Artemis Lupine- The Complete Series

by Catherine Banks

  I turned to Ares. “He can’t really do this, can he?”

  Ares smiled sympathetically. “He just did.”

  Erebos, Heracles and Theseus walked towards us from the training ring where they’d been sparing. Without a word, Erebos grabbed hold of my left arm and Theseus grabbed my right and together they held me in place.

  “Let me go!” I yelled as I struggled against them.

  Ares said, “Maybe we should get Hades?”

  Achilles smiled. “That’s a much better plan. Hades!”

  “What are you going to do, have him kill me?” I asked angrily.

  Ares, Achilles and Koda all rolled their eyes at me at the same time. Ares stepped forward and kissed my forehead softly. “We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

  Koda kissed my cheek and then Achilles stepped in front of me. “I don’t like doing this to you, Artemis, but your safety is my top concern. I can’t lose you again.” There was such pain in his voice that it made my heart ache and made me wish to touch him and console him. Unfortunately, I was being held against my will so I found the strength to refrain.

  “Achilles, please let me come with you. I can help you. I don’t want to be sitting here on my hands fretting and wondering if you’re okay or not.”

  He smiled and kissed my lips softly, sending a pleasant shock through my body. “You won’t have to.”

  Hades stepped forward and smiled at me. “Hello, Princess. This won’t hurt, but you’re going to feel a little woozy.”

  “Ares! Achilles!” I called to them as they walked away from me. Neither man turned back around towards me. I felt my heart hammering against my chest as they walked away and my hands started shaking. I didn’t want to be away from them. I didn’t want separation. Hades pressed his hand to my forehead and chanted a few words in a strange language. I struggled against Theseus and Erebos, but my limbs were growing heavy and my eyelids were becoming increasingly hard to keep open. “This. Is. Cheating,” I panted out just before Hades’ spell slipped me into sleep.

  19

  Achilles

  The look on her face tore at my heart. I hated forcing her to stay behind, but I could not bear to see her get hurt. Her indignant feelings would mend when we returned, but her death would ruin us all. Especially since if she died, I would. If we died, I wouldn’t even be able to grieve for her, which would eat at my soul for eternity.

  “You did the right thing, Achilles. I’m actually very surprised and proud of you,” said Ares as we headed towards the main building and my mother’s quarters.

  “I know I did the right thing. I just can’t stand the look she gave me. She feels as though I’ve betrayed her.”

  Part of me was still angry at Ares for what I’d learned from the healer, but I didn’t want to tell him yet. I’d tell him soon, but not yet. And for now, I dismissed the anger and focused on the task at hand.

  “She’s only worried for your safety. She’ll be asleep so she won’t even have time to fret,” said Koda. “Besides, she knows you only did it to keep her safe. She’ll forgive you.”

  I wasn’t so sure. She may forgive me, but that didn’t mean she’d trust me again or look at me the same. I already missed the smell of her skin, the touch of her hand.

  “You think Hera will be in a good mood?” Ares asked as we entered the building and headed down the left corridor towards her room. The paintings on the wall became progressively darker with scenes shifting from peaceful meadows to a stormy sea to a bloody war. They were the visual progression of my mother’s moods when she was displeased, or at least that’s what I thought.

  “I doubt it, but she owes us much for the past one hundred years,” I answered quietly as I knocked on the door.

  “Enter,” exclaimed my mother in her most regal voice.

  I pushed open her door and found my mother, the Queen of the Sidhe, in a fluffy pink bathrobe sitting in a chair with maids painting her fingernails and toenails. “Achilles!” she said happily. “To what do I owe this visit?”

  “We need your help,” I said blinking at her. “We need to rescue someone from the Games and bring them back.”

  She stood up and all of her maids backed away. “A Sidhe is in the Games?” she asked, her lips thin.

  I shook my head. “No, it’s a werewolf, one who used to be a friend of Artemis’.”

  “Where is our favorite halfbreed?” she asked as she examined her fingernails, no longer worried now that she knew it wasn’t a Sidhe in the Games.

  “Hades put her to sleep because she was refusing to stay behind and threatening to teleport if we left without her,” Koda explained.

  Hera smiled. “She’s very feisty.”

  Ares scoffed. “That’s an understatement.”

  “What is it that you need from me?” she asked as she sat back down in her chair and let the maids resume pampering her.

  “We need you to teleport us to and from the Games,” I said as I plucked a grape from a dish on the table beside me and popped it into my mouth. The grape was perfectly ripe and extremely juicy. Of course, the Queen of the Sidhe demanded the best.

  Hera sighed. “I was afraid you were going to say that. Very well, let me get changed and I’ll teleport you all.”

  Ares, Koda and I walked out of her room and leaned against the wall in the hallway. “What’s your plan for when we arrive?” I asked Ares.

  He shrugged. “Find where they have him, take him.”

  “That’s not a very well thought out plan,” I said incredulously.

  He smiled. “I’ll figure something out. I always do.”

  I lifted a brow. “Like the time we stole Dad’s Pegasus to race him against the elves and started a war?”

  Ares smiled. “You’re the one who called the elf names and started it all. I only gave you a way to end it. It’s not my fault that my spear accidentally fell while we were racing and tripped their steed.”

  I shook my head and laughed. “Right. And it wasn’t your fault that the elves’ shields all disintegrated during the war either.”

  “I can neither confirm nor deny if that acid was from my personal stores or not,” Ares said in a monotonous tone.

  I laughed and then sighed. “That battle lasted five years. Father was furious with us.”

  “But, who won? We did, because elves are awful at battle strategizing.”

  “And because you pull crazy schemes out of your butt and they actually work,” Koda said as he leaned against the wall.

  Ares smiled. “You’re both just jealous because I’m the God of War.”

  “Conceited,” I whispered.

  “Vain,” Koda whispered at the same time.

  Hera stepped out of her room and frowned at me. “I hope you aren’t talking about me.”

  I smiled. “Of course not! I would never speak of my lovely mother in such a manner.”

  She didn’t seem convinced, but she left it alone. “Ready?”

  We all reached a hand out and touched her shoulders. “Try not to land us in the center of the arena, please,” Ares said.

  She sighed. “So little faith. I will transport us in the back area where they keep those to be fought.”

  She closed her eyes and sent us whirling through the vortex of teleportation. I hated the feeling more than anything else, preferring even to have a sword cut me than to spin around and around.

  “You can open your eyes now,” she whispered.

  I opened them and found us in an underground room with stone walls, dirt floors, and a metal gate. “You teleported us to a prisoner’s cell? How did you know to come here? When were you in a prisoner’s cell?” I asked.

  “There are many things that you don’t know about me and many more things that I will never tell you. Just be happy that I had knowledge of this place and could get us here. Otherwise, we would be trying to walk through the front door.” She pushed open the cell door and marched down the aisles of cells as though she owned the place. Ares and Koda searched each prisoner�
�s face as we wound our way through the holding area, but they did not find who they were looking for.

  The crowd roared above us and dirt sifted from the ceiling down onto us. “Perhaps he is already fighting,” I suggested.

  Ares sighed. “I did not want to go out into the arena.”

  Hera grabbed a guard who had been watching the fight through an iron fence. “Who fights right now?” she asked him as she pressed him up against the fence.

  “A werewolf and elf.”

  She smiled and grabbed his keys from his belt. “Thank you.”

  She opened the gate and turned to Ares. “We run out, grab him and teleport, got it?”

  Ares smiled. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

  We stepped out into the arena, and I nearly choked. Bret wasn’t just fighting one elf, he was fighting six. His sides were smeared with blood and his chest was heaving as he gasped for breath. The six elves stood around him in a loose circle holding spears.

  The crowd was roaring, but then all eyes turned to us and they silenced. Maurice stood from his seat in the pulpit, smiling down at us. “I’ve been waiting for you.” He turned to the crowd and said, “It seems we have additional fighters.” He looked at our group a moment and then frowned. He was probably annoyed that Artemis wasn’t with us. For once we did not let her endanger herself, and her hurt feelings no longer bothered me.

  The crowd took a moment to understand the shift in the situation, but then they cheered in anticipation of bloodshed. I looked around the stands and was surprised to see beings from every race, including Sidhe, attending the Games.

  Ares turned and smiled at me. “I’d always dreamed of fighting in the Arena, but father wouldn’t allow me to in the Roman days. That’s why I owned that group of gladiators and trained them instead of fighting. Oh, Spartacus, that was one hell of a gladiator. I do wish he had let me turn him.” He stopped his reminiscing and looked at the elves. “You think the elves remember me?” He ripped his shirt off and took a half shift, growling at the crowd, sounding more like a lion than a wolf.

  The elves turned and fixed their gazes on him. Yep, they remembered him. Ares charged forward, slicing one of the elves’ heads almost completely off with his claws. Bret limped towards Ares, clutching his side and a wound which was dripping onto the sand.

  The cool night air caressed my skin as I took a step forward. Small glass balls enchanted with a light spell sat in little holders around the arena and throughout the stands so the attendees could see everything even though it was night time. The smell and feel of the sand at my feet and the roar of the crowd brought back many memories of my younger days in Rome. Of course, back then I’d been revered as a god, sitting in the pulpit, watching, and determining the fates of the gladiators, not participating. Like Ares I had always wanted to participate, but father had forbidden us from fighting. I looked around at the eons old architecture and wished Artemis was here, knowing she would have enjoyed seeing the coliseum. Although it was not nearly as spectacular now as it was in its original days. I did have to admit that it was nice to be able to look in the stands without finding couples fornicating though. Romans were such vile creatures.

  I turned back to the issue at hand and ran forward, releasing my powers, but not my wings and used a fireball to push back the elves. Koda ran at my side, now in wolf form and snapped his teeth at them.

  Hera walked behind us at a leisurely pace as though we were simply walking through a park.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Bret with more growl to his voice than human words.

  “Saving you,” Ares said. “Now shut up and go stand by the Sidhe Queen.”

  Bret looked like he wanted to object, but he limped his way to Hera and stood beside her. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he whispered.

  I came over to stand beside Ares and smiled at the elves. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen elves bleed. I should like to draw this fight out a bit.”

  Ares laughed, sounding incredibly creepy in his half shift. “The crowd craves blood, let’s give them a show!”

  The elves charged forward, their eyes burning with blood lust. I dodged the spear one threw at me and kicked him in the chest, making him fly backwards to land on his back. An elf charged at Ares, but Ares snapped the spear in half and then impaled the elf with the end he’d broken off.

  The crowd cheered madly, standing up and raising their fists in the air. Koda walked backwards and sat beside Bret, apparently deciding that we didn’t need help in this fight.

  The elf I’d kicked jumped up and flung dirt at my face. I covered my face, but he punched me in the ribs, knocking my breath from me. “Dirty little elf!” I yelled as I backhanded him across the face and then kicked his legs out from under him. I dropped down onto his body and began punching his face as hard and as fast as I could. Blood sprayed and it took me a minute to realize that he was dead. I stood up and walked to stand beside Ares. I had a moment to feel excited that I was standing beside my brother again in battle, before refocusing on the situation.

  Two of the elves charged at us, so we grabbed them both in headlocks and snapped their heads off simultaneously. That maneuver pleased the crowd who were all on their feet, screaming themselves hoarse.

  Ares and I looked at the final elf who now seemed scared. “How should we kill this one?” Ares asked as he began pacing in a wide circle around the elf. “The crowd wants a messy death. They want someone ripped in two.”

  “Or perhaps sliced up into multiple pieces,” I suggested, “we did end this fight too quickly.”

  Ares ripped the spear from the body of the elf he’d killed. “That is a good suggestion, but I think beheading him might be the most pleasing to the crowd. Plus, I grow bored with these Games.”

  Ares spun around and sliced the elf’s head clean off. The elf’s body fell to the ground twitching and Ares stabbed the spear into the bottom of the head, holding it up above him and then flung it into the crowd.

  Maurice raised his hand and four men blew on their trumpets. A gate to the left of us opened and the crowd grew silent in anticipation.

  “What do you suppose he’s kept hidden from us?” I asked as I stood beside Ares, watching the gate.

  “It would have to be something extremely powerful to take out both of us,” Ares said with a somewhat demented smile on his half wolf-half man face. “I hope its ogres.”

  The trumpets blew again and a spear flew from the darkness of the gate. Ares and I dodged separate ways, avoiding the spear by mere inches. The spear imbedded into the stone wall behind us. I turned and inspected the spear, knowing Ares would warn me of any attacks. “It’s embedded over two feet. Something strong is waiting for us.”

  Ares scoffed. “I could have embedded it five feet at least, with your body hanging from it.”

  Standing beside him once more, I stared into the open gate. “You think it’s a machine? A preternatural should have come out by now instead of cowering in there like a scared whelp.”

  A roar quite similar to Ares’ sounded and then a werewolf in half shift walked out of the shadows.

  Ares growled. “Darius. I should have known since he was always awful at all of the sporting contests we held in Lyngvi every century.”

  “Why would your King fight in the Games against you?” I asked. Such a thing would never happen among the Sidhe.

  “He thinks he can best me and wants it to be public. He will soon learn the error of his ways.”

  “Why would Darren and Darius betray their own race?” I still could not understand it.

  Ares smiled. “Because they think Maurice is stronger than he really is. They don’t realize how strong Victor is since he’s been hiding it and only lets me see his true power. In order to keep from being overtaken, the two cowardly wolves bowed to the Vampire King to save their own hides. That’s why Darren betrayed his own daughter and the wolves. They’re scum and I plan to kill Darius now so the pack is clean of his cowardice.”

 
Darius stopped once he’d reached the center of the ring and then tilted his head back and howled. Six wolves ran out of the gate to stand behind him, all snarling and frothing at the mouth.

  “He brought some pups with him,” Ares said with a smile on his face. “It has been a long time since I’ve fought my own kind.”

  “Ares,” I whispered, moving closer to him, “Won’t you be unable to move against him if he commands you since he’s your alpha?”

  Ares laughed. “That fool has never been my alpha. He knows that I am the true alpha of the werewolves and that’s why he can’t even fight me on his own. I should have killed that bitch years ago, but my mother had seemed happy with him.” He frowned a moment and then said, “I hope she likes being a widow.”

  Maurice raised his arms and the chattering of the crowd stopped. “Today we have a rare feast for you. Today the Alpha of the Werewolves fights the Beta of the Werewolves in a fight to the death!”

  “I’ve grown tired of your annoying presence,” Darius said to Ares. “I only wish your halfbreed bitch was here so I could kill her too.”

  Ares growled loudly. “You’ve done nothing, but sully the name of Werewolves. I intend to fix that presently. Once I’ve killed you and ripped your heart from your body, I will take my true position as Alpha and see that we are restored to our original place of honor. No longer shall we be second to the vampires, but soon we will be their equals as we should be!”

  Ares sprinted forward, slashing and punching at Darius so fast that it was hard for even my eyes to track. The other wolves started to move towards Ares, but I ran forward, cutting them off, forming a wall of fire between me and them. Koda ran from his spot beside my mother to jump on the back of the nearest wolf. He bit into the scruff of the wolf and shook his head fast. The wolf struggled against Koda, but with one more quick shake he snapped the wolf’s neck and released his hold to let the dead body fall to the ground. The other wolves turned and growled at Koda. He shifted to his human form and said, “Submit or die!”