Collecting The Goddess
Chronicles Of KieraFreya™ 01
Michael Anderle
This book is a work of fiction.
All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © 2019 Michael Anderle
Cover by Mihaela Voicu http://www.mihaelavoicu.com/
Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing
A Michael Anderle Production
LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
LMBPN Publishing
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Las Vegas, NV 89109
First US edition, June
eBook ISBN: 978-1-64202-345-9
Contents
Prologue
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
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Epilogue
Creator Notes - Michael Anderle
Books by Michael Anderle
Connect with the author
Collecting The Goddess Team
Thanks to our Beta Team
Daniel Weigert, Erika Everest, John Ashmore, Kelly O’Donnell, Sarah Weir, and Mary Morris
Thanks to our JIT Readers
Jeff Eaton
Dave Hicks
Dorothy Lloyd
Misty Roa
Peter Manis
Joshua Ahles
Daniel Weigert
If We’ve missed anyone, please let us know!
Editor
The Skyhunter Editing Team
To Family, Friends and
Those Who Love
To Read.
May We All Enjoy Grace
To Live The Life We Are
Called.
Prologue
Demetri stepped aside to allow an elderly woman to walk through the space he’d occupied but a second before. Taking the last few steps, he opened the door to the small mom-and-pop restaurant.
The cafe was bustling. It was a cute little diner with plastic gingham tablecloths and a handful of overweight matron-types serving food to tables and holding coffee jugs.
Demetri scanned across the tops of heads, over a sea of families, the elderly, and the unemployed before he spotted the person he was looking for. She was sitting in a corner, raising a stained cup of something to her lips. Looking as beautiful as ever.
He took a breath and waited for his heart to finish skipping its beat, and waded through the patrons to her table.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Demetri called, displaying his widest grin and holding his arms wide as if to say, “Here I am.”
Mia Denton, his old college flame, smiled back, then stood and wrapped her arms around his shoulders in the way she had when they were high school sweethearts.
Already it felt so familiar. Although they hadn’t seen each other in—how many decades must it have been?—it felt completely right, like jigsaw pieces locking into place. He began to wonder why they’d ever parted in the first place.
“You’ve gotten fat,” Mia mock-struggled, pretending to not be able to touch her hands together behind his back.
“I’d say you’ve gotten taller, but we both knew that would never happen.” He winked.
They took their seats across the table from each other and the waitress took their order. Coffee, black, and a scrambled egg on toast for Demetri, and another tea for Mia.
It seemed she had already eaten. She had arrived way ahead of their meeting time and found herself too hungry to hold back.
He eyed her plate, one eyebrow raised. “You never could wait, could you?”
Mia looked abashed, her cheeks flushing. “You know me. If I see something I want, I do everything in my power to get it. Turned out my stomach wanted food.” She smirked. “Who am I to deny such a thing?”
They laughed then, going down memory lane and collecting the fun times along the way. Their friends at school, their families, how life had treated them, and how it was treating them now.
It was so easy to talk to each other, as though not a second had passed since they had stalked the lakes and countryside together and held hands. Demetri studied her face as she talked, noticing the cute age lines that now decorated the corners of her eyes and mouth.
She was certainly older, Damn, she has aged well, he thought.
“So tell me,” Demetri said after a pause in which they found themselves staring into each other’s eyes. His mind raced as he wondered what was going on in her head. “What are you doing these days? Still flower-arranging for old Ted down Viking Street?”
Demetri remembered the last time he had seen Mia, a flying visit as he’d hurried on his way to yet another exam for his Professional Practice in Psychology license.
He had already been cutting it close, having three minutes to make the five-minute journey when he had seen her. He’d paused for a quick hello, sweat dripping from his forehead, before hurrying off and making the exam by the skin of his teeth.
She rolled her eyes, “Oh, that old job. Hell, no. As much fun as it is slicing your fingers open with thorns on a day-to-day basis, I packed that in.”
Demetri smirked. “You sound a bit bitter about it?”
She eyed her plate, perhaps hoping a bit of her breakfast was still available. “Well, once I realized that old Ted was a perv who used to make me bend down
to pick up the bundles and collect debris off the floor for his own enjoyment, the job lost some of its charm. Well, that, and…”
Mia leaned in conspiratorially, holding her hand by her mouth and waiting for Demetri to lean in too. “You know roses cost nothing to grow, right? Like, literally zero dollars, yet guys buy them for over thirty dollars a dozen.”
He winked as he whispered back, “Wow, you did them cheap.”
Mia playfully slapped Demetri’s face.
Demetri feigned shock and they hovered near each other for a moment, electricity passing between them.
“Well, that’s over now, anyway,” Mia said, leaning back. Demetri wondered if there had been a double meaning to those words. Probably not, judging by the foot sliding up his trouser leg. “Change of careers for me.”
“Yeah?” He waved down the waitress and asked her for more coffee. “What’s the switch?”
“Game development,” she said simply and took a dramatic sip of her tea.
“Game development?” Demetri asked, eyebrows raised skeptically. “You? Miss ‘Can-you-please-spend-time-with-me-in-the-real-world’ is now creating the very games that led to some of the biggest arguments I’ve ever had with anyone in my life?” He added after a moment, “Ever.”
His accusation of hypocrisy was set aside with a shrug. “Yeah. I mean, the stuff I’m working on right now is a bit different than when I used to find you sitting day after day in the same pair of sweatpants playing Relic Hunter: 2. We’re more into the VR space now, creating full-immersion multiplayer experiences. Something you can really get your teeth into.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Not rubbing your crotch while you watch elves screwing elves by your lonesome.”
“Keep your voice down.” Demetri looked at the other tables, checking that no one had overheard Mia’s words. “Please! I have a reputation to maintain.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Mia said, playfully. Her voice grew louder as she turned her head toward the cafe, but her eyes never moved from his face. “Mr. Bigshot Psychologist doesn’t want people to know he used to live down on the ground with us mere mortals. That he used to drop Cheetos down the side of the couch and use the fallen items as nourishment when he couldn’t be bothered to wash plates or get his lazy ass off the couch.”
Demetri blushed, crouching and hiding his face with his hand.
He glanced over his fingers, finding that literally no one was paying attention. The diner’s customers were all too involved in their own gossip and conversation to give a crap about two high school sweethearts playing catch-up.
“Are you done?” Demetri hissed.
“For now.” Mia smirked. “But, since we’re on the subject of our careers, it seems like as good a time as any to get to the bottom of why I asked you to meet with me today.”
“Aw, man, can’t a pretty girl ask a handsome guy to breakfast without wanting something in return?” Demetri feigned exasperation. “A man can feel used, you know.”
“Hey, if a girl really wanted something, she’d ask the man to dinner at a decent restaurant.” She pointed around the café. “Not a crummy diner in the early morning light,” Mia said, biting her tongue coyly.
She reached down to the seat beside her and pulled out a magazine. A devilishly groomed man beamed on the cover, a hand pinching the knot of his tie. “You know who this is, right?”
Demetri scoffed. “You know I do, but I’m not exactly sure what you’re getting at here.”
Mia grinned and fanned through the pages, finding the center spread with the same man, who stood at the forefront of a V of sophisticated-looking men and women with similar features. They were all dressed in power suits. Some had their arms folded, others had their hands in their pockets. Eight of them in total. A headline at the top of the page read Hector’s Heights Soar Ever Higher.
Mia slapped the magazine down as if her point had been made. “The Lagardes are one of the wealthiest families in America. Like, we’re talking stupid ridiculous money. More zeroes than anyone can count. More zeroes than I can scribble onto this page before running out of space.”
She paused, meeting Demetri’s eyes.
“And what does their wealth have to do with me?” Demetri said, already feeling like he knew where this conversation was headed.
She tapped one of the guys in the image. “Hector has just invested 3.5 billion into the Tesla program to support Elon Musk, acting as a primary contributing benefactor to his programs of development. Stocks have skyrocketed—excuse the pun—and he’s tripled his investment.”
She moved her finger across the page to a man and woman, around their early-thirties who looked near enough identical had it not been for the clear difference in gender.
“Henry and Henrietta Lagarde, just last month invested half a million dollars into Occulus and the development of advanced AI embedment into AR and VR. Already the reports are coming back in, and they’ve doubled their investment.”
Another move of her finger.
“Mum and Dad. Hugo and Helena, one of the richest couples in the world. A couple whose own investments into the development of advanced technologies for the human race brought about 5g, 6g, and created power sources so efficient that they make the old Duracell bunnies look like dehydrated tortoises.”
Demetri leaned back and sighed, grabbing his cup of cold coffee.
“And, here…” Mia turned the page, finding where a small square thumbnail showcased an image of Demetri in his office, a plush purple-leather couch behind his beaming smile and a wall of books.
She continued, “The live-in psychologist of the family, who Hector boasts is the hidden gem. The good luck charm. The advisor who has helped the Lagardes see through the fog and put the stamp on their investments for the last twenty years.”
Demetri removed his glasses and polished them on his shirt. “Let me guess: you’ve got a recommendation for software you’d like me to bend Hector’s ear on. Make him your next investor?”
Mia’s smile grew, and her eyes twinkled.
She shook her head and turned the page back to the V of Lagardes, pointing to the very back of the line where a young woman stood. Stood in the shadows of her brothers and sisters, a false smile strapped on her face. Whereas the other family members had small boxes near their heads detailing their financial worth, this girl didn’t, just a title and her name.
“I want her. I want Chloe.”
Demetri took a sip of his coffee, wincing as his lips met the cold liquid. “What’s the project? I won’t suggest a project I unless I believe it will have a good return for the family. You are fantastic, but not that fantastic.”
Mia smiled. “Please. I am that fantastic, but I wouldn’t do anything like that to you.”
Then she told Demetri everything.
Chapter One
Something was screeching at the top of its lungs, a grating sound that rattled the very bones of Chloe’s hollow skull. She rolled over, the light from her alarm clock causing her to squint as she slapped a hand on top. Once...twice...third time’s the charm.
“Eurgh.”
She sat up slowly, the pounding hangover taking her. Her mouth tasted like someone had opened it and taken a dump straight inside. Her hair stood out at all angles. She closed her eyes, rested her head against the wall and tried to recall what the hell had happened.
Cosmos at some hipster joint on the square. Chloe and her girlfriends gossiping and living the high-life. Weekend binges and shopping sprees. Her girlfriends pulling the guys while she sat and held their bags. Round after round on Chloe, the youngest daughter of the Lagarde legacy. It was all she had ever known.
Then why didn’t it feel right anymore?
“Good morning, Miss Lagarde,” Tabitha, Chloe’s personal assistant, said. Chloe jumped. How long had she been standing there?
“Already? Can’t I have a few more hours?”
“Actually, I was being polite. It’s almost noon, and you have appointments to keep. Your father won’t be ple
ased if you miss them.” Tabitha studied her tablet, tapping the screen and casting the information to a projector built into the end of Chloe’s bed. A holographic image appeared several feet from Chloe’s face.
“Wow. Much excitement,” Chloe said, scanning the list of board meetings and project reviews with bleary eyes. Things she had learned to abhor after she realized she offered no real value to them. Her brothers and sisters? They came prepared. They knew the ins and outs. Chloe just sat quietly in the corner, nodding at the right moments and casting votes whenever necessary.
“Can’t you just tell my father to shove it? And Mother too, for that matter.”
Tabitha rolled her eyes. “For the millionth time, Miss Lagarde, your mother and father are my employers, not you. My job is to serve the family and ensure that you are where you need to be at the right times.” She checked her watch. “Speaking of which, in ten minutes, you will be exactly one minute late for your weekly appointment with Mr. Smythe.”
Collecting The Goddess (Chronicles Of KieraFreya Book 1) Page 1