The Heart of War

by Lisa Beth Darling

  “No. Don’t ask me that again.” Ares snatched it out of her hand and tossed it into the fire. It landed on top of the burning logs and simply sat there while the flames licked it. “You can’t hide behind that forever, Alena. Do you want to spend the rest of your life a prisoner to Cernunnos even though he is nowhere to be seen?” Ares chided.

  “It won’t melt. It won’t burn.” Alena wasn’t looking at him; she was looking past him again. Ares turned his head toward the fire; maybe it just wasn’t hot enough. Balling up his fist and shaking it twice in the air, Ares let a fireball fly into the hearth straight at the belt. There was a brief explosion as the flames leapt high into the air, up the flue and out into the room towards them. The belt remained. Fine. Ares snorted a breath and tried again with more force. He let the flame extend from his hand, not in a huge ball but in a long stream blasted right on the wretched thing until both he and Alena began to sweat from the heat.

  Still nothing.

  “You can’t get rid of it that way.”

  “So I heard,” Ares returned without thinking. “You want me to rescue it, don’t you? Why?”

  Alena shrugged her shoulders and turned her watery eyes to him. “It’ll still be there in the morning even if you let it burn all night.”

  “You’ll get it then?” She had one of widest streaks of defiance he’d ever come across and she was sneaky to boot. Ares reached for the tongs and plucked the hot metal from the fire before dropping it onto the stone hearth.

  “Why didn’t you pick it up?”

  “It’s hot.”

  “I know, but you’re a God. Why didn’t you reach in and get it?”

  Ares reached out slowly and ran the back of his hand down her weary cheek. “Does that feel like flesh to you?”

  The hand was warm as she nuzzled against it. “Yes.”

  “Because it is. I heal faster than any Mortal does and faster than you, I would guess, but I still burn. I can still be cut, suffer illness. Just because these things won’t kill doesn’t mean they’re any less painful—or pleasurable—for the short time they last.” Like a magician, Ares held his other hand up before her eyes and his fingertips burst into flames burning on five candles. “The fire will never burn me, I can walk through flame and not be touched, and this is my Blessing just as my turning into the Wolf is a Blessing. But the hot metal,” the flaming fingertips gently sloped downward to point at the belt, “that’s a different story.”

  Watching the fire dance before her eyes, Alena reached out for the flaming hand and brought it upward between them so that it lit up both their faces. “And your Curse, my Lord? What would that be?” she whispered as her breath met the flames, making them flicker before it caressed his face.

  “I see my Brother tells tales out of school, doesn’t he?” Ares mused as he stroked the beard on his chin. “I also see that even though you are exhausted from the fight, you’re still sharp as a tack. I like it.” Wondering just what Apollo had told her about him, the fire in Ares’ hand went out leaving no trace behind. “Did my brother frighten you with his…horror stories?” Apollo was such a boar; he thought he could get away with anything because he was the God of Music and Light. He was more like the God of Ego and Malice, but who cared about that? Not History, that was for certain. “What did he tell you?” The Hind hadn’t been sure what Apollo and Alena were talking about until near the end of their conversation when she came out of the bushes. She had told him that Zeus wanted Alena on Olympus and when Apollo left, he was very perturbed because Alena refused to go.

  Bad things. Very bad things. Terrible things. About you.

  But I don’t believe them. Maybe I just don’t want to. Maybe I’m just as smitten as Onya thinks I am.

  “He said you live in Exile,” Alena said quietly, keeping her eyes fixed on his, “that you’re banned from Olympus because you killed Eros’ Wife, Psyche, and Artemis, your own sister. You defiled them and you killed them when you were done to keep them quiet.”

  Old wounds never heal and old rivalries never die, especially those between siblings. Suddenly, Ares was very angry. “If you never believe anything else I say, believe this Celt; I loved my sister and I would never violate her, not her trust and not her body.” There was a stormy ocean of confusion staring back at him. “Do you believe me?”

  Did she? “Yes.”

  “Why does Zeus want you on Olympus?”

  “He didn’t say. “

  “You really do have a lot of balls, Alena. No one says ‘no’ to my Father, most of the time that includes me.”

  “Do all Olympians suffer from Selective Hearing? I didn’t say ‘no’, I said I needed your permission and that I wanted you to accompany me. There’s a difference.”

  Ares chuckled. “I suppose there is, but I think it will be lost on Zeus. It’s too subtle. But it’s very slick.” Now there was a touch of compliment, possibly even admiration, in his deep voice. “Some might even say it’s conniving. I tell you that you can’t leave this island and you rail at me. The opportunity to go to Olympus falls into your lap and you use my words as a shield? Put it all on me.”

  “You are my host,” she ventured. “I didn’t want to upset you.”

  “Oh, of course not,” he mocked in a light tone and waved his big hand in the air as though he were some type of English lord. “Do know where I was today?”

  “Not here.”

  “Obviously,” Ares snapped. “I went to your camp where I heard many fantastical tales of the men you have killed. Today is far from your first massacre Alena MacLeod, Defender of Women Everywhere.”

  That was most unexpected and her watery eyes widened as her delicate jaw dropped open. “You went to the camp? Sha’Quanda? Dae’Jave?” she asked as her voice grew a little louder with hope, but then it fell again. “Jaakim?”

  “Sha’Quanda and Dae’Jave are fine; they had many wonderful things to say about their beloved Sister Maggie. As for Jaakim, the children told me all about him. Tales most terrible about the things he did to you.” Alena hung her head and then turned away from him. She never wanted to even think about it again let alone tell anyone about it. “I sent him your regards just before I sent him and his men to the Underworld where I’m sure Hades will have a very good time dealing with them. I left your children with two wheelbarrows full of uncut diamonds.” Before he knew it, Alena threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. Without any thought, Ares embraced her in return, holding the weight of her against him and realized she was crying.

  “Oh Gods, thank you,” she moaned and pressed against him as she started to weep. “Thank you, thank you, Lord Ares, thank you.” Alena had the worst nightmares about Jaakim. Not about what he’d done to her but about what he might be doing to Sha’Quanda and the other girls now that she wasn’t there to protect them. She’d left them there to defend themselves and she had no way to return. Alena felt terribly guilty about that, felt she’d failed all she’d left behind and traded it for her safety, such as it was. That was over now and she no longer had to bear that weight on her heart or her shoulders.

  Holding her close in this most delightful and unexpected way, the sensation that he just found some long lost part of himself was nearly overwhelming. A part that perhaps he didn’t know was missing all of these centuries. “He can’t hurt anyone anymore.” His big arms wrapped around her a little tighter and never wanted to let her go. He couldn’t help but think of how loving and kind Alena was while she tended Onya and how very difficult it must have been for her. Ares wondered who was there to tend to her when she needed someone. Who washed the blood from her hair and bandaged her wounds? Sha’Quanda? Augustine? Maybe, however he imagined Alena pushed them away.

  Alena, still with her arms around his neck and her face buried in his hair, looked past him to the fire. “Why did you go there?”

  “I wanted to know more about you.” Although he didn’t want to, Ares pushed her a slight ways away from him so he could look her in the eye. “From wh
at I discovered today, I do not believe you have been completely truthful with me. Just who are you Alena? Who are your parents? I heard you tell Onya your father taught you to fight, but you told me he died when you were small. Is that a lie? Who was he? Someone I knew? What else did Apollo want? Why was he here? Why did he have his hands all over you? Did you do for him what you did for me?” he fired.

  Alena couldn’t keep up with the questions—they made her head hurt. “No,” she answered the last question he asked, but it wasn’t really more than a rush of air, barely discernable to the human ear as a word at all. Ares’ ears were not human.

  “You’ve many questions to answer. Now, are you going to get up or do I have to pick you up and carry you up the stairs?”

  “Can’t we talk here?” Alena asked meekly. “I’m tired.”

  Exhausted was more like it. “I imagine you are but no, you’re a mess for one, you need to get cleaned up. For two, I have your footlocker upstairs. I want you to show it to me.”

  “You brought…why?”

  “It interested me and gave me questions.”

  Tired of waiting for her to take his hand, he put both of them on her waist and hauled her to her feet. Something else he was tired of was looking at the bloody mess that was her face. “Let’s go.” Grabbing her hand, Ares started to lead her away from the fire and out of the throne room.

  Keeping hold of her hand, he walked toward the narrow staircase leading to his bedroom, nearly dragging her behind him.

  Alena stumbled along although she felt it probably wasn’t in her best interest. “What are you going to tell him when he comes back?”

  At the foot of the stairs, Ares stopped and turned to look down at her from over his brawny shoulder. “I suppose that depends on you.” His gaze returned to the stairs and the open door at the top. “Coming?”

  “You’re an ass.”

  Ares nodded his head in playful thought. “I’ve been called worse.” Letting go of her hand, he started up the stairs.

  “Apollo was right; you are going to make me trade my virtue for your protection.”

  “I’ve already told you; I don’t like virgins.” Not a lie, but not the truth. Ares preferred his women to be experienced, but Alena had her talents even if she had yet to be penetrated. Ares let the words settle around him for a moment as he took a few more stairs toward his room. “But, ahhh, now that you mention it,” he said without turning around. “I wasn’t going to be so crass but,” now he did turn around with a grin, “if that’s a real barter and you’re volunteering, I suppose I can work with it.” Those stormy eyes flashed hot lightning at him and he had to hold back the laugh. She really was fun to taunt and tease. With that coy grin on his handsome face, he took two slow steps back towards her and reached out to run his fingers along the side of her cheek and through her hair. “I learned much about you today—it interests me. Now, I want to know more.” His hand stopped to cup the nape of her neck as he leaned forward just a tiny bit to whisper in her ear. “So much more.” While he felt her shiver, Ares didn’t think it was fear. Even after all she’d been through today, or perhaps because of it, Alena still hungered. She still wanted to know the secrets that locked bedroom door held.

  Compared to Apollo, Ares touch was so much more welcome. Warmer. Stronger. There was no warmth in Apollo’s hands; his skin was cold whereas Ares’ brimmed with fire. “After you.”

  “Oh, no, ladies first,” Ares countered slyly and gestured again toward the open door. Keeping her eyes to his, Alena passed him on the steps. He admired the view as she made her way before him, his head tilting side to side in time with the movement of her hips.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Black Knight

  Ares’ room burned with fire, he was always surrounded by it no matter what. If it wasn’t a hearth then it was torches or candles. In here was no different; the large stone hearth burned brightly as did the torches by his bed. At the foot, Alena saw her little chest. “Did you open it?”

  “Of course I did,” Ares said as he closed the door behind them and then made his way over to his bed. Standing there, he pulled the hoodie over his head and cast it to the floor, glad to be rid of it. It stunk with sweat and blood. It hit the floor with a thud and then something rolled out of the pocket.

  “That’s mine,” Alena said as she looked down at the little bottle of Obsession and then looked back to the chest. “What else did you steal from me? I have very little in case you couldn’t tell.”

  Shirtless, Ares bent down and picked up the bottle. He uncapped it, sprayed it in the air, and took a sniff. He exhaled with a satisfied ‘ahhhh’. “It’s mine now, but I’ll let you wear it for me later. Take that off.”

  Alena clutched the bodice of her filthy gown. “You don’t waste any time, do you?”

  “I’m tired of looking at Apollo’s dust. Take it off.”

  It wasn’t as though he hadn’t already seen her without her clothing but Ares was not big on undergarments. There wasn’t a single pair of underwear on the entire island as far as she could tell and he’d burned her only bra. Across the bed, he was taking off that pair of nicely fitting blue jeans and staring at her with cold eyes. “Whatever you want.”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  “I bet you do.” Alena gave out a grunt of disgust and then reached down to grab the hem of the gown and yank it over her head.

  “Slowly, slowly, it’s much too nice a job to rush,” Ares interrupted.

  She peered at him from over the hem which she’d raised to her eyes, exposing her lower, naked, half to his view. “Would you like me to dance, too?”

  “Would you? Can we make that part of our little barter?”

  “No.” Alena pulled the gown off the rest of the way and, like Ares before her, she threw it to the floor. “Better?”

  “Much.” Apollo had touched her skin; his handprint was clear on her shoulder and the top of her breast. There was no blood dripping between her legs and they were not bruised. So, while Apollo touched her, grabbed her was more like it, he hadn’t done anything else. She bore no signs of serious injury from her battle with Kat and his guards. Though she was beautiful to look at, standing there vulnerable and uncertain in all of her glory, it was these things Ares was most concerned with now.

  Alena expected him to perch on the bed, but instead, naked as a jaybird, he turned toward the hearth and spread his arms apart. Two doors opened, one on either side of the fire. She hadn’t even noticed them before. One was a closet and the other a bathroom. “Go wash up.” She just stood there with her mouth gaping, staring not at the small rustic bathroom but the closet full of clothing. “What? You think I keep my clothes in thin air?”

  “I’m still new to this God thing.”

  “I thought you said you lived with Cernunnos.”

  “Not exactly, no.” Alena lived within the confines of Cernunnos’ fortress but she had not lived within the Keep itself. She lived with Cernunnos’ Exalted Druid, Adrian, for the duration of her captivity. “So I’m afraid that you’ll have to forgive me.”

  “I see you have a lot to learn,” he huffed and watched her very stealthily make her way to the bathroom; she didn’t take her eyes off him. It was clear she expected him to pounce when she got within arms’ reach of him. Ares thought that was funny as he had the power to grab her from anywhere she stood on the face of the Earth. Yet she was worried about his physical grasp. “How long will it take you to heal?” he asked when she was inside the door.

  The bathroom was almost Spartan; it consisted of a hole in a rock much like the one downstairs for ridding the body of waste and a sink with a hand pump, along with a few towels and soaps. The first mirror she’d seen in the cave hung over a sink carved out of the rock. Alena never stopped marveling over the toilet—such as it was. The guards and the women had to rid themselves of waste just as she did, but Ares? Then again, she’d always been under the impression the only nourishment an Olympian required was Nectar and Ambro
sia. Therefore she was surprised to find that Ares ate on a regular basis, and he seemed to love to eat, there was always a tray of something to nibble on next to him. Therefore, he must also have to get rid of waste. “A few days…I suppose,” Alena called back and began drawing the water into the sink with the pump, thinking that the wounds Ares had laid on her back healed quicker than she thought. “Perhaps there’s something about this island,” Alena whispered to herself as she got a good look at her reflection. “What a mess,” she mumbled to the reflection.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she called back. “Got the ears of a wolf, too,” she muttered even softer.

  “You shouldn’t forget that,” Ares called back.

  Alena stuck her tongue out at him from behind the safety of the partially open door before bending down and running the fresh cold water over the top of her silver head matted thick with blood. The water was cooling, refreshing, but it made her wounds sting while it washed away the small rocks and debris caught within the open skin. Hair clean and dripping cold water down her bare back, Alena took up one of the towels and used it to wash away the rest of the crap sticking to her, including Apollo’s shimmering dust. She hoped it wasn’t poisonous or something; she hadn’t even realized it was there until Ares pointed it out to her. Sitting on the hole in the rock, she washed off the soles of her feet and took in the gash over her right arch. It was deep and nasty, caked with Earth. It throbbed mercilessly.

  Suddenly the light went away.

  Alena looked up to see Ares standing over her, blocking out the torches burning behind him as he pumped fresh water into the sink. Long and lean from head to toe, that incredible body of his just seemed to go on for days. Watching him wash off the dirt from the camp, she started to salivate as her body began to tingle and her mind began running wild with forbidden thoughts. She wanted to reach out and touch him; in her mind she saw her hands running along those toned flanks. Alena started fighting the strangest urge to start at his toes and lick him all the way up one side and down the other like Tootsie pop. After that, she’d like very much to sink her teeth into that firm ass jutting toward her face. And then…