The shadow gods, p.1
The Shadow Gods, page 1
The Shadow Gods
Rebels and Curses
Book Two
Ripley Proserpina
Copyright © 2022 by Ripley Proserpina
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.
Editing by Autumn Reed
Cover by Artscandare Book Cover Design
Created with Vellum
For the Readers Who Have Stuck with Me
Contents
1. Medusa
2. Hector
3. Leo
4. Hector
5. Paris
6. Orestes
7. Leo
8. Achilles
9. Leo
10. Leo
11. Orestes
12. Leo
13. Pollux
14. Leo
15. Paris
16. Leo
17. Achilles
18. Leo
19. Hector
20. Leo
21. Pollux
22. Leo
23. Orestes
24. Leo
25. Leo
26. Paris
27. Leo
28. Hector
29. Leo
30. Pollux
31. Leo
32. Leo
33. Pollux
34. Leo
35. Leo
36. Paris
37. Leo
38. Achilles
39. Leo
40. Orestes
41. Leo
42. Achilles
43. Leo
44. Orestes
45. Leo
46. Hector
47. Leo
48. Leo
49. Leo
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Ripley Proserpina
Medusa
Thousands of Years Ago
Someone was here. Like all warriors, they tried to move silently through my lair.
The smoke from the torches lighting this cold, lonely space cast shadows on the stained walls. Hundreds of years of smoke marred a temple that used to be pristine. Even now, I could picture it. The altar. The columns.
The statue of the goddess remained stark white, while everything around me was tainted.
Like I was.
Gods, I was tired.
I crept over the broken marble floors, slithered over the stone bodies of the men who had come before.
To kill me.
To punish me for a crime I had never committed and an outcome I’d never deserved.
Rage filled my belly and my companions hissed at my disquiet. We were one now, when for so long, we'd been creatures desperate to escape each other. A cool tongue kissed my cheek, and I reached my hand to my head, petting the serpents. Quiet, quiet. My touch calmed them, though I felt anything but.
Metal clattered to the ground, and if I hadn't needed to worry about my life, I would have smiled. Whoever this was moved with the stealth of an oversized bull.
I bent down, taking up the golden sword of one of my victims. My hazy reflection gleamed in the shiny hilt, and for a second, I was captivated. There were no features to discern, only the outline of my neck and head.
And the serpents.
Don't look.
I didn't want to see what I'd become, but it was ever so tempting. I only had a dim memory of what I'd been and what the goddess Athena had made me. Now, there was only what the dim light revealed. Dirty hands and arms. Long, ragged nails. My dress had long ago disintegrated, so I wore what my victims left behind: a breastplate and bracers. I had no need for shoes, as Athena had transformed my skin into scales and folded my lower body into that of a snake.
Gliding one hand over my skin, I brushed aside the rocks and dirt that clung to me and stretched around a fallen column to find my pursuer.
There.
He was younger than the other warriors and not clad in the protective gear of a soldier. His eyes were wide, scanning every dark corner, but never landing on me. In his worst nightmares, he couldn't conceive of such a being.
In one hand, he held a sword, and the other, a bright shield. I noticed something strapped to his back but ignored it. The danger was the weapon that trembled like the flickering flames of the torches.
Who are you?
Had he lost a wager? Part of me—the human part from long ago, the part that had been stomped, violated, and beaten—hated his fate. He couldn't defeat me. The moment our eyes met, he would transform from this scared boy to stone.
The other part of me—the after, the one that had been molded by cruelty and fear—felt nothing but anger.
I did nothing to deserve this, but mortal after mortal, and even a half-god or two, made it their mission to steal into my asylum and hunt me.
Honor. Pride. Bragging rights. Those were the motivations behind these trespassers.
Despite this boy's age, he was no different.
My serpents hissed quietly in my ear, as if urging me to inquire. They were curious creatures, hesitant and tentative, but curious.
And they wondered about him.
It wouldn't change the outcome, but I gave into their desire.
My voice, which I hadn't used since Athena had turned me, came out rusty and broken as I slid lower, hiding my grotesque body behind a fallen wall. “Who are you?”
The sword fell from his hand, clattering onto the marble and betraying his youth and inexperience.
“Gorgon.”
Not my name, but the title given to me by the goddess. Gorgon. The word, spoken in a language that had morphed and changed since it had rolled off my tongue, was guttural. Rough. It meant, “grim.” “Dreadful.” Athena's punishment hadn't only been this . . . this . . . body. It had been all-encompassing. Not even my name was remembered, only what I'd become.
Anger welled up, and my serpents coiled and hissed, then darted into the air, tasting it.
“Who are you?” I asked again.
“Perseus.” His voice was a little louder this time, a little stronger. He placed the shield at his feet, grasped the item on his back, and twisted it toward him as he picked up his sword. “Son of Zeus.”
Zeus.
Father of Athena. This made Perseus her brother. And he was nephew to Poseidon.
The god who had . . .
I swallowed, mouth suddenly dry as a million and one images assaulted my brain the way the god had assaulted my body.
Perseus crept closer, and I slid farther into the shadows. He came to stand beneath a torch, and now I could see him clearly. The wide brown eyes, the clear, pale skin. He was broad-shouldered but lanky, like he still had years before his strength and size were realized.
So young.
I'd been young once, too, but my youth and innocence were stolen. I hadn't been given a chance at survival.
“Why are you here?” I asked. He didn't belong here.
“The gods sent me,” he replied. “I need—”
I cut him off. “Go.” Survive. “Whatever the gods have told you are lies.”
“Why would I believe a monster over the gods?”
The serpents hissed, as if offended for me. I was used to the name, but it still hurt. “If I'm a monster, it's because the gods made me one. Go home, boy. Live your life.”
I turned from him, refusing to murder someone barely out of childhood. From the corner of my eye, I caught a gleam. A flash. Instinctively, I drew back, hiding as much of my body as possible. My serpents went silent, watching.
He held his sword high. If I had been crueler, I could have attacked then. The posture left him open, and with one thrust of the many swords littering the floor, I could slice him from naval to nose.
I didn't, though.
Perseus came closer, his feet kicking stones along the floor. Jaw set, muscles tense, he came toward me, and I backed up farther.
Run.
I should have, but I didn't. Instead, I put my hand over my mouth, trying to be so, so quiet. Cool tongues touched my shoulders and neck, and I lifted the other hand to stroke the smooth bodies wound around me.
It was then I made a mistake. One I had never made before, and one that couldn't be taken back. I glanced at the serpents hovering by my face and missed the smooth, mirrored silver until it was right in front of me.
There I was.
I had aged. My eyes were harder, darker, and shadowed. Lines bracketed my mouth, which was drawn tightly. Gone were the petal pink lips and flushed, tan skin. All that was left was a monster.
The serpents hissed, mouths open wide, fangs displayed as a warning as they too came face to face with their reflection.
I felt the cold creep along my cheeks, caught the arc of metal as it swept through the air toward me.
It sliced. Cut. Severed.
But there was time to be scared. A scream left my throat before my head rolled from my shoulders. And still, there was time to be sad and mourn the path my life had taken.
As my vision dimmed, Perseus came to stand next to me, and with my dying thought, I realized, this. This was happened when you were merciful.
Hector
Too Many Years Later To Count
I didn't know enough about the Gorgons.
The thought raced through my brain as I maneuvered my old beast of a vehicle over the moors to the cott
Leo sat next to me. Her red hair wild, curls riotous. Her face was pale and serious, making her golden brown freckles stand out on her skin. She focused those warm brown eyes of hers on the road ahead of us, but I got the sense she didn't really see where we were going.
Today was supposed to go differently for her. When we'd found her, defending herself against a committee of Oxford professors bent on stealing her research and smearing her reputation, she reminded me of a soldier in battle. For a small woman, she projected confidence in a way that left you feeling she was taller, older, and stronger than she was.
But she was young. And while she was confident in her intelligence, she second-guessed herself in all other aspects of her life. It made me want to follow her into war and protect her with my life.
Right now, though, she was quiet.
Too quiet.
Leo was hardly ever quiet. Her voice filled spaces, nervous, awkward, but genuine. Always genuine.
I reached for her hand, the one she had clenched tightly in a fist on her knee. She jumped when our fingers touched, and I pulled back.
I thought she stretched toward me, but maybe I misread it. After everything Athena had shown her, maybe the touch of a man's hand was too much for her.
But all I wanted was to hold her.
Her gaze was on me. I could feel it the same way I felt the sun on my face. The warmth of it went from the crown of my head down to my lips, lingered there, and then was gone. Hidden behind a cloud. Leaving me chilled right down to my bones.
The images that Athena had forced into Leo's head still ran in circles around mine. I squeezed the steering wheel, wishing it was the neck of the god who had hurt her.
Medusa.
There was the myth of her—vengeful, frightening, wrong—and then there was . . . her.
Leo.
She wasn't a monster. She hadn't been then, and she wasn't now.
The Gorgon wasn't a creature I'd come into contact with during my infinite existence, though for some reason unknown to me, her face had adorned temples and homes throughout Greece.
Sucking in a breath, I opened my mouth to speak, but words failed me.
I should have taken her hand.
We were close to home now. Coming up over a rise, I could make out the shape of my cottage, shrouded in mist. “We can't stay here.”
She nodded. “I know.” Her voice was tight, giving me the impression she was holding back tears. A quick glance in her direction revealed dry eyes and a pale face, though. If she was sad or scared, the only sign of it was the small lines next to her mouth and between her ruddy brows.
She looked so very, very human.
I wouldn't let anything happen to her. I swore it to myself.
The closer we got, the more tasks I enumerated. Get the seal, money, passports, computers, clothes. I had more than enough money from my current company to keep us afloat without touching the funds I'd accumulated over millennia. There was no doubt in my mind Athena knew where we were, and for some reason—some unspoken, unrevealed strategy—she'd chosen Oxford as the place to show her true self.
I'd figure that out later, but first, I had to get us out of England.
Between me, my brother, Achilles, Pollux, and Orestes, we'd untangle the goddess's plan and make Leo safe.
Leo
I'd carried box after box of tools and any books I thought I might need from the cottage to the car. After one trip, Orestes had taken them from my hands, indicating that I needed to rest and let him and the others handle it.
Now, I sat in the front seat of Hector's Land Rover with the heat blasting while I watched these beautiful, protective men prepare for war.
Because that's what Athena had started today.
I'd woken up this morning thinking the worst thing that would happen was having to defend my reputation. My former advisor from Harvard, Diana Regan, had accused me of stealing her research and taking what should have been her credit for my discoveries. Everything I'd worked for was in danger—my job, the papers I'd published. But Oxford, the place where I'd dreamed of working all my life, had given me the opportunity to counter her charges.
At least, that was what I'd expected to do. When I'd arrived at my department, I'd been blindsided by accusations from Diana and the other members of the Classical Studies department. And I hadn't been able to prove my innocence. As a result, I had been relegated to lecturing introductory classes for undergrads.
That should have been the worst thing that happened, but it wasn't. Nothing was what it seemed. The committee's decision hadn't been based on intellectual differences. And Diana Regan's grudge against me wasn't one of advisor to student.
No. This went deeper and way further back in history than my graduate years at Harvard. This grudge went back to another lifetime, when a mortal priestess had angered a goddess.
Diana wasn't merely a professor. She was the goddess Athena, and she'd been setting me up for a game I hadn't known I was playing. Today, she'd fired the first shot, announcing her existence not to just me, but to the five heroes who, like a Greek goddess, shouldn't exist.
But I wouldn't say she'd won the battle. For being the goddess of wisdom and strategy, she hadn't anticipated the strength of my five heroes. By some miracle, we'd come out the victors, and Athena had run away.
Wood crashed against stone, jerking me out of my thoughts. Through the rain, I saw Hector fling open the small wooden door built into the base of the foundation of his cottage. He ducked through it, disappearing beneath the cottage.
For a little while during our drive here, he'd held my hand, and I'd studied him, taking in his fierce profile. His dark hair, which was just a little too long, curled around his head and fell over his forehead. His beard was a shade darker than his hair and only outlined how solid his jaw was. I'd observed the muscles jumping in his jaw and caught the tightening around his eyes and mouth, giving away his tension.
He was broad-shouldered and tall, and even in the driver's seat, he'd made me feel like a shrimp. His hand, I’d noticed when it had covered mine, had thin, white scars over the back. One day, I would kiss those scars and watch those icy blue eyes melt.
Some day.
I shivered and squinted through the misty windshield, feeling a little bit guilty that they were rushing around while I sat here.
Achilles and Paris rushed in and out of the cottage carrying suitcases and boxes, which they unceremoniously pitched into the vehicle.
I watched the action, grateful for the space to breathe.
There was something inside me, unfurling and stretching, and it took all the control I had to keep it from breaking free.
“Leo.” Pollux leaned into the open window, hands gripping the doorframe. “Leo.”
Flicking my gaze away from the cottage, I cleared my throat. “Sorry. What?”
He frowned. His green eyes, so much lighter than the rolling moors and moss-covered stone walls surrounding us, fixed on mine.
He had a bag flung over his wide shoulder, his giant hand gripping the strap. I recognized the bag as one that sat next to Hector’s desk in his office. I wondered if Pollux had shoved into it the tools I'd left there.
I didn't know where we were going, but that Pollux thought we would need those things had my brain racing. There was a pinch of pain behind my eyes, and I winced. Through the windshield, I caught sight of Hector shoving a plastic container through the small opening.
I felt it then and realized what the Trojan general had hidden. Them. The pieces of the ancient seal meant to keep the gods trapped in one place, away from humans.
