Stone Cold: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (Gods & Monsters Book 1) Read online

  Stone Cold

  Gods & Monsters Book 1

  Kate Nova

  Stone Cold

  Gods & Monsters: Book 1

  A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance

  Stone Cold © 2019 Kate Nova

  Website: https://www.KateNovaBooks.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without authorization in writing provided by the publisher. This story is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, brands, incidents, and places are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Chapter 1

  2. Chapter 2

  3. Chapter 3

  4. Chapter 4

  5. Chapter 5

  6. Chapter 6

  7. Chapter 7

  8. Chapter 8

  9. Chapter 9

  10. Chapter 10

  11. Chapter 11

  12. Chapter 12

  13. Chapter 13

  14. Chapter 14

  15. Chapter 15

  16. Chapter 16

  17. Chapter 17

  18. Chapter 18

  19. Chapter 19

  20. Chapter 20

  21. Chapter 21

  22. Chapter 22

  23. Chapter 23

  24. Chapter 24

  25. Chapter 25

  26. Chapter 26

  27. Chapter 27

  28. Chapter 28

  29. Chapter 29

  30. Chapter 30

  31. Chapter 31

  32. Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Other Books by Kate Nova

  Stone Cold

  Rule #1: Hide the monster.

  Whispers surround me. Every time I walk down the halls of the academy, I’m terrified they’ll discover who I really am. If they do, I’ll never make it back to Mount Olympus so I can finally seek revenge on the god who ruined me.

  So, note to self:

  No flashing my scales, no showing my hair and absolutely no letting my eyes hit direct sunlight.

  It won’t be easy, especially with three devastatingly handsome shifters who seem intent on destroying me.

  A gorgeous griffin, a smoking hot sea dragon and a mysterious giant.

  Other girls see them as swoon-worthy jocks, but to me, they’re just ruthless monsters. Then again, so am I.

  I’m Medusa the Gorgon, after all. Cursed by the gods to be the most terrifying woman alive.

  It’ll be a challenge, but I’ve been through worse. I’ll survive, if I don’t break rule #2:

  Don’t fall in love with my enemies.

  Prologue

  “Orcus!” The huge, booming voice of Zeus filled the chamber, commanding and firm. “State your case.”

  The small man in the toga scurried forward. He’d been waiting outside the Great Hall of the Gods for nearly an hour—an infamous tactic of Zeus’s to make those he perceived as lesser than him stew and fret before they were given an audience with the King of all Gods.

  But Orcus was used to such treatment. As the keeper of beasts, he was accustomed to being shunted off to the side during important meetings or disregarded and ignored altogether. He’d had to insist on this audience with the king, so whatever cruel treatment Zeus had cooked up to dissuade Orcus from seeking an audience at Mount Olympus would be pointless. He was determined and would stop at nothing until he got his way.

  One glance at the bite marks and scars on Orcus’s hands and anyone would be a fool to think he didn’t know how to handle monsters, big and small.

  A pair of guards flanked Orcus as he walked along the pillared hallway, which was lined with torches and floored in clouds. The pillars towered and vanished into the sky. As Orcus came into the Great Hall of the Gods, he instantly remembered why it was coveted by every god and feared by every mortal—it was absolutely glorious.

  The pillars continued in a circle, enclosing the area while still allowing peeks at the clear, blue sky. Tables were piled high with grapes and olive bread; a fountain poured an eternal stream of sweet honeyed wine. Gods and goddesses stood around the room, eating and drinking, all of them almost too beautiful to behold. Aphrodite glanced up at Orcus as he passed and he averted his eyes.

  He was a lowly beast-keeper, after all. He had no right to look at any of them.

  The guards led him to a white marble throne, and there, towering above everyone like the king he was, sat Zeus.

  “Orcus! Keeper of beasts! It’s been at least a millennium since we’ve seen you around Mount Olympus.” His voice was like thunder, but Orcus remained steady. He wouldn’t be intimidated.

  “Two,” Orcus corrected.

  Above him, Zeus reached for a roasted lamb leg and tore into it, the grease dribbling down his toga. “Well, what brings you here? Another village terrorized by some new beast? A monster needs conquering? Shall we call in the heroes?”

  “No.” Orcus smoothed his own toga, trying to hide the holes which a pair of claws had torn in it as he was leaving this very morning. “I’m here to collect on a promise you made long ago. You swore that if the monsters of Sicidonia behaved themselves for one thousand years, they would earn divinity. It’s been two thousand years, and I assure you, the beasts have reformed. They’re hardly monstrous at all. In fact, they’re completely rehabilitated.”

  “Rehabilitated beasts? Stop, you fool!” Zeus’s chuckle echoed off the pillars of the Great Hall, turning heads and halting side conversations. Orcus was suddenly aware that all the gods and goddesses in the room were listening.

  “It’s true,” Orcus replied firmly, concentrating to keep his temper from flaring. “All of them have been through strict training, and you gave me your word, Zeus. You said you’d grant them the same divinity that you’ve granted so many others.”

  Zeus frowned, thinking. Orcus had deployed a well-known weapon—Zeus prided himself on being a god of his word and to call him anything else was to challenge him to prove it.

  “Hermes!” Zeus bellowed. “Come forward!”

  The messenger of the gods came rushing ahead on his winged sandals, hovering a few feet above the air.

  “If I promised I’d grant the beasts divinity, then it would’ve been documented,” Zeus replied, stroking his chin in contemplation. “Hermes, find me the scroll.”

  Hermes vanished into the long, dark archives of Mount Olympus. Orcus suddenly became very aware of the eyes upon him—gods and goddesses with more power in their pinky fingers than Orcus had in his entire body: Apollo, Hera, Hades.

  “You don’t actually think he’s going to allow monsters on Mount Olympus,” Hera said quietly so only Orcus could hear. “This is a distinguished palace. No room for your fanged snakes and drooling dogs.”

  He ignored her. For centuries, Orcus had put up with the great mischaracterization of the monsters in his care. He knew the citizens of Mount Olympus didn’t feel any remorse that these beasts had been held in cages for millennia, even though they were much more than mere animals. They didn’t care that Orcus had worked tirelessly to retrain these beasts, or that many of them had overcome the traumas of being slaves to heroes and gods alike. Cerberus, the Hydra, the great lion of Nemea … Those were just a few of the creatures Orcus had spent years training, so he’d come to ensure Zeus kept his word.

  “Here it is,” Hermes said as he reappeared at Zeus’s side, holding o
ut a scroll and pointing to the appropriate lines.

  Orcus watched Zeus’s face as he read through the promise he’d made and then he tried not to flinch when the king of the gods looked down at him from his throne, his steel blue eyes cold and his eyebrows furrowed. “It seems I did indeed say something about your beasts.”

  Orcus recognized this for the clever move it was: “Your beasts,” Zeus called them. As if Zeus himself hadn’t cast Orcus in the role of keeper of the beasts in the first place.

  “So what’ll it be?” Orcus asked. “Will the beasts be awarded their divinity, as their king promised, or shall I tell them Zeus’s word is as fickle as a human’s?”

  The Great Hall of the Gods went silent. Everyone was focused not on Orcus, but on Zeus. Orcus himself couldn’t resist a little half-smile. There was a reason he’d asked for an audience with Zeus on a feast day; Zeus’s vanity could easily be employed as a weapon against himself. Zeus wouldn’t dare rescind a promise in front of every citizen of Mount Olympus—his reputation was at stake.

  “Very well,” Zeus grumbled and Orcus knew he’d hold this against him for the rest of time but that didn’t matter. “If I promised the beasts divinity, then they shall get it. But first, a test.”

  Orcus went cold. “A test?”

  “Yes, one test …to prove they’re worthy. A beast must do more than learn how to sit and obey to deserve the same fate as the heroes and gods of Olympus, after all. The beasts must prove they’ve truly renounced their monstrous ways.”

  The blood pounded in Orcus’s ears. He could practically see his plans all dissolving right before his eyes. “What kind of test?”

  Zeus stroked his chin, deep in thought. “Your beasts may be well-behaved now, but let’s see what becomes of them when they have more than fur and fangs at their disposal.”

  “I’m sorry,” Orcus said, “I still don’t understand—”

  “Your beasts will all be sent down to Earth,” Zeus went on, smiling at his own cleverness, “and must pass the most difficult moral test of all. They must survive a human school for one full year.”

  The Great Hall of Gods broke out in murmurs. Orcus couldn’t believe what was happening. This wasn’t how the meeting was supposed to go. Zeus was supposed to agree to make the beasts immortal. And he was supposed to set them loose in Mount Olympus. Then just when Zeus and every other god felt safe, the beasts were supposed to—

  “An excellent test!” Aphrodite called. “Let’s see if they have what it takes to be human.”

  “Not just human,” Zeus said, wagging his finger. “I want to see if they have what it takes to be good. Heroic.”

  Heroic? Orcus was nearly seeing red. “Zeus,” he started, but the king of the gods held up his enormous hand.

  “Your monsters must earn their places here. The halls of Mount Olympus aren’t for just any immortal. Send them to an academy. Give them human bodies. Give them human lives. Make them interact with other humans. If they can survive until graduation and prove they’re no longer monstrous, I shall grant their divinity and welcome them into our halls.”

  Zeus leaned back on his throne, dismissing Orcus with one hand, and the keeper of the beasts knew the audience was over.

  The king of the gods had spoken—Orcus’s monsters would have to live as human students for one school year before he could get them placed in Mount Olympus.

  One year, he soothed himself as he stalked from the Great Hall of the Gods back to his home, the rocky crags of the island of Sicidonia. One year may have been a long time in the lifespan of a mortal, but to an immortal like Orcus it was nothing.

  He could wait.

  He’d been putting these plans into motion for thousands of years; he could wait one more.

  All the beasts he’d tended and trained would be morphed into human forms and sent down to this school, this academy—and they’d pass. Orcus knew they would. He’d do everything he could to ensure that those monsters made it to Mount Olympus.

  He couldn’t complete the next part of his plan without his beasts in place.

  As he arrived on the cold, windy beach of Sicidonia, he strolled right to the rocky cages that held his beasts. They snapped and snarled in greeting. As he surveyed his collection of creatures, he formulated a plot in his mind. A way to make heroes of his horrors.

  It would work, he decided gleefully—for all the monsters, except for her.

  She was the only one he couldn’t manipulate or control. She was the only one who could never become a hero.

  But he didn’t need to worry about her.

  She was far, far away, off in a frigid cave, closed off to the rest of the world forever and he wouldn’t disturb her. She’d stay there while the rest of the beasts earned their way to Mount Olympus. There were some creatures who were too cruel to train.

  The rest of the monsters would live as humans, but she would not—she’d only ever be a monster.

  Chapter 1

  Medusa

  I heard the whispers before I even reached the steps of the academy. “There she is. That’s her.”

  My new school stretched up against the blue sky, all gray stone and arch and pillar. Marble figures depicting the great Greek philosophers stood guard over the grounds, which included unnaturally green grass, meandering pathways and cypress trees that stretched their clawed branches towards the windows.

  If I were the type to be easily frightened, I might say that Terras Academy was gloomy. Eerie. Maybe even a bit creepy.

  But I was not easily frightened.

  And the place where I’d been living for over half my life? It made this academy look like child’s play.

  I made sure the hood of my sweatshirt was in place and pulled the straps of my backpack straight.

  “They’re going to eat you alive,” said a collective voice near my ears. “As soon as they find out what you are, they’re going to murder you. So you should probably attack them first.”

  “They already know what I am,” I murmured back. “And I can’t attack anyone. I promised.” That was part of the deal I’d struck with my anonymous benefactor—I had to be on my best behavior.

  No flashing my scales.

  No baring my teeth.

  No showing my hair, and absolutely no letting my eyes hit direct sunlight.

  No turning men to stone. Or else I’d be ripped out of school and sent back to my sea cave for the rest of eternity.

  And I’d kiss my chances of restoring my good name and my rightful claim to divinity on Mount Olympus goodbye.

  Someone walked past me, bumping my shoulder, nearly sending me off the curb. When the guy glanced back at me with a growl, there was something ferocious about the cut of his jaw. He was in a mortal frame, yes, but he was a monster. I’d know another one anywhere.

  I remembered what my anonymous benefactor had told me in the letter I’d received: “This won’t be an ordinary academy. Most of the students will be actual humans, but a handful of monsters will be sprinkled in, disguised as regular humans. You’re the only monster who won’t be in disguise, but you must not stand out. You must do everything in your power to act human. Keep the monster within leashed.”

  I wondered what monster had just bumped into me. Was it a satyr? Those goat-legged men from Etruria who worshipped Dionysus and could never say no to a drop of wine?

  Or was it something more sinister, like one of the mysterious giants of the north? When I was younger, before I was locked inside my sea cave to be punished, they were one of the only creatures that I’d found truly terrifying.

  And yet even the giants, I knew, I could stop with a single glance.

  There was no need for me to fear any of the monsters here at the academy, nor any of the humans.

  The only thing I had to fear was myself.

  “Teach him a lesson,” hissed the collective voice beneath my hood concerning the monster-disguised-as-human who’d rammed into me without an apology. “Make an example out of him. Let the rest of the school kno
w that you’re not to be trifled with.”

  “No,” I whispered. “I can’t do anything like that. I have to act normal. Like a human.” Like what I used to be. If I concentrated, I could still remember what it felt like.

  Being human was being fragile but beautiful. I had almost no memory of what either of those was like.

  Not anymore.

  “They’re all beneath you,” the voice hissed. “This is a farce—”

  “Perhaps,” I whispered back, glancing around to make sure no one was watching, “but this is my only chance at redemption. And I have to look the part. So be quiet.”

  Another student passed me as I spoke out loud, seemingly to nothing, but aside from a quick up-and-down, he didn’t seem alarmed.

  It made sense. I’d noticed how these humans wore earpieces and microphones so they, too, looked like they were talking to themselves. Humanity had certainly changed over the centuries.

  But some things would always be the same.

  I would always be the ugliest one in the room and the rumors would always fly whenever I came near a crowd.

  As I walked up the stairs, the whispers grew louder: “That’s the one. I heard she tattooed herself with snake scales from head to toe when she was eleven using a pen knife and printer ink.”

  “I heard her last school kicked her out because she made a voodoo doll of her gym teacher.”