Then she made it through another round. Then she made it through the night to the dawn. That was when Ares realized the tiny baby was every inch the fighter that her mother was. Breathing was hard, oh so difficult, and she fought tooth and nail for each precious gulp of air but she got it and then she got the next one and the next. Even lost in her deep sleep, it was as though Alena knew the baby survived her fall as her breasts engorged with milk. Not knowing what to expect, Ares wrapped Alena’s limp arms around Rose and put the baby to her nipple. The little girl latched on right away and began to feed. Although her eyes didn’t open, Alena’s arms stiffened to cradle the miniature baby while she suckled. Ares sat with his arms wrapped around both of them, making sure the baby didn’t fall and that she got her fill to eat.
To the exclusion of all others, including Raven, over the next several weeks Ares kept constant vigil over his Wife and his Daughter, never letting either out of his sight or his arms. Ares took on all of the tasks of caring for them and refused to let anyone help him. In this very precarious state, Mother and Daughter were so much alike, so helpless and vulnerable, he had to protect them. Ares fed Alena; even though her eyes remained closed most of the time, if he put a spoon through her lips she would eat soft foods and drink with the aid of a straw. Often the food dribbled down her chin or out of the corner of her mouth; Ares cleaned it up and never once complained or felt the swift stroke of anger. He was sure that, lost in there somewhere, Alena knew Rose was depending on her for sustenance and so Alena ate so that she could feed Rose and the baby would grow.
Daily he bathed both. Alena seemed to like it when he brought her into the big sunken tub and let the warm water wash over her. Her head would rest against his shoulder as her thinning body lay against him as though she wanted to cuddle. Sometimes it even seemed to him that she smiled but that could just be the nagging, undying hope in his heart. He changed their clothes and their undergarments, cleaning up the waste and throwing it away without so much as a sneer or a silently muttered obscenity.
Weeks went by turning rapidly to months and then years. All the while Rose struggled to grow, but Alena faded.
Ares grew weak and weary.
Raven never confessed.
Chapter One
The Still of the Night
In the split-second it took Magdalena MacLeod, Wife to Ares of God, to tumble down the marble staircase, she poured everything she had into the baby growing inside her, hoping to ensure the survival of her unborn daughter even at the expense of her own life. Although the fall did not kill her, her selfless act left her weak and vulnerable to the most unsuspecting of Gods; Morpheus King of Dreams.
I
When she first woke inside the dream, Alena found herself knee-deep in snow with blustering winds howling all around her with such vengeance she clasped her hands to her ears against the deafening howl. Looking behind, she saw nothing but the base of a very high rocky cliff. To the sides were the same, just jagged rocks covered in ice and snow as far as her eyes could look upward. “Where am I?” she asked herself as her lips felt the stinging bite of cold.
She didn’t have any idea. She tried to remember where she’d been or even who she was but there was only a black space where her memory should be. “Who am I?” She looked down at herself and the flimsy cotton nightgown clinging to her quaking body, offering no protection from the blizzard swirling around her. She looked around again at the high cliffs while, on their own, her toes wiggled telling they were bare as icy fluffy snow worked between them.
No answer came to her ears, only a deadened echo. “Hello? Someone? Anyone? Hello?”
With a heavy dose of horror, Alena realized that she didn’t know who she was or where she was or even how she’d gotten there. Panic set in but instinct took over, telling her that the only thing of which she could be sure of was the imperative need to find shelter lest she risk freezing to death in the harsh conditions. With nothing but the sheer rock wall behind her and on either side of her, the only direction to go in was forward against the biting wind. “Hello?” she called out, only to listen to the wind whip her voice back to her ears.
With no choice, Alena wrapped her arms around her shivering body, desperately wishing for something warmer than the nightgown for protection against the arctic blow, put her head down and walked forward into the raging wind. She kept calling out for help with every few steps of her bare feet; no reply came in answer. Without so much as a tree or blade of grass to mark the distance and time, she walked on until she couldn’t feel her toes. Only the high cliff walls dripping icicles the size of steel girders and just as dangerous should they fall to look over her. She looked long and hard for a cave up there, anywhere, someplace that would offer shelter out of the wind. Not even a small crack or crag. There was nothing but solid stone all the way up and out of her line of sight.
With the snowstorm growing stronger, the fat white flakes falling so hard that she became snow blind, no longer able to tell up from down or left from right, her slender body shook and shivered as her teeth chattered. Alena tried to get hold of her own jaw but it was no use, several times her chattering teeth gnashed her lower lip or cheeks, spurting warm blood into her mouth. She spat it onto the white snow, leaving a trail of blood drops behind her. The cold settled into her bones making her body heavy and her eyes tired as she fought to keep them open. After a while, the shivering and quivering stopped. Every step she took became laden with lead. Alena looked down to see her bare feet past the point of blue a long time ago and rapidly passing deep purple to black. The frostbite was making its way up her shins even as it nipped at her hands and arms, threatening to rot her body away piece by piece.
“Hello? Please, help me,” she called out even as she looked around for a comfortable place to succumb to the inevitable. All she could see was white; even the contrast of the brown cliffs was gone. Falling to her knees in despair and readying herself to embrace her Fate, Alena fell down in the cold snow, only to find it warm against her frozen skin. She whispered, “Please help me, I don’t want to die.”
A light sprang up to illuminate the blinding snow.
Torches.
The end of the canyon lay before her in the form of a thick ornate double-door, of which one side appeared carved from ivory and the other from animal horn. The torches burned on either side of it as though they were inviting her to come and stay a while.
Clutching at the snow, on her hands and knees, Alena crawled the distance to the door. Reaching it, the snow no longer an obstacle to her vision, she saw it was covered with images of naked women floating on clouds, little cherub-like creatures fluttering about, large poppies the size of platters, in the center a large wilted elm tree that split in two when the doors opened and became whole again when they closed. Just as Alena thought she might be better off freezing to death out here in the cold, the doors gave a loud creak and then opened, forcing her to stumble backward in the snow.
The air that blew out from the open doors was so warm it misted into fog as it carried with it the scent of roasting meat, making her stomach rumble. Peering inside the open doors, she saw a fire burning in a large stone hearth some distance away. To either side of it sat the most ornate and glorious planters she’d ever seen. Each was at least six feet high, carved of solid black marble, with more angels and cherubs and clouds, the pots at the top overflowed with poppies.
It wasn’t just the warmth of the air inside that brought the gust of steamy mist; the place was covered with fog. It lingered thick and heavy around the floor, illuminated in a ghastly glow by the firelight. It gave the otherwise cold stone a dreamy quality as it hung at knee-height, springing to life with poppies, their heads the size of dinner plates, hanging over the bank of fog.
By the fire in the shadows sat a large throne upon which sat a man, hiding in the dark.
Across from the welcoming hearth on a long table, platters of gold glittered in the firelight. Each one ready to be filled with an assortment of food rest
ing in the middle of the granite table. It all looked so delicious and she was starving and thirsty.
Suddenly the wind that she’d struggled against with so much ferocity turned direction. It pushed her into the entryway even as the doors slammed shut behind her. Alena wheeled around and pushed with all of her might but they would not open. “Wait,” she mumbled, pounding on the heavy doors, “open up.”
The man sequestered in the dark spoke in a very softly pleasing voice. “There’s no need for fear, I am your friend. Join me, Alena, I know you’re cold and hungry.”
“You know who I am?” Alena turned around to face the owner of the voice.
“Of course I know you; you are Magdalena MacLeod, daughter of the Fey Maven and the human, Norman, Wife to Ares God of War. Don’t you know me?” Morpheus stood up and floated into the light.
Ares.
The name caused a snapshot to flash by in her mind; a man, very handsome, bearded with dark skin and sparking onyx eyes broke out in a smile as he reached out for something, shaking his dark head and beginning to laugh.
Then it was gone, just as quickly as it came it disappeared. However, it left a warm tingle running through her cold body, causing her to grin. Feeling as though she were floating in the air every bit as much as the man with the fluttering black wings, her dreamy eyes turned back to him. Although he looked somewhat like the image that just scampered through her mind he wasn’t the same man. He younger, much thinner, and his skin was white as snow. He looked as though he hadn’t a spent a day in the sunshine in decades, but more than that he didn’t look familiar to Alena’s eyes. “Who are you? Where am I?”
Morpheus saw the fleeting image of Ares in her mind, felt the confusion in her heart, and vowed to use it all to his advantage. “I am your friend, Morpheus, and this is my home. I brought you here hoping to save you.” Here in his realm Morpheus was no longer transparent, no longer without true form and body. Here he was whole and as solid as any man, hovering in the air by the fire with his black wings spread out behind him and his pouches of dream dust hanging about his slim waist.
“Save me? From what?”
“Ares, your overbearing Husband,” Morpheus intoned sympathetically as he held a hand out to her. “Don’t be afraid, you’re safe here, your troubles are over now.” To show his good intent, Morpheus waved the other hand in the air to heal her frostbitten wounds and cover her shivering body with heavy blanket of soft mink lined with black silk. “There that’s better, come and eat.”
“Thank you.” Feeling strength return to her weary body, Alena stumbled over to the table to gaze down at the buffet to see everything was covered in poppy seeds, from the lemon poppy seed cake with drizzled white icing, to the butternut squash mashed and roasted with poppy seeds. The bowls of Ambrosia also were topped with poppy seeds. Even the turkey at the center of the table had been roasted with poppy seeds plastered to its brown crispy skin and embedded in the stuffing. Unable to resist the screaming call of hunger in her stomach, Alena grab a turkey leg and chomped down on it, ripping the flesh and skin from the bone. She muttered, reaching for a chalice of Nectar to find a poppy flower floating in it.
Morpheus smiled kindly, his warmly handsome face glowing at her as he watched her devour the food and drink of the Dream World, knowing it would keep her with him a good long time.
Alena looked around the cavernous room feeling she’d never been here before. “Ares? The God of War, where is he? Are you—are you my lover?”
“No, what fool would anger the God of War by sleeping with his Wife?” Morpheus reached out to pat her hand kindly. “You seem so confused. Why don’t you just eat and then rest a while. I’m sure it will come back to you in due time, my dear.”
Stormy eyes shifted upward to look into his piercing blue orbs. It was coming back in tiny fragments. She was married to Ares God of War, yes, that sounded right. Further, she had the sneaking suspicion that she’d been about to leave him, she was afraid of him. She’d been running away from him when something terrible happened and she ended up here. “How did I get here? Where is here?”
“My realm,” Morpheus said easily and smiled for her. “As for how you got here, well, it’s a long story.”
“It seems I have plenty of time.”
“If you insist, but you won’t like what I have to say and the last thing I want to do is upset you,” Morpheus led and then paused to see if she’d push him for information or if she’d just let it drop with his warning.
“Go on.” Bringing the heavy fur blanket around her shoulders tightly she listened with much intensity as Morpheus spoke.
“You were trying to escape Olympus—”
“Why?”
“Because Ares is a selfish brute.” Morpheus kept his voice light and his touch soft as reached out to trace his fingers along her ashen face, delighting in watching it fall into sorrow. “That’s why you were leaving him. You loved him with all your heart but you couldn’t take his lies any longer. You finally came to understand that he never loved you. It was all a game to him.”
“Lies? About what?”
Morpheus sighed sympathetically and shook his dark head. “About Aphrodite and his undying love for her. You finally understood that Ares never loved you, this was all game to him. He only used you to make Aphrodite jealous. In fact, he’s already moved her into the Fortress. They’re going to have a Son, a full-blooded Olympian.” He put a gentle hand under her quivering chin. “Oh, there-there, you poor thing.”
Staring into his piercing blue eyes Alena started remembering her life with the infamous Ares God of War, almost as though it were playing out before her reflected in those kind orbs. She seemed to recall that, in her last few moments in Ares’ Fortress she had been leaving him. Yes, he was in love with Aphrodite. Yes, he had been lying to her. It was all so fuzzy but she thought she remembered yelling, arguing, but not about what or with whom. The exchange was heated and she was frightened, horrified, she was going to run, and then, “I fell,” Alena mumbled to herself and started to quiver with more than the chill in the air. She let out a grunt of pain and winced as she looked up at Morpheus for answers.
“Yes, you did,” Morpheus agreed as he stood up and then knelt at her side with her icy hand inside both of his warmer ones. “You were grievously wounded and that’s how I was able to save you. When you fell, I snatched you from Hades grasp and brought you here to live with me.”
“Save me? Hades?” The weight of his words settled around her ears like a dirty shroud before realization dawned. Alena didn’t know if she should thank him or start screaming like a raving lunatic. “I’m dead?”
Piercing blue eyes gazed at her with sympathy and kindness, hiding the lie buried deep behind the glint of sorrow. “Quite, I’m afraid, my darling.”
If she was dead and she never crossed the River Styx she’d never be reborn or be reunited with those she loved. At that thought, Alena let out a snort even as her mind cracked. There was no one in the Upper World who loved her so there was no one with whom to reunite. Ares loved Aphrodite. Raven hated her. “Why? Why bring me here? Why not let me cross the river?”
“It wasn’t your time,” Morpheus shook his head as he traced the back of his long fingers over the curve of her face. “Besides, the Underworld is an ugly place, far too unsavory for one so delicate and fair.”
Another fuzzy distant memory came to a dim light in the back of her mind. Alena’s hands went to her belly, not to still the churning there, but to feel the emptiness. “My baby? I was pregnant, wasn’t I? My baby?”
For a long weighty moment, Morpheus remained silent then he finally spoke in a near whisper. “She was born very prematurely, Ares deemed her too small and weak to survive so he snuffed out her life with the palm of his hand.” Watching her face fall and the tears well up in her misty eyes, guilt sieged his heart as the depths of his deception hit him but it did nothing to dull his desire.
The wounded, shell-shocked, tiny piece of mind Alena had left
let go and fell into the abyss. Uncontrollably, she began to wail, a sound so primal and deep, it didn’t even sound human. She doubled over, wrapped her arms around her body, and rocked hard as she sobbed, “No, oh please, no.”
“I didn’t want to tell you, not this way, but you were so insistent,” Morpheus stood up to put his arms around her, and pulled her close to him as she sobbed. “I’m so sorry, my darling, so so sorry. You never should have trusted Ares, he’s a cold-blooded killer.” Morpheus kissed the top of her grey head. As he enfolded her into his arms, bringing her in close, and pressing against her as he began stroking her back. “I will take the utmost care of you, I promise, I know it’s not as grand as Olympus but I think you will grow to like it here.”
II
Growing to like life in the Dream World took a while. The first week she spent with Morpheus all she did was cry. She wept like a heartbroken schoolgirl for a life she could barely remember and, worse yet, felt certain she didn’t want to remember. At night, when Morpheus fled his realm to bring dreams to the Mortal World, her own dreams were fragmented and violent. Alone in her bed in the pitch dark, she jolted awake, heart thudding in her chest, her body covered with sweat and unable to catch her breath.
After a few nights of vivid but disjointed nightmares in which Ares snarled at her when she wasn’t witnessing him in bed with Aphrodite, she forced herself to stay awake until dawn when Morpheus returned. When he laid down in his room to sleep for the day she crept to the door, stood there a long moment trying to decide what to do, and it slowly swung open before her eyes. In the large comfortable room, every corner was covered with brilliantly colored poppies among which lay soft cushions equally colorful in shades of white, red, yellow, and purple. The pastel blue walls adorned with golden mirrors and candles, framed paintings of peaceful scenes; white clouds among which sat angels and cherubs, open fields of flowers, and rolling waves. Gentle music played from some place she couldn’t see. It was all very relaxing.
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