The Heart of War (29 page)

“I know.”

“Don’t you have any sense of decency at all?”

With a raised eyebrow, Ares looked her up and down as she sat next to him on the bed. “I gave you a shirt, didn’t I?” Not waiting for her to answer, he plucked the outfit from the top of the small pile. “Nice,” he said as he held it up.

“Seven years ago it was; I’m sure it’s out of style by now.” Alena grabbed the dress out of his hand and tossed it back in the box. “Are you done?”

“No.” He tossed the dress out again and to the floor. The shoes accompanied it. Then he pulled the small purse from the box and then the cell phone from the purse. He read ‘Sony Ericsson’ on the top when he flipped it open. “If I make this work, what will I find?”

“The battery’s been dead for years. There’s no charge.” Picking up the old purse with one hand she reached out for the phone with the other but Ares batted her hand away.

“I know how batteries run.” It was Ares’ turn to grunt and roll his eyes. “So, are you deaf or daft? If I make it work, what will I find?”

Alena had to think about it for a moment, it had been nearly seven years since the thing worked. “Phone numbers, some old text messages, some pictures, some music…”

“Music?” Ares tapped the phone and a little spark flew from his fingertip. The phone lit up. “Play me some music.” He handed her the phone and then rummaged in the box again.

“Play you some…sure, why not?” Alena pulled up her small music collection, wondering what the God of War would like to hear. “Oh, I’ve got one for you.” She pushed a button and soon heavy metal came from the little speaker.

There I was, completely wasted
Out of work and down
All inside is so frustrating
As I drift from town to town

Breakin’ the law
Breakin’ the law

“Figures,” she huffed as she opened the purse and peered inside.

“What?” Ares asked innocently as he pointed to himself. “It’s your song.” Pushing his hand past hers, Ares plucked the bankbook out of the bag and opened it.

“Would you stop? You’re awful,” Alena complained as she reached for it but he held it out of her grasp. She soon gave up and went back to rummaging in the bag until she found the small hidden zippered compartment. For a moment she wondered if she should open it. Ares wasn’t shy about helping himself to whatever caught his eye but she wanted to see it one more time. Reaching into the compartment her fingertips closed around a small metal object.

“Hmmm, what have you got there? Let me see.”

“You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?” Ares didn’t answer her. Alena showed him the ring now nestled in the palm of her hand. It was silver and had a very wide band upon which were two wolves with their heads nuzzling.  Norman MacLeod’s castle had been full of wolf icons, from paintings and sculptures to jewelry and full-stuffed wolves. They were a symbol of the ferocity and strength of the Clan MacLeod. “Satisfied? It was my father’s; it’s the last thing I have of him. It belonged to his father and his father before him,” Alena said in a melancholy voice as she ran her fingers over it. Before Ceres Agar. She’d worn it on the chain with her Willow Medallion, but once there she was afraid someone would steal it from her and so she’d hidden it away. It had been a long time since she held it, and as always it brought comfort and strength.

“It’s a fine ring, fit for a warrior,” Ares remarked as he watched the memories in her mind dance just behind her eyes. It was clear to him that Alena had loved her father greatly. “I know what this is,” he said slowly as he pointed to the open bankbook in his hand. “Why didn’t you leave that wretched place? Why did you use this money on them instead of getting the hell out of there?”

Alena sighed and bit down on her bottom lip. “There are worse places in the world to live.”

“Yeah, like where? Auschwitz?”

Why she stayed there was a long story and one that the God of War wasn’t apt to understand except at its most basic. “It was a good place to hide from Cernunnos,” she offered. “Why would he and his Druids ever look for me there?” When Alena stowed away on that cargo ship, she had no idea of its destination. She could have been going to Long Island or Bora Bora for all she knew. When she arrived in Africa she’d been overwhelmed by the harsh beauty of the land and the conditions most of the people lived in. It didn’t take her long to hear word of Sister Augustine and Father Murphy and Ceres Agar. They were good for each other for a while, Alena and Africa. The land offered her a place to hide and she offered its people the care and attention they needed.

Ares thought her reasoning sound enough but there was more to the story; perhaps he would hear it one day. Closing the bankbook with its pitiful little handwritten balance and tossing it back into the box, he plucked out the wallet. "Who is this man? Do you have more pictures of him in this phone?”

Called out of her pleasant daze, Alena tucked the ring back in its hiding place as she took the old wallet from his hand and smiled sadly. “You really are incorrigible, aren’t you?”

Alena didn’t look at him. “Jealous much?” Out of the corner of her eye she watched his jaw drop and then it was her turn to laugh.

At first Ares was insulted, he was angry, but then her laughter washed over him. It was the first time he’d heard her honestly laugh or saw a smile that lit up her face—bruised and battered as it was. He couldn’t help but laugh with her, laugh at himself. Alena put an arm around his shoulders and drew him in a little closer, she was still laughing. Ares didn’t think she even knew she’d put her arm around him at all. He didn’t hesitate to move in closer to her and take in the sweet scent of honeysuckle.

“His name is Earl; he was the Headmaster at the school where I taught,” she explained as she stopped laughing. “He has a wife, six children and eight grandchildren. This was a dinner given by the Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. A bunch of stuffy academics get together, get drunk and let loose for a night.”

“Stuffy academics, hmm? Is that what you are?”

“It’s what I was, once upon a time.” She looked down at him in her arms and wondered how he got there. She liked having him there, feeling the warmth of his flesh against her and taking in the deep masculine scent of him. Alena began running her hand across his shoulder to feel the smooth ripples glide under her fingers. “I’ve been many things. Haven’t you? Or have you always been Ares God of War?”

“We are always who we are no matter what name we go by or what we do,” Ares said thoughtfully. “If you’re asking if I ever tried being a businessman or a teacher or something, the answer is no. Once in a while I go out there and play with the Mortals but…”

“They’re fun,” Ares returned simply. He loved speeding down a winding road on a motorcycle or taking the highway in a brand new sports car. “Have you ever been bungee jumping? Skydiving? Sometimes, Alena, you just have to have a little fun.” He looked down at the photograph. “Or have you forgotten that in your time in that wretched camp? Did it take all the joy out of you?”

“Me? It seems to me that out of the two of us you’re the joyless one.” Now her fingers were in his hair. “Bungee jumping? Skydiving? Those are easy for you anyway, even if you hit the ground at full force you won’t die, will you?”

“I might.” Ares looked at her with thoughtful eyes as she gazed back at him with curiosity. “There is no such thing as true immortality, nothing lives forever unending.”

“But you’re…”

“Everything that’s born has several things in common—everything. In some manner it breathes, it feeds, it gets rid of its waste, it reproduces, it bleeds and it dies. In between the birth and the dying it’s merely a matter of degree.” Ares reached into the box again and pulled out the vial that had given many things to ponder about her and why she had concocted it. “What is this?” He held it up for her to see.

Alena stared at the little vial with the fatal contents and swallowed hard. “The seal is broken,” she mumbled, “you already know what it is.”

Yes, she’d thought about that many times. Tried to come up with ways to put it in his food or just cram it down his ugly throat, but in the end that wasn’t why she’d brewed up the poison. “Yes.”

Ares sighed deeply. “I don’t appreciate it when those around me lie. Want to try again?”

“No,” she stammered and pushed his hand away, hoping he’d put the vial back in the box. “I’d rather not answer your question. It’s…personal.” Alena’s bottom lip began to quiver and her eyes began to mist.

She didn’t have to go any further than that.

With a wave of his hand, the box and all its contents—including the vial—disappeared from the bed. He reached up to put his hand on the nape of her neck and brought her down to him. “You were going to drink it, weren’t you?”

She turned away from him with a deep frown. It wasn’t the first time she’d tried to take her own life and she doubted it would be the last. Like her attempts to commit suicide over the centuries, Jaakim hadn’t been the first to abuse her in such a way, but he had been the worst. The day she returned from being Jaakim’s little sex toy, still full of Mamba venom, she’d gone to the girls’ dorm, opened the footlocker and broken the seal on the vial. She drank it. Battered and broken, she’d crawled into her bed and waited to die. Alena was very sick for about a week but she was still breathing. Although they did have very long life spans, Feys were not Immortal. Alena was only half Fey. She never understood why no matter what she did, how hard she tried it just didn’t work. She always woke up the next day.

“Tell me,” Ares said in a firm tone.

Without looking him, her gray eyes fixed on the fire burning in hearth instead, Alena spoke. “I just wanted it to be over. I was tired of being afraid all the time. What does any of this matter to you?”

Ares turned her face back to him to gaze into her watery eyes. Although he couldn’t yet say why, it did matter very much to him. “The taking of one’s own life is never the answer.” For a moment Ares sat there in her arms, taking in that sweet scent and feeling her warmth while wishing he’d killed Jaakim just a little slower.

“Why not?”

“Because if you’re dead you can’t experience this.” Ares kissed her.

As their lips touched her fingers that had been dancing so delicately across his shoulders and upper back froze in place, flexed, and grabbed at the flesh below. Lowering the hand at her neck to her waist, he pulled her body down onto the bed. Alena let out a very sweet sigh as she slid right into the crook of his arm with her lips pressed to his. Her hands were finally allowed to run wild in the space between his neck and his chest. Even though she was afraid that once this started it might never stop, she couldn’t get enough of touching him. The heart in her chest raced like the wind, her lungs couldn’t get enough of the air around them, which had suddenly become hot, steamy. The scent of him, so deep and rich, every breath was intoxicating making her head light and dizzy, her body weak, and her soul cry out for more.

When his lips pulled away from hers only to land on her neck and suckle, the palm of his large hand covered her heaving breast over the thin material of the shirt. Alena pushed the shirt open under his hand so that there was nothing between them. His touch warm and although it was manly, it was also soft, especially for one who called himself a warrior and was always splitting so much wood. The feel of it over her hard nipple made her nails scrape along his back. Ares couldn’t wait to get his mouth around it; she cupped her hands to his face and brought him closer and then his tingling lips left her once more and made their way to their first destination of the evening. His mouth gently closed down over her ample breast and her back arched up off the hard stone to greet him. She tasted like heaven, sweeter than Nectar and more palatable than Ambrosia; he began to wonder what that bald space between her legs would taste like dancing on his tongue. However, there was no rush. They had the entire night. Apollo wouldn’t return until morning and by then it would be too late. Reaching down past that patiently waiting place between those too slender hips, he grasped the hem of the shirt and slowly pulled it upward, letting those thick fingers linger over that same waiting spot, finding it moist already before he brought the shirt up and over her head, laying her bare beside him.

She was a rare prize, Ares understood all of the reasons Cernunnos wanted her. She was beautiful. She was brazen. She was brave. She was passionate. Just what the Olympians wanted with her or what Eros had already done with her he didn’t know but he intended to find out. Not before he took all that she was offering to him—her body along with her heart. Not before she said that she was his.

The world around her began to spin and Alena could no longer tell up from down. It was getting hard to breath and even more difficult to tell where she ended and he began. Men had touched her before but none like this, none that made her want to explore, to surrender, to lose control. The space between her legs became misty, then steamy, then it sweltered as it swelled and prickled with life. “What are you doing to me?”