PROLOGUE
MOUNT OLYMPUS, 2000
Nekoda Kennedy had been born Nyria Belami Anaxkolasi. Daughter of a justice goddess and a Chthonian father who had been charged with helping to protect mankind from gods who abused their powers. Those who treated humanity as if they were nothing, save pawns to be toyed with and preyed upon. Her father’s sacred duty was to make sure mankind remained safe from predators, regardless of their origins.
She’d learned justice on her parents’ knees and felt an insatiable hunger for it deep inside her soul.
An all-consuming need to have order restored to the universe. Never to allow anyone to prey on someone else.
Which was why, after her brutal death, she’d agreed to return to life to destroy the Malachai demon before it had a chance to destroy the world. To take everyone she loved from her.
Everyone.
But plans were never so simple. Nor did they often go without hiccups. Those who’d brought her back to life to battle the Malachai had withheld vital information about her life and rebirth. Vital info such as the fact that the Ambrose Malachai—the very demon they’d ordered her to kill—was her husband. They’d failed to tell her that one day, she would fight side by side with him to put down the Cyprian Malachai, as they tried to save the world.
Worse? They had done their best to manipulate her with their lies.
Those lies had caused her second death. The only difference was that the second time, her death had awakened a need for vengeance unlike anything she’d known before. A craving so strong that it had rung out to the heavens and to Mount Olympus where her “aunt” Artemis lived.
The moment she heard that distinctive sound, Artemis had come to Kody in her full, towering beauty. With long auburn hair and deep green eyes, she was one of the most beautiful women Kody had ever seen. As always, she wore a white dress that hugged every one of her luscious curves.
Artemis had stared at Kody with a stern frown. “I feel like I know you, but I don’t.”
In her spirit form, Kody smiled. “You know me, Aunt Artie … in the future.”
Her frown deepening, Artemis had approached her cautiously. “You’re Bethany’s child?”
Kody had nodded. “I need you to use Acheron’s powers to restore me to life. Please!” Acheron was her uncle, the twin brother of her father and the father of Artemis’s daughter. As an Atlantean god, Acheron had the power over life and death. There was almost nothing he couldn’t do.
Even so, Artemis had hesitated. “I don’t know … Acheron loses his shoulder whenever I bring people forward.”
Kody barely stopped herself from laughing as she remembered the one thing about Artemis that annoyed Acheron beyond endurance. Her aunt could never get any saying right. She always butchered any and all idioms.
“Please, Aunt Artie, I have to save Nick Gautier.”
Artemis’s green eyes flared at the mention of Nick’s name. At this point, Artemis had no idea what Nick would one day come to mean to her, personally. “That annoying little brat Acheron favors?”
Kody nodded. Acheron and Nick were very distant cousins. Nick’s great-great-some-unbelievably-long-ago-great ancestor had been an older brother to Acheron. Her belief was that somehow Acheron had sensed that blood connection to Nick the moment they met and had been protective over him ever since.
In the not-so-distant future, Artemis would be even more protective over Nick.
Unaware of the future Kody knew all too well, Artemis stepped back with a pout. “Oh … Acheron would be very mad if anything happened to that boy. He gets so angry when humans he likes die …” She cast a fretful stare at Kody, then she nodded. “I will bring you back. Please, do not tell Acheron what I did.”
Kody tapped her heart. “Promise. Not a word. I would never get you into trouble.”
Nodding, Artemis stepped forward and cupped her niece’s face. “I feel you are important to me. I don’t know why.”
Because in the future, she would protect Artemis and her daughter and grandchildren. Artemis’s son-in-law would die by Kody’s side as they fought as hard as they could to save mankind.
It was one of a million memories she wished she didn’t have. Maybe that was the one gift the Arelim had given her when they brought her back with stripped memories. She’d had no idea exactly what lay ahead for her.
Now, she did.
Hindsight’s twenty-twenty.
Foresight, too.
And she intended to use that knowledge for everything it was worth.
