Sabotage, page 1
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product 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.
SABOTAGE Woodward McQueen, LLC ©2023.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Cover Design Copyright © Dar Albert Wicked Smart Designs
Printed in the United States of America
Published by Oliver-Heber Books
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CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Also by Sherrilyn Kenyon
About the Author
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.
I will not fail.
I will not falter.
She had too much to lose.
Artemis leaned forward and kissed her forehead. A surge of power went through Kody as she felt her uncle’s powers embracing and invading her body. It, too, was like a warm hug.
Acheron …
He had been with her since the moment of her birth. Always there, always laughing and helping her parents. Him and her aunt, Tory and their kids …
So many wonderful memories.
So many nightmares.
With a gasp, she threw her head back and cried out. Birth, even rebirth, was always painful. It felt as if her entire body was being ripped to shreds. Scrubbed raw with a scouring pad.
Fire ran through her veins, pounding with such ferocity, she was sure she’d die again.
Then, suddenly, it stopped. Still shaking, she lay curled in a ball at Artemis’s feet. Honestly, she was too scared to move for fear it might bring the pain back to her.
The Greek goddess knelt down to brush her hair from her forehead. “Are you all right?”
Kody nodded even though she wasn’t completely sure. The way she felt, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be okay again.
But the longer she lay there, unmoving, the more everything faded.
All the pain. It left her feeling as if she were inside a warm cocoon.
Artemis held a long, graceful hand out to her.
Kody took it without hesitation and allowed the goddess to pull her to her feet.
She wasn’t sure what to expect. It’d taken her forever to get used to the first body she’d been brought back in. While some of it was familiar, most of it had been like wearing a Halloween costume from someone else.
Heck, she’d even flinched a few times when she caught sight of her reflection.
But this time … She looked down at her hands and saw the same rosy beige skin tone she’d been born with.
Smiling, Artemis manifested a mirror to show her what she looked like. “Is this what you wanted?”
Stunned and grateful, Kody stared at the visage of someone she knew intimately. Not the reflection of a stranger.
Her familiar heart-shaped face framed a pair of greenish-gold eyes that were identical to her mother’s. Though she’d never reached the height of her parents or brothers, she was still taller than most.
Most of all, she loved seeing her mother’s genes reflected back.
Artemis lowered the mirror. “You look just like her.”
“Pardon?”
“Bethany. She’s the only one who ever set my brother back on his shins. You’ve no idea how much I loved your mother, and you look just like her.”
Screwed-up idiom aside, Kody took that as the world’s greatest compliment.
Artemis dissolved the mirror, then held her hand out to manifest a bow.
No, not any bow.
Kody’s mother’s.
“Take Warbringer and do your mother proud.”
Elated, Kody rose on her toes and hugged Artemis. “Thank you! Thank you so much!”
Tears welled in Artemis’s eyes. “My pleasure, little one. I wish you luck.”
And with that, she vanished.
Kody tightened her grip on the bow. “Please let my powers work … please.” Leaning against the bow, she closed her eyes and tapped what she hoped hadn’t been stripped from her or bound by an enemy.
At first, she felt nothing.
But after a few terrifying heartbeats, that old, familiar s
Then her powers engulfed her. Like a mother’s embrace. How could she ever have forgotten the feel of them?
Letting them flow all through her, she held her hand out and willed herself to New Orleans.
Caleb Malphas was one of the surliest demons ever born. The son of a god, he’d been condemned by all for falling in love with a human and switching sides in the Primus Bellum—the first war of the gods.
From bad to good. As if switching to the right side had been the wrong move. But no one would believe a demon, even one in love, could ever give up his wickedness to fight for decency.
And so Caleb had lost everything, and been rejected by all.
Until Kody’s mother had believed in him. She’d been the first to see what no one else could … that there was a soul inside the demon. Because of her mother’s belief in Caleb’s heart, he’d been named her godfather when Kody was born.
There was more irony there than Kody wanted to think about. And because of Caleb’s loyalty and love with her and her mother, he was the one she sought first.
Or at least tried.
Frustrated, she stood outside his gigantic Greek Revival-style home like a human. “I forgot his sigils …” He’d given her access in her former body.
In this one …
She was completely locked out. So, Kody was forced to knock on the door of his palatial home like a regular person.
The gall of it all.
Then again, it probably kept her from being eaten by his unfriendly housemates. There was no telling what the hellhound crew would do if she popped into their house unannounced. None of them liked others as a general rule.
They liked uninvited intruders least of all.
Kody pressed the doorbell. A loud howling rang out through the entire house, and through the porch speakers. Wow.
How have I never heard that before?
Because you always popped into the house and never bothered with his doorbell.
Made sense, as did the unorthodox doorbell, now that she thought about it. It sounded like one of his hellhound friends. In the event one of them was in the wrong form when someone rang it, it would disguise their barking. Make a visitor think that he had a morbid sense of humor.
Or a bunch of big-ass dogs.
One thing about Caleb—he was brilliant. And very offbeat.
Out of nowhere, a voice growled, “What?”
She glanced around the doorstep, trying to locate who was talking to her. The sound hadn’t come from the intercom or speakers. Rather, it sounded like they were next to her. “Hello?”
“Who are you and what do you want?” There was that deep, demonic growl she knew so well.
Smiling at Caleb’s irritated tone, she continued to search for him. “Caleb, it’s me … Kody. I need your help.”
“You don’t look like—” His voice broke off mid-sentence.
One second she was on his doorstep, the next, she was inside his elegant home.
Before she could move or react, a pair of well-muscled arms pulled her against a steely chest. His black hair was a little longer than he normally wore it, but his eyes were the same shade of brown and his face every bit as chiseled.
He held her far too long and cupped her head like a father would a child. There was no mistaking the relief and love in that embrace. When he finally stepped back, he cupped her chin. “It is you, right?”
She nodded as tears welled in her eyes. “It’s me.”
“My God! You look just like your mother now. Back when I first met her. How are you here? You were dead! I saw you die. How are you not dead?”
She smiled at him. “An unfortunate event, but luckily I have friends in the right places.”
“Me money’s on that rat, Artemis.”
Kody smiled at the sound of Aeron’s voice as the ancient Celtic war god joined them. She moved away from Caleb to hug the tall blond man who was far more handsome than anyone should be. “I’ve missed all of you so much!”
Aeron’s arms tightened around her. “Aye, lass. We’ve all been the sadder without your lovely face to cheer us. You smell better, too.”
Caleb shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re back, and in what I assume is your original body?”
“Sort of.” She scowled. “I’m still kind of confused about it. This is what I looked like as a teenager, not how I looked when I died as an adult. Weird, right?”
“Artemis,” Aeron said with a laugh. “She could never do ages properly. Besides, everything with her is like playing a game of horseshoes.”
“Horseshoes?”
“You know, close enough.”
She laughed at the reference that in horseshoes, it didn’t matter if you actually hit the target. It only mattered who was closest.
Aeron was right. Vintage Artie, as it also explained her lack of ability to say anything correctly.
She glanced between the two of them. “Where’s the rest of you?”
Vawn appeared by her side. Tall and thin, she was a ghostlike wraith many called a banshee. Dressed in black rags, she had long, stringy red hair and dark eyes and lips, with a distinctive tattoo in the center of her forehead—a dark, elongated star.
But looks weren’t what they seemed. Vawn wasn’t always Gwrach y Rhibyn—the hag of the robin. She’d started out in life as a man who’d been cursed into that body after he broke the heart of a woman and she killed herself for him.
Now, he was forever damned to walk the earth in that woman’s body.
The saddest part? It hadn’t been his fault that he broke her heart. The woman had preyed upon him and stalked him near to madness. Then, when he refused to return her insane love, this curse had been her final vengeance. To ensure that he’d never forget her.
It was heartbreaking, really.
Vawn was a constant companion of Kaziel, a cŵn who’d been created by the gods. His kind were messengers who guarded the gates of Annwn—the underworld. In a way, cŵns were like banshees, in that anyone who heard their baying was destined to die.
Similar to Vawn, Kaziel had a tattoo in the center of his forehead. Only his was a sun symbol that marked him as being aligned to the side of light, even though he was a creature torn between light and dark. Forever lured between them. Never trusted by either, and cursed by both.
Just like Caleb.
Kaziel had long, pale blond hair that fell to his shoulders. Tiny braids interlaced with beads and feathers held it back from his chiseled, handsome face. And unlike Vawn, he had other facial tattoos that curved from his chin up and over his cheeks in the shape of tusks. They came to a sharp point under eyes that were so light and green they glowed with an ethereal, fey light.
Vawn, Kaziel, and Aeron made up the Arswyd gan drindod— terror by a trinity. In battle, they were invincible.
Especially when they were backed by Zavid—one of the highest-level warrior demons. A shapeshifter by birth, he could assume any shape he wanted.
But his favorite was that of a black hellhound.
Yeah, Caleb kept company with a scary bunch of friends.
And she loved every one of them. Kody made sure to hug each of them in turn. Then she turned to Caleb, as one of his crew was notably missing. “Where’s Xev?”
“Making sure something doesn’t eat Nick.”
That made sense. As Nick’s great-grandfather, Xev had a vested interest in keeping Nick safe.
“Can we call him back?”
Caleb frowned. “Why would we do that? It’s so quiet when he’s gone.” He passed a sarcastic stare to the group.
Kody laughed, knowing Xev was the quietest one of them. Even Caleb talked more. “You’re awful.”
“That’s what they tell me.” Pulling out his phone, he called Xev.
“Something up?”
She smiled at the sound of Xev’s voice over the speaker. Until then, she’d forgotten how much she’d missed all of them.
“Yeah.” Caleb scanned her body with a smirk. “Little bit of something just came in. I think you’re going to want to see this for yourself.”
“Is it important?”
“Probably more important than what you’re currently doing, Grandpa. So stop licking your butt and get over here.”
