Earth Borne

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 by Rachael Slate

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

First Edition March 2016

Edited by Kelley Heckart

Cover design by NovelArt Designs

Formatting by NovelArt Designs

ISBN 978-0-9948764-3-0

Steel yourself.

As a nymph, she’s fashioned for seduction

Melita is married to the centaur, Lord Thereus. Or at least she pretends to be. The ruse has been easy, until the presumed deceased Thereus returns. To save his lands, she committed treason. But that isn’t the worst of her secrets. To protect her heart from the lethally charming Thereus, she’ll have to risk claiming his.

No one has ever tamed him

Thereus was once as wild as the stallion half of his body. And just as stubborn. He never wished for a wife, but the woman he returns to has changed. She’s become…irresistible. Despite his attraction, Thereus doesn’t intend to stay. After he collects his army, he’ll be off to war. Yet as his passion for her burns as deep as her secrets, he’ll have to fight for the one thing he faked his death to escape…and now just might not be able to live without.

The path of truth is wound with hidden desires

Melita’s shadowed past holds a secret that could shatter the centuries-old peace between centaurs and Lapiths. But trusting her heart to Thereus isn’t a risk Melita is willing to take twice, even though he swears he’s now more wicked than wild. As her enemies close in on the truth, Melita and Thereus will have to choose between protecting her race…and saving his.

Earth

When the Olympian gods overthrew the Titans, they divided the rule of the world. Zeus proclaimed himself Supreme Ruler and governed the skies. Poseidon claimed the oceans. The Underworld, and the souls of the dead, fell to Hades. All were content with the arrangement.

Until Hades met Persephone.

Their forbidden love blasted through Mt. Olympus, initiating a cataclysmic rift between the gods. The unbalance in the heavens nearly shattered the fragile human world below. In punishment, Zeus cursed Persephone. Nine months of each year, she would remain by her mother’s side, tending to the human harvests. The other three months were hers to spend with her husband, Hades, in the Underworld.

The arrangement pleased none.

Centuries have passed. As humans turn their devotion to Science, the powers of the Olympian gods diminish. In an attempt to regenerate their divinity, the gods have procreated, breeding new species of being—such as centaurs, winged ones, and mermaydes. With the unique strengths of their individual godly parents, these descendants have thrived in their own worlds, alongside humans but hidden from view.

The rift in Olympus widens as the gods gain new strength. When the Fates intervene with a damning wager, these descendants become the answer to Persephone’s curse. Hades and Persephone’s quest to reclaim their love will pit god against god, in a tournament unmatched since time began. Victory lies in the union of warriors—exceptional females who control the elements and the males whose love will make them strong.

If they succeed, love will be theirs to claim.

But if they fail, their love will fall to ruin.

It is the eve of war, and the battle for the power of the Earth begins now.

Chapter 1

Centaur lands, Thessaly

Year 1384 of the reign of King Cheiron II

Or the human year, 1689

The green flag atop the highest tower of Westgard castle flapped in the wind, taunting her. Paralyzed, Melita’s blood iced, freezing her muscles as solid as marble. Her heart, however, had a different idea as it beat viciously within the confines of her chest.

“He’s returned.” The words escaped her tongue, barely a whisper. Could it be that he hadn’t died in the shipwreck, as her friend Alkippe suspected? Though she’d always feared this day could come, the shock was enough to solidify her limbs. She’d dreaded this moment—no, she’d been petrified of his return for five long years. Each day she awoke, wondering if this day might be her last.

Greet my fate with the dignity of the Lady I’m pretending to be…

Or run?

Melita sank to her knees in the field she was tending, her teeth biting deep into her lower lip. Even if his reappearance meant her death, which it certainly did, she wouldn’t flee and abandon her son. She would beg them for a chance to say goodbye. Better a mother who died bravely for her sins than one who discarded her child. She grimaced at the pain such circumstances had bored into her heart and vowed never to inflict that fate upon her child.

Besides, she had little to gain from fleeing. She had nowhere to go. Her husband, along with every other male in this land, would hunt her relentlessly. She’d need a miracle from Demeter to outrun and hide from
him
.

For he was a centaur.

Her blood pumped hotly through her veins, melting the marble ice of her body as she forced her breathing to calm. Melita shielded her eyes from the setting sun and squinted in the direction of Westgard, hoping she’d been mistaken. No, it was still there. The verdant flag, with the crest of Cheiron—an owl with scales—stamped onto it, signaled the occupancy of the castle’s Lord.

Excusing herself from the others in the field, she rose and treaded forward, toward the Meteora of Westgard Castle. Six precipitous cliffs—the Meteora—lay scattered throughout the centaur lands, with the King’s high seat at Great Meteoron in the center. Atop each perched a castle as ancient as the rocks themselves.

The setting sun painted an orange and pink glow across the grey masonry of Westgard. The village below was nestled in for the evening, smoke wafting from the stone cottages. She peered at the castle, possibly for the last time. The view blurred with her memories of her first glimpse. She cherished this place, this home. Well, only one word described both the estate and its Lord.

Magnificent.

Every time she closed her eyes, Thereus’s image tormented her. She sighed as the memory of the tiny laugh lines around his deep green eyes flashed through her mind. Those depths haunted her. They’d torn her soul apart the moment his dismissive gaze had first passed over her.

Enough
. Her decision had been made, years ago. After brushing the dust from her plain brown dress and wiping her face with a handkerchief, she took one step in the direction of the castle. And then another. Toward her fate. Toward her husband.

Only, she wasn’t his wife.

***

Your time will come soon, Lord Thereus, son of Cheiron. Steel yourself.
The goddess Persephone’s voice echoed relentlessly in his mind as his hooves pounded the soft earth. Until this point, he’d done a fairly good job of suppressing his tumultuous memories of those days. He’d become a new entity. There were times when he believed he’d left his shame in the past. Then there were those pesky nights when he awoke, sweaty and trembling, tortured by a mahogany-haired nymph’s hot kisses.

Thereus hastened his pace, sprinting through the dense forest toward Westgard. Uncertain of his welcome, he’d anchored the
Adrasteia
—Arsenius’s brigantine—and her crew on the shore of Thessaly. The castle rested fifty miles from the coast where they’d landed. With two sets of hearts and lungs, centaurs had the advantage of being much faster than ordinary horses. Already, he’d crossed most of the distance. Westgard lay up ahead.

Whistling, Thereus slowed his pace and adjusted his dark leather vest, rechecking the daggers hidden along his body. He was clearly out of his right mind to come back. Yet ever since the goddess uttered those words, it was as though he’d been cast under a spell.

Her
spell.

Though Persephone hinted, he would never have returned to his homeland for the woman. Arsenius asked him to recruit centaur warriors for the goddess’s war. There wasn’t anything he would deny his best friend, and the man who’d saved his life five years earlier.

Prior to that fateful night, he’d committed a horrendous sin, and so very selfishly he’d fled his homeland. Not because of what he’d done, but because of who he didn’t wish to become. He’d never sought to be Lord of anything. He’d never wished to be wed, and certainly not to a female who became physically ill at the sight of him.

His family devised other plans for him. As descendants of the great and famously wise Cheiron, it was the responsibility of Thereus and his brothers to carry on their honorable centaur line. Since female centaurs were rare, in centuries past, the gods bound their species to an exceptional race of humans called Lapiths. Whether this was an intelligent move was yet to be determined.

In his mind, it was a curse that ripped his heart from his chest each night.

None of this mattered, for his wife was surely long gone. The ship he’d fled on five years ago had wrecked. He would have been presumed dead.

Gutless bastard that he was, he’d never sent word otherwise.

The castle came into view, grey stones breaking through the tops of the trees. As he trotted past the tree line, toward the Portal, he steadied his resolve to face the fate Persephone had warned him was coming.

I am home.
He’d actually returned. Thereus craned his neck, staring fifteen hundred feet up toward his castle. For five decades, he’d been Lord and Master at Westgard, but he was unworthy of any sense of pride. Not after what he’d done.

Squinting, he spotted the family’s crest, an owl with a set of scales, swaying proudly from banners high on the towers—signaling his occupancy.
Of course.
Thereus snorted. Nothing,
nothing
, happened in his father’s lands without Cheiron’s knowledge.