Bared Before the Gods Read online

  Contents

  Dedication

  Excerpt

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Thanks for Reading

  Preview

  About the Author

  BARED BEFORE THE GODS

  by

  Alyson Belle

  Copyright © 2018 Alyson Belle

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  All characters in this book are over the age of 18 (18+ only). All characters, locations, and situations are entirely fictional representations and any resemblance to real world scenarios are entirely coincidental.

  You can see more of Alyson Belle’s work, get in touch, and follow her blog on AlysonBelle.com.

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  An excerpt from Bared Before the Gods:

  “Lucia?! Are you okay? Wake up!” Mal was shaking me. A worried expression colored his face. He looked so concerned as I jerked away from him, but his touch had sent electricity through my body that threw me off for a moment.

  It was just a dream, and I'd been right in the beginning. I looked down at my dainty, pale fingers and realized I was still a woman. So, I had indeed met Aphrodite, and she had saved me from Charon. I had no doubt that had she not removed me from the underworld, what I had dreamed would have been my fate.

  “I’m sorry, Mal. I had an awful dream. I was back in the underworld, and Charon threw me into the river of pain. I was being struck by lightning repeatedly, but there was no lightning, and I couldn’t scream. Oh, Mal! It was so terrible! Do you think that could have been my fate had I not been saved?”

  The female body I had been forced into seemed to have affected my emotions as well, because tears pooled in my eyes until I was sobbing on Mal’s shoulder, who was holding me and rubbing my back, trying to comfort me.

  “It’s okay, Lucia. You’re not there; you’re here. You’re going to be fine.”

  “But what if that awaits me when I return to the underworld? Surely, I won’t appear as a woman, since my spirit is a man. Charon will immediately recognize me as the man who stole Zeus’ crown!”

  “Shhhh. You shouldn’t concern yourself with such morbid thoughts. You are not dying any time soon. Zeus will not find you; Aphrodite made sure of it by turning you into this gorgeous woman.” Mal pulled away from holding me to gaze into my tear-streaked face.

  “You…You think I’m gorgeous?” I sniffled, trying to wipe away the waterfalls that poured from my eyes.

  “Of course you’d only focus on that part.” Mal rolled his eyes. But unlike all the other times I was vain and wanted the compliment, I wasn’t joking around. I gazed at him with a longing expression, and he sighed.

  “Yes, she turned you into the most gorgeous woman I have ever seen.” Mal placed one of his hands on the side of my cheek, and my face practically melted into a puddle in his palm. I closed my eyes and smiled, nuzzling against his hand.

  And then I felt those soft, warm lips from earlier brushing against my own.

  I opened my eyes only to see his closed. I thought about breaking the kiss, telling him I was still a guy, and that this wasn’t right. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. As much as my mind protested, my body was responding to him, and my lips were shaping against his eager kisses. He cradled my body in his arms, and I was mush. My protesting thoughts quickly gave up as his fingertips caressed my shoulder, raising goosebumps.

  “Is this all right?” he asked suddenly. “I just… you’re so beautiful, and…”

  “Shh,” I urged, fighting against myself. I hadn’t realized just how badly I wanted him until I’d been wrapped up in his arms. My new body wanted him even if my mind found it strange. “Shut up. Don’t stop.”

  His tongue glided against my lips, asking for entrance. A small corner of my mind tried to say no, but my mouth parted anyway. His tongue explored me with reckless abandon, tasting me for the first time. I experimentally nuzzled my tongue against his and was amused to find the flavor of the rich spanakopita we’d had for dinner. There was a hidden taste as well which I figured was his natural taste. Paired together, it was delicious, and I felt that I could kiss him all day.

  But he seemed to have other things in mind when he undid the belt to my dress…

  Chapter 1

  “Best two out of three?”

  I looked to the haggard, slightly-swaying tavern patron across the wide oak table from me, leaning over the edge with a dribble of mead threading through his scraggly beard.

  “Come now, Petrokylus. I’ve beaten you in arm wrestling, coins, and trosykis. You’re not going to win.”

  “No fair, Lukas,” another man slurred from the crowd. “You only play at what you’re good at.”

  “Ah, you see, that’s the trick,” I responded with a wry grin. “I’m good at everything.”

  “Calm down there with your wild boasting, now,” my friend Mal said in a jovial tone, clapping me on the back. We both laughed, and I stood to take the flagon of mead he was pressing into my hand. “I’m really not in the mood for you to get us into another fight.”

  Mal and I had been the best of friends since childhood, getting in and out of trouble like the two sides of a single coin. The two of us were known from Athens to Troy, inseparable rogues, and well on our way to notoriety and riches—or so we told one another. Whether we were adventuring together from one city to another or just beating local tavern patrons at games for pocket money, we were always by the other’s side.

  “You think you could take us all on?” someone slurred from the crowd. Mal hadn’t actually expected me to start a fight with the whole bar. But of course, someone had to overhear what he said and interpret it the wrong way, and now I’d been challenged.

  Mal sighed as I fixed the man with my most assured stare and grinned broadly. He and his friends weren’t locals, so they had no idea what they were getting into. “I know we could take you all on and still have vigor enough left over to dandle your wives on our knees afterwards.”

  “But let’s not get to that point, shall we?” Mal added quickly. “My friend’s ego is as big as his heart. He won’t throw the first punch, but if you push him, even I can’t stop him.” He gestured to one of the serving girls and swept a hand over the group. “Another round for all of us please—on me.”

  She laughed as she poured out more drink for each of us. I shot Mal a dirty look, but decided to let it go for the moment. We’d taken enough of these men’s money tonight that we could afford to toss a few bones back to them.

  Besides, the bit of coin was a small enough sacrifice for us. We drank for half price in this tavern, which was why it was our favorite. The owner, a large, barrel-chested man with a booming laugh, was still eternally grateful for the time we’d returned his wife and daughter to him after their capture at the hands of a group of local bandits. The funny thing was that we hadn’t meant to do that at all. We had been wandering around in the forest on the way to Athens, completely lost, when we’d stumbled into a bandit camp in the middle of the thick trees. A few punches and sword swings later, all the brigands had been driven off, leaving us with a gaggle of grateful women and children on our hands. We’d taken th
e detour to escort them back home and earned ourselves a lifetime of cheap ale, which was a better reward than most considering how much Mal and I both enjoyed ale.

  It paid to be a hero in surprising ways. I certainly liked the attention that came along with it.

  “Ego is right,” the serving woman said, rudely interrupting my thoughts. She slammed the mugs Mal had ordered onto the table with far more force than was necessary. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you thought yourself equal to the gods themselves, the way you talk.”

  “The gods?” I countered, feeling my pride well up once again. “What do the gods do besides live in luxury every day and torture mortals? What skills does it take to sit on their mountain and drink ever-flowing wine from Dionysus’ cup?”

  “Lukas…” Mal warned.

  But I could feel myself launching into one of my tipsy rants. I didn’t care. I was powerful. I was fast. I was mighty. And I accomplished all my greatest feats on my own merit, without any magical powers. What could the gods possibly do that I couldn’t, if put on an even playing field?

  “They’re little better than mortals!” I declared, warming to the idea.

  “Are you saying that you’re better than the gods themselves?” the serving girl asked with a heavy note of disapproval in her voice.

  “Better?” I repeated before climbing up onto the table where the whole room could see me. “I’m saying that I could best any one of them if challenged to a fair fight! I could trick them, sneak under their noses, and show you all just how bloated they are from an eternity of ease!”

  “Lukas!” Mal grabbed at me.

  The serving girl was not impressed. I might have been tipsy, but I could still see that her hands were on her hips, and she'd clenched her jaw tightly. I flashed my famous smile at her, attempting to disarm her with the legendary good looks that had won me lovers across the Aegean, but if anything her scowl deepened.

  Huh… that usually works, I reflected. Maybe I should have shaved this morning.

  Now that I looked at her more closely, I recognized her face, and suddenly understood why my charms hadn’t worked on her. I vaguely remembered that she was one of those deeply religious folks who visited the temple every day, morning or night, and my irreverence had clearly rubbed her wrong. She wasn’t the type to let an insult to her deities go just because a good-looking man gave her a smile. Perhaps I had picked the wrong crowd to boast to… but what was done was done.

  “If you think you’re so skilled, you would accept a challenge then,” she spat.

  “Of course. Anything. You name it, and I’ll do it. There is no task that Mal and I can’t accomplish.”

  Her eyes hardened, and I could see that this woman thought that I was just another washed-up, drunken oaf, home from my adventures—that her piety and honest, daily work somehow made her better than me. I hated people like that. Not because she was pious and honest—those were good enough traits, even if they were a little boring—but because she was so gods-damned smug about it. It didn’t help that she’d resisted my obvious charms.

  Maybe it was the alcohol, but I felt a burning need inside of me to prove her wrong. She would see. I had already gone from being an orphan on the streets to being a local hero, and I still had the rest of my life ahead of me. Soon, “Lukas the Great” was going to be a legend for the ages, toasted to for centuries after all her gods had been long forgotten.

  “Fine, brave man,” the girl continued. “I challenge you to steal Zeus’s crown of oak leaves from his home on Mount Olympus. It’s summer, so he sports his laurels now, and his oak crown is set in the garden of Hera in a place of reverence. Find it, bring it here, and then you might be able to claim that you hold a candle to their greatness.”

  I jumped down from the table and strode toward her, my chest jutting out. She held her ground, probably because she knew me, and she also knew I would never raise my hand against an innocent. But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t intimidate a challenger, whether man or woman. I stopped just short of touching her and loomed over her, smiling down from my considerable height. The whole tavern went silent as they watched the exchange.

  She was so small compared to me. By no means a stick figure, she was full of all the rounded, beautiful curves that came with womanhood, but I still dwarfed her considerably. She just stared up at me, defiant, assured, and confident, as the crowd looked on. I had to admit that this girl’s courage was impressive. If I was her size, I didn’t think I would be nearly as brave facing down a man like me.

  “Challenge accepted,” I declared, biting off each word with quiet, deadly precision. I boldly seized another mug from her tray and gulped it down in one drink.

  “I’ll prepare your funeral rights,” she said with a snort before turning to serve other patrons. The bar erupted into laughter, the music returned, and everyone went back to their conversations.

  For a moment I stood there fuming. How dare they all laugh at me! They thought I couldn’t steal Zeus’s crown? They thought he was so powerful, and I was a boastful, drunken nobody? Well, I’d show them. I’d show them this very night.

  My head swam only a little as I laughed and headed for the door. I was at that perfect place of drunkenness that didn’t impede any of my physical movements but which gave me all the courage I would need to do something truly outrageous. I could feel no fear, no reluctance—only a firm resolve that I would be victorious in any venture I might set out to try.

  Outside of the tavern, the night air was cool and quiet. I looked up at the mountain that gently kissed the night sky in the distance. Somewhere up there, the mighty Zeus slept in the middle of his city of Olympians, looking down on all of us mortals with disdain. It didn’t seem so high. I could probably make it to the foot of the mountain before sunup if I… er, borrowed a horse.

  And once I’d stolen his crown, no one could ever say that Lukas the Great was not the hero of legend that he claimed to be.

  A sly smile spread across my face. It looked like I’d be visiting Olympus tonight.

  Chapter 2

  I fumbled with the reins of one of the horses in the town stable. I couldn’t recognize if it were Beucyphilus or Barnecles, but I had borrowed both of them before, and they knew me quite well. I was lucky that the town had a generally positive view towards Mal and me, once again thanks to our timely bandit rescue, or I probably wouldn’t be able to get away with nearly as much mischief as I did.

  Suddenly I felt a tight grip around my sizable bicep. I whirled around, ready to attack. I relaxed a little when I saw it was just Mal, who was looking at me with a mix of disappointment and concern.

  “It took you long enough,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder as I wrestled my arm free. “I was beginning to think that you weren’t coming.”

  “I’m not,” he said. “What are you doing, Lukas? Are you crazy? This isn’t some group of half-starved boys calling themselves ‘bandits’ in the woods. You might talk a good game, but the gods aren’t nearly as toothless as you seem to think they are.”

  I sighed and rolled my eyes. While Mal and I had always been close, he had also always been the one to question everything. Some people called him practical; I thought him boring. I had to convince him of all of our crazier schemes as if he was somehow always worried he would muss up that perfect black hair all the ladies swooned over.

  “Can we not do this now?” I asked, turning back to the horse. “Let’s go have a fun adventure, just like the good old days.”

  “I don’t consider storming Mount Olympus and getting killed by the gods to be ‘fun’, old friend. You’ve had too much to drink. Let’s just sleep it off and maybe go raiding the forest tomorrow for any lingering Persians. No one will even remember this tomorrow.”

  “No. You heard the girl. She made the challenge in front of everyone, and I’ll have that crown if it’s the last thing I do. Think of the story they’ll make of this!” I mounted the horse and fixed him with one of my cockiest grins. I knew he would follow me. He
couldn’t ever stand me getting all the attention without him. “We’re not getting any younger, and now is the perfect time to prove exactly what we can do.”

  “What you can do,” he spat. “Forget this. I’m going home. If you have any sense, you’ll come and sleep off your drunk in our sitting room.”

  He stormed off, leaving me to stare at his back.

  Huh. Mal had never walked away from me like that before.

  At first, I was mostly just puzzled. But then that quickly grew into anger. He was abandoning me? The gods were lazy, drunken sycophants who cared nothing of humans and generally wrought mayhem whenever they could. People said they had power, people told stories, but when had we actually seen it with our own eyes? I was tired of laying praise at the feet of a group of beings who had never known hardship in their lives and spent all their time on opulent, self-involved games. Didn’t Mal want to seize this chance to show them what was what?

  Apparently not. How disappointing. And I’d thought he was my friend.

  I growled to myself and urged the horse into motion. It took off, whipping me through the town and carrying me on my way to establish my legend.

  ***

  I looked up at the mountain in front of me; its peak gently piecing the velvet night sky. I could already see the faintest hints of lavender gracing the horizon, meaning morning would be coming in the next hour or so.

  Perfect. The gods would be drunk and content in the early hour, bloated from whatever debauchery they had reveled in the prior night. It was the ideal time to slip in and take what I had planned to. That meant that I needed to climb the mountain, and quickly.

  I strode forward, taking the slight path that led a short way up to where humans would leave their offerings when they were particularly desperate. But once I reached that spot, I was left looking up at a sheer cliff face. I gazed up in awe, feeling a sudden moment of doubt even in my drunkenness. Was I truly going to climb Olympus? I hadn’t heard of anyone who had actually done it… only in the stories.