Blood of Zeus: Book One Read online

  Blood of Zeus

  Blood of Zeus: Book One

  Meredith Wild

  Angel Payne

  This book is an original publication of Waterhouse Press.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2020 Waterhouse Press, LLC

  Cover Design & Images by Regina Wamba

  Interior Cover Images: Shutterstock

  * * *

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic format without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  I saw within Its depth how It conceives

  all things in a single volume bound by Love

  of which the universe is the scattered leaves.

  — Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, Canto XXXIII

  For Mindy

  — Meredith

  * * *

  For Thomas and Jessica.

  You’re the magic of my life,

  the beats of my heart,

  the blood in my veins.

  — Angel

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Acknowledgments

  Continue the Blood of Zeus Series

  Also by Meredith Wild & Angel Payne

  Also by Meredith Wild

  About Meredith Wild

  Also by Angel Payne

  About Angel Payne

  Chapter One

  Kara

  The only thing worse than being a demon is being a Valari. Being both means I get to hear every whisper in the room as I make my way into the lecture hall and past clusters of students.

  “That’s Kara Valari.”

  “Why does she even bother?”

  “They’re like the worst people.”

  I find their faces as I go, not breaking my stride. Sometimes looking people in the eye is the only way to shut them up. They avert their gazes, one by one.

  Whispers are easy to hide behind. So are the salacious remarks that no one can hear except me and the guys who’ve uttered them under their breath. I don’t even have to look at them to know I’m not interested. In their case, eye contact might just confuse the issue.

  For the sake of everyone’s education, I climb the stairs to find a spot in the back of the hall so people will hopefully forget I’m here. As I take my seat, a blonde in front of me pretends to take a selfie. I’m definitely in the background. I can’t wait to read the caption.

  I’ve been at Alameda University for three years, but for some, the novelty of sharing a class with anyone above D-list celebrity status never seems to wear off. The beginning of a new term is always the worst. My tolerance after any extended time off campus is dangerously low, and chances are high the Valari name is twisted up with some fresh Hollywood gossip, no less damaging for its brevity in the trash-news cycle.

  Of course, I’m not the only one here who was born into a famous family. My grandfather was one of the most renowned screenwriters of his generation. The award statues on his mantel have been long forgotten. Now our family finds the spotlight more often than most, but for far less commendable reasons. Our reputation follows me around everywhere I go, as inescapable as my biology.

  I fumble in my expensive leather backpack for a notebook and pen, exhaling a tense breath. I silently reach for a degree of self-control that doesn’t come naturally, as raw emotion tries to claw its way past my cool exterior.

  I lift my head at the sound of a door slamming, which silences the whispers.

  Even from my elevated vantage, I’m fascinated by the towering height of the man who paces into the lecture hall. His expression is hidden with his downward gaze. His mouth is obscured by a golden beard that matches hair tamed in a knot at his nape. Though I expect it’s coming, the man needs no introduction.

  Within seconds of his arrival, the silence gives way to a hushed hiss, the prolonged echo of his name on students’ lips, where mine was moments ago.

  Maximus.

  Professor Maximus Kane reaches the broad wooden podium at the front of the room in a few long strides. There he carefully deposits a stack of materials from his arms. A familiar shiver of intrigue ribbons through me. I saved this course for my senior year, delaying both the best and worst for last. The best being the highlight of my foray into academia. The worst being the very different life that’ll begin the moment I graduate—a life that will be anything but enlightened.

  Towering over the podium, he clears his throat loudly, silencing the last of the hushed whispers. Still, his gaze is cast downward toward his notes, affording his audience a moment more to take in his impressive physique. I nip at the inside of my lip because I’m not immune. The only things professorial about Professor Kane are his dark-rimmed glasses and boring sweater-vest, which can’t be anything but wildly sexy stretched over his white collared shirt that looks like it might give at the seams if he moved too suddenly.

  “Welcome to Advanced Studies in Medieval Literature,” he begins, his voice deep and void of humor. “If you’re here, you should have completed all the prerequisites for an in-depth reading of Dante’s Divine Comedy, which is where we’ll be spending the majority of our time. If you’ve managed to get this far in your major by skimming, you should reconsider whether this is the course for you. My expectations of your effort here are commensurate with any other senior seminar. Don’t waste my time, and I won’t waste yours.”

  I clip the flesh between my teeth a little harder, creating a distracting throb of pain. I’ve never shied away from hard-ass professors. In fact, I’ve sought them out, eager for the challenge. Topping the class and setting the bar high enough to inconvenience my classmates has always been an added bonus.

  Except I came here for Dante. Until now, I assumed the professor of English celebrated for his otherworldly looks would be a gentle giant—intellectual and deep but soft-spoken and forgiving, a stark contrast to his notable physical presence. I was fabulously wrong. The masochist in me sends down a dark prayer that he’s a hard grader too.

  “I will not be your only teacher in this course,” he continues. “I’m your professor, but you can think of me more generally as a guide, pointing out themes of note. But if you rely on my interpretation alone, you are robbing yourself of the education inherent in the work, a circle of knowledge drawn by Dante himself. The poem is a journey of the self.” He pauses a moment, his mouth drawn into a thoughtful purse. “Journey being the operative word.”

  He frowns a little and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

  “Moving on. How many of
you have already been introduced to the Comedy through your other courses?”

  Almost every student raises his or her hand. I don’t.

  My skin heats a little when his scanning of the room stops on me, but it’s a brief pause.

  “Since this is a seminar and I will be relying heavily on your contributions to drive our conversation, we’ll begin now. I’d like to know, regardless of your familiarity with the text, what draws you to Dante.”

  Somehow the class grows even more silent, as if people have ceased breathing lest any movement draw unwanted attention to them. I smirk, because just as easily as I can hear words that aren’t meant to be heard, I can pick up on the inherent discomfort of humans, from little pricklings of fear to full-on panic.

  The professor’s gaze lands on the blonde in front of me. “How about you? What brings you here?”

  She lets out a breathy laugh and tucks her hair behind her ear, lifting her shoulder coyly as she does. “I don’t know. I guess I heard good things about this course.”

  “Ohh, Professor Maximus,” a falsetto voice sings out from the crowd, prompting a wave of laughter throughout the hall.

  The golden corners of the professor’s lips quirk up slightly. No doubt, his presence alone could fill a room with students more fascinated by his looks than his literary insights. He quickly collects himself, lifts his chin, and our gazes meet.

  Blood rushes to the surface of my skin.

  “You’re new to Dante. Why spend the next four months dissecting the Comedy?”

  The air grows thick with anticipation. The anticipation isn’t mine, but I recognize the shift in the mood of the room. After a moment of prolonged silence, he arches an eyebrow and cocks his head, prompting me to say something. Anything.

  “Dante’s journey through the underworld is uniquely fascinating to me,” I say, which earns some predictable snickers from the audience.

  The professor slides his hands casually into the pockets of his dark slacks, drawing my attention to the way they barely contain his thighs. For being an academic, he’s remarkably fit.

  “Which part of it holds your fascination? The journey through the dark, or the journey to the light?”

  I blink and meet his eyes again. I curl my fingers around my notebook as I contemplate his words. His question feels too personal, like somehow he knows something—maybe that one thing—about me he shouldn’t.

  “That’s an odd question.” I can’t hide the defensiveness in my tone.

  He winces briefly. “Is it? It’s just that I find some people are drawn to dark themes for the sheer ugliness of them. And there are others who are invested in the exaltation of reaching the other side of it.”

  I’m locked in my own silence, unwilling to tell him what I really think. That he has no idea what he’s talking about. That contemplating the allegory is like reading a bedtime story compared to the reality. At least from everything I’ve been told. He may look like a god, but I’m pretty sure my sources on the subject of hell are better than his.

  “Spit it out, Valari,” someone shouts out.

  My nostrils flare.

  The professor frowns in the direction of a boy slouched in the second row. “Excuse me?”

  “She’s just doing her research, Professor. She’s a Valari,” the boy says with a cocky laugh. “You know they’re all going straight to hell.”

  The room erupts with laughter. My skin heats fiercely as I contemplate ways I can send him directly there.

  “Get out.” The professor’s sharp command slices into the noise.

  The boy laughs awkwardly. “I’m just joking around.”

  “I don’t care. Get out.”

  He opens his mouth to argue when the professor points to the door.

  “I won’t ask again. Get the hell out of my classroom.”

  The fear is back, filling up the few tense minutes the boy takes to gather his things and walk out of the room with wounded confidence. The professor flashes a look my way that feels too intense to be an apology and makes me wonder if the smartass comment unnerved him even more than me.

  The moment the door slams with the boy’s retreat, the professor doesn’t skip a beat. He launches into the life and times of Dante and the historical context of his works. I take notes and try to concentrate on his insights about the outcast from Florence who was, in some ways, like the professor himself. Deeper than he looked and willing to commit to the journey. At least that’s the overwhelming aura I get from our instructor. As I keep trying to decipher his intense looks, I worry I’m no different than every other undergrad here who’s fallen under his spell.

  An hour later, when he rattles off the reading assignment and dismisses us, I’m almost relieved. I wait for the rows to empty before rising to leave. His back is turned as he erases his notes from the whiteboard. I’m nearly at the door when he says my name.

  “Miss Valari.”

  I turn.

  “A moment of your time?”

  I walk back to him, clutching the handle of my bag tightly. “Professor Kane.”

  “Maximus,” he corrects. “That’s what everyone ends up calling me anyway.”

  He leans against the desk beside the podium. A plastic Thor key chain dangles from the half-zipped pocket on the front of his soft-sided satchel. The bauble looks nothing like the man in front of me, but I can appreciate that he probably can’t escape the association following him everywhere he goes. Why fight it?

  I answer with a small smile. “Okay.”

  “Sitting in on this seminar requires approval. Forgive me, but I don’t remember approving you.”

  My smile tightens. The memory of charming his TA to sign off on my registration request even though I lacked the prerequisites is still quite fresh in my mind.

  “Matthew did. You were out of the office. He assured me everything was in order.”

  He regards me thoughtfully for a moment. This close, I can appreciate his eyes, a true cerulean so vibrant, one might almost miss their shadows. Shadows are almost always made of secrets, I’ve learned. Shadows don’t scare me, but I rarely seek them out. But something makes me wish I knew what his were made of.

  “I teach lower-level lit courses as well,” he says, interrupting my wandering thoughts. “How come I haven’t seen you before?”

  “I’m a classics major.”

  He nods quietly, looking me over once before averting his gaze quickly. “Sorry for putting you on the spot earlier. I didn’t realize who you were.”

  “Thank you for defending me, I guess. I don’t need special treatment, though. My mom isn’t going to call the dean or anything.”

  “That’s not why I did it. I don’t tolerate bullying in my classes. It’s remarkable how often I have to enforce it.”

  I believe him and respect him even more for it.

  “Thank you. Again.”

  He leans forward and hands me a stapled stack of papers. “Don’t forget the syllabus.”

  When I reach for it, our fingers graze. It’s so brief, I wonder if the contact even happened except for the sharp sensation racing up my arm. An odd kind of energy I haven’t experienced before—at least not from humans.

  I widen my eyes and step back, pressing the syllabus against my chest. Our gazes lock, and for a minute I worry he’s felt it too. I swallow hard and try to think of something to say, but his wordless stare renders me speechless.

  “See you Wednesday, Miss Valari.”

  Chapter Two

  Maximus

  “Kane!”

  Despite the crashing waves, the screeching seagulls, and the blaring rock music along Venice Beach this afternoon, my best friend’s shout is clear across Muscle Beach Gym’s weight pen. I look up from the machine I’ve been working for the last five minutes, crunching a frown as Jesse waves good-naturedly at the regulars taking turns on a punching bag.

  “Mr. North,” I call back. “You’re late.”

  “And your point is what?” Jesse adds a smirk to his dra
wl while rolling over in the wheelchair that’s practically an extension of him. At least to most around here. Not to me, the guy who remembers him without it.

  The guy who put him in it.

  For that reason, plus about a million more, our friendship is more like a brotherhood to me—and I know how deeply he returns the commitment.

  “Mind-hopping to another planet again, man?” He brakes his wheelchair sharply.

  “Yeah, maybe.” The answer comes with the vivid memory of one particular brunette. The instant I touched Kara Valari, the rigid control of my mind was overtaken by brilliant color.

  One brush of fingers. One exchange of energy. One frisson of time. That’s all it took to blast through all my barriers and have me obsessing over that brief interaction with her for hours. Yes, goddammit, over twenty-four of them now.

  Not that I’ll spill any of that to Jesse. Or even admit it myself. The girl is forbidden fruit. I’m young to be a full-time professor at Alameda, but I’m still that. Her teacher. And her age aside, she’s a goddamned Valari. She grew up with silk sheets, marble floors, and personal valet service. My upbringing was defined by a sofa bed, a linoleum kitchen, and boxed mac ‘n’ cheese, kept warm until Mom got home from twelve-hour shifts at the hospital. LA rent isn’t cheap, but she always insisted we stay in the city. Kept telling me it was the safest choice—which I never understood at all. Safest choice from what? Wasn’t I the monster that needed to be kept clear from everyone else?