Apollo's Priestess Read online

  Apollo’s Priestess

  Lovers and Liars: Immortal Wars, #2

  Liz Meldon

  Published by Liz Meldon.

  Copyright Liz Meldon 2017

  License Notes

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. It remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to purchase their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Glossary

  Please Note

  Previously, in the Lovers and Liars: Immortal Wars universe…

  Prologue

  1. Two Years Later

  2. A Little Bird Flew

  3. From One Cage to Another

  4. For Behind Her Was Wrath

  5. But Kindness Ahead

  6. And Now the Bird Sang, Fiercely Once More

  7. No Other May Touch You

  8. For I am Yours, and You are Mine

  9. Eternally

  10. Forever, My Love

  Stay Connected for Future Releases

  Thanks for reading!

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to my fantastic editorial crew Amanda and Phoenix, for helping me turn this emotional love story into something heartfelt. As always, much love to my author besties group, my sun and stars, and my parents for being incredibly supportive of this journey. Last, and certainly not least, a great many thanks to my readers. You guys make it all happen. Without you, it’s just me and my imagination.

  Glossary

  Consider skimming this handy guide to refresh your mythology memory bank before you read. Any figures with an asterisk (*) beside their names play important roles in Apollo’s Priestess.

  Greek/Roman Figures

  Apollo *

  Greek god of music, poetry, oracles, medicine, sun, and knowledge. Brother to Athena, Ares, and Hephaestus (and many more). Son of Zeus and Leto. Twin brother to Artemis. Known to the Romans as Apollo.

  Ares

  Greek god of war. While his sister Athena is also the goddess of war, Ares is known for the brutal physicality wars brings to those involved. He is less about strategy, more about violent bloodshed. Son of Zeus and Hera. Father of Deimos and Phobos and many others. Known to the Romans as Mars.

  Artemis

  Greek goddess of the hunt, the moon, and animals. Sister to Athena, Ares, Hephaestus, and twin to Apollo. Known to the Romans as Diana.

  Athena

  Virginal Greek goddess of wisdom, craft (including weaving and various other arts), and war. Daughter of Zeus and Metis, she was birthed out of the side of her father’s head after he consumed her mother. She was said to be born as a full-grown woman, already incredibly intelligent and world-wise. She is known to the Romans as Minerva.

  Ceres

  Roman goddess of agriculture, grain, fertility, and motherly relationships. Her Greek counterpart is Demeter

  Hebe

  Greek goddess of youth. Daughter of Zeus and Hera. Wife of Heracles. Sister to Athena, Ares, Hephaestus—the whole second tier of the Olympian pantheon. Spends her days as a cupbearer to Hera and an occasional servant to Aphrodite. Known as Juventas to the Romans.

  Hera

  Greek goddess of marriage, childbirth, and women. Wife to Zeus, mother to Ares and Hephaestus (and others). Peacocks and pure white cows are her animals of choice. Deeply in love with her husband, but very jealous and spiteful to Zeus’s lovers and the children born from his trysts. Known as Juno to the Romans.

  Hestia/Vesta

  Greek/Roman goddess of the hearth and home. Plays a central role in Roman life, and has one of the largest cults (Vestal Virgins) in Roman society.

  Nyx

  Greek titan goddess of the night.

  Zeus

  Greek thunder and sky god. Head of the Olympian pantheon. Brother to Poseidon and Hades, son of titans Cronus and Rhea. Father to Athena. Known to the Romans as Jupiter.

  Greek/Roman Creatures, Places, and Terms

  Pallium

  A toga-like garment worn by high-ranking citizens of the Roman empire.

  Tallow

  Animal lard—used to make soap.

  Irish Figures

  Dagda

  Typically referred to as The Dagda. Leader of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Irish god linked to fertility, manliness, agriculture, weather, and strength. A king and father. Although married, he has many mistresses and even more children out of wedlock. Another “All-father” figure in mythology, similar to Odin of the Norse pantheon. A warrior, druid, and magic user, he carries a staff that can give and take life, a magical cauldron that never empties, and a harp that can control the weather and men’s emotions.

  Morrigan

  Often referred to as The Morrigan. Irish goddess of magic, prophecy, and war. Most closely associated with fate, particularly for warriors destined to perish in battle. Called the Triple Goddess, as she is the maiden, the mother, and the crone in one figure. Heavily associated with crows. War goddess who became Dagda’s mistress on Samhain so that the king could learn the fate of his conflicts with the Fomorians.

  Irish Creatures and Places

  Tír na nÓg

  The mythical Otherworld, a realm of eternal youth and beauty. Home of the gods of Irish mythology. It is said to be reached by crossing over through graveyards and burial grounds.

  Slavic Gods and Goddess

  Lada *

  Goddess of love, fertility, and beauty

  Perun

  God of thunder and head of the pantheon

  Svarog

  God of fire, iron, and blacksmiths

  Veles

  God of the underworld. Frequently steals from humans and gods alike, and is punished by Perun. The rain is said to be his stolen good returning to humanity.

  Zorya

  Goddess of midnight. Seen as two figures in mythology, and is represented in the Morning and Evening stars

  Slavic Creatures and Places

  Bannik

  A bathhouse spirit that is said to be heavily offended by Christian iconography.

  Mavka

  Female spirits, usually represented as beautiful, sometimes naked, young women who lure men to their deaths in the forests.

  Vyraj

  Identified as paradise in Slavic mythology.

  Other Mythological Figures and Places

  Odin

  Head of the Norse pantheon. All-father of the Aesir gods. God of death, healing, knowledge, poetry. Sacrificed his eye for knowledge. Animal companions include wolves and ravens. Known to wander the Nine realms, hooded and cloaked. Warrior, king, husband.

  Yggdrasil

  Norse concept of the universe. All Nine Realms are connected on a huge tree, with Asgard and the homes of the Gods at the canopy, and the others falling into place along the branches and trunk. Gods traverse the tree to go between the realms. Ancient prose eddas say that the tree was an ash tree.

  Please Note

  Apollo’s Priestess is the second novella in the Lovers and Liars: Immortal Wars series. It can be read as a standalone, and the key details of the first book are included on the next page for those who haven’t read it.

  Please note this book is rated M for graphic violence, sexual content, and coarse language. A trigger warning for implied rape is attached to this piece.

  Previously, in the Lovers and Liars: Immortal Wars universe…

  Court of the Phantom Queen (Book #1)

  Fearing the spread of the Cult of One, Athena decides to create a special council of other like-minded gods from around the world to counteract the threat. She assembles a group of travellers, including goddess Hebe and god Pan, to join her as she goes from godly house to house, asking for support.

  She begins in the Celtic pantheon, ruled by the god Dagda, wherein she reunites with the god Lugh, who she has always secretly loved. When Dagda’s mistress Morrigan sees the power shifting away from Zeus’s house, a vision in the flames, they turn on Athena and slaughter her company, including her beloved owl companion Nocta. With the help of Lugh, only Athena and Pan escape, and Zeus orders her to stop her crusade.

  Apollo’s Priestess (Lovers and Liars: Immortal Wars, #2)

  A story about a kidnapped priestess, the lone wolf shifter who rescues her, and a god desperate to prove his sister wrong.

  336 AD. Constantine II rules the Roman Empire, and the Cult of One gains a foothold with the common people. A clash of belief systems is at hand.

  Fresh from her misadventures in the western isles, Athena's fears for the fate of her godly family fall upon deaf ears--particularly with carefree Apollo. As she ignores her father's orders to stay within the empire and heads north for Asgard, Apollo, god of music, medicine, archery, and plague, immerses himself among the people to prove her concerns baseless.

  Two years earlier, Lor, a devout priestess of Apollo, was kidnapped and sold illegally into slavery. Seven hundred and thirty long days of suffering at the hands of monsters haunts her, and she now fears her newest master plans to sell her to the highest, foulest bidder. Her heart burns with defiance, but surrounded by her master's soldiers, she has little hope of escaping her fate...

  Until a figure emerges from the shadows. Handsome, rugged barbarian one moment, a great black wolf the next, this mysterious stranger whisks her away from her captors—but has Lor traded one cage for another? Little does she know, there
is more to this wolf shifter than meets the eye…

  Prologue

  Seated on the stone steps of her humble temple, Lor basked in the soft glow of the setting sun. Pink blended with purple, orange with red, as the great fiery globe descended across the sky, sinking low beneath the hilly horizon. With her arms wrapped around her knees, hands entwined, she watched with an easy smile; the sun belonged to the great god Apollo. For as long as she could remember, Lor had watched it rise and fall each day, thinking only of him—of his power, his influence, his majesty.

  Lately, her usual routine had an air of sadness about it. While Ceres had once again blessed the empire with the bounty of a summer’s harvest, it was just this last spring that Lor had lost the other most important man in her life. Her father had been taken from her in the dead of night, with no warning or pain. She had awoken before sunrise, as she always did, to find him cold and lifeless in his bed within the temple he had built for Apollo long before she was even born. The gods had seen fit to take him from her, her only worldly companion.

  But she had not let his death affect the temple’s care or the sacred rites, for great Apollo cared not for the death of one priest. All that had mattered, as her father used to say, was that Apollo’s fires continued to burn, that there was a white calf or lamb to slaughter with each solstice in his name, and that Lor never forgot her place. For years, she and he had watched the rising and setting sun together. Her father had lived here, within the confines of the temple, while Lor tended to their family farm on the outskirts of the village.

  It all belonged to her now. No one had protested it, the passing of her father’s worldly possessions to his only child—a girl, no less. No one had seemed to care.

  If she dwelled on it too long, her eyes would swim with tears—and the priestess of Apollo, the only one in all the villages around her, was not one for weeping. Apollo was a happy god. A blessed god. A god who could not be fueled by her sorrow.

  So, Lor watched the setting sun and its splendid array of color with a smile, willing the sight to fill her heart with joy for the night ahead. When the great star finally disappeared beyond the hills, hiding behind the vineyards on the far side of her village, Lor stood, dusted off her plain white shift, and climbed the steps in silence. She checked the incense burning on either side of the door, noting that she would need to make more soon. A warm evening breeze whispered across the temple like a sigh.

  Once inside, she went about her nightly duties: ensuring the everlasting fire within the small hearth would have sufficient wood while she slept, lighting all the candles around Apollo’s statue, and pruning the laurel that crept in through the windows nearest him. She picked away the dead leaves and tossed them in the fire, savoring the brief scent of the woodsy herb before the flames consumed it.

  When she finished her chores, the activities she must do, Lor busied herself with what she wanted to do: crafting laurel wreaths. Her father had taught her as a child how to weave the branches together to form crowns—one sat around the head of her revered Apollo’s statue—and wreaths to hang outside the temple and on the door. If she was feeling bold, she’d run through the forest and crown the tree branches instead, imagining her beloved god finding them on his travels. He’d be pleased, surely, with her attention to detail.

  So there she sat, on the thin bed that had once been her father’s, weaving and humming a tune he used to sing to her. Sometimes, if she let herself, she’d hear his voice in her head, the words clear as day. Lor would close her eyes and imagine his face as he sang, weathered features shrouded in shadow and flickering with candlelight, sending her off to sleep. She heard it even now, humming alongside her, protecting her, comforting her.

  But tonight her dear father’s voice, its gruffness starting to fade from Lor’s memories, wasn’t the only one she heard from the confines of the temple.

  It wasn’t unusual to hear noises outside; after her father’s death, Lor had moved their entire homestead to the temple with the aid of a few villagers. Back then, they had seemed almost happy to watch her go; perhaps they had grown tired of her incessant reminders to pay homage to Apollo. After all, their village, among the thousands within the great empire, had prospered for decades by his will—Lor’s family had seen to that through the generations.

  Lately, it seemed people hadn’t the time for Apollo—or any of the gods who kept their homes safe, their crops bountiful, and their marriages content. Lor sought to remind them to pay tribute, for the wrath of the gods was far, far worse than their love—or had they forgotten the old stories?

  Yet no one had come to pray in the temple since Lor had taken up residence inside. Sure, she had the sheep, the goats, the chickens, and the cows to keep her company. Occasionally a cat might visit, and sometimes Lor heard the melodies of wild wolves in the distance. But no people.

  Until tonight. And by the sounds of it, there were many people. Gladness made her heart flutter. Carefully, Lor set her incomplete wreaths aside, then sprung to her feet and ensured she looked presentable, hastily combing her fingers through her shoulder-length russet hair. With a smile, she skipped to Apollo’s handsome statue and touched the ends of her trembling fingers to his bare feet. She’d known they would come around. She’d been so sure they would remember who had made their village prosperous all these years.

  Casting one last glance up at the bronze Apollo, his kind eyes staring into the worlds beyond this one, Lor took a deep breath and hurried for the door. She padded down the front steps, her eyes bright and her smile wide, ready to welcome the worshippers for any nighttime offerings they might bring.

  Her smile faltered, however, when she realized most were carrying torches—and weapons. Swords, bows, farm tools that could do grave harm to a person’s body… She blinked, her mind rapidly piecing it all together. They weren’t here to worship—not at all. She stepped back, her mouth falling open, and wrapped her arms around herself at the sheer venom in their eyes as they drew nearer. A band of men, none of them familiar, marched toward her, shouting and cursing, some singing a bawdy song that made her skin crawl.

  Tears stinging her eyes, Lor raced back inside and slammed the wooden door behind her. What few locks her father had built, she put them all to good use with shaking hands.

  There had been rumors, all across the Roman empire, that the followers of this one god were sacking temples. As far as Lor knew, such actions were not legal under their current emperor—and would be punished, severely, by the god they disrespected.

  But in that moment, none of the sanctions, the fears, the consequences, seemed to matter. The singing and laughter grew deafening outside the temple, and she yelped when someone hurled a rock through the one glass windowpane she had. The rest were just open to the natural world, high on the temple walls near the base of the roof.

  She screamed again when something, or someone, slammed against the door, followed by a burst of laughter from the men outside. Lor whirled around, stumbling over her own feet, scouring the temple for something she could use to defend herself.

  All her weaponry was outside, locked away in the small barn with the cows. Her father had never allowed her to bring her bow inside.

  “Apollo is not Mars,” he had said. “There is no place for weapons of war here. Only love.”