The Heart of War Free Chapters

Welcome to the beginning of For the LOVE of WAR.

Below you’ll find the first three chapters of The Heart of War, the opening novel in the saga.

If you love dark fantasy romance, mythic power struggles, dangerous gods, and slow-burning tension, you’re in the right place.

Chapter One

Lost At Sea

1

“What is that smell?” Ares God of War sneered from his Throne of Bones as his dark eyes stared coldly at one of his women. “Answer me woman.” Her name was Kat yet, even though she’d been with him fifteen years and shared his bed each night, Ares almost never called her by her name. He hardly ever called anyone by their names unless they were an Olympian. Ares met Kat one night when he was in Athens—in the middle of a bar fight and kept her. Now at thirty-eight and Mortal, her days of bar fights were over and her youth swiftly fading away.  A decade and a half in the service of the God of War takes a heavy toll on a woman.

Risking incurring his ire, she spoke cautiously.  “My Lord, this is the third time you have asked me that.”  She smiled a little bit for him before she continued.  “I don’t smell anything except the salt air and the fire in the hearth.” 

Ares’ upper lip curled into a snarl as he let out an audible growl before leaning forward on his Throne of Bones.  Ares’ sense were keener than any morals. To him it smelled…sweet…something oddly rotting with a tinge of honeysuckle underlying the acrid scent of the coming decay.  Something on the island was dying; something he could not identify.  That was most unsettling, as Ares knew every inch of his island, every animal, every rock, every stone, and every tree right down to its moss and lichen.  The scent was altogether unfamiliar, and it disturbed him.  In frustration, Ares rose from his throne to stand at his full height of seven feet. His long wavy raven hair flowed about his broad shoulders and the razor-sharp lines of the whiskers on his darkly handsome face turned upward as smiled with a touch of menace, “I’m going for a walk.  You have my dinner on that table when I return, woman.” Ares ordered.

“Yes, my Lord.”

Ares sauntered through the hallowed halls of his empty cave from the throne room to the entrance, where four torches burned as the night began to descend; he passed the guards standing outside and paid them no mind.

The small group of men was standing in the cool evening chatting when their Master walked out of the cave with purpose in his long stride.  Not liking the glare in his Lord’s narrowed eyes, Nicco, a strapping young man with dark skin and piercing blue eyes warily ventured, “Would you like one of us to accompany you, my Lord?”

The scent was much stronger out here; it caught in Ares’ nostrils, making them flare.  Swiftly he spun on his leather boot-heels.  “Do you smell that?”

Nicco took half a step backwards and heard the twins behind him clear their throats.  Lord Ares was in another one of his foul moods.  “Smell what, my Lord?”

Turning his ruggedly handsome face upward, Ares took in a huge breath, filling the massive lungs residing in his rippled chest.  It was coming from somewhere by the cliff.  How could they not smell it?  “Useless,” Ares spat and walked away from his guards.

The cave in which Ares’ resided sat nestled in the base of a mountain upon a high cliff top, overlooking the sea and an array of small islands beyond.  Standing upon the precipice looking forward to the rolling waters, he realized the smell came not from the ocean but from the shore below.  Casting his curious dark eyes downward, he saw something that he did not recognize lying on his beach.  “What has Poseidon washed up upon my shore?” Ares asked himself.  Not wanting to take the time to walk all the way down to the shore on the narrow set of steps carved into the cliffside, Ares used his powers, vanished from the precipice, and reappeared on the sands below.

Looming over the lump in sand, he saw a soaked length of purple cloth but the lump below it was too big to be cloth alone.  Reaching out with a heavily booted foot he kicked up the corner of the cloth; the sea wind carried it upward.  It floated away from the lump and flitted off toward the rocks closest to shore.  “A woman?”  With a flicker of interest, he looked down to see the woman lying on her side in the sand with her head tucked deeply to her chest.

Wondering where she’d come from, Ares turned toward the ocean.  In the two thousand he lived here, nothing washed up upon his shore.  His dark brooding eyes scanned the distance between the island and the far horizon and saw no ship.  No wreckage.  No others on the beach or bodies floating in the water.  He heard no plaintiff cries for help.  Why should he?  The shipping lanes were miles away from his secluded island.  Weeks often went by without so much as a single ship on the horizon.  That was the way Ares liked it.  Quiet.  When he was not off wreaking havoc somewhere, Ares enjoyed his solitude.

Out there tonight, just like everything other night before, there was nothing but the water, the peaceful quiet of the soulless islands scattered around him, and the coming night.  The nearest island to his that held a single soul—actually, a small village of 150 people whose ancestors had lived there since the dawn of time—was over a hundred miles from Ares’ shore.

Turning back to the woman on the beach, he squatted next to her to get his first good look at this new and unexpected arrival in the blazing last lights of day.  At first he thought her an old woman, with her long gray hair clinging to her wet body.  Hair was so gray it was white.  “Hag?  Have you hear me hag?  What are you doing on my island?”  She did not move or make any sound.

She wore a tattered white blouse, or it had been white; now it was covered with seaweed and torn to near shreds.  Below that she wore a very long dark blue skirt that looked to be made of cotton or linen.  His dark curious eyes took in the sight of her alabaster skin below the dainty blouse; full ripe breasts pushed against the material of both blouse and bra.  Judging by the way those nipples stood at attention, Ares thought she must be very cold.  Between those chilly yet inviting mounds lay a silver necklace.  Picking it up, he looked at it closely.

 Perhaps it was a fashion statement of some kind; Mortals were so strange in that regard.  Certainly, the intricately crafted love knot with its willow tree and symbol of Cernunnos amid the trunk could not mean what it once had; no one remembered or worshiped the Old Gods any longer. 

“Woman?  Wake up, woman.”  He gave her a harsh nudge, but she did not move.  Squatting quietly on the sand with the sea breeze behind him, Ares heard her heart beating, it was slow, but it was strong, maybe even strong enough to sustain her.  Her shallow breathing had a harsh rasp but that was from the water in her lungs.  He saw no wounds, no blood on the wet clothing clinging to her shapely form.

With the heel of his boot, he turned her over onto her back where Ares saw something else of interest; her hands were bound together at the wrists with a thick rope.  If she was wrecked, how did she swim to the island?  Her feet were bare and they were unbound so she could kick—although not very effectively with that skirt.  So where did she come from?  Yet there was no other answer to the riddle other than a shipwreck. Her clothes bore that out as well; there were several holes in them where sea creatures had taken a nibble or two.  Perhaps someone threw her overboard?  The bound hands would suggest that much was true, someone who did not want her to survive but, instead, to drown and spend eternity with Poseidon.

Without much thought, the God of War planted a big knee into her sternum and pushed down hard.  The woman below him gave out a harsh cough as she involuntarily belched up the seawater in her lungs.  “Don’t say I never did anything for you,” Ares mumbled.  On the sand the woman coughed again, she drew in a harsh breath that sounded painful even to his experienced ears.  Her eyes fluttered open and he swore they were as gray as her hair.  “Woman?  Do you hear me woman?” he said in a loud authoritative voice.  Just as quickly as those strange eyes opened, they closed again.

In frustration, Ares sauntered down to the shore and began to call out to the water.  “Poseidon!  Poseidon!”

Since Ares banishment from Olympus over two hundred years before, Poseidon did not immediately answer his call but instead sent an emissary in the form of a dolphin.  Ares crossed his arms over his broad, lightly haired chest when he saw the creature.  “Get Poseidon!” the God of War demanded.  “I want to know the meaning of this.”  With a thick lengthy finger, he pointed behind him at the woman on the shore.  In response to him, the damn dolphin began to chit, chat, click, and clack and….  “Ah!  I can’t understand you!  Just get him!  I am still an Olympian!  Still a God!  I demand to see my Uncle.”

In his kingdom at the bottom of the ocean, the Great Lord Poseidon rolled his watery blue eyes as he gazed into a crystal ball, watching Ares on the shore above as he started to pace back and forth on the sand.  “He always was a brat,” the King of the Seas huffed.  Ares seemed on about something, and it wasn’t like The God of War to call upon The King of the Seas.  “Better see what he wants before he throws a fit.”

Before Ares’ eyes, the water began to bubble and churn until his Uncle appeared on the back of a great white shark.  “What is it, Ares?” Poseidon demanded as he floated there on the back of the shark with his golden trident in one hand and golden Crown upon his white head.  The sight of it made Ares want to seethe.

Crossly Ares demanded, “Why have you sent this woman to me?”

“What woman?  What are you babbling about?” Poseidon asked impatiently as he looked past his Nephew to the shore.  He pointed off in the same direction with his golden trident when he saw the woman on the sand.  “Her?  I don’t know her.”

“You lie,” Ares accused.  “She came from your ocean.  What do you want me to do with her?”

Nevertheless, Poseidon hadn’t the slightest clue what Ares was talking about.  He could see the woman was wet and indeed nearly drowned, but he did not send her.  “I never saw her before.  I swear.”  Poseidon held a fist to his heart and then extended it briefly before lowering his arm.  “As for what you do with her, if she lives, I imagine you’ll do with her what you do with every Mortal woman you come across; fuck her to death or get her to die for you in some extraordinary manner.  Let me know how it turns out, will you?”  In a great churning whirl of water and air, Poseidon returned to his Kingdom Below the Sea.

Ares lumbered over to the woman on the sand.  “Why should I care what happens to you?” he muttered as he hovered over the unconscious woman and found that he did not care about her life.  However, he did care about her sudden appearance on his island.  Where did she come from?  If Poseidon did not send her then perhaps someone else did.  Why?  Chances were, whatever her purpose here—provided she had one—she would not be successful in her weakened condition.  Night was falling; odds were that it would take care of what remained of her.  The God of War transported himself back to the entrance to his cave where he spoke again to Nicco.  “There’s a woman down there, keep an eye on her.  If she moves from where she is you come and get me, understand?”  Ares swaggered into his cave to find his dinner waiting for him and his women, as always, ready at his command.

2

Around one in the morning, Ares and two of his women were disturbed.  “Wake up, my Lord.  Wake up,” Nicco said in a hushed whisper as he shook Ares’ large forearm.  “The woman, she’s gone from the beach.”

One onyx eye rolled open and gazed up at Nicco with displeasure. “What?” Ares hadn’t been sleeping. In fact, he didn’t really sleep at all, not for hundreds of years had he slept through the night.  He dozed lightly here and there, but Morpheus was never kind to him.

“I checked on her not an hour ago, she hadn’t moved an inch, and now she’s gone.”  Nicco did not want to incur Ares’ wrath, which was always quite painful, so he had been smart.  “I sent Scopas after her, her tracks in the sand; she’s going south toward the other end of the island.”

 South was not a good direction for her, but it could be for him.  If she went south far enough, she would come upon the densest woods on the island.  The animals there would take care of her.  If not the wolves and bears, then Cerberus or the Golden Hind would come upon her in the dark.  In the morning, he would come upon her bones as the vultures cleaned up what was left of her.  “Go.”  Ares commanded.

“What are your orders?”

“If you find her keep an eye on her.”  Ares pulled the nearest woman, Kat, to him.  Now that he was awake, he was hungry again.  “Now go.”  As he swung a thick leg over the woman in his bed, she woke up.

“Ares?”  Katrina asked sleepily.

“Shut up,” he returned in a deep growl just before he entered her, feeling her squirm below him.  He was Ares and she was not always as mindful of this as perhaps she should be.  Katrina had been with him a long time; he had stretched her out over the years until she was the most fuckable whore among them.  Still unable to take the length of his tool, Katrina was able to accommodate her Lord and Master with an impressive level of skill as he surged in and out of her like a rabid wolf.  Nevertheless, even after fucking both of them for an hour, he was still wide-awake.  The women, however, completely spent slept deeply on either side of him.  He could call for fresh ones, but he had the sneaking suspicion it would do him no good. 

There was a strange woman loose and wandering around his island; Ares could not sleep until she was no longer free to roam about or she was dead.  Whichever came first didn’t matter.  Dressing in a snap of his fingers, into his favorite pair of black battle-hardened leather pants and an accompanying vest covered in sharp metal studs, once more Ares ventured outside into the dark.

The beach below was empty, only two guards stood at the door, the other two having gone off in search of the stranger.  Ares raised his sensitive nose to the air, took a long breath and the very faintest tinge of honeysuckle rose to him on the salty sea wind.  Honeysuckle did not grow on his island; the smell came from the woman.  The underlying scent of decay that had accompanied the sweet scent was no longer present.

In the stillness of the night, he moved south and followed her scent.

3

The woman on the beach woke up shivering and coughing in the wet sand.  Surrounded by the cold dark of night she didn’t know where she was or even how she got here.  Everything about her body hurt, but nothing more so than her chest, which ached and throbbed without mercy.  Her throat was so dry she would gladly drink the saltwater crashing against the shore.  She didn’t know how long she had lain on the chilly sand of this island; she only remembered seeing it off in the distance.  If that was today, yesterday, or even the day before, she couldn’t tell.  She knew that seeing its outline as she bobbed up and down at the mercy of the current was like seeing the Gates of Avalon rise from the ocean.  As the tide swelled, she’d kicked as hard as she could.  Her bound hands were nearly useless, but she tried to chop through the water in front of her as her tired legs propelled her forward.  When she could kick and chop no longer, the tide swept her to the shore.

Sitting on the beach shivering, she looked around for others.  Anyone else who had survived the wreck, but she saw none.  She called out in a raspy voice that had no strength and a parched throat that protested loudly in agony.

No answer came to her lonely ears.  She had to face the fact that she might be alone on this island.  Turning her tired eyes away from the vast empty sea in front of her, she was able to make out a great white cliff face glowing in the moonlight.  It was very steep and very tall; she could not climb it in the daylight never mind in the dead of night.

She had to find shelter, at least some small place out of the sea breeze where she could rest until her soaked clothing dried.  On tired quivering legs, she stumbled along the shore for what seemed a long way until the cliff subsided and, in the dappled light of the full moon above, her eyes made out an opening leading away from the sand and shore.  It looked like a path to a hill that might lead to a flat patch of land.  Barefoot and hands bound the climb was not quite as easy as she’d hoped and she fell several times, slicing her feet upon sharp rocks and three times becoming entangled in thick patches of briers that ripped her wet, cold skin.

Covered in dirt and leaves, she made it to the top of the hill—a hill that in the light was probably much easier to climb—and did come to a flat patch of land but it was thick with woods.  She had hoped to find light maybe from a house or even a shed.  It seemed she was indeed alone here on this island.  With nowhere to go and no direction home, she started walking back in the same direction in which she’d come.  The forest floor was not kind to her bleeding feet as she stumbled upon rocks and twigs, branches whipped her in the face, and more briers clawed at her ankles and the skirt around them.

She was thirsty, oh so damn thirsty.  Her throat was drier than the desert.  Every breath she took caused her lungs to ache and wheeze.  All she wanted was to find some place, some small, soft, safe place where she could lay down and sleep until the sun came up.  Then she would find food and hopefully a supply of fresh water on this island.  There had to be a stream or small pool of fresh water somewhere.

Her head was pounding, a booming sound that resounded with each step she took.  As she walked, she tried to remember just what happened.  At first she discovered a terrifying thing; she could not remember her own name.  She stopped walking and stood very still, as she told herself it was ridiculous that she could not recall her very own name!  What type of an idiot didn’t know their own name?

In the quiet of the dark night, she closed her tired gray eyes, tried to take a deep breath, and then got an image in her head.  It was of a young black girl smiling up at her.  She held out her arms for a hug and cried, “Maggie!”

“Magdalena,” the woman muttered to no one.  “My name is Magdalena.”  That made her feel a little better, a little surer of herself.  The girl had been in a refugee camp in Ceres Agar, a dismal and forgotten little part of the world if there ever was one,

She’d gone there.

(Run there)

several years ago, in order to

(escape)

help the refugees.

A deep chill went through her, sinking deep beneath her wet clothes right down to the marrow in her bones.  It made her nipples quickly harden.  She would like to wrap her arms around herself to try to retain her warmth if the rope at her wrists would let her.

Maggie looked down at the rope and wondered why her wrists were bound.  Who bound them?  When?

 The more she tried to remember the more violently she shook, the further the iciness sunk into her bones.

 Despite that she tried to think., tried to remember, but there were only small fragments of memory. 

Nothing more than out-of-focus snapshots in her head. 

The only thing that came to her clearly was the memory of seeing this island on the horizon.

Nearly everything before that was a blur.

Trying not to panic, Maggie told herself that with a little rest, some food, and a lot of water, she would be feeling much better.  She was dehydrated, malnourished, and just plain exhausted.  Everything would come back to her once the shock wore off.

Snap.

The sound of a twig breaking not far from her brought Maggie out of her daze.  She stopped in her tracks; afraid it was a wild animal and yet hoping and praying that it was a person.  “Hello?” she croaked to the dark.  “Is someone there?”  Every word was agony as she pushed them through dry vocal chords.  Standing very still and quiet enough to hear her own heart resounding in her chest, straining and wishing with all of her might, she heard nothing but silence in answer to her plea.  Probably just a rabbit or something small passing by.  She began to walk onward holding her bound hands in front of her, searching for obstacles in the dark.  A few feet on and there was a rustling in the bushes or trees up ahead; it sounded as though something large were rummaging around over there.  She wanted to call out again, but fear closed her throat.  Then the rummaging got louder, it got closer, she heard…growling.

A bear?

Were there bears here?  Just where in the hell was here anyway?

“OH!”

Before she knew it, something charged and knocked her to ground.  It was low and covered with fur.  It growled as its jaws snapped close to her face and she tried to lash out at them with her bound hands.  Maggie connected on the first blow; hitting the thing full force in the jaw.  Throwing it off her body, she scrambled to her feet.  Trying to sprint away now that she was standing, she realized it was not a bear but a wolf that had hunted her down.  The beast was swift; from behind, it pounced and knocked her to the ground once more.  Its sharp claws dug into the soft flesh of her back, shredding it like cheese as they ripped through her shoulder blades and her waist.  Maggie let out a tormented cry as she crashed to her knees beneath the solid weight of the animal.  “Get off of me!”  Maggie bucked and rolled until the beast jumped from her back.  Grateful to have the weight lifted she began to feel her own blood soak through the wet blouse.  “Stay away from me!”

Above her the clouds parted, allowing the moonlight to shine down upon the island.  She took in the sight of her demise.  It was not just any wolf; it had a black and gray pelt that was very thick as it lay over toned muscle.  This was no mangy mutt; she thought the damn thing must belong to a gym.  Certainly, it was as bulky and defined as any body builder she’d ever seen.

Yet, it was its eyes that caught her attention the most.  As the creature stared at her, seeming to size her up, its pitch-black eyes glowed red with flames.  “What kind of wolf are you?” she hissed at it as her bound hands searched the ground for anything she could use as a weapon and fell upon a rather large stone that she did not hesitate to pick up and raise.

The wolf bared its teeth; it seemed to grin at her as it settled back on its haunches, making ready to spring at her.

She had not survived the wreck and days at sea just so she could be dinner for some wild beast.  “Well come on then, what are you waiting for!”  She wanted the damn thing to strike while the moon was still uncovered so she could see it and hit it.  If it waited much longer and struck in the dark where it had a severe advantage, she was dead for sure.  “Come on!”

The wolf took her up on her offer.  It leapt at her with its mouth open and claws pointed at her.  She swung out at it and missed; the stone fell out of her hands.  The wolf knocked her to the ground for the last time, clamped its teeth around her throat, and held her down.  Feeling the warm thickness of its saliva and taking in the strange smoky scent of its breath, she groped around for the stone that had betrayed her.  Her hands seized upon it as the jaws around her throat started applying pressure.  Any second those sharp fangs would bite through her flesh, spilling her blood all over the ground.  Turning sharply to the side, going in the direction of the bite, Maggie hit it in the side of the head with the heavy stone as hard as she could.  With a yelp of what sounded like surprise mixed with pain, it rolled off her, backed up, shook its head, and made ready to strike again.  With the stone in her hand thick with the blood of the wolf, Maggie scrambled to her feet, feeling the blood dripping from the small wounds at her throat.  For a fleeting moment, she prayed the beast wasn’t a werewolf.  Perhaps it infected her with some horrible disease that would have her baying at the moon.

It was not a werewolf.  It was something…more.

In a brilliant flash of red light, the wolf turned into a man.  A handsome man as strong and brawny as the wolf he had been but a moment before.  “You’re a ballsy bitch, you know that?  You hit me!”  He held a hand to the wound at his head and came away with a palm covered in Ichor.  “No one strikes me and gets away with it.”

Holding her bound trembling hands to her sore wounded throat Maggie could not believe her eyes.  “Who-what… the hell are you?” 

“What am I?  I am Ares.  Who the hell are you?”  Standing here with her in the moonlight those gray eyes of her almost seemed to glow.  “What are you?”

 “Ares?”  She asked in a cracked whisper of stunned disbelief as she looked up, up, and further upward to his face.  Afraid to look him in the eye, her gaze quickly wandered down his frame.  He was a brute.  Just look at those arms—thicker than small tree stumps— and that chest—as wide as a twin bed.  She would not want to come up against him in a dark alley.  “God of War, Ares?  Olympus, Ares?”

“I see you’ve heard of me,” he said with a sly grin and drew the dagger from his vest as he began taking slow steps toward her.  “Now that I have told you my name, I expect you will do the same, woman.  How did you get to my island?  Why are you here?”

Maggie backed up, one step, then two.  “You’re not real; you’re a fable, a myth.”  Yet, she was already starting to feel that might not be true.  It was in the way he held himself.  That cocky, confident, self-assured stance and those Godly good looks that led her to believe that even if he was lying, he thought he was telling the truth.  Maybe he was some insane magician living on this isolated island.

“Do those feel like myths to you?” Ares countered as he pointed at her bleeding flesh.  He watched as she tried to reach the wounds on her shoulder blade.  “Did I make them with these nails?”  He held up his neatly manicured hand to show her the short fingernails upon each long digit.  “Do you think they came from the claws of a wolf?  Shall I inflict more to convince you?”  The God of War grinned as the moonlight shone off the metal of the blade and the jewels at the hilt of the dagger in his large hand.

Maggie didn’t hear him, didn’t listen.  Couldn’t listen.  What he was saying just didn’t make any sense, except…”Greece,” she stuttered, not to him but herself.

“Yes, Greece,” Ares agreed proudly, “It’s a far cry from the Celtic Lands, is it not?”

His intimidating voice was beginning to fade away from her ears even as she answered him.  Those pale gray eyes turned up to meet his dark brooding stare.  “Celtic?  I was in Africa.”

“Africa?  Hmm?”  Ares stroked the goatee on his chin.  She didn’t look African, she didn’t speak with that accent, either.  Ares traveled the world far and wide and if he had to say where this one was from, he would pick a small region in a country known as America and the city of Boston.  “What on Earth were you doing in Africa, woman?”

The refugee camp and the smiling ebony girl flashed through her mind.

She had been there.  Yes, she had.  That was real.  But this…was this real? 

“Who are you?  How did you get here?  What was the name of your ship?  Tell me now!”

What was the name of the ship?  How did it wreck?

 “Who sent you here?”  Ares asked in a voice rapidly from going from cold to curious as he watched her eyes glaze over.

 “This is a dream…a nightmare…it’s not real.”

Of course, it wasn’t real.  Of course, it was a dream.  A hallucination or even some type of delusion brought on by all she’d suffered these last few days.  That could cause anyone to hallucinate.  Couldn’t it?

 Perhaps she was still in the ocean.  Perhaps she had drowned long ago.

(Perhaps this was her punishment for having run away from her duties.)

Everything crashed down upon her.  Before she knew it, the black night went as grey as the hair on her lovely head.  Maggie was out before she hit the ground.

Ares looked down at her as she fainted.  He could have caught her easily but instead let her collapse to the ground as he sighed and rubbed his wounded head.  The gash would heal within a few moments, but still it was here now and that did not please him.  Ares could not remember the last time a Mortal had drawn his Ichor. Yet, she had almost gotten the better of him even in her weakened state.  For this reason, she bore watching or killing.

It would be easy to drag the sharp blade across her throat, merciful even. She would never feel it; she would simply stay asleep for eternity.  She would not bother him any longer. 

He would not solve the riddle of where she’d come from or who she was.

She had clocked him in the head with a rock and drawn his Ichor.

Such spunk.  Ares was always a great admirer of that particular quality.

Hovering over her with the dagger in his hand, Ares made his decision.  “Women,” he huffed as he cut her bonds free before tossing her limp body over his brawny shoulder and taking her back to the cave.

Chapter Two

Warm & Dry

1

Ares came upon the entrance to his cave only to find most of his guards standing around, chatting, and smoking rather than hunting down the stranger as he instructed.  Ares frowned on both activities.  He enjoyed a good cigar now and then as most mortal men did but cigarettes disgusted him, as did their putrid scent. 

Standing there with his underlings, Nicco saw a large shape emerge in the darkness. Instantly he knew it was Ares. Tossing the glowing cigarette to the ground and crushing it under his heel, he smiled and tried to sound casual when he spoke with mild surprise, “My Lord.”

Emerging into the full sight of his Captain of the Guard, Ares smiled warmly in greeting, “Nicco, do me a favor will you, Nicco?”

“Anything, my Lord. What is it?”

“In the morning remind me to kill each and every one of you, hmm?”  Ares happily took in the sight of Nicco’s eyes growing wide in surprise as he took a step back.  “All of you, you couldn’t find this one woman?”  He pointed to the shapely ass draped over his brawny shoulder.  “Why do I keep any of you around?  I said it before and I say it again; you’re useless.”  Swiftly spinning on his heels Ares strutted through the halls of his cave with the strange woman slung over his shoulder bellowing for his favorite woman to come and help him.  “Young One!  Come now, woman!”

 It was not long before her bare feet were rushing down the steps from the floor above. “What is it, my Lord?” Onya asked as she stared at the dirt floor.

Looking at her, Ares smiled to himself. She was always so sweet, so tacit and ready to please.  “Are you blind, woman?” he asked playfully as he put his load down upon the intricately carved wooden table in his throne room. 

The throne room was his favorite room in the cave, well after his bedroom and the spa in the basement.  Ares spent most of his time in this room lounging upon his Throne of Bones by the gigantic hearth.  “Take care of her.”  Wandering over to his throne of bones, Ares settled to stare at the sleeping woman possessed of hair so white it was silver. The sight of it intrigued him.  “She’s soaked to the skin. Take off her clothes before she catches a chill.”

Onya, who was no more than 22 years old and the youngest female in Ares’ stable, looked from her Lord to the new arrival splayed out on the table and back again. Quietly she thought of the stranger’s modesty and wondered if, perhaps, there was a chance she would not want Ares gawking at her in all of her glory. Tentatively she ventured, “Would you like me to take her to one of the other rooms, my Lord?”

Deeply Ares snickered as he stared down at her from his Throne of Bones with smoldering eyes.  By far, Onya was the most beautiful woman in his stable.  The others were pretty, but she was a true beauty with auburn hair hanging to her slender waist, sparkling emerald eyes, the palest flesh, and she was petite was well.  When Ares stood next to her, Onya rose to no more than his hip, which made her the perfect height.  Yet those attributes did not deter the God of War when he spoke, “Where did I get you from again, hmm?” he chided with a snort and then openly began to mock her.  “Oh, that’s right; I found you eating out of a dumpster in a back alley after your parents threw you out for sleeping with your uncle.  So, what do you say…you don’t make me sorry I saved your life, hmm?  Just do it.”

Just before her sixteenth birthday, Onya turned up pregnant.  She wept as she told her mother what her Uncle Teddy had done to her that long weekend her parents had been away in Aspen.

Yet, Teddy was her father’s favorite brother. When confronted, Teddy insisted it had been Onya who came on to him.  How could he possibly resist?  After all, she was so beautiful, young, supple and tempting. 

Her father took his brother’s side; her family labeled her a tramp and threw her away like yesterday’s garbage.  Out on the streets of Los Angeles, it wasn’t long before she lost the baby. Sadly, unto to this day, she thought it was a blessing.  She couldn’t take care of herself out there in the concrete jungle; how would she ever take care of an infant? 

Onya spent many months on the mean streets of LA, selling her body for food, sleeping in doorways and alleys or indulging in the luxury of a homeless shelter when she could find room. She had been beaten, robbed, raped, and several times left for dead.  It seemed to her that the life given to her was nothing more than one long nightmare.

Then, one night, as she was scrounging around in a dumpster behind a donut shop, a handsome stranger appeared out of thin air. Although he was physically intimidating, he spoke to her kindly. He offered her food. Not garbage but, instead, in his hands appeared a silver tray upon which a freshly cooked steak steamed next to an open baked potato slathered with butter, sour cream, cheese, and bacon. Next to that was a pile of green beans. A thick slice of buttered bread lay on its own plate along with a heaping salad drenched in garlic dressing in its own bowl.

The man laid it at her feet then disappeared before her eyes.

Over the next few weeks, he came back several times until he won her trust. Eventually, Onya came here to live with him and the others inhabiting this island. 

Although her time here had been a bit rocky, Onya never looked back. Instead, she was always grateful to Ares for rescuing her. “Of course not, my Lord.”  The young woman tucked long strands of auburn hair behind her small ears as she bent down over the woman and unbuttoned the tattered blouse.  Beneath it, was a plain white bra equally tattered with one strap held together by… a safety pin?  Rolling the woman onto her side, the first thing she noticed was the back of her blouse was soaked with blood.  The second thing was the sight of fresh gouges running along her shoulder blades.  “Did one of the wolves get to her?” she gasped as she turned around to look at Ares.

“Yes, this one,” he returned and pointed to himself but offered no further explanation.

Why did he attack her and then bring her back here?  “She’s parched, my Lord.  Her lips are so dry they’re cracked.  Should I get her water?”

 “Not yet.”

 “She is very cold, my Lord.”

The night was chilly and the ocean water was not exactly warm this time of year.  It was doubtless that Poseidon’s ocean dropped the woman’s core temperature drastically.  Without really thinking about it, Ares waved his hand in front of the hearth.  The dying fire sprang to life with a great roaring rush that howled through the empty cavern.

“What happened to her wrists?” Onya asked in shock as she took in the sight of the ugly wounds circling the woman’s skin.  “How long do you think she was out there, my Lord?  Days?”

Ares put a hand to his temple.  “All this chatter, you’re giving me a headache, woman.  I asked you to do a simple thing for me, so be quiet and go about your work.”  Onya was sweet but she loved to analyze everything.  Ares supposed that was one of the treasures of youth, endless curiosity.  If it was not for her beauty and the fact that, small as she was, she was built like the proverbial brick shit house, Ares might not be so patient with her.  “Yes, days, two or three, I would think.”

Trying not to talk anymore and thinking mainly about her work, Onya slid her hands under the woman’s body to unbutton and then unzip the rather long and old-fashioned looking skirt; she pulled it down over the woman’s hips only to find a strange gold belt there.  The young woman let out a rush of air at the sight.  “What is this?  It says something, but I can’t make it out.”  Although the gold glittered, it still looked old and she had never seen anything like it.

Young people, how easily they forgot things or never learned them to begin with.  “It’s a chastity belt, dear Onya.  So, she doesn’t lie with anyone she isn’t supposed to.”  He leaned forward on his throne as he looked past his young servant to the woman lying on the stone.  God of War or not, Ares abhorred the use of chastity belts; if a man could not trust his woman, then she should not be his woman.  This line of thinking was probably the reason that Ares never got married; women simply could not be trusted.  “Did I tell you to stop?”

Of course, he had not.  Onya continued taking the skirt down over the woman’s long and very shapely legs.  Calluses and cuts marred her knees, some deep and in need of attention.  Onya thought that perhaps the woman bounced around on errant rocks during her time in the ocean. 

Overlooking the scene, Ares wondered who put the torturous device on her and why.  Was she promiscuous?  On the other hand, was someone saving her for something?  If so, why so long?  Whoever had put the wretched device on her did it many years ago and possibly when she was quite young.  The unforgiving gold had deformed her hips, which should have been full and round and yet were more akin to the hips of a teenage boy.  Trapped behind the constraint they could not grow and fill out as they should have.  The man who put that on her may have done so to his own detriment if he hoped to breed with her. 

Below the biting edges of cold gold were scars.  Some were old and, Ares supposed, they were from where she had grown and the metal continually cut into her flesh as it refused to let her body expand.  Others were hideous, thick, deep welts marring her inner thighs and her lower waist where the glittering gold touched the skin.  To his practiced eye, these scars did not appear very old.  They were perhaps as recent as the last few months, certainly no more than a year.  To him it appeared that someone tried to rip the hideous belt from her.  They tried to yank it down her body only to have it slice into her tender skin, leaving those nasty scarred welts behind.  When that didn’t work, what?  Had they tried to burn it?  To melt it?  Perhaps they had, as there was a band of seared flesh at her upper waist.

Recently, someone had done their damnedest to gain access to her and failed miserably.

  “I should get her a gown.”  Not that there was much here on the island that resembled a gown; Ares kept his women in little fur bikinis rather than flowing dresses.  He liked easy ready access to his women at all times and gowns got in his way.  Onya didn’t think the new arrival would be fond of fur bikinis.

“You’ll get her a gown when I say you get her a gown.  Take the rest of it off.”

“My Lord….”

“Are you deaf as well as blind, woman?”

“No, my Lord,” Onya muttered.  “Sorry about this.”  Keeping mindful of the fresh and bleeding wounds between the shoulders of the sleeping woman, Onya very gingerly unhooked the bra and then removed it.  With her work done, Onya stepped back from the table to look at the woman now lay before them naked except for the golden belt at her waist running between her legs. “I have no key for this, my Lord.  In fact,” she stuttered as she took in the strange contraption, “I don’t think it opens with a key.  There’s no lock.” 

“I am not blind; I can see that for myself.”  Ares was ready to get a more intimate look at his new guest. “Now, you may go get her something to wear.” 

That was good news to Onya’s ears, but she thought again of the stranger’s modesty. She grabbed the nearest animal skin—a bear hide lying by the fire—she draped it over the unconscious woman to cover her from the prying eyes of the God of War.  Turning back to him, she took in the displeased expression on his face and the shadow of disbelief in his eyes. Rather than cower, Onya held out the tattered wet clothing to him and asked, “What shall I do with these?”

“Burn them.”  Ares said, but then quickly changed his mind.  “No, wait. Give them to me first.”  He watched as Onya handed over the garments, bowed to him, as she made to leave but he spoke again, “Bring water and towels to clean her, get the salve and bandages for her wounds.”

Onya wondered again why he attacked her only to bandage her up later but again thought it was good news as she smiled for him and made her way out of the throne room.

 Ares did not have much need of human medicine but those who served him did.  As such, he had a large supply of everything from feminine products to over-the-counter pain relievers, prescription pain relievers (those he kept locked up), even cough and cold medicines.  The God of War took his job seriously.  These men and women were in his charge, they were here to serve him, and he in turn took care of them as best he could. 

The material of her clothing was far from the finest in the world.  Turning the tattered blouse inside out, Ares looked for a label that might indicate where she purchased these items.  No tags.  No maker’s label.  No washing instructions.  Not even a tag with the size on it.  Upon closer inspection, he thought the cloth was hand sewn.  If she made these clothes for herself, why make something so constricting?  Ares tossed them into the hearth; the fire gave out a snake-like hiss as it consumed the wet cloth.

Slithering off his throne, Ares loomed over her for a closer look.  Onya, so sweet, he thought to himself as he looked down and saw that the girl placed the skin over the woman with the fur side down.  Ares preferred to sleep with the skin next to his flesh.  Pulling back the soft hide, he took in the sight of her naked body.

When he first encountered her, Ares thought her an old hag but after his encounter with her in his woods and looking at her now, he could see that was not true.  Her face was worn and haggard from days of exposure to the sun and the harsh ocean, but with a few days rest and some food she would be quite beautiful.  Her body was slender, almost willowy; he imagined that when she walked she was very graceful.  Her arms were strong and toned, as was the rest of her body.  As far as he could see she was very well maintained.

 Ares slowly walked past her sleeping body to stand at her feet and take her in from this view.  The soles of her feet and her knees were callused.  The taunt stomach muscles and strong calves were not the well-sculpted muscles of someone who spent hours upon hours preening in a gym, but someone who spent hours and hours working in the hot sun.  Whoever she was and wherever she came from she worked hard, and she was no slacker.

Taking in a deep breath, she reeked of brine, seaweed and sand, yet under all of that was still the faintest scent of honeysuckle.  The earlier scent of decay that had alerted him to her presence was swiftly fading away.  Ares stood there wondering if she was a mortal woman.  She looked it but then again, to the untrained eye, he looked like any other mortal man—more or less.

Out of curiosity, he picked up one of her bare feet and moved it to the side so that her legs opened slightly.  He wanted to see just how cruel the owner of the chastity belt was and let out a huff of disgust.  “Very cruel,” he muttered thoughtfully as he stroked the beard on his chin.  The holes in the chastity belt that allowed the exit of urine and solid waste were covered with pricks, sharp little jagged pieces of metal meant to prevent any male entry.  Ares knew that every time the woman moved, walked, slept, sat—tried to stay afloat in the water—or did anything at all, she was mercilessly poked in a very tender area by the sharp edges. 

The belt itself looked very familiar, especially with its simplicity of design.  It was two ‘U’ shaped bands of gold, one encircling her waist and the other running through her legs.  Most interesting was that, like the chain around her neck, the middle of the belt was etched with the same Celtic love knot.  In the middle of the knot, like her necklace, was a tall weeping willow tree.  Over the tree read these words, I Await Thee.  The reason Onya could not read it was that it was written in Gaelic, a language that was long dead and almost assuredly forgotten by the outside world.  Above the words, in the center of the belt on the band, was the same pair of horns as her necklace.

Ares still found it difficult to believe Cernunnos might have anything to do with the woman before him.  Hell, Ares didn’t even know if that Old Celt was still wandering the moors.  Perhaps the woman was part of some cult dedicated to the worship of the old bastard.  “Curiousier and Curiousier.”  If nothing else, she presented him with something to occupy his mind for a little while.  Boredom was a true problem on the island for someone like him.  He spent much time in the mortal places of planet Earth, although not as much as he once had; this world had little use for him and those like him any longer.  As far as Ares was concerned, the feeling was mutual.

If Cernunnos was involved, then chances were that she wasn’t merely a Mortal woman.  If she weren’t human, what was she?  She was far too large to be a Faery; her ears were not pointed so she was not an Elf.  Certainly, she was not a dwarven woman. 

Perhaps she was a Fey.  Even though it had been hundreds upon hundreds of years since he’d run into a Fey, it seemed the most likely answer. Yet if she were, then Ares wanted to know what Fey labored so hard and long in the sun. No Fey woman that he ever met had as much as a single callous, whereas this woman had many.  Instead of working, they flitted about deep in the forests, dancing naked in the rain, and drumming up playful trouble for passersby.

If she was a Fey and Zeus found out she was on the island there would be hell to pay. Celts and Olympians were like oil and water. Zeus would demand that she be brought to Olympus—which could work out quite well for him—in hopes that she would be able to answer questions regarding the bloody and very untimely death of Artemis.

Under all of that, there was something charmingly familiar about her. It perplexed him and Ares never liked feeling uncertain of anything.

“Who are you, woman?” he wondered aloud and picked up the medallion on its fine silver chain.  Her slender fingers began to move like willow branches in the wind.  “What dangers have you brought to my shore?”  Those hands kept waving delicately in the air, almost as though she were trying to tread water.  Ares took one of her hands in his as he leaned in close to her. The ever so faint but highly intoxicating scent of honeysuckle nearly made him quiver with a heady anticipation.  The hand in his was just as calloused as the soles of her feet.  Looking down he turned it over in his palm to see the thick layers of skin.  Even more than the belt, the wounds at her wrists bothered him.  The marks left from the tightly bound rope were deep and festering.  He marveled at how she’d managed to stay alive in the water with everything against her. 

Someone threw this woman into the sea meaning for her to drown. Of that he was positive. The question was, why?  Looming over her, he wondered what her crime had been that she deserved such harsh punishment.  There were a million reasons to kill someone, but you did not have to let them linger; for the most part, he did not.  When Ares killed, he did it swiftly.  Well, unless it was someone he didn’t like or who brought him a great amount of trouble.  Then Ares liked to take his time and enjoy each scream of pain and plea for mercy that came from his enemy’s lips.

 “You’re not in the ocean any longer, woman.  You can stop swimming now.”  Ares tried to soothe the sleeping woman, telling himself the answers to his questions would wait until morning.  For now, she was exhausted and in need of rest.

And water of the non-salted variety.  Onya was quite right about that.  What kind of a host would he be if he didn’t give it to her?

Holding out his empty hand, a crystal goblet of cold water appeared in his palm.  Slipping his free hand under her shoulders to sit her up part way in the crook of his arm he felt the blood from the wounds he had laid on her back seep over his skin as he put the rim of the chalice to her lips.  “Drink this.”  Tipping the cup upward the water spilled over her, past her lips, down her chin.  “Open your mouth,” he encouraged and pried her lips apart.  When he tipped the goblet again the water went between her parched lips and then down her throat in small gulps, but then she began to take greedily from the cup.  “Slow down, woman, you’ll make yourself ill.”

At his words, her eyes fluttered open.  They were large and as hazy and gray as the stormy sea.  Ares pulled the cup away as he believed it appeared she wanted to say something to him, but she did not speak.  Instead, she reached up and around his head, her fingers entwining thick locks of raven hair.  She pulled him down to her to kiss him.  Her cool passionate lips pressed to his then parted ever so slightly and the tip of her tongue slipped into Ares’ mouth.  What had almost been a quiver just a few moments earlier turned in a shiver that racked his massive frame head to toe as he kissed back, taken by this most delightful surprise.  “I love you,” she cooed as her lips pulled away and those stormy eyes began to close.

“I beg your pardon?”  Any other time his words would have been said with authority, now they were nothing more than a whisper slipping from tingling lips.  Ares cleared his throat and shook his head to clear it; he gazed down at her with much interest.  “Woman.  Wake up.”  Absently, he licked his bottom lip before touching the palm of his hand to it.  He found the taste sweet as honeysuckle.  Perhaps it was the unexpectedness of the act, but Ares didn’t think he had ever had a kiss quite like that one before.  The God of War loved sex, indulged in it every chance he got in a thousand ways or more, however, intimacy was not usually part of it.  As such, kisses were a rare commodity.  “Loves me?” Ares scoffed, doubting that when her eyes opened she even saw him.  She saw someone but not him.

Just as he stepped away from her and tossed the bear hide back over her nearly naked body, Onya came back into the throne room with Kat.  “I did not call for you.”

“Onya thought she might need my help to dress our new arrival.”

More likely Kat was just nosey.  She thought of herself as his Head Bitch In Charge although Ares did not see things this way.  The other women catered to her almost as much as they did to him; they looked to her for guidance and advice.  Kat loved it, sometimes too much.  “She doesn’t.  Go.”

“My Lord…”

“NOW!”

At the sharpness of his voice, Kat jumped.  “As you wish,” she huffed and skittered out of the throne room.

“Tend her wounds and dress her then I will take her up to my room.”

Onya tried to hold her tongue as she layered the salve on the woman’s wrists and wounded back.  Carefully she bandaged the most severe wounds before applying the ointment to the scrapes and gouges on her legs and arms.  “This was all I could find.  Do you approve, my Lord?” Onya asked as she held up a white linen tunic belonging to Ares.  At first she thought he would say no, but then he nodded and Onya slid it over the woman’s head, pulling it all the way down to her knees.  “Perhaps it would be best to leave her here, my Lord?  Or in another room?”

“What?  You think I’m going to be able to get through that?” he snorted as he pointed at the hidden space between the sleeping woman’s legs.  “I’m an Olympian, not a magician,” he sneered.  “Besides, I want her where I can keep an eye on her and not where she’s free to wander around my home in the dead of night stealing whatever catches her eye.”

Onya ventured a question she knew she should not.  “And where would she take such things, my Lord?”  It was an island and there was no boat.  No plane.  No helicopter.  Even if the woman should wake up and rob Ares blind, she could never get off the island.  He knew that.

Ares turned a cold stare as he looked down upon her.  “No more questions.  This is my home.  Don’t forget it.”

“Never,” Onya agreed, looking down at her feet.

 “That’s better.  Off with you now, go to your quarters.”

The women in his charge did not have separate quarters; instead, they shared a large communal room, the only entrance to which was a door in his bedroom.  This prevented his guards from gaining unfettered access to the women.  It wasn’t that Ares didn’t share; he loved to share some of his toys but only on his terms and in his own time.

2

With dawn only a few hours away, Ares carried her up the stairs to his bed where he laid her in the middle of it.  He locked the door to the harem chamber and stripped himself of his clothing before crawling in next to her, remembering the kiss she had bestowed upon him with much fondness.  In her sleep she cuddled close to him looking for warmth.

Nearly two hundred years ago Zeus, the God of Gods, cast his son Ares out of Olympus and stripped him of his Crown and Scepter.  All over a simple misunderstanding but, of course, none of the Olympians would listen to Ares’ side of the story.  They would never consider entertaining the idea that he was innocent.  Instead, they shunned him.  None but Hera, Ares’ Mother, and Artemis, Ares’ sister, had ever given him a second thought.  Artemis was long gone.  Two hundred years is a long time for anyone to sit in exile, Man or God, and the loneliness and boredom were beginning to take their toll.

For a while, Ares occupied himself with the Mortals—a skirmish here, a war there.  Enough to keep him busy and entertained.  Yet there was nothing out there able to catch and hold his Warrior’s Interest.  Mortals had become soft and weak.  When they weren’t yammering on cell phones or playing with their Internet, they were nothing but sheep bleating in the night.  He had no use for them or their gadgets.  The longer Ares lingered in exile the more he lost interest in Men.  They had all become too weak to care about any longer. 

Back in the Days of Old, way back before Jesus Christ walked the Earth and men were men and wars were fought over tangible things such as land, treasure, and power, to him those days were better.  Then, men faced their enemies in battle. They went to Hades not shot down from a mile away by some coward hiding in a bush but at the end of a blade, three feet away staring their opponent in the eyes.

The once Grand and Mighty God of War now spent most of his time languishing on his island in the deep blue Mediterranean Sea with a staff of servants that paled to what it once been.  Now he had nothing more than a few guards to watch over the island and a handful of women to please him.  Once, his home on Olympus was filled with hundreds of guards and an equal number of women to bring him pleasure, but no more, now it sat collecting dust.  Once he had ruled over a fierce army of hungry warriors, and now he spent his days in solitude.

Not too long ago, one night when he was wandering some city out there in The World of Men he heard a phrase, one that he now understood and agreed with; it was better to burn out than to fade away.  To sit here rotting away, still hale, still hearty, still strong, still virile, vigorous and useful, yet with no purpose whatsoever, it was maddening.

Tonight, Fate dropped this curious and interesting woman into his lap.  Tomorrow he would find out more about her. 

“I take it she’s to be your new woman?”

Ares had not even heard the door open and there was Kat at the foot of his bed looking at him with fire in her eyes, speaking with venom on her tongue.  “I thought I locked that door.  I see you’ve a key, woman.”  He held out his hand, “Give it to me.”

“I don’t have a key,” Kat lied.  “You left it open.”

“Did I?” Ares chided.  “I think not.  Give it to me.  Do not make me get out of this bed and take it from you.  I assure you it will not be a pleasant experience,” he warned in a dark voice, waiting with open impatience before she slipped her hand into her pocket and then gave him the key.  “Where did you get this?”

“You dropped it,” Kat answered quickly.

“What is it with you tonight, hmm?  Why do you insist on lying to me?”

Kat had the key for many years, and she handed it over so easily because it was not her only one.  She actually had two hidden under the animal hides that blanketed her bed.  They were safe there; Ares never came to the chamber for anything more than to call one, two, or all of them up to his room so that they could pleasure him in whatever manner he saw fit at the time.  “Just answer me, I deserve that much,” Kat challenged as she looked down upon the scene with a churning stomach.  “I’ve served you well for many years….”

“And you have been rewarded for your service,” he interrupted as his hand closed around the brass key.  “Handsomely, dear Katrina.  Have I not given you station here?  Perhaps one much higher than you deserve to hold.  My women treat you like a Queen, as though you were my Consort, which, by the way, you are not.  What do I ask of you in return but a little warm companionship and a hot meal?  Is that so much in return for all that you have here?”

It was Kat’s turn to snort.  She hated it when Ares called her ‘dear Katrina’, if he remembered your name and put the word ‘dear’ in front of it, it was like being chastised by your father.  It was Ares’ way of telling you he was pissed and you should not push things any further or it could get mighty rough.  It was best to heed the gentle yet stern warning, but the sight of a woman she had not approved of, one laying in what she considered to be her bed and her rightful place was too much of an insult to go without protest.  “This place?” she said with a curled lip and roll of her eyes.  “This hovel of yours?”  For its time perhaps it was opulent, but that time passed millennia ago.  She lived here without as much as the convenience of electricity!

Ares sat up in the bed quickly as his smoldering onyx eyes narrowed on her.  “Get out of my room!”  He pointed toward the door leading out of the bedroom and to the staircase to the lower level of the cave.  “Hovel, is this?  You can start swimming at any time, my dear, go on and see how far you get before you drown.  I’ll not stop you.  As for her,” the angry hand gesturing toward the door seemed to soften as he pointed downward to the woman sleeping next to him, “she is not my woman, she is my guest, at least for now or until she proves herself untrustworthy, then she can start swimming with you.  I wouldn’t want you to be lonely out there on the deep blue sea.”

“Why didn’t you just kill her?” Kat demanded to know.  “Throw her to the Cerberus and be done with it?”

“Whatever I do or don’t do isn’t for you to question,” Ares lobbed back in a dark whisper and held the sleeping woman a little closer to his warm frame.  She let out a little coo and nuzzled her face into the deep patch of dark hair on his chest.  His full lips turned upward into a genuine smile as he found he enjoyed the weight of this woman in his arms.  “You think she will displace you?”  Ares nearly laughed as he thought of the belt keeping him and any male at bay.  If he couldn’t screw her, what good was she to him other than the little mystery with which she presented him?

(And that kiss)

Kat did not like the grin that suddenly broke out on his handsome face, and she liked looking at the gray-haired woman in his arms even less.  “I’m in charge of the women here,” she said through gritted teeth.  “I say who comes and goes from this bed.”

“Wha—what did you say, dear Katrina?”  Ares held a hand to his ear.  “I know you are not challenging my authority.  Not here on my island, in my home, in my bedroom!”

It was in the way his lips hardly moved and yet his words were clear and unmistakable that sent a cold shiver through Kat.  “No.”

“I didn’t think so.  You would never be so foolish, would you?”  Ares didn’t wait for her to answer.  “Now, you can take yourself back to your bed or you can start swimming, go back to slinging drinks and fending off drunks if that’s what you want.  The choice is yours.  Either way…get out of my room.  Your company is not wanted tonight.”

Chapter Three

Awakening

Slowly ascending the levels of consciousness, Maggie’s nose twitched as if something tickled it.  She swiped a sleepy hand across it then laid her hand down. Her fingers entwined in something that was soft yet coarse.

Fur?

Was that fur?

Fur was nice, it was comfortable and…

Was it…moving? Up and down very slowly.  As though it were…breathing?

Was it… thumping? A strong steady thump-thumpa-thump like the sound of a heartbeat?

Maggie’s eyes rolled open as she tried to focus.  She saw dark hair and what looked like flesh but…”Oh!”  She skittered away and sat up as she realized she was laying next a man.  There she was with her head on his chest, his lungs pumping air into him and his heart beating just below her hand.

Ares sat up in the bed.  He had been awake for several hours, but he’d come up here a while ago to check on her.  When he sat next to her, she moved closer to him almost inviting him to lie down and nap with her.  So, he did.  “Good afternoon,” Ares intoned.  “You snore like a freight train; did you know that?”

“I wh-what?” Maggie gasped as she grabbed for the thick skins around her and clutched them to her.  “Oh Gods, I’m still dreaming.”

“I told you already, it’s no dream, woman.  Here, let me help you,” he said cheerily just before he slapped her lightly across the face.  “Did you feel that?  Shall I do it again?”

Holding a hand to her cheek, Maggie skittered the rest of the way off the bed.  Still clutching one of the skins to her, she sprinted over to the door and pulled on the knob, but it would not give.  “Let me out of here!”

 “Is that any way to treat your host?  The man who saved your life, hmm, woman?”

“My name is not woman!”  Maggie railed.

“Ahh, now we’re getting somewhere.  Just what is your name?  Where did you come from and how the hell did you get to my island?”

She must still be dreaming.  Maybe she was dead.  Dead was probably the most likely option, and it seemed almost calming until the panic set in—what if she wasn’t dreaming or dead?  What if this was real?  “Let me out!  I don’t want to be in your bedroom!”  She yanked on the doorknob repeatedly before beating her fists against the wood.

“Oh, I’m crushed,” Ares said scornfully.  “Here last night you kissed me and told me you loved me.”

His words froze her in place for a moment, with her hand still fisted and ready to pound.  “I did no such thing,” she whispered. Although now that he’d mentioned it, she had a vague recollection of a lovely dream in which a warm set of full lips pressed to hers and her fingers wrapped in waves of raven hair.  Maggie turned around to face him.  “Please let me out.”

“After you tell me your name.”

“Maggie.”

Ares’ upper lip curled.  “This does not suit you.  What is your name?  Your full name?  Margaret?”  He did not like that any better.

“Mag—Magdalena,” she whispered and turned back to the door.  “Let me out now.”

Ares pondered her request; she had lived up to her end.  “That’s better.  Do you know who you’re named for, woman?”  No Fey he ever met was named after….

Maggie turned back to him nervously.  “Jesus Christ’s wife.”

“Wife?” Ares said as his eyes grew wide.  Most of those who knew of the mere existence of Mary Magdalene either denied it or twisted it.  Some went so far as to make the most holy and exalted of Christ’s followers a common whore.  “I see you’re no Christian, certainly not a Catholic.”  He threw the hides off, watched her jump in place as she turned toward the door in case he should be without pants when the covers were completely off.  “Don’t worry woman, turn around.”

Maggie ventured a peek over her shoulder and saw that while he was not wearing shoes he was wearing a very attractive pair of black leather pants.  After that, she just kept looking up, up, up, and up, until she nearly fell over backwards before taking in his face once more.  “Holy Gods, you’re a giant!”

Ares snorted and then laughed heartily.  “No, we’ve been over this, Magdalena.  I am Ares God of War.  An Olympian.  Not a giant.  Hercules slew the last of those long ago.”

Maggie felt her heart drop to her stomach as her stomach fell to her knees.  She looked around the room.  No lamps.  No heaters.  No clock.  No computer.  No TV.  The massive bed upon which she had slept last night appeared made of a single piece of marble or granite.  A fire burned in a hearth the size of which she had never seen.  Everywhere she looked she saw a weapon or armor of one type or another.  Covering her face with her hands, she hung her head as her shoulders slumped forward.  “I’ve gone insane, haven’t I?  That’s it, isn’t it?  I’m not dead, I’m crazy.”

Ares let out a rush of air as he swaggered over to her and took her delicate wounded wrists in his large hands.  He drew her hands away from her face to look into those strange stormy eyes.  “You are not crazy.  You are not dead.  You are here and so am I.”

“Where is here?”

 “Greece.  You washed up on my shore last night.  But you know, it’s the damnedest thing; you see…there was no ship.  There was no wreckage on my beach or in my waters.”  Ares lowered his head and even had to bend a little at the knees so that he was eye to eye with her.  “So, tell me, Magdalena, where did you come from?  If you tell me Africa, I have to say in advance that I do not believe you, Celt.”

Even though he was scaring the wits out of her, Maggie managed to answer him.  “Yes, Africa.  I was at a refugee camp,” she stuttered and looked away from him back toward the locked door.  “Please let me out of here.”

“With your protection of gold, I have to wonder what it is about my bedroom that frightens you so much,” Ares returned, not wanting to let her out of the room.

Maggie’s hands dropped to her waist to feel the cold metal still in place.  It was then she noticed the gown on her body and the bandages at her wrists.  “You undressed me?”

“No, not me.  I had one of my women do it, but I watched.”  His eyes dropped from her gaze to sweet breasts.  “Not bad,” Ares complimented, but it was easy to see that she did not take his words as such.  “I have not harmed you,” Ares assured her even though that was not altogether true, however, he figured the scratches he’d left on her back did not really count under the circumstances.  “So long as you don’t give me reason to do otherwise that will not change.”  Those stormy eyes of hers told him that she did not believe him.  “Have it your way, hmm?  Go.”  He opened the door and she bolted through it.  Standing at the top of the stairs, he watched her rush down them holding up the hem of his shirt as she went.  Feeling the pounding in his head returning, Ares began to descend the steps slowly behind her.

Maggie fled down the stone steps only to discover more stone and more rooms.  For a moment she wondered what type of a house this was but then realized it was no house, it was a cave.  Running hither and yon as she searched for a way out, she was met with room after room containing armor, weapons, animal skins, animal heads, full stuffed animals—including a polar bear—and stone.  If she was sane, then she had stepped back in time two or three thousand years.  There wasn’t a single lamp.  Not a telephone.  Not even what she would consider a bathroom, only a room with a hole carved in the stone that looked more like a port-o-potty than a proper toilet.  Maggie was accustomed to harsh conditions having lived at the refugee camp so long, but even there some people did have cell phones and there were generators to run electric lights at night.

Finally, she skittered around a corner and saw sunlight streaming through a large opening, the entrance, or in this case, the exit, to the world beyond.  Head down, hem of her nightgown up, Maggie ran straight for it.  Out of the mouth of the cave, past a huge boulder of equal size, a group of men at the entrance met her.  Maggie shrieked and took a step back inside but then decided to chance it.  She pushed the man nearest her as hard as she could and then ran as fast as she could, even though the gold between her thighs was beginning to slice the skin.  She did not turn around to see the men behind her staring from one to the other as they wondered where she thought she was going.

A few moments later Ares sauntered out of the cave.  “I don’t suppose you saw a woman, gray hair and eyes, run past here?” he asked his guards snidely.  Nicco pointed off in the direction she had gone.  “Perhaps you’re useful for something after all,” he said as he strolled down the path in front of him after her.  Less than a mile down the path, he found her standing on the precipice looking out at the water.  “I told you it’s an island,” he said softly as he walked up behind her.

“Where is it?” she said in a whisper without turning to look at him.

“Greece.”

“Not the island!”  Maggie shouted.  “The boat!  What have you done with it?”

“The wreck?” Ares inquired.  “I told you that, too, there isn’t one.  If I have to repeat everything two or three times this will take forever.  Is there something wrong with your brain, woman?  Does it not retain information?”  He leaned forward and took another deep sniff.  “You don’t smell diseased; salty, yes, but not diseased.”

Maggie looked up at him with cold gray eyes.  “I may be crazy, but I am not addled and I am not diseased.”  She turned back to the water.  The ship.  Where was the ship? Why wasn’t there any sign of it at all?  “You must have found something.”

“Just you, I’m afraid,” Ares returned.  “No one else.  Nothing else.”  He gestured toward the open water with a large hand.  “You can see that for yourself, can’t you?  Wherever you came from, woman, you were not wrecked.”

“No,” Maggie muttered and wrapped her arms around her body.  “No.”  There was a ship.  There was…there was… “A crash,” she told herself, “an…an…explosion.”  Then she was in the water.

“Explosion?” Ares asked.  “I heard nothing and I have very good hearing.  More than that, look at the water, woman.”  Her head was up but she was not seeing what was in front of her.  From behind, he put his hands on either side of her head and tilted it upward a bit.  “Do you see that?  The waves breaking so far from my shore?  No ship comes near here because of the reefs surrounding this island making sailing treacherous.  If you were on a ship and it exploded, it did so hundreds of miles from here.”  Now he turned her around to look at him.

“I was on a ship,” Maggie asserted even though her voice was already weakening, “I was…I was going…” Where?  Where was I going?  How did I get on the ship?

“What was the name of the ship?”

“Name?  I…I… don’t know,” she stammered and tried to focus on what she knew was real.  “Look, whoever you are…”

“Whoever I am?” Ares sneered and reached out quickly to snatch the necklace between her breasts.  “You bend a knee to Cernunnos and I am the fable?  I am not real?”

“I bend no knee to Cernunnos.”  Maggie grabbed the medallion back from him.  “I was in Africa,” she said trying to keep her voice under control and the jumbled thoughts straight in her head.  “I am a missionary…”

“Missionary?  You’re not even Christian,” Ares countered.

She ignored him.  “I was helping in the refugee camp.  I have been there many years; it is a terrible place, but I try to make things better for the children.  I worked with Father Murphy and Sister Augustine,” she huffed, feeling her chest begin to tighten.  Maggie put a hand over her heart to find it beating rapidly.  It was hard to get air in her lungs; she felt as though she might pass out but she pressed onward.  “I was going to…to…. Rome.”

“Rome?”

“We…we…got on the ship, a cargo ship.”

Ares stood there listening and watching.  He did not believe she was telling the truth but at least in her own mind, the story she was concocting was not a lie.  She had been in Africa at a refugee camp but after that, behind those stormy eyes, her brain was scrambling to fill in the rather large and important missing piece of her life.  Why was it missing?  Who stole it?

“…people were shouting…there was a crash…then an explosion….”

“And who bound your hands?  Why?”

Maggie looked down at her bandaged wrists and then her eyes began to dart around from the ocean to Ares to the bandages and the flora and fauna around her.  She swam and it was hard with her hands bound.  So very hard.  Several times she had gone under certain she was going to drown.  “I don’t know,” she confessed in a hushed whisper.  “Please, just let me off this island.”

Ares shook his dark head with a small amount of sympathy as he stared down at her.  “I can’t do that, Alena.  I can’t let you leave.”

“Alena?”

“I don’t like ‘Maggie’, and ‘Magdalena’ doesn’t roll off my tongue.  Since you’re going to be here for, well, the rest of your life, I think I will call you Alena.”

“You must have a boat.”

“No boat,” Ares grinned.  “I don’t require one.”

“Oh, yeah, right, you think you’re a God,” she muttered.

Ares was not sure what it was going to take before she believed him.  “Thirsty, Alena?” he asked snidely and held his empty hands in front of her eyes.  “Nothing up my sleeve—oh, that’s right; I’m not wearing a shirt,” he said cheerily as he gazed down at his own torso.  “Ready?  Look closely now, I don’t want you to miss anything.”

Before her bewildered eyes in one of his hands, from thin air, appeared a crystal goblet, sweat running down the glass indicating the coldness of the contents within.  “How did you do that?”  She looked up at him with wide wonder as he held the cup out to her.

“I am Ares.  This is my home.  You are my guest for a long time to come.”  He watched her take the cup from his hand and hold it to her lips.  She drank deeply of the water inside.  “You can wander around here all you like, although if I were you I’d stay away from the south end of the island.  Dangerous and wild creatures reside there.  When you’re ready, you come back to my cave.  When you’re satisfied that this is all real, we will talk further.”

Right in front of her he simply disappeared.  Maggie dropped the crystal goblet in her hand; it crashed to the rock at her feet, shattering to bits and pieces of sharp glass.  “I am crazy,” she muttered and then began to cackle wildly until the sound filled her ears and her heart with dread.

She survived the ocean.
She outwitted enemies.
Will she survive the God of War.

Ares.

Who never lets anything go.

Ready to continue?

The Heart of War is available now as part of the For the LOVE of WAR series boxset.

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Continue the Saga

If you fall into the world of For the LOVE of WAR, there’s much more waiting beyond this beginning:

• The Heart of War
• Child of War: A God is Born
• Christmas Eve on Olympus
• Child of War: Rising Son
• Women of War
• Kingdoms of War

Epic. Dark. Addictive. Unapologetically Thrilling.

Moon Mistress Publishing
New London, CT 06320

This book is a fiction work. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual or fictional events, locales or persons/characters, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2010—Lisa Beth Darling-Gorman
ISBN-13: 978-0615424682 (Moon Mistress Publishing)
ISBN-10: 0615424686
Library of Congress: TXu-1-717-952
Cover Art Designed by Lisa Beth Darling
Text set in Times New Roman 11

All Rights Reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or any portion(s) thereof in any form whatsoever.