by S. E. Babin
"So little you think of me, Ares?" I asked lightly.
"It is not what I think of you, fair goddess, it is what I know Zeus has in store for you."
I waited for him to elaborate.
"I cannot tell you as much as I wish," he said with a sigh. "I am under a geas, much like the one Clotho put us under, but tighter. You must beware, Abby. You have no idea what is to happen."
The only thing I could think of was the champion Zeus had chosen. "This is all you can say."
He nodded, his eyes tight with worry. "Did Hecate step up to the challenge?"
"Worry not," I told him. "Everyone is holed up at her castle.”
"Good." Ares let out a deep breath. "I am sorry for what is to come, Abby."
I shrugged. "I thought I had it, you know. It was in the palm of my hand, and I got selfish."
Ares smiled sadly. 'It is our way to jump ahead of ourselves and grasp our victories before they are truly ours, only to watch them drift from our fingers like the fog."
"Poetic, Ares."
"I have missed you," he said, his voice quiet but firm even through the screaming crowd.
In my heart, I'd missed him too. He'd hurt me over the years, but I always had a soft spot for him. I clasped his hand. "And I you." I let go and grinned. "Shall we dance?"
He bowed to me. "I love the name of honor, more than I fear death."
"Et tu, Brute?" I asked with a grin.
The bell rang.
And we danced.
Ares and I had scrapped before, jokingly and sometimes without our clothes on. But this time the fun was gone. It was a brutal fight to the death or at least as close as we could go without a true death. Hecate watched us carefully from the stands, no doubt wondering if it was me she was going to have to revive this time. Ares was a competitor in life and when faced with certain death. His dueling skills were beyond the pale and his fighting skills were legendary.
Technically I was no match for him, but I did have one thing Ares had never had.
Unpredictability.
I'd never learned to fight with a sword or street fight. I was more of a lover than anything, so if I ever had to fight I would usually look for any single advantage I could and use it. Household items, trickery, picking up a handful of rocks and flinging them at someone. Anything at all.
Ares started with a sword because that was just his way, and I responded by flinging love magic at him. He flicked it away with barely a thought, so I hit him with some more. I knew if he left his guard down for even an instance that I could get under his skin, but it was difficult to read him. It always had been. He swung the sword with methodical precision and almost got me a couple of times.
No one is pretty with their head cut off, let me tell you. And while I wasn't a hundred percent sure he'd take it that far, I didn't want to underestimate him either.
I could not lose. If I did, the games were over and I would be doomed.
Technically no one was supposed to kill me because I was the prize. But I had no idea what Zeus had told the people downstairs. He needed me alive, but how alive was the actual question.
Ares grinned at me as he switched from a sword to a dagger. I rolled my eyes as he flipped it hand to hand like a video game assassin.
I smacked him in the chest with a bolt of magic. Stunned, he staggered but shrugged it off.
The smile fell off his face, though, which made me smile even wider.
He thundered toward me. I activated the power dampening spell and disappeared. His roar of confusion made me snort. I was two feet away from him and he had no idea where I was. I crept up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder, and flung myself out of the way as he moved faster than a snake and almost stabbed me in the face.
That would not have looked good in pictures.
"Abby," he jeered. "Come out, come out wherever you are!"
I rolled my eyes even though he couldn't see me. Ares always did know how to play a crowd.
He shut his eyes, inhaled deeply, and a flash of dark magic rained down from the heavens two inches in front of my face. Flung backward, I covered my head with my hands and braced myself for the crash into the seating area.
The impact crushed my concentration and the spell fell away from me, revealing my location. Seconds later Ares was standing over me, grinning. "You never could help yourself," he said as he hovered. "Perfume will be your downfall." He raised his hands and magic poured from them, binding my ankles together.
I gritted my teeth and struggled. I could not go out like that.
With a scream, I channeled raw power and struck Ares with as much magic as I could muster with my shattered concentration.
He shouted with pain and his spell fell away. I stumbled to my feet and staggered back to the middle of the ring.
A mere second later he got back upon his feet and spun to face me.
"Clever girl," he remarked.
The crowd hooted and hollered terrible things about my lineage and praised Ares' prowess.
"These people are irritating the hell out of me," I muttered.
Ares shrugged. "They never were a particularly friendly bunch of people. Don't let it get to you."
"KILL HER!" A voice screamed. I spun around and stopped in my tracks. Dike stood in the stands, with her hands cupped over her mouth. I knew we hadn't parted as friends, but I had her dead to rights and could have killed her the last time we saw each other. But I hadn't.
Standing here now, though, I wish I would have.
But, in all fairness, she thought I'd killed Hermes a little while ago. I shrugged and turned back to Ares who stood right behind me with his dagger at my back.
I sighed. "Crap."
"Yield," he said, sadly. "You will have a happy life."
I snorted. "I'm sure it will work out just the way it has all the other times we tried to give it ago."
"It has to work out now. You're stuck with me contractually."
"That makes it sound so much more romantic."
"Yield, Abby."
"You know I'll never yield."
"I'm not allowed to kill you," he said.
Well that was good to know. So Zeus did want me all the way alive. "I'm flattered."
"Even though you're getting on my nerves."
"Imagine the next three hundred years," I quipped.
"I just can't wait," he sighed.
"I'll most likely kill you in the morning, you know."
Ares chuckled. "You and those movies."
I shut my eyes, activated the dampening spell again, and blinked directly behind him.
With tears in my eyes, I placed my hands on my shoulders and poured the magic of death into his body.
Ares slumped into my arms, and I lay him gently onto the ground.
I sank to my knees and awaited Zeus' champion. We'd gone through every single challenger. I still stood, but I wasn't sure for how much longer. I had no idea who I was to face. If for some reason I defeated the champion, I would also have to defeat Typhon and I didn't think I could. If the champion defeated me, Typhon would walk out and claim me as his bride. The fighting would be over.
Did I have it in me to keep going? I wasn't sure. I'd watched every single person I love die. And I'd been the one to kill them. Even though most of it was a farce and I knew they were all tucked safely away, it didn't stop the feeling of knowing I'd watched their immortality being snuffed out.
Zeus stood, anger flickering in his gaze. So Ares had bothered him more than Hera. That was unfortunate. My thoughts flicked back to Hades. He didn't seem angry when I'd left him. He'd seemed sad. I knew I'd hurt him. Why did I keep making those choices?
The announcer’s voice came back on. He stumbled over his words, and I watched as a slow smile crept over Zeus' face. I got to my feet cautiously.
"Zeus' champion will rise against the goddess Aphrodite today!" The crowd roared their approval as a massive man in chains shuffled his way out to the center of the ring.
The power pouring from him too
k my breath away. He stood at least 7 feet tall. His face was a tanned color much like Apollo's but his eyes were a bright golden, lighter than Hermes', wiser than Zeus. A wicked scar ran from the top of his right eye and diagonal down his face, but it didn't detract from his beauty.
Anger, more anger than I'd ever seen before, filled his expression and darkened his gaze as he stared down at me. His lips were wide and generous but they were thinned with rage.
He stopped a few feet away from me, the chains clinking together. He wore them on his ankles, across his chest and his hands. Was he a slave? I paused. My heartbeat slowed to a dull thunder. I had seen him before for a brief moment.
We stared at each other.
The crowd screamed with anticipation, so loudly I couldn't hear myself think.
"This will be the final match, provided the champion takes the win! Aphrodite, bow to the potential final challenger, the God of Light, Uranus."
I sucked in a horrified breath.
The man standing in front of me was my father.
Chapter 21
The first thought that came to me once my head unscrambled was that my mother must be apoplectic. The first question was how had Zeus nabbed him? How long had he had him? And...did he know I was his daughter?
Could my mother even save him? Was she that powerful? I didn't think either of us had even a speck of his power. He was the sun, and I was merely a daisy trying to reach up and touch his light. My gods.
This was a hot damn mess.
"Aphrodite," the man growled. His voice was thickly accented but honey toned.
I bowed my head to him. "Uranus." When I lifted my head and met his golden eyes, regret flickered within them.
"You know who I am," I said.
He nodded and jerked a finger back to Zeus. "He told me right before I walked out."
"Would you like to help me kill him?" I asked.
"Very much so."
"I don't know how we get out of this one," I said to him.
He shrugged, the chains clinking against his chest. "It appears we are in a pickle."
As the announcer picked up the drumstick to bang the bell, he was met with a heated glare from my father. "One more minute," he growled.
The announcer set the stick down and backed away.
"A definite pickle," I agreed.
"Zeus has threatened to murder the mother of my sons if I do not defeat you today."
"Gaia?"
"Yes. Mother to many healthy sons. Although I suspect Zeus won't have to worry about murdering me because she will gladly take my head when she finds out about you."
I'd met Gaia a few times. She was a pretty scary individual. "You didn't lay with my mother," I reasoned.
"I'm not so sure she'll care," he said with a sigh.
"So if you win, I get to marry Typhon and we go to war with the Titans. If I win, you might die and Zeus will murder Gaia."
"It's a win-win, correct?" he said as he boomed with laughter.
I couldn't help it. I laughed too. I kind of liked this guy. When faced with a horrible choice he at least had a sense of humor about it. "What should we do about it?'
"I guess I have to try to win."
I sighed. "Me too. If we come out of this unscathed, how about we go for coffee?"
"I do not know what this coffee is," he said and rattled his chains. "I think we kill Zeus first, then go for the coffee? Deal?"
"Deal."
"Prepare yourself, fruit of my loins."
I cringed. "I hope you don't die."
"I hope you aren't married off like a commoner," he said with a wink. "We are far too advanced to do this to each other."
He nodded at the announcer.
The bell rang.
Even regretful and with his heart not in it, my father was a total badass. The metal chains fell to dust, allowing Uranus all the freedom of movement he needed. He thundered toward me, his veins pulsing with a strange, dark magic. He produced a lightning bolt in his hand and flung it directly at my face. I squawked like a terrified chicken and ducked. This was how the Greek gods did family. By total chaos and mayhem, and the potential of death in every corner.
Every time I tried to get away from him, Uranus was there. Every time I disappeared, he grabbed at the tendrils of my magic and tossed me back into the ring. It was like he knew. He knew what I could do. He knew the powers I held and he knew how to get around them. I'd felt terror before, true terror and plenty of times, but never had I felt the helplessness that I was feeling right now.
I was losing. And I was losing horribly bad.
I tried to dampen my power signature, but he wasn't letting up, and I couldn't sink down to the concentration level I needed to activate the spell. I didn't have enough practice to use the magic at my disposal with ease yet. It took time and it took effort.
I growled out a curse and levitated from the ground. Uranus blinked, shrugged, and threw another lightning bolt at me.
I screamed in frustration and flung a fireball of pink magic at his legs. He leaped in surprise and threw himself at me.
We came together in a tangle of limbs and anger and struggled against each other. But for me, it wasn't really struggling. It was a fight to the death.
"Thank your lover for bringing me back to life," he grunted with effort as he spoke to me which made me feel a little bit better. I felt like a piece of chicken being pounded into submission on the counter before it got tossed in the frying pan.
"How did Zeus manage to grab you? He hasn't been in the best shape lately."
Uranus ripped one of his arms from my grasp and punched me in the jaw. I screamed in pain and felt my teeth rattle in my head.
"Nothing personal,” he grunted, shaking his fist after the impact. “The darkest of magic,” he answered. “He steals his immortality from a darker source. You must stop him."
I kneed him in the balls. I wasn't sure if he still had them anymore after that whole pecker in the sea incident, but it seemed to do the trick. He shouted in pain and loosened his grip on me. I head butted him. Huge mistake, but he flung me out of his grip. I went sailing through the air, barely able to catch myself before I slammed right down into the crowd.
Seconds later Uranus came at me again. But he didn't attack me right away again.
"Days after I dealt with my son, Zeus visited me without his lovely, cold bride. We talked and he tried to strike a deal with me, but I denied him. I was free of my afterlife at last, and I wanted only peace. I wanted nothing to do with his scheming. A little while afterward, he came back with someone...a sorcerer or sorceress, I'm not sure. The power was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. I was fed poisoned wine, sedated, and chained at Olympus. It wasn't until much later I found out what he wanted from me."
I gathered magic in my hands. "War," I said.
Uranus nodded. "He does not want you to wed the Lord of the Underworld. You should heed this knowledge. There is some powerful reason he wants to see you wed to the beast, Typhon."
"I am destined to be Queen,” I said. “Of what, no one has quite figured out yet. Maybe the Underworld. Maybe the world. It's all so very confusing."
Uranus frowned and snapped his fingers. An enormous lightning bolt formed in his hand, hissing and spitting with electricity.
"You could just fling that in a different direction and change the entire course of this thing," I said lightly, gesturing with my head to Zeus.
"He holds my children in cells, Aphrodite." He grinned then. "Even though they deposed me, I still love their evil little hearts."
"Crap," I said with feeling.
"Aye," he acknowledged. "He took them by surprise. Gaia, though, she is not so easy to catch."
"I heard those two were having an affair."
My father blinked once. Twice. Three times. His face morphed into something more fearsome than it already was. "Say it isn't true," he whispered.
Maybe I could use this in some way to bring him to my side.
I
wanted to slap myself. Hadn't using someone gotten me into this pickle in the first place?
Gaia seemed to be a dirty, rotten scoundrel in the men department. If Zeus hadn't been with Gaia, then who had he been with? I felt like a terrible heel for telling Uranus this when there was still a seed of doubt within me over the whole thing. But Hera had seemed really sure about it. Devastated even.
"I'm sorry," was all I could say. "You could still toss that lightning bolt toward Zeus. Make this all go away."
Uranus faced me with a frozen expression. "She gave me many children." He seemed to be stuck more on Gaia’s birthing ability than anything else.
"Yep," I agreed, even though I was standing there as a product of some seriously bad luck and some dark magic. Yay me! The last thing I wanted to think about was my birth, especially with an enormous lightning bolt in my face. I'd much rather have this over with.
"It no longer matters if he kills her," he said suddenly.
"Errm, what?" I held up my hands and backed away from him.
"If Gaia has lain with another man, she has dishonored herself and her fate rests with her." He thumped his chest. "I save myself and my children."
Oh. Crap.
"Don't do this." I gathered all the magic I could at the heart of me, praying he would rethink his decision. I wasn't sure I could withstand a blow from Uranus, not with the massive amounts of power I felt coming from him.
"I am sorry, new daughter." The lightning bolt went flying up. Uranus tore the roof of the stadium open, peeling it like a tin can. Hail, lightning, wind and rain poured into the area soaking everyone to the skin.
Everyone except Uranus.
I threw up my hands to shield my eyes even as I threw myself away from the cracking lightning, but it was no use. I could hardly see a thing. Magic grew within the building even as the rain grew stronger.
He was building up to the death blow. I knew it. Even though he wasn't supposed to kill me. Uranus' only focus now was self-preservation. Who cared about me? I was only a daughter. A new one. Not a son. Nor anyone particularly important to him.
Hecate's scream rang through the stadium.
I could do one of two things. Fight or flee.
