Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 101264 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101264 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
2
Apollo
I have to fight not to stare at Cassandra’s big, perfect ass as she stalks down the hall away from me. It doesn’t help that she favors pencil skirts and heels, which only serve to showcase her generous curves further. I can’t ask her to change her style simply because I want her. It’s my problem, not hers. If I’ve taken more than my fair share of cold showers since hiring her five years ago? Well, that’s a small enough price to pay for lusting after my employee.
That’s the crux of the problem.
I hired her.
She works for me.
Letting her know I’m interested would be highly inappropriate. Even without the employer-employee power dynamic, I am one of the Thirteen and that skews things too far in my favor. If I asked her out and she felt she couldn’t say no…
I shake my head and turn back down the hall. Which is right around the moment I realize I’ve been staring after Cassandra in front of the new Ares. She gives me a wide-eyed innocent look that I don’t believe for a moment.
“She’s got quite the mouth on her, doesn’t she?”
Even though I know she’s baiting me, I can’t help defending Cassandra. “Wouldn’t you after everything she’s gone through? People in this city treat her like getting too close will poison them, too.” The worst part is that they’re not entirely wrong, if not for the reasons everyone believes.
Twelve years ago, Cassandra’s family was one of the most powerful in the city…until, almost overnight, they weren’t. As far as the greater population is concerned, her parents did something to anger the last Zeus and were set to be exiled. They died in a car crash before he could enact that punishment.
The truth is far more sinister. Her parents attempted to exploit an ancient, barbaric clause in Olympus’s laws and were removed as a result.
The clause states that if someone manages to assassinate a member of the Thirteen—exempting the legacy titles of Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon—then that person will take the title. Our history is filled with black holes where information should be, but best I can tell, this immutable clause was added to protect the city if one of the Thirteen turned corrupt beyond all reason.
For obvious reasons, its existence is kept a closely guarded secret. It effectively paints a target on ten out of the Thirteen and would breed utter chaos if widely known. Yet if Cassandra’s parents had succeeded, her role in Olympus would be very different. She’d be the daughter of one of the Thirteen rather than the daughter of a disgraced house.
Her parents would still be alive.
Ares shrugs. “Olympus is what it is.”
A vague and unsatisfying statement. Our city might be home, but very few people would go so far as to claim it’s fair and just. Not with power skewed so heavily in one direction. Maybe that will change with our new leadership…
I turn my attention back to Zeus’s door as Ares nods goodbye and leaves me to my work. Zeus truly entered a trial by fire when coming unexpectedly into his title. Between how things hashed out with his sister claiming the title of Ares and the exile of the old Aphrodite, the transfer of power has been anything but easy. I glance down at the file in my hands. The information it contains is worrisome if not downright damning.
Olympus is in trouble.
But even with all the resources at my disposal, I can’t say for certain how much trouble.
Up until this point, Olympus has mostly existed in its own little snow globe. The greater world wrote us off long ago as an unreachable prize. We all took for granted that it would always be that way, that the barrier keeping Olympus from the rest of the world would hold forever.
Now, it’s failing. And no one can figure out why.
A problem for another day. We have enough to worry about right this second.
I step back into Zeus’s office and close the door behind me. “Sorry about the interruption.”
He sits behind the big desk in the middle of the room, a white man with blond hair and a perfectly tailored suit. He’s the spitting image of his late father, though he wouldn’t thank me for pointing it out. That’s where the comparison ends, though. This Zeus doesn’t have the same mercurial charisma that the last one could turn on at the drop of a hat, and that fact has made his taking of the title challenging.
Honestly, I prefer it. He might be difficult to work with at times, but I don’t have to worry about any nasty surprises. It’s a relief after dealing with his father.
He nods, and I resume my seat across the desk from him. Only then does he speak. “You were saying…”
I set the file aside. I don’t need it, though I appreciate Cassandra taking the time to bring it all the way here. The woman is as foul-tempered as a wet cat, but she’s remarkably kind when she forgets to snarl at everyone around her. “Despite exhausting my information network, I still don’t know where Minos came from. He and his people are ghosts. For all intents and purposes, they appeared out of nowhere a few weeks ago to participate in the Ares tournament. We can’t even pinpoint how they knew to come in the first place.”