorrow then?” I smiled, suggestively implying my acceptance.

  Charlotte grinned and nodded, “perfect! Don’t forget your swim suit or we’ll expect you to strip down and come in anyways.” My eyes widened slightly before I nodded in accord.

  “See you then…” She didn’t bother to say goodbye back as she flounced off heading right for the door. I tore my eyes away from her retreating form to see that the party was wrapping up. I had expected it to go on later than this. But the only ones left were stragglers who were invested in someone as a hookup, no doubt attempting to get them to go away with them.

  Sighing to myself I stood up and set the half empty plate and cup down on the throne before adjusting my dress. It would probably take me a while to find my way back to my room without an escort, I might as well start now.

  I made my way toward the door and as expected no one even noticed me slinking off to find my way to bed. I was starting to get the impression these people were exactly like the people I’d known in high school who I had secretly hated all the while trying to be like them: the vapid and self-obsessed. But anyone who was a God was no doubt going to be arrogant.

  This was yet another crucial piece of evidence in favor of me not being a God despite everyone’s insistence. I didn’t think I was that self-absorbed… But then again, I didn’t often scrutinize my personality as much as I did my appearance.

  As I considered everyone’s waning attention tonight my mind drifted back to Zeus and I remembered how he said I was in the penthouse with him. This would’ve been helpful information if he had still been at the party. I could’ve asked him for directions but now he was long gone and I was lost.

  I didn’t know if I was thrilled or not at the idea of being Zeus’ neighbor. No doubt he’d have a lot of female companions by and I hoped that the walls weren’t paper-thin. It was one thing to imagine what it would be like to be with him and totally different to hear someone else’s perspective while I tried to sleep.

  Not to mention being close to him was practically playing with fire when I was trying to reduce my chances of having a quick hook up with some guy because he was hot and mysterious. No matter how intrigued I was by Zeus and no matter how hot I thought he was, maybe it was best to stay away as much as I could.

  He certainly seemed like trouble and getting involved with him would only end in heartbreak.

  But then, maybe he was a gentleman… I laughed out loud. Yeah right. If he is Zeus then he isn’t a gentleman, he’d be a womanizer. Plain as that, to credit him with anything else would be naïve.

  I had probably been wandering the hallways for about a half hour when finally, I spotted someone else. A door opened ahead of me and low and behold who walked out? Zeus: the man of my thoughts. It would be a good opportunity to ask his real name and maybe on the off chance have him unknowingly walk me to our penthouse apartments.

  “Hey!” I called quietly, moving a bit faster to catch up to him. He paused in his movements and waited for me, a good sign.

  “Hello again…” He said slowly, his drawl more pronounced this time. “Heading this way?” He nodded down the hallway to where I assumed our flats were. I nodded and smiled.

  “Indeed. Mind if I join you?”

  “Guess not.” He said simply, adjusting the tail of his shirt where it was half tucked I noticed before slipping his hands in his pockets.

  “I’m Savannah.” I said, quickly holding out my hand before he was completely emerged in his pockets.

  He stared at my hand before nodding, “Aidan, but we met already.”

  A name. I smiled and dropped my hand, knowing he wasn’t going to take it. He seemed different now. Without everyone around him, without needing to put on airs I could see now that his role as Zeus was draining.

  Maybe he wasn’t as arrogant and self-absorbed as he had seemed back in the throne room. Then again, he could also be putting this on as the act to catch me off guard.

  “I know, I didn’t catch your name before… Hey, you okay?” I tried, wondering maybe if I pried that he’d open up about whatever it was on his mind.

  “Do you believe all this?” He asked me, turning to look down at me, and my breath hitched in my throat as I found myself swimming in his beautiful bright blue eyes.

  “Uh, believe what?”

  “This whole thing – that we’re Gods?” His question took me off guard. I would have assumed that he, of all people, would’ve believed it. He seemed to wear the idea of being Zeus well when he was in public. He acted like he was King of the world and everyone respected that. I would have never guessed that secretly he was a disbeliever like me.

  “No. I mean I haven’t had any indication of which Goddess is mine, if I even have one. I find it all a little hard to believe. Frankly I think something’s in the water to make everyone believe Atlas readily when he strikes me as a sex offender.”

  Aidan laughed, it was an uncharacteristically warm laugh and I watched his head tilt back at the force of it. His eyes crinkled together with a sort of innocent amusement before the moment was lost and his serious set features returned. This time he was staring at me, scrutinizing me.

  His eyes bore into mine and sent a small shiver down my spine. I felt like he was probing my mind and dissecting my thoughts. It was an invasive kind of stare.

  “, you don’t know then?” A single eyebrow arched itself perfectly as he stared at me and I found myself frowning in confusion.

  “Know what?”

  “Who you are.” He said simply.

  “Since I find this all hard to believe I haven’t exactly gone out of my way to play along. I’m not typically one to be cavalier about kidnapping and captivity. Are you?”

  “No,” he said coolly, his expression waning between serious and amusement at my outburst. “I mean, you haven’t put any of the clues together to figure out who you are?”

  “There are no clues because none of this is real.” I said growing increasingly frustrated with this conversation. A moment ago, he had seemingly been agreeing with me about the ludicrousness of this situation and now, almost in a bid to annoy me, he was contradicting himself by asking stupid questions about my Goddess.

  “There are plenty of clues if you open your eyes to them.” Now he sounded like Atlas, condescending and all knowing. I wanted to smack him, which was funny because an hour before I had wanted to do the same thing but in a different context.

  “No there aren’t.”

  “Yes, there are.” He said, pulling one hand out to run his fingers through his disheveled hair. “Where you live for one. Who you live near is another…” I frowned; drawing the conclusion he was making but not wanting to believe it.

  “What does me living next to you have anything to do with anything?”

  “Well, Artemis and Apollo live on the same floor. Aphrodite and whom we assume is Ares live on the same floor. Hades and this girl who looks like jailbait live on the same floor… Maybe I’m the only one making this connection but it looks like Atlas laid it all out pretty simply for all of us.” He shrugged in a way that was supposed to suggest there was room for error in his hypothesis.

  “Okay then, if that’s true who does Charlotte live with?” He laughed and looked at me, a devilish grin suddenly painting his features.

 
“Lucky for me, she lives on a floor with the muses.” It took me a moment to realize what he was saying and instantaneously the distaste was visible on my face.

  “Don’t look revolted Queenie, you only live once right?”

  I opened my mouth to say something. I was somewhat disappointed he was now turning out to be exactly how I suspected he would be, before I paused, assessing the nickname he had bestowed on me.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Why not? It’s true, isn’t it? You’re the Queen and I’m the King.” I stopped walking and looked up at him. ‘You’re the Queen’; no, that couldn’t be right. I scowled up at him, all pleasurable feelings I had once felt for him gone. Maybe it was due in part by the idea that if I was Hera and he was Zeus then we were supposed to be married and live in matrimony – maybe not monogamy but matrimony nonetheless.

  I disliked believing anything that told me who I was supposed to marry, and what I was supposed to be. Resistance for this whole affair surged through me again, not only was it ridiculous that I play along with being kidnapped now I was supposed to accept that my fate was sealed to this arrogant man in front of me? No.

  Something about that didn’t sit right with me. Maybe because I knew already that Aidan was a womanizer like his Godly counterpart or maybe it was because no matter how much the idea of falling in love, getting married and having a family one day appealed to me I didn’t like the idea of having it all picked for me in advance.

  Wasn’t I supposed to be the one who got to pick who I spent forever with? Not some Titan who wasn’t even straightforward and honest.

  “No. It’s not true. I can’t be Hera because we don’t have anything in common.”

  Aidan stared at me long and hard once more before he started walking away, “You’re probably right. I’ve got it wrong.” I suspected that he didn’t think he was incorrect but he didn’t want to argue with me. That certainly could be used as evidence in a case against us being Zeus and Hera; they were the infamous love/hate couple of mythology. No one liked to argue with other people as much as those two enjoyed arguing with each other.