GATES OF THE UNDERWORLD

  The Complete Series

  Wrath of the Gods

  Relics of Ruin

  Daughter of Aphrodite

  God of War

  The Fifth Gate

  by

  J.R. RAIN

  &

  H.P. MALLORY

  Other Books by J.R. Rain

  VAMPIRE FOR HIRE

  Moon Dance

  Vampire Moon

  American Vampire

  Moon Child

  Christmas Moon (novella)

  Vampire Dawn

  Vampire Games

  Moon Island

  Moon River

  Vampire Sun

  Moon Dragon

  Moon Shadow

  Vampire Fire

  Midnight Moon

  Moon Angel

  Vampire Sire

  Moon Master

  Dead Moon

  Lost Moon

  Vampire Destiny

  Infinite Moon

  Vampire Empress

  Moon Elder

  Wicked Moon

  Winter Moon

  Sasquatch Moon

  Moon Blade

  Wild Moon

  Moon Magic

  Moon World

  Vampire Deep

  Moon Matador

  Silver Moon (Coming soon)

  SAMANTHA MOON ADVENTURES

  Banshee Moon

  Moon Monster

  Moon Ripper

  Witch Moon

  Moon Goddess

  Moon Blaze

  Golem Moon

  Moon Maidens

  SAMANTHA MOON CASE FILES

  Moon Bayou

  Blood Moon

  Parallel Moon

  SAMANTHA MOON ORIGINS

  New Moon Rising

  Moon Mourning

  Haunted Moon

  Other Books by H.P. Mallory

  PARANORMAL WOMEN’S FICTION:

  Midlife Mysteries

  Midlife Spirits

  Haven Hollow

  Misty Hollow

  Trailer Park Vampire

  Gwen’s Ghosts

  PARANORMAL ROMANCE:

  Witch, Warlock & Vampire

  Lily Harper

  Dulcie O’Neil

  Gates of the Underworld

  PARANORMAL REVERSE HAREM:

  Happily Never After

  My Five Kings

  Gates of the Underworld: The Complete Series

  Published by J.R. Rain and H.P. Mallory

  Copyright © 2023 by J.R. Rain and H.P. Mallory

  All rights reserved.

  Ebook Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Wrath of the Gods

  Relics of Ruin

  Daughter of Aphrodite

  God of War

  The Fifth Gate

  Reading Sample: The Man With the Violet Eyes

  About J.R. Rain

  About H.P. Mallory

  WRATH OF THE GODS

  Gates of the Underworld #1

  by

  H.P. MALLORY & J.R. RAIN

  Wrath of the Gods

  Published by Rain Press

  Copyright © 2022 by J.R. Rain & H.P. Mallory

  All rights reserved.

  Ebook Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Wrath of the Gods

  ONE

  PEN

  My face is my prison.

  Yes, my mother might have blessed me with her beauty, but she’s also handicapped me with her curse.

  I slip the hoop through my ear, strands of delicate chains dangling from my lobe.

  They feel like shackles.

  Janie, my sister, attempts to catch my eye in the mirror from where she’s sitting behind me on the bed, but I avoid her. It’s easier to keep my gaze on her foot bobbing up and down, the light catching on the glittery blue polka-dots on her socks.

  “Why don’t you just quit?”

  The question startles me into looking at her fully in the glass, my brush in hand only halfway raised. “What?”

  She leans forward, sensing her chance to grab my full attention, and tucks short blond hair back behind her ear. My heart gives a little twinge. Sitting there in her pink sweater and faded blue jeans, she looks more like Mother than I do, which should be impossible, considering they aren’t even related.

  “Your job,” she says. “Why don’t you just quit?”

  My face in the mirror is colorless, even under all the carefully applied make-up. I look like I’m going to be sick. “You know I can’t quit.”

  Because I’m stuck.

  I don’t say the words, though. Instead, I swipe my brush through my hair again, carefully avoiding the dangling earrings. I’m frazzled—I should have put them on last.

  “Yet you hate it.”

  “I don’t hate it.” The words come out automatically.

  “Really? Because every single time you go to one of these stupid galas, you get this look on your face like someone’s volunteering you to be a virgin sacrifice.”

  I quirk an eyebrow, lips twitching. “Virgin?”

  Janie doesn’t take the bait. “Pen, come on. You know what I mean. You’ve got this stiff upper lip thing going on like you’ve been sold.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Then what’s it like?”

  I shrug. “It’s fine.”

  She gives me a withering look and crosses her legs on the bed. “Fine?”

  I look away, my eyes drawn to the dangling length of chain hanging from my ear. “Yes, it’s fine. Why are you being weird?”

  “Because you hate this,” she says and waves her hand in the air as if to say ‘this’ includes everything around us—everything in my bedroom. “You hate the photoshoots, you hate the catwalk, you hate Renfield—”

  “Renfield is good at his job.”

  Janie rolls her eyes. “Renfield is a sleazy mobster from an eighties movie.”

  “He’s not that bad.”

  “That bad implies he is bad, Pen.”

  “Ren does his best.” I finish brushing my hair and start putting it up. It’ll take a hundred bobby pins to get it all to stay in place. “It’s a tricky industry.”

  “That is the most pimpy thing you could have said,” says Janie. “You know Renfield doesn’t care about you.”

  “He’s my agent. He doesn’t have to care about me.”

  “He should!” she says, her gaze fierce. “Look, Pen, I don’t care how tricky the industry is, people should be treating you like a person.”

  No one will treat me like a person, owing to what I am, what they see. And Janie knows that, which is why she swallows down whatever she was about to say next.

  “You’re just this… this beautiful object Renfield uses to do his job and… I hate it.”

  “I am his job.” And I am that object, but that’s just how it is and how it’s been for a very long time.

  “Don’t you realize how gross that sounds? You’re more than an object, Pen.”

  “You know that and I know that,” I answer on a sad smile. “And that has to be good enough. You know how it goes, Janie.”

  I cinch closed. Like a drawstring bag, something inside me coils shut. I turn back to the mirror. “I need to get ready.”

  I see Janie frowning in the mirror, amber-brown eyes framed by a fluffy blonde bob. “So that’s it? We’re done talking?”

  I sigh. “What’s the point in talking, anyway? You know I can’t do anything about it.”

  “You could… go to your mother and ask her to get rid of this damned curse she put on you.”

  “Ha,” I laugh. Because that’s never going to happen—not only do I have zero interest in seeing Mother again, she would have zero interest in removing my curse.

  Janie scowls and looks down at her phone. It lights up as she texts someone. “Carlos is here.”

  I’m ashamed to say I’m relieved. I hate talking about this with Janie. She always makes me feel like a hooker when we talk about my job. I know she doesn’t mean to, she just doesn’t understand. Being a model is just like that sometimes. All the time.

  She stands up slowly, like she’s waiting for me to say something else. I don’t. I keep putting up my hair. One bobby pin after another, each one another brick in the wall I’m building.

  “I’m worried about you, Pen,” she says. “It’s just… no way to live your life.”

  “I’ve been living this way for going on two-hundred-fifty-years.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she frowns. Then she presses her lips together in a thin, flat line, and her eyebrows push together, and for a second, I’m worried she might cry. I hate it when Janie cries; I can’t handle it.

  “I know you’re worried about me. I appreciate it, I do,” I start, hoping we’re still good.

  Her phone buzzes. She looks down at it and curses softly.

  “Carlos?” I ask.

  She nods as she texts him back. “Yeah, he’s getting impatient.” She gives me an apologetic look. “We’ll talk later, okay? Call me after the gala’s over. Let me know how it goes.”

  “I will,” I say. And I’ll lie to you about every second. Becau
se it’ll be awful. It’ll be one long, horrible night of people staring at my boobs and asking if I’m comfortable taking nude photographs. But I can’t let Janie know that. She already worries too much—and it’s not like there’s anything else I can do. I’m not like her. I’m not outgoing and friendly—I’m the quiet one, the withdrawn one, the cynical one. And I also don’t have a handsome doctor boyfriend; I didn’t get into every Ivy League college on the face of the Earth; I’m not conducting life-saving research in university laboratories for extra credit.

  She puts on her shoes in the hallway and looks at me accusingly. “Promise to call?”

  “I promise,” I say. “Go have fun.”

  She smiles. “I will.”

  “Tell Carlos I say hi.”

  “Okay. Bye, Pen. I love you.”

  “Love you too,” I say. And I mean it. In fact, I love her more than I’ve ever loved anyone.

  Outside, Carlos honks his horn. She smiles and runs off. I hear the front door open and close. That’s the one thing in the world Janie is bad at—closing doors. She’s always so damn loud.

  Almost against my will, my lips curl up into a smile. Janie, my little sister. Well, she’s actually not my sister, but we are related—distantly. Owing to the fact that I was born 1774, I can’t quite figure out what we are to each other, but once upon a time my mortal father shared a bed with my immortal mother and they had me. Then he wed another mortal woman, Janie’s ancestor, and started her line. Janie’s grown up with me and she knows what I am—the daughter of a goddess. But she doesn’t hold it against me and neither did her father, Tom—he just welcomed me in just like his mother before him and hers before her—I’m like this family heirloom that’s been passed down through the centuries, only instead of collecting dust on the mantle, I’m… well, me.

  It’s a little funny how much Janie worries about me. I’m a literal demi-goddess, for whatever that’s worth. I should be the one taking care of her. It’s just that there never seems to be anything I need to worry about with her.

  She’s fine. Her life is amazing. She’s amazing.

  My life just kind of… is.

  And Janie’s right—I do hate this job. But I don’t know what else to do—there’s really nothing else I can do because Mother cursed me so ordinary humans aren’t able to see beyond my looks, her looks. That means no matter how smart I am, how educated I am, how much experience I might have, all mortals can see is what appears on the surface—it’s how they decide my worth. Janie and her family are the exceptions because they’re related to me, so our shared blood means they see me for the person I really am—they see beyond the beautiful face and body to the person beneath, they see Penelope Callas.

  But back to Mother and her fucking curse—it was her way of throwing me a curve ball when I said I had no interest in living with her in Olympus.

  My phone buzzes on the vanity. I turn it over, looking at the name.

  A black hole of dread pops into existence somewhere behind my stomach. It’s Renfield. I’d told him I’d be at the gala an hour ago. He’s likely been fielding angry cameramen since he got there.

  I don’t want to talk to him, so I let the call go to voicemail.

  And he immediately calls again. The buzzing feels a little more insistent.

  This time, I answer. Dodging him is just going to make matters worse.

  “Hi, Ren,” I say.

  “Where the fuck are you?” He sounds pissed.

  “I’m at… home.”

  He sputters for a moment. “Why are you at home?”

  I can hear people in the background, talking, laughing. There’s a harp being plucked somewhere. Glasses clinking. “Do you know how much we’re being paid to be here?”

  “A lot,” I say, pinching my nose. It’s always a fair guess.

  “A lot a lot,” says Renfield. “Metric fuck-ton a-lot. And more if you flirt well enough with Frederick.”

  Frederick Kellington, or Smith or Jackson. Some money-money-money name. One of a litter of corporate middle-aged white men who think if they put me in the right magazine or on a big enough billboard, I’ll sleep with them. I haven’t and I won’t—but Renfield keeps trying to get me to. He receives a commission from every job I get, and he’s one hundred percent sure that letting an old man stick it in me is exactly the thing to get him filthy, stinking rich.

  “You can’t be serious,” I say.

  “Darling, I’m always serious.”

  “No.”

  “Pen, this is a lot of money we’re talking about, for an hour or so of hanging on Frederick’s every word. It’ll be nothing for you.”

  “Nothing is nothing for me,” I say.

  “Come on, sweetheart. Make an effort. For me.”

  I hear Janie’s voice in my mind, saying that Renfield doesn’t care about me as a person. Just an object to line his wallet. She’s not wrong. “I’m not comfortable with this.”

  “And I’m not comfortable being homeless.” As though one missed job opportunity will put him under the poverty line.

  “I really should fire you.”

  “And I really should quit, but here we are,” he says. “Please, Pen. For me? For your career? I’ve done so much for you and I’m not asking for much in return. Just one teensy-weensy conversation.”

  I feel a twist of guilt in my stomach. I swallow. “I can’t, Ren.”

  “You can.”

  “I can’t. I won’t.”

  “Nobody likes a girl with a temper.”

  “Nobody likes you at all.”

  “They don’t have to like me,” he says. “They just have to pay me.”

  “I’m going to hang up now.”

  “No. You are going to get in the goddamn car and drive to the event center now.”

  I hang up. Then I throw my phone onto the bed and put my head in my trembling hands. I try to just breathe.

  I should fire him. I really should fire him. But where would I be without him? Renfield and every other man in the whole wide world, that’s my demographic. I do nothing but stand, smile, walk, and pose. Six figures to saunter—not walk, saunter—up and down a platform in a dress I didn’t design, to smile and laugh at people I don’t know.

  Pout your lips to the camera.

  Reach for it, let them pretend it’s their face you’re caressing, their eyes you’re staring at, their dicks you want inside you.

  Look back and down over your shoulder, touch your arm.

  Look up, stare, just a little longer than you should—there, you’ve got them.

  Perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect flower crown implying this perfume doesn’t smell just like everything else in Macy’s.

  Smile, touch your hat.

  Run into the surf, pretend this bathing suit isn’t going to fall off the second your boobs hit the water.

  Renfield and Frederick Richman, the twentieth. It’s agonizing.

  But it’s my life.

  TWO

  PEN

  Tonight’s dinner is a necessary evil.

  It’s a charity event, something some action-movie actor is doing for kids with cancer. The cast won’t be there until much later in the evening, but until they arrive and make their speeches, I’m supposed to mingle. Ren wants me to get my face out there so I can start landing some TV and movie gigs. It’s not a bad idea.

  The last time I was on the big screen, it was during the era of silent movies, when the talkies were in their infancy. It’s been long enough now that I can probably start landing some TV roles again—wait long enough for all the directors, actors and producers to die and no one will recognize you a hundred years later.

  So, we chat with reporters and people with cameras, let our faces be seen and appraised. Trade business cards, though that part is really Ren’s job. Flounce around in a dress I hate, shoes that hurt.

  But I have to do it. Making public appearances and keeping myself in the spotlight is required if I want the work to continue. And, yeah, I want the work to continue. It’s not like I can do anything else, owing to this curse from mommy dearest.

  As I face the mirror, I struggle to find anything that doesn’t need fixing. My hair is up in curls on top of my head, trailing ringlets, wreathed in flowers, and I despise it. The lipstick they gave me is way too bright—a tacky coral—but I’m lucky I get to do my own make-up in the first place. If I show up in any other color, that luck would go away; then I’d have to sit in a chair with five thousand people swarming around me like bees, pulling my hair and powdering my face until I choke, just like all the other models.

  The dress isn’t my favorite, but it’s never my favorite. My favorite is a little black knee-length dress I bought from Wal-Mart, but obviously, that’s not an option. This gaudy red thing is by some French designer with a name I can’t pronounce. I realize my boobs are still hanging out of it, and I push them back in. The top is this heavily corseted flower-patterned nightmare, and the skirt is a ball-gown explosion of vaguely silky floof that’s one bad wash away from being tulle.