Broken God Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author makes no claims to, but instead acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of any wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction including brands or products.

  Copyright © 2016 by Nazarea Andrews.

  Broken God by Nazarea Andrews

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States of America by A&A Literary.

  Summary: Apollo thought he left his family and his power behind. But when he meets Iris, he realizes power isn’t so easily forgotten and destiny is hard to escape.

  1. Greek mythology 2. Romance. 3. Paranormal romance

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  For information, address

  Nazarea Andrews, 14207 Ridge Court, Upatoi GA 31829.

  www.nazareaandrews.com

  Edited by Owl Word Editing

  Cover design by Melissa Stevens of The Illustrated Author

  Cover art copyright©: Nazarea Andrews

  Ebook Formatting by Nazarea Andrew

  About Broken God:

  Power is a strange and broken thing.

  He is the sun god, the god of healing and song.

  And prophecy.

  Apollo has lived alone for centuries, content to spin out the years wandering a new and strange world, lost in the past and endless versions of the future. He has cut all ties with the remains of Olympus and his power, and hidden himself in humanity.

  His twin thinks he’s depressed, spending his time in coffee shops, hospital waiting rooms, and concert halls…and nothing matters. Not really.

  Until her.

  Iris. With her teasing mouth and soulful music and eyes that remind him of the past.

  He can’t resist her smile.

  A girl as wild as he was, once, with a poet’s tongue and the body of a siren, who for one night makes him forget all the years and everything he gave up.

  And he can’t stop fate.

  Gods knows he’s tried.

  He can’t help taking her.

  Even if he knows better.

  When Iris wakes up screaming, caught up in visions of the future, Apollo realizes that he didn’t leave his power quite as far behind as he thought.

  He’s the god of prophecy and he’s been running from it, for centuries.

  Iris is everything he has to avoid.

  Now he has a furious Oracle on his hands, his sister trying to fix him, and someone is killing the gods.

  It’s not just his tenuous sanity that hangs in the balance this time.

  It’s all of Olympus.

  Godhood really wasn’t supposed to be this hard.

  Chapter 1.

  A very long time ago, I sat in a pagan temple.

  It was cedar and oak, with designs and prayers burnt into the altar, and the smell of incense thick in the air. I could hear two dozen girls, young and beautiful and virgin, chanting in quiet tune with each other, a song of healing and death.

  A song.

  I didn’t care about them. I knew their names, could summon their faces with little thought, could read their deepest secrets and most twisted desires. But they meant little to me.

  The one who mattered. The one who had always mattered, was the one sitting cross-legged across from me in that little forgotten temple. She hummed under her breath, and I hid my smile.

  All of my girls sang, when I was close.

  “You know it’s against the rules,” she murmurs, almost singsong and I nod.

  Because I do.

  I made the rules.

  “Father,” she sighs. “This is dangerous. Even for you.”

  “Worried for me, Del?” I tease. She frowns at me, bright eyes staring hard at me in disapproval.

  “For your sanity, yes.”

  Knowledge is a dangerous thing.

  Knowing is a dangerous thing. It’s why I give the gift to my girls. Because I have not wished to carry it, and when I did…

  “If I do this, I cannot take it again. You will know. Until the end.”

  I nod, and my lips go tight. “Do it, Del.”

  She does.

  Her eyes roll back and the tension in her body slides loose, until she’s barely sitting upright, her hands flexing on her knees and her voice a low purr.

  I know this look on her face.

  She is my girl, more than any of the others, and I know what she looks like in the heavy grip of power.

  When she speaks, it’s a sweet rumble, like a kitten being stroked, and her body shivers under the weight of it.

  And then I hear.

  I hear everything.

  And I shatter.

  Chapter 2.

  I spend a lot of time walking.

  Artie says it’s in my nature. That I will eternally chase the sun. But then, my twin is a bit annoying. I just like to walk.

  Back when the world was young and I was young, I rode the winds and sunbeams, and when that got old, I walked.

  I met Del there. On a dusty road outside what would one day become an empire’s capitol, and then turn to dust.

  I met many people on the road, over the years.

  But that doesn’t matter.

  Today matters.

  Artie says I spend more time in my head than I do in reality, and that’s part of my problem.

  I think reality is a little bit fucked up when you’re an immortal god, but I’ve long since stopped arguing with her.

  I wake before the sun rises. Always. Slip into a pair of scuffed up jeans and loose flip-flops that look like they’ll fall apart but fit like a second skin. I wiggle my toes around and tug on a black t-shirt and a beanie over my long hair, and then I push out into the darkness.

  I live in the center of the city, in a shitty walk-up apartment over a Korean take-out place. It’s dirty and needs to be ripped down and rebuilt, and the lights in the hallway don’t work—neither does the deadbolt.

  But it does the job, and it’s close to three of my favorite coffee shops and a little bar that has the best indie bands on the weekends. Sometimes, when I leave the windows open, I can hear the music from my bed, and I don’t even have to leave the apartment to get my fix.

  But now, the sun is rising and with it, me.

  There’s a spot, a few miles from my place, that I can go. Climb to the top of the five-story building and sit on the edge of the roof, my feet dangling into nothing. It’s not the tallest building—there are others that obscure my vision, but there’s a sliver of horizon, where everything breaks perfectly to let me see for miles.

  And I wait for her here.

  My sister thinks it’s ridiculous for the god of the sun to live in a place that is perpetually covered in cloud.

  What she doesn’t understand, what she’s never understood is that my power isn’t bound just because I can’t see her.

  I can feel the sun.

  I can feel the way the air lightens and the heavy weight of darkness eases back, a little. The way the power that is mine, that I have ignored for centuries tingles awake like a limb that hasn’t been used in too long. Tempting to shake out and flex, just to make the pins and needles pain go away.

  I shove that down and twist my ring and tilt my head back, until I’m smiling into the clouds, and far beyond the dreary gray, my girl rises to greet the day, and me.

  I sit there for a long time, while the sun creeps up and the city comes awake.

  It’s a strange place for me to
choose as my own, but I like it. It reminds me of the little temple where Del lived, all those centuries ago. She always liked the way the mist clung to the grass and the shadows played in the valleys and between the sides of the mountains. She would tease and tell me that even as powerful as I was, I did not rule everything.

  Del always liked knocking me into my place. Liked to forget that I was a god.

  A wide-eyed girl shaking with terror and screaming with visions, cowering from me.

  I blink.

  A girl with a smirk and violet eyes that seem worried and ancient, and her fingers dig into her skin, drawing blood even as she laughs and kisses me.

  Del.

  I shudder and sway on the edge of the roof.

  The past is blurry. So damn blurry, but there are moments that stand out, sharp and painful.

  This is a bad idea, Father.

  I smile, tight and bitter. She would be so proud of herself, that she was right. My girl was always damn good at reaching into the future, even further than the ones who came before her.

  I shake that thought, shake the fingers of madness that clutch too tight today, and push myself.

  The sun is sweet and shy behind her clouds and I tip my head back as I stand there. Blow a kiss into nothing and smile at the soft heat. And then I turn away and head down the dark stairs to the waiting city.

  The coffee shop is one of my favorites. I frequent many. Here’s a tip: if you’re the god of poetry and music, the best place for you is a coffee shop. I even own a few, scattered down the coast and into California. It keeps me in enough money that I don’t need my power to survive. But I don’t like handling the business, so I leave it in the hands of a girl I met a few years ago. Smart. Pretty. Not bad in bed, but even better running my shops.

  It worked well for us, as long as she didn’t forget that I was happy with nothing more than a fuck once a year or two after the quarterly meetings.

  She’d figured it out and seemed content.

  Well, I paid her enough that she should be more than fucking content, but that was her business.

  Anyway.

  I slid into Top Pot Brew and tugged my beanie lower, almost into my eyes, as I waited in the line. The shop is close enough to the college campus that it’s always busy, especially this time of year. When the students milled here, cramming for finals and drinking coffee with the kind of desperation I’ve learned to recognize in both the failed studious and the quietly brilliant.

  I love finals week. I wait patiently while the line inches forward, as the students order these ridiculous concoctions that barely qualify as coffee, and I hide my smile in my chest, ducking my head and reaching into my pocket.

  Surrounded by people, by the constant streams of future, I have to reach for the distraction. Let my pad of my thumb brush over the smoothed edges of the deck of cards, and let the comfortable weight of them settle my nerves as the crowd swells and voices pitch loud over the machines and baristas shouting orders to each other.

  The girl at the counter is new. If she was someone who'd been at the shop for more than a day or two, she'd know there was no need to ask me what I want. No need to try to drag me into a conversation about breakfast pastries that I have no interest in.

  She'd know that smiling wide and flirty would do nothing but annoy me, and that I was never interested in that. Not this early in the morning, when the sun was still creeping up and gaining slow strength, not when the shop was full to the brim with people and the music was almost drowned out.

  So when she smiles and tries to tease me into some Americano shit, I give her a very flat stare and say simply, "Cold-brewed coffee. Large. Black." I let the money--exact change because I hate being handed back change--drop on the counter and behind her, Callie gives a startled little bleep of noise.

  "Lace, lemme take this one," she says sharply, and the girl--Lace--has a second to look confused and the first hint of offended before Callie tugs her far enough away that she can take her place at the register, and she smiles, quick and brittle. "Sorry, sir."

  I nod once, and she scoops up the money, shoves it in the register and spins to pour my coffee, ignoring the growing line behind me. Only when it's pressed into my hands and I'm stepping away, does she try to talk again.

  "I'm sorry. She's new. It won't happen again."

  I hesitate and look at her.

  Callie is giving me this wide, searching stare. Still ignoring the other patrons, and she bites her lip now.

  She can't know that me being here is good for the cafe's business. That it brings in the best musicians and poets and that brings in the larger crowds, and all of them are centered around me.

  She can't know because I would never say anything to indicate that I know. But she's staring at me with that careful, knowing sort of gaze that my girls would get.

  Not Del.

  But the others. The ones who could have been Del, but weren't.

  I shiver, and nod again. Go to the corner table, the only table that's empty, and slide into the vacant seat.

  She has a touch of power, and that's enough. I make a small face into my coffee and pull out my cards, shuffling them and laying them out, letting my fingers dance over the smooth surface, and the brilliantly colored backs.

  I have to leave this cafe behind.

  Pity. They have the best fucking coffee.

  But I never stay, once someone with a touch of power notices me.

  It used to be that we killed them.

  Anyone who had even the barest hint of power. All of the children that Father scattered across the world.

  Sometimes I think Zeus thought it was his job to single handedly ensure the human race procreated.

  Which, you know, Hera fucking loved. She led the war on the god-children when Zeus and his brothers decided to forsake Olympus. But that—gods, that was a long time ago.

  Artie and I left, long before it ever got that bad.

  I wonder, idly, as I sip the coffee and play with the cards, and listen to the stream of humanity spilling around me, where she is.

  The cards go stiff and unwieldy in my hands and my eyes roll back a little and I slur out something I can’t hear or understand.

  Some of the people at the tables nearest mine are watching me, with that nervous look I know so well.

  The one that says, dangerous. And crazy. The look that makes them edge a little bit away from me and makes my skin crawl.

  How many times had—

  The words roll through me again, spilling like glass shards on to the table and I don’t even know who the fuck they’re about.

  “Sister,” I whisper, and this time it’s not a word spoken empty into the void.

  It’s a prayer.

  “Sister,” I whisper again, harder this time.

  The coffee shop is almost empty, when it finally passes.

  When the words stop spilling out. My phone is blinking at me next to the deck of cards, and I reach for it with hands that don’t shake, even though they should.

  Odd.

  I click it off, stare.

  Twenty-nine minutes and sixteen seconds.

  I spoke words of prophecy for almost half an hour, and I did it in fucking public, where I was helpless and defenseless.

  Artemis will be furious.

  The worst part isn’t that I lost a half hour.

  It’s that I was scared and off balance enough that I called my sister.

  I haven’t done that in almost ten years.

  She’ll be here soon. If I’m lucky, I’ll have until the sun sets, and she can move under the light of the moon.

  But then, when Artie thinks I’m in danger, she sometimes forgets little things like balance and power.

  I sigh, and shuffle the deck of cards up and into my pocket. Stand and shrug deeper into my coat.

  With Artemis about to descend on the city, I should spend it walking. Because gods know she won’t want to do anything but talk to me about moving and going home and all the reasons I shoul
dn’t bind my power.

  But wandering the city, drinking down the music and poetry and the sunlight, weak though it is? That is definitely not going to be high on her list.

  So I whistle, and I let the cards play their smooth edges against my palm as I wander through the streets.

  I’m near the wharf when I sense it. Which isn’t that surprising, all things considered.

  But the power ripples along my skin like waves, and I go very still.

  I fucking knew this would happen. It’s been almost twenty years since I settled in Seattle, and almost a thousand since I left Athens and Olympus behind.

  And still, feeling his power brushing against me, I feel like a kid behind dragged in front of Father and my uncles.

  Olympus was failing. Even I knew that, and I had been lost in my own madness for centuries. The Greeks and the Romans had grown past their borders, and the gods were being forgotten. Lost to the wave of the new gods, the Norse and the Germanic, and the Far East.

  We were dying.

  But some of us couldn’t. Some of us were too tied to the world, too wrapped up in the power that kept us alive

  Hades with his legion of dead.

  Poseidon with his tides.

  Me, with the sun and Artemis with the moon.

  Zeus, lord of all of us.

  I played the lyre that my cousin gave me so many years ago that I’ve forgotten most of them.

  I’ve forgotten so much.

  I am the god of prophecy and I give it to my girls.

  To a girl named Del, and all of the girls who wear different faces and always the same name. I don’t remember how many danced to my tune and how many writhed screaming under the grip of the future, a curse that they willingly took from me.

  How many girls did I kill with my gift?

  “Brother.”

  Her voice is as steady and cool as the breeze at night, and I turn, leaning into her palm as she pushes the hair out of my eyes. Her fingers feather through my hair and I sigh. Press a chaste kiss to her wrist and straighten. Push back the madness.