Paldimori Gods Rising Box Set

by T. L. Callahan

  1

  “Noooo!” The scream ripped from my throat and was immediately swallowed by the rushing wind as Bennett teleported us away. One moment I was in the horse meadow inside Titan Tower revealing to my best friend Dia King how I had betrayed her. The next, I was standing on a ledge looking down on a city that circled a high mountaintop like an ornate crown. Tall turrets rose into the evening sky, their rooftops alight with glowing balls of fire—the black star-like symbol for the House of Chaos rotating at their center. Below them, white luminescent streets shimmered in the dying light of the evening as people bustled along their cobblestone paths. Fields of bright red flowers grew under a shimmering bubble near the wall on the outskirts of the town. Mountains spread out in the distance as far as the eye could see.

  “Damn you, Bennett!” I beat my hands against his shoulders as I slid from his arms to stand on my own wobbly legs. “Teleport us back right now! I have to explain. Dia thinks I helped to alter her memories.”

  “Ask me anything but that, asteràki,” Bennett said, using the Greek term for “little star.” He grabbed my clenched fists and held them against his chest with one hand. “Lia, I would do anything to keep you safe. Even if I must protect you from yourself. That includes protecting your heart from further abuse.”

  A haunted look flickered across his face then it disappeared just as quickly. He knocked gently on the closed door on my side of the mental connection we shared as bond-mates, and I eased the door open. The sharpest edge of the pain dulled a little as he tugged at my heartache, pulling a bit of it into himself. A shaky breath escaped my lips as the pressure building in my chest lessened. Bennett nudged my chin up, forcing me to meet his gaze. His calloused fingers traced the tears that continued to stream down my cheeks. Those dark brown eyes held mine captive as he silently asked if I wanted him to take all of the pain away. A part of me wanted to let him, but that was a slippery slope leading back to the person I used to be. To the Lia Davies who buried every emotion and never let anyone close. That wasn’t who I was trying to be now.

  I shook my head.

  “Dia made her choice.” Bennett’s deep voice echoed with a finality that I couldn’t accept. My lips parted to say that I could fix this if he would only take me back. That years of friendship couldn’t be ended in a single moment. He placed his finger against my lips, stalling my argument. “You must respect that, asteràki, and give her time. Cutting herself off from the friend she considers a sister was a rash decision made out of fear and anger. Dia can no more walk away from you permanently, than you could her. You came back to her once you found a way to move on after the death of your parents. She too must find her own way back to you.”

  What he said made sense, but it didn’t diminish the pain. It didn’t silence the pounding need in my veins to find the sister of my heart and make things right between us. I hadn’t told Dia when I found out that I was Paldimori: a descendant of the six Primordial Gods of Greek legend. I hadn’t told her that she had been there to witness Bennett’s step-sister, Natalie—the crazy girl who had tried to kill me repeatedly because of her jealousy over an old boyfriend of mine, and because she was in love with Bennett—attack me at my parents’ house. Dia hadn’t known, until moments ago, that I had ended up in the hospital because of the injuries from that attack, and not as a result of the fake memories of a boiler explosion that had been planted in her head by one of the Kyrion, the leaders of the six Paldimori Houses. I may not have known about that decision until recently, but I had kept secrets from my best friend. It was my fault that she couldn’t stand to be near me right now. But what could I do to fix this? My powers were still developing, and my control was crappy at best. Teleporting myself back to the island of Sotirìa where the Paldimori Games took place wasn’t going to work, and Bennett was refusing to take me back.

  The fight drained out of me, and I slumped against his chest. Bennett wrapped his arms around me. He didn’t say anything more, but his embrace was the anchor I needed to hold me together right now. Dia’s parting words had stripped my heart bare and squeezed it into a mangled mess. “I don’t want you here anymore. You aren’t the person I thought you were. I guess she really did die with her parents.”

  All I had ever wanted to do was protect Dia. In the end, I had been the one to hurt her the most. My best friend—the one person who knew me better than anyone else in the world and had stood beside me through it all—was beyond my reach right now. I had thought I knew what was best for her. I had tried to keep her away from all things Paldimori. There was a prophecy that said the Chosen would rise to save the Paldimori race—or doom them to destruction. That had painted a target on my back when I was claimed as a Chosen by the God of Chaos. I had barely survived the attacks during the Games thanks to Natalie and her friends. Now Dia too was a Chosen, claimed by the Goddess Gaia, and in more danger than ever.

  Suddenly, a loud howl echoed through the city. Bennett kissed the top of my head and pressed his palms against my back where the House of Chaos symbol was branded into my skin marking me as his bond-mate for life. “Axol knows I am home and has announced my arrival to all of Prometheus. He has become very sensitive to my energy,” he said, the fondness for the dog he had rescued clear in his voice. Then he sighed and cupped my cheeks, pulling me away from his chest. His eyes roamed over my face taking in the fatigue that weighed me down—this divide from Dia being only the latest burden thrust on me after weeks of struggling to train my powers and researching the quest I had been tasked with by the Primordial God Chaos—or as he introduced himself to me, Titan Theophanes—to find the twin Houses of the Olympian Omàda.

  “I had planned to bring you here to Prometheus to introduce you to our people in a few more weeks,” Bennett said. “After I had time to discuss what being a Kyrion means and to teach you the ways of our people.” He combed his fingers through his caramel-colored hair, making it stand up in messy spikes. “I have many duties as the leader of the House of Chaos and of all Paldimori people. Duties that you, my bond-mate, will share when you are officially named my co-ruler.”

  “Wait—What?” If this was his idea of a distraction from my heartache it was working. Who in their right mind would put me in charge of an entire society of magical people? I couldn’t even light a fire with my powers without blowing something up.

  “In the eyes of our people, you are a Kyrion-in-training, who will take your place as co-ruler once the official ceremony to announce you has concluded.” Bennett watched me closely as if he was waiting for me to lose my shit. Smart man. “I told you that when we bonded it was mind, body, and soul. We do not yet understand what it means for you to be Chosen, but you bear my symbol—the symbol of the House of Chaos. You have been my intended co-ruler since the night we sealed our bond and exchanged our wedding vows, even if you did not know at the time what was occurring. That, and gaining control of your powers so that you are not a danger to anyone, is why we have been training so hard. That is also why I have brought you here to my home.”

  I groaned, dropping my head back onto his muscular chest. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  2

  My bare arms prickled with goose bumps, and my teeth were chattering by the time the winding dirt trail leading down from the mountain gave way to cobblestone streets. Bennett would have teleported us, but I needed the time to compose myself before I met his people.

  Across the road from us stood an imposing fortress–mansion hybrid that looked as if someone had cut the two different structures in half and smashed them together. On the left side was a pitted and stained square stone structure reminiscent of some medieval military fortification. The stained-glass windows of its upper floors piqued my inner artist’s curiosity about who had commissioned the updates that mashed together such elegance and brutality.

  A circular drive led up to the building, wrapping around a familiar-looking large black statue surrounded by glowing hot coals. The statue was of the same man in Bennett’s courtyar
d at Titan Tower—the one that had turned into a naked Titan Theophanes—only here he was half-formed as if rising from the depths of the earth. The starlight that dotted the black stone sparkled in the lights that blazed from the tall windows that lined each floor of the three-story house that made up the right side of Bennett’s home. Its walls were of warm, taupe-colored bricks with veins of black running over them as if a toddler had been let loose with a paintbrush. It was like a van Gogh painting: garish and almost crude in its individual components, yet beautiful when viewed as a whole. A four-car attached garage took up the far right side of the driveway. But it was the mountains towering above and surrounding this isolated city and the quaint stone houses lining the streets below that made me wish for a sketch pad. I wrapped my arms around myself to ward off the cold and drew in a deep breath of clean mountain air. Gods, its beautiful here. I wish Dia could see it. She would—

  The pain hit me again as I remembered that Dia had cut me out of her life. I’m not giving up on our friendship. Do you hear me, gods? Whatever your plans for us, I won’t be leaving her behind again. We had been through far too much together already. I would do what I needed to do here, and then I was going back to Sotirìa to make things right with my best friend.

  A lone woman stood under the lights of the portico at the front entrance of the mansion with Bennett’s dog, Axol, at her side. As we started around the circular drive, Axol jumped forward giving an excited yip. Bennett smiled, and I could feel his excitement.

  “Go on. I just need to catch my breath,” I said, nudging him forward, my chest still heaving from the trek down the mountain. When he didn’t budge, I huffed out a panting breath. “Seriously, I’m fine. I know you’ve missed him these last couple of weeks we’ve been training. Go see your buddy.”

  Bennett jogged up the driveway leaving me behind in the falling light of the evening. Axol darted forward as if he would run to meet Bennett but stopped to look up at the woman by his side. She waved him forward, and the dog shot across the last several feet to his owner. He yipped happily, jumping all around and rubbing up against Bennett’s legs. Bennett kneeled down, petting the dog all over, his rarely heard laughter filling the air. My heart warmed as the big dog stood on his hind legs with his paws on Bennett’s shoulders in a doggy hug. This was the Bennett very few got to see. The man behind the throne that I had fallen in love with.

  I took a few steps up the driveway but then stopped as a thought struck me. The man behind the throne was the one I had gotten to know a bit better, but what about the man who sat on the throne? I was here in the city that he ruled over, and I had no clue about this part of his life. I had seen him as Kyrion Chaos in the Games, and I hadn’t liked what I saw. What was his life like here? What would my life be like here?

  I realized uneasily that our time together at my parents’ house had been a reprieve of sorts. It had been our bubble where I was able to convince myself that Bennett and I were a normal couple with this extra sprinkle of extraordinary powers. We hadn’t talked about thrones or ruling a hidden society. We hadn’t talked about whether we would live in my house or his. There had been training, research, and lovemaking. Rinse and repeat with conversations about the prophecy and my quest somewhere in the mix. I still didn’t know much about this world I had stumbled into—or the man who ruled it all.

  Bennett’s like a king to the Paldimori. That would make me—

  A cold sweat beaded my brow, and I immediately cut the thought off before it could fully take form. Being a co-ruling Kyrion doesn’t mean royalty, Lia. You’ll probably be like his valet or adviser. I was not cut out to be what equated to royalty in their world. I liked comfy clothes, action movies, and less bullshit in my diet. I rubbed my clammy hands down my thighs trying not to think of all the attention the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stirred up. Bennett and I were nothing like that. Right?

  I glanced up at that mismatched mansion and had taken two steps backward before I caught myself. “No running,” I whispered to myself. “You’re stronger than that now.”

  I forced myself to move forward, focusing on Bennett as my destination. While I had been having a freak-out moment, the woman under the portico had moved closer to where Bennett and Axol were still getting reacquainted. She watched them with her hands clasped in front of her and a radiant smile on her face that quickly died when she noticed me. Golden-brown hair whipped over her shoulders as she turned toward me so fast that I barely saw her move; my arm was wrenched behind my back, and I was forced to the ground. My knees burned where the cobblestones bit through my thin workout pants.

  “Who are you? Why are you here?” the woman demanded, twisting my arm further.

  “Ouch, shit.” I leaned forward trying to ease the ache. “Bennett, we have a problem here. Can you stop with the doggy kisses and get over here?”

  Bennett glanced at us and commanded Axol to sit before he came over. “Selene, I would like you to meet Lia. My bond-mate and your soon-to-be Kyrion,” he said, barely managing to suppress the laughter in his voice. The woman I assumed was Selene went still behind me. Her grip loosened for a moment before clamping down like a vise on my arm. Why wasn’t she letting me go? I struggled, but the woman didn’t budge an inch. “You may want to go a bit easy. Lia becomes grouchy when she is in pain or hungry. Also, when I give her orders—or well, most any time. Then things explode.”

  “Asshat,” I cursed at him through our connection. “You would be grouchy too if you were bonded to a bossy know-it-all who makes you work out all the time and hides all of your chocolate.”

  “It is called practice,” he corrected, proving my point about being a know-it-all. “To help you gain control of that exploding part I mentioned and to learn to protect yourself. You should be able to break out of her hold.” Bennett’s amusement was obvious through our bond when he added, “And your chocolate addiction has turned into an obsession. If there was a chocoholic anonymous program, I would be tempted to enroll you. Although, I do enjoy watching you stomp around the house searching for it. And the inventive names that you call me.”

  I tried again to counter Selene’s hold, but it was no use. “Are you telling her to do this?” When he only chuckled in return it was all the confirmation I needed. Talk about obsessions: he never missed an opportunity to turn a situation into training. Well, I could play dirty too. I had discovered that my boyfriend loved to collect maps when we had found one in my father’s study. “I’m going to sell that map we found on eBay if you don’t get me out of this.”

  The woman released me almost immediately and helped me to my feet. Her voice was smooth as silk and had that same cultured perfection as Bennett’s when she said, “Apologies, Lia. I didn’t know Bear was bringing a guest.” Selene shot Bennett a look that said this was all his fault. “I don’t usually keep guests in an armlock. You’ll have to fill me in on this new courtship tradition, Bear.”

  “A bit of training, little rabbit, that is all,” Bennett replied with a cocky smirk.

  Irritation fizzled in my veins at the cutesy nicknames. “If by ‘Bear’ you mean the wizard boy here, he isn’t great with the details, so I’m not surprised he didn’t tell you I was coming,” I said with a huff. “I didn’t even know I was coming here.”

  It didn’t help that Selene looked like a runway model in four-inch heels and a black sleeveless jumpsuit that hugged her slim figure. Her high cheek bones and pouty pink lips were free of any makeup. I, on the other hand, was sweating profusely and my ponytail was hanging halfway off the side of my head. Then there was the fact that the woman had put me on my knees in seconds with heels on and standing on uneven stones. I couldn’t even walk in heels on flat ground. I sure as hell hadn’t managed to take someone down to their knees, even though we’d been training non-stop.

  Her pale arms were deceptively delicate as she held out her hand. The polite smile she gave me was perfunctory without any real emotion. She was like a porcelain doll: perfectly beautiful yet lacking an
y human emotions. “Selene Roussos, Archai for the House of Chaos.”

  I shook her hand. “Lia Davies, nice to meet you.”

  “I apologize for attacking you,” Selene motioned to my arm. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

  “I’m good,” I said, stretching out my arm to relieve the last of the ache. “I blame the Neanderthal you call ‘Bear’ for our unusual introduction.” My elbow landed in Bennett’s ribs making him grunt as I pulled the ponytail holder from my hair and finger-combed it into some kind of order. “Unexpected guests would make me jumpy too,” I sympathized.

  “Yes, I suppose so, given everything that Bear has told me about you,” Selene replied. My glare said he was so dead for talking about me with the runway model. “I’m sure it’s been a lot to take in when you are used to the human world.” Selene gave me what I think was supposed to be a sympathetic look. “Natalie’s childish antics must have painted a horrible picture of our world. I hope you won’t judge us all by her actions. Unfortunately, Bear’s father overcompensated for the loss of her family by pampering her.”

  “Sheath your claws, little rabbit,” Bennett scolded without much heat, as if this were a topic they argued about often. It was clear these two had a long history together. There was affection there, but I couldn’t help wondering if it went beyond that. “Nat has been through a lot. She needs our help.”

  Selene looked as if she wanted to say more but only nodded. I snorted in disgust. Why was everyone willing to give that psycho Natalie a pass? Did the rest of the Paldimori think like Selene clearly did that I was a whiny newbie from the human world who couldn’t deal with some childish bullying?

  “I wouldn’t call killing me with an arrow through my chest or the various other attempts on my life ‘childish antics,’” I gritted out, feeling every bit as grumpy as Bennett claimed me to be. Natalie should have been locked away and stripped of her powers. Instead she got shipped home to daddy with a pat on the head and some bullshit mandatory therapy sessions. I hated that Bennett forgave his step-sister for kissing him into a catatonic state so easily. Not to mention the boy she had killed or the lives she destroyed—including mine. It was a sore subject that Bennett and I had both avoided to keep the peace.