“What’s wrong?” Ah, he could feel my soul freaking out. Handy.
“There was a dove in our room. And it talked. It said my name, and then said it was my mom. That she couldn’t interfere, and that the gods are panicking. And that help is coming and to have an open mind. I’m a little freaked out right now.” I felt my blood pressure rising, and the need to pace was building.
“Ease, my love. Relax. Your mother is sending help. We will be fine. Trust me, love.” His strong arms wrapped around me, and I took deep breaths. Everything felt so up in the air, it was disheartening. The babies started rolling around, and I felt like my stress was affecting them. Placing my hand on my stomach, I spoke softly to them.
“It’s okay, little ones. We are all right. Shhhhh.” I felt Tristan move back slightly and place his hand on the other side of my belly. He was feeling them move. I felt the wonder and elation in his heart, mirroring mine. Whatever was going to come our way, we had them. I just needed to remember that. Wanting to take my thoughts off anything unpleasant, I dragged Tristan back to bed. We didn’t have much time to get things ready for the babies, and right now I would rather focus on that than all of the bad things that were inevitably going to come our way.
“I want to move out of the apartment,” I said. I had been thinking about it, and I thought with two kids, we needed more space.
“Whatever you want, it’s yours.” He leaned in and kissed me gently. I knew he meant it, we would never want for anything. I snuggled into him, and pressed us back against the mattress.
“I want a cool yard, and a pool, like what I had growing up. Is there anything you want?” He had lived so long, there probably wasn’t any place he hadn’t been, or seen.
“I miss home.” I jerked my head up to meet his eyes. Home. I knew he felt my confusion when he continued on, explaining himself.
“The underworld. I was made for it; it calls to me. We are one.” That was something I should have known. I had memories of my past and present. I remember being in his chambers in our past, where we first made love.
“Let’s go to the underworld. I can be with you, now that I have my ring on.” I waved it above us. The ring my mother gave me grounded my powers, and gave me immortality like Tristan. We would never need to part.
We spent the next few hours cuddled in bed, talking about our hopes and what we wanted for our future. We decided to take a trip to the underworld, to his home. We wouldn’t be disturbed there by any of the other gods. It was his domain as Anubis, and he would be the most powerful god there. Osiris’s palace was there, but on the other side. Fat chance he would come over. The more I thought about how powerful Tristan really was, the more and more I got turned on, which led to passionate touches, and hot fucks, until I needed a nap. Being pregnant was making me tired.
I woke up to a banging on our door, followed by some cursing. I stood up quickly and realized that was a mistake. My head started spinning and I fell back to the bed.
“Tristan, who’s here?” I called out. When I didn’t hear anything except the unabated blue streak of curses, I got back up and decided to go investigate myself.
“Tristan! What are you doing?” I was shocked at what I was seeing. Tristan had a man pinned to the door above him, by his throat. I ran over to stop him from hurting the man, but came up short when I saw who it was.
“Orion. What are you doing here? Tristan, put him down.” Orion’s face was flushed but slightly smug now that I demanded that Tristan let him go. We may have solved the issue between our long history, but that didn’t mean I trusted him. Orion had me kidnapped, and had his mother force my past life memories on me. I could have died. Then he poisoned Leander, and tried to stop us from saving him. He knew what he did was wrong, and left after I let him feel my love for Tristan; that was the last we had seen of him. Lord knows what he could’ve been up to, or worse, whose side was he on. Instinctively I put my hand over my belly. I watched as his eyes followed my hands and lingered, taking in my swollen stomach.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, looking me directly in the eyes, then turning to Tristan.
“Or the child.” Instant relief came over me from him only knowing about the one child, but I didn’t let him see it. We needed to keep our cards to ourselves.
“You will not get near them,” Tristan growled, and took a step towards him. Protecting his family.
“What do you want?” I asked, while standing tall. I remember everything now, and I know I could hold my own against him pregnant or not. He needed to see that.
“I am here to help you, to be on your side.” Help? I know my face contorted in confusion.
“Bullshit!” Tristan spat, and I could feel mistrust and anger coming from him. I had to calm him before he did something bad. Wrapped my arms around him, I pulled him against me, sending my love through my soul and into his. I knew it was working when the hand that was at his side came up and wrapped itself around mine.
With Tristan calmed for a moment, I pressed further, to find out more on Orion’s plans to help us. Keeping my arms around Tristan, I looked around his shoulder at the man before us.
“Who sent you? Why do you want to help?”
“Your mother. Everyone is hearing the whispers about you guy’s having a baby. Shit is going to hit the fan soon, and you need all the help you can get.” He took a step closer to me, ignoring Tristan’s growl.
“Look, I know we have a shitty past. But I get it now. I know you two belong together. I’ve done some fucked-up things to have you as mine, and I need to make up for it. I can help you. All of you.” He turned to look at Tristan to drive his little statement home.
“You know I can.” His statement hung in the air. He could help us if we had to battle the gods. He has been a warrior all his life. But with our rocky past, it was hard to accept his offer. Then a thought hit me.
“Wait, my mother sent you?” Maybe he was the help mother mentioned via the talking dove earlier. He nodded.
“Yes. I was a neutral party, now I’m on your side.” I didn’t really know what to think.
“We need to discuss this,” I told him and hoped he was going to leave, but he just stood there.
“Looks like you don’t have a choice for that at the moment.” His stance changed, ready for a fight as his eyes scanned the room. I felt a little spark of power before that rushed feeling of transporting via power, and then we were not in our apartment anymore.
We were in an arena.
Chapter Six
Tristan
I was pissed. Not only did I have to have that asshole Orion around Thalia again, but the gods had transported us to an arena. A fucking arena!
“What is this?” I yelled up to the dais in front of us, where both Osiris and Zeus were sitting.
“We called the divine together to talk about the issue at hand.” Zeus talked and I growled. My children were not an issue to be solved
“There is no issue here. You’ve punished us long enough. It is our time to be,” I yelled back, fuming.
I could tell Isis wasn’t happy about this, along with a few of the other gods looking down at us. But no one said anything to stop this madness. All around us, the arena of gold rose, with lesser gods and demigods lining the walls to watch us and see what the big bosses would say. We weren’t just summoned here for a discussion—something else was happening. I looked back at Zeus, and he looked older, and worried. I hated this. I felt Thalia’s blossoming anxiety inside me and I reached out for her. She grasped my hand, but stood her ground next to me, letting the angry mob around us see we were a united front.
“The child within your wife’s womb cannot live. A union between Greek and Egyptian can never be. Something like that is not done. We are sorry for your pain, but we cannot allow this to happen.” Zeus’s voice bellowed throughout the air, and I felt his words fall over us like a promise.
“ Then you will have to kill us both, because there is no way in hell we’re letting you hurt our
child.” I spat at them. Some of the lesser gods had a look of surprise on their face. Did they think we were just going to lie down and let them hurt our children? Fuck that.
“So be it.” He waved his hand and a wooden gate appeared on the wall below them, and then started to open. White stallions pulling golden chariots rushed out of the gate and started galloping around us. We were fighting as gladiators of old.
This was a fight to the death. My brain started running through ways I could get Thalia out of here.
“Stay together. Backs to backs.” Orion spoke up, catching me off guard. I had forgotten he was here for a moment. Knowing this was a good plan, I moved, and we all had our backs together, facing our opponents.
“I can’t have you fight, love,” I whispered to Thalia.
“We don’t have a choice right now. You figure out a way to get us out. Orion and I will handle the others.” I spared a glance at her, to see she had disguised her belly to look like she wasn’t as big as she was, and she had determination written on her face. She could do this, she was strong enough. I gathered my energy from the dead that I figured had fallen in this arena and started to build an escape for us…I just needed some time.
“Three minutes,” I said telepathically to both Orion and Thalia. I felt their readiness to fight and started focusing on our escape.
One of the chariots started coming in our direction with a net. They were going to try to capture Thalia. In the blink of an eye, Orion pulled at small knife from his boot and threw it into the chest of the driver. The man holding the net grabbed for the reins but missed them as the driver slumped down into the chariot, dead.
For the first time in over two thousand years, I was thankful for that man.
Closing my eyes and trusting that if Thalia needed my help that she would show me, I pulled at the dead beneath our feet. Their anger, their sadness, and their hopelessness.
I heard the clanging of swords but felt no fear in Thalia’s soul so I kept going. I only needed one more minute, and then I could open a portal up inside a shadow for us to escape. It would lead us to the underworld, but there we could hide and figure out our next move.
Feeling the portal start to build, I opened my eyes and found the shadow that aided my power.
“Run as fast as you can to the shadow of that fallen chariot!” I told them and they took off. I was impressed they had taken down a chariot so quickly. I was right behind them when I spared one last glance at the gods on the dais behind us.
Giving them a solid fuck you finger, I told my love and Orion to jump, leaving that horrid arena behind.
As my feet touched the ground, I lit the torches.
“Where are we?” Thalia was squinting, trying to adjust to the darkness.
“In my home,” I answered, and started looking around for any traces of other energies. I found none. Good. I whispered into the air, putting up a protection charm in the walls. No one was getting in unless I permitted it.
“We should stay here for the night, figure out our plan,” Orion piped up, and I stopped to look at him. A truce had been sealed between us. I gave him the look and he nodded in understanding. If he does anything to hurt her or the children, I would end him. Painfully. There was nothing stopping me this time. No tricks, no schemes on his part, and now he understood that Thalia was mine. I could tell he had accepted that.
I looked around the open foyer to my home and felt some peace. It had been a while since I had been here. My home was large, mostly because I just liked my space. I had brought in some features from the modern world, but for the most part, I kept everything like ancient times. Thalia started walking around, observing everything, thinking to herself.
She needed that time in her mind, I could feel it. Orion slowly moved closer to me and started a whispering conversation.
“They won’t wait too long before they try another strategy.” I sighed. “I know. Next will be assassins.” It was the way the gods worked. First they had their little chat, then assassins, trickery, and then if it came to it, a battle. That was the last thing I would want. Making gods choose sides against each other, especially in a situation like this. Killing children was hard on everyone, but right now they were driven by fear.
“Are we safe here?” He looked around, trying to find ways that someone might get it.
“I’ve warded it. No one gets in unless I allow it.” He was satisfied with my answer. I was more powerful than him, and he had found out enough about me over the years to know I was good on my word.
“You can stay in the east wing,” I said, and gestured toward the hallway. He just nodded and took off toward the rooms. Other than a kitchen, he would be set.
I felt love swell in my chest, making me turn in search of Thalia. She was in the bedroom. I smiled and headed towards her presence.
“How are you feeling , love?” I whispered against her ear, wrapping my arms around her soft body.
“I’m scared, with a bit of a high from the fighting.”
“I’m sorry Love. We will get through this. I promise you that.” I wish I could show her that I meant my words.
“I know.” She turned in my arms, and looked into my eyes.
“You would do anything for me, and our children. I never doubted it. I don’t want to think about what just happened for a bit.” She smiled and leaned her head against my chest, Snuggling the tattoo of her name on my pec. Memories.
“It looks much the same in here,” she whispered and I smiled. The only thing I changed was a more comfortable bed. She was remembering our time together in this room. Very good memories. Just as I was about to see if we could relive those memories, a whine from behind us made Thalia jump in my arms. Ah, yes, I had forgotten about that little detail.
“What was that?”
“My pet.”
“Well, sort of,” I added. She pulled back and looked around. Jack was gone but then popped back into view.
“Wow.” She said in awe. Jack was a jackal. Very creative name, I know. He had died, and then found a home here. He came and went as he pleased. Usually Jackals weren’t at all like domestic dogs, but he liked to be around me when I was here. Couldn’t say it was a bad life for the little creature.
“Where did he come from?” He pranced around like the strange ghost jackal he was, Almost like he was trying to show off.
“Jack was buried with a noble back in the day. Had a few rodents mummified with him for provision in the afterlife. I found him walking around and we sort of adopted each other.” He came forward and I petted his head.
“I don’t remember him from my time here.” She was trying to figure out the timeline of when he came around.
“It was after your passing. He was a valuable companion during that time.” Not wanting to think about my two-thousand-year punishment without Thalia, I manifested a bone in my hand and gave it to the beast.
Chapter Seven
Thalia
I knew he was feeling the sorrow from his time without me. I wished he hadn’t suffered like that. I was in a limbo of sorts during that time, so I had not suffered at all.
“Hi, boy.” I held my hand out toward the black jackal. He was strange to look at, like looking at a real dog, but you could put your hand through him as you wished. He looked at me with his head cocked to the side, making a small giggle bubble up through my lips. Sometimes Tristan did that. The jackal was his animal, so I guess it made sense they would be alike in some ways.
“What do we do now?” I asked and kept my eyes on the dog. He sniffed my hand and his ears perked up, leaning in so I could pet him.
“We spend the night here, put some ears out tomorrow, and get ready for a storm.” He leaned in and kissed my head.“You focus on growing our children, and making me happy babies.” I couldn’t help but smile at his words. I could feel them moving around, almost like they were swimming. Maybe they could feel my happiness, too.
“I think I can do that. A shower, food, and sleep sounds good.” I pul
led out of his arms and walked over the area that was his bathroom, silently happy that he had made some changes in here. Showers were not a thing back in ancient Egypt, so I was thankful he had installed one.
“I’ll go make something to eat.” He wandered off, ghost dog Jack on his heels. Cute.
The shower was heavenly, and I rubbed my hands over my belly, only to feel a flat stomach. Panic started to rear its head but then I remembered I had changed my appearance so the other gods wouldn’t see how far along I was progressing. I hadn’t gotten to use this power since I’d put on the rings that helped me control it. Letting my little budda belly free from their mirage, I smiled, seeing that they have grown slightly. Not much, but a wee bit.
As soon as I got out of the shower and dressed. I walked around some more, trying to get a feel for Tristan’s home. The view out the open balcony was breathtaking. It was like an oasis. Lush green everywhere, a river snaking through the lands.
“The underworld has many forms. It takes the shape of its state of mind, if you will. Right now, the underworld is at peace. In a time where many were passing through unnaturally, it was barren, and sad.” Tristan’s voice came from behind me. I tried to comprehend how that would work, but hadn’t experienced anything like it that would compare.
I prayed I wouldn’t see this place in a state of madness. Shaking off the shiver that took over me, I grasped my husband’s hand and walked us out to eat something.
Dinner was great, and Orion had come out of his side of the house freshly showered and wearing new clothes. I wondered where he got them. My eyes kept drifting back toward him as we ate together. It was strange to believe that just a few weeks ago we were enemies. Now we stood together against those that would hurt me and my family.
We were all pretty quiet throughout the meal, having been through enough, I actually welcomed the peace. We parted ways afterwards and I had Tristan poof a TV into his room. I was all for spending time without electronics, but right now I just wanted to cuddle up and watch a movie until I fell asleep. Tristan was always happy to hold me in his protective embrace, so I heard no complaints from him. It didn’t take long before the day finally caught up with me.
Battle of the Heart Page 3
