The Revelation (Pandora's Harem 1) A Reverse Harem Tale(4)

Kaye isn’t doing anything to soothe my anxiety. How the hell is a book going to help? Yes, I have a degree in Greek Mythology, which should make some things a bit easier to figure out, but over all, that crap is not so easy to decipher. Very few things about the gods is actually written in stone. Most of the tales written about them are from scholars and storytellers who have put their own spin on the stories of Zeus and his minions. I know better than to rely on statues, temple ruins, and ancient books. Because, again, all those relics are only what people in the ancient world thought the gods were about. Not what they actually are. “I don’t see how a book is going to help.”

“Oh, it will.” Kaye insists. “It’s from Zeus himself. But that also means only the old sod knows the true meaning of any of the book’s words, images, and teachings, hence my warning of caution.”

I stretch and reach for the oversized tome. It’s leather casing is worn but smooth, like a fine aged Scotch that gets better, more tasteful and more enticing as time goes by. I skim my fingers over its cover. A tingle races up my arm, zings through my veins and lands with a jolt at my heart.

I jump. I also shiver again, one of those faint little cold chills that forces my hands off the book and onto my arms, my fingers rubbing my skin, trying to return warmth to my flesh.

Kaye sinks back into her chair. “I think it’s time our game begins, my little Pandy.”

Game? What the hell is Os talking about?

She smirks. “You didn’t think I was handing you this information for no reason at all? Did you?”

So much for her generosity, though I have to admit the three years I’d had Kaye as an instructor were anything but easy. She has a knack for acting on whim. Every time I got cozy with the way I thought her lessons were going to pan out, boom, she’d change it up. And not just in some minor fashion. With Kaye Os it’s always been total havoc or nothing. “What’s the goal, Professor Os? Any rules to this game?” I can be a bitch right back. Again, I’m no mouse. At least not when it counts.

“Nothing specific. Just know whatever you do, you do by choice. Or in layman’s terms, if you make a mistake, be prepared to pay for it.”

In the back of my mind a distant, but booming, voice echoes. I’ve heard similar sentiments said to me in the past, but from whom or when, I don’t remember. I tug at the sleeves of my sweater, pull on the white knitted cuffs until they unroll and cover half my hands. I’m freezing.

I reach once more for the tome on Kaye’s desk and slide it off the oak monstrosity. It lands in my lap where its energies seep through my jeans and sting my thighs, but I don’t leave it there, I bring it up and cradle it against my chest, my mind wondering what secrets it’s keeping inside its thick span of pages.

Again, a sense of déjà vu strikes my thoughts.

From what I remember of Pandora’s tale, the only thing that ended up left in her box—or jar as the actual type of vessel has been argued by scholars—after she had lifted its lid and unleashed a myriad of evils into man’s world, was Hope. And right now, I need a damn good dose of that left behind little gift because I have a nagging feeling my sorry ass is about to go through some serious hell. But how can I access Hope when my box has been missing for ages? I don’t even know what it accurately looks like. It might be a jar, it might be a box. It might be at the bottom of the sea, or on the top of a mountain peak, or buried gods know where.

I pray the answer is in Zeus’s book.

If it’s not, then this soon to be twenty-one-year-old is going to land herself in one huge heap of trouble. I just feel it in my gut.





Chapter 2





I arrive home and fumble with the keys to my apartment, my left arm still cradling Zeus’s book. The feel of pinpricks dance along my skin as my fingers starts to go numb.

Gods, but this thing is heavy.

I shift the book so it no longer digs into the crook of my arm. As I stand in front of the door, a warm breath fans my neck. I spin around, but find no one in the hallway, the wallpapered corridor silent and empty save for the faintest hint of cinnamon. It must be my neighbor, Mary, making those organic candles again. I’m all for home-grown businesses, but over the last few months she’s been working with cinnamon and spicy rose scents that drive me crazy, especially since she tends to work on them when I’m in bed, though she’s a little early this evening. The fragrances wake me up even from deep sleep.

I focus back to the key, which now slips into the lock and I turn it. A click echoes. Never has that noise sounded so good to my ears. I push the door open. After today’s crazy news, all I want to do is relax, eat dinner, and read a bit of Zeus’s book.

Crossing the apartment threshold, I step inside and slam the door behind me, then flick on the small vestibule’s overhead light. It’s a quarter to four and the sun is already down, leaving my apartment blanketed in a shadowy darkness tinged only with a hint of the last remaining hues of daylight. Tomorrow I’ll be twenty-one, but I don’t know the date of my real birthday, I’ve just always gone by what the newspaper article estimated. My last set of foster parents, now dead, stuck to the same practice. They were the best out of the three family’s I’d been placed with. They were good people, happy and caring. They gave me a decent life and helped mold me into the person I am today. No gods took the time to do that. At least, not on a human level.