by Lucy Auburn
"Oh yeah? Time to teach her a lesson."
For the first time in hours, Portia stirs from her stupor. It's not to help me, though, but to mutter, "You've done it now."
Fear goes through me, a strange and foreign feeling. I've only ever been afraid of my mother, and at a certain point in time, Ares. Never a mortal.
How quickly things change.
As the guards open up the cell door and walk inside, I consider fighting back. I could probably get a few good punches in before succumbing to their electric batons. But it doesn't seem like a good idea; fighting will only prolong my misery. And as my little experiment just proved, I can't take off my manacles to use my full powers anytime soon.
Better off, as Portia advised me, just letting it happen and trying not to scream.
Still, I can't help but tense up as Tia grabs my arm and hauls me to my feet. She laughs, staring down at my new outfit with raised eyes. "Slutting it up, are you? Bet you're hoping Vesuvius or Jasper picks you to be his new little whore."
The other guard, a blonde apparently named Cara, twists her voice into a gasping and high-pitched imitation of a horny woman. "'Give it to me, Jasper. Let me suck your little pencil dick.' 'Oh Vesuvius, choke me, choke me so good. I'll do anal for you, just please, please protect me from the guards.' Bet you'll open those legs wide. Too bad fucking you would probably feel like sticking their dicks in a crematorium. I bet you've got death in your pussy, newbie."
Tia laughs, even though it's a stupid joke. "Bet they'll fuck her but never let her join their teams. Fighting is for winners, not losers like this one."
"She'll be dead in the arena sand before the month is up."
They grab me, one on each side, holding me tight and jerking me forward even though I do my best not to struggle. I can't keep the hatred and the anger off my face, though, no matter how much I try.
I've never wished for my powers back more than I do right now. The only thing stopping me is my starvation—something I swear to myself I'll fix as they open up an empty cell at the end of the hallway and throw me into it, laughing as I fall to the ground and scrape my knees.
Scraping my knees. What a mortal thing to do. Pulling up my stinging palms, I stare at them like I've never seen my own flesh and blood before.
Then I hear the sound of electricity crackling.
Tensing, I prepare for the pain and torture.
"Wait." The relief that fills me is momentary. "Let's show her what we can do with our Ares gifts instead."
"Sounds like a plan."
They laugh together. Wanting to at least feel strong as this happens, even though I know I'm suddenly the weak one, I force myself to get to my feet and face them. Even though I'm inches taller than both women—even Tia, who's tall for a mortal—I've never felt so small and weak in my entire life.
Tia claps her hands together, the sound echoing all around us.
At first nothing happens. I wonder if she shorted out. Or maybe she's too stupid to know how to use her own magic.
Then out of nowhere, the air goes out of the room completely. The breath is sucked from my lungs. Panic hits me like a solid brick wall, and I scramble at my neck, fingers desperately trying to make air appear.
"Your turn," Tia says.
My eyes go to Cara, and I bare my teeth. I can feel it inside me: the primal anger of Death. One of the first, most base of the gods, her blood runs through me even when my magic is denied. Death is in my bones, makes my heart beat, turns my eyes a yellow-white when I'm full of rage.
For a moment the human guard freezes, a primordial terror flashing across her face. Like a caveman hearing a wolf's growl, she recognizes that I'm the predator and she's the prey. Her heart must be beating like a rabbit's with fear.
But she shakes it off. Godmark glowing on her forehead, she aims a finger at me and snaps.
Of all things. A fucking snap. Like we're at a poetry reading.
Mortals are the worst.
The instant she snaps, though, I see it: a sudden strength in her body. Cara was tall and fit already, but her godmark gives her some kind of super strength boost, like an entire decade of growth hormones combined with lifting. Her biceps and traps grow monstrously, thighs now the size of watermelons, calves like two footballs.
I try to laugh and gasp for air instead.
It's only funny for a moment, anyway. The instant Cara looms up at me and throws the first punch, I fall to the ground. Getting up, I try to fight back, but when I throw my own punch to her stomach it's like hitting a bag of rocks.
She punches me right in the jaw as a punishment.
When I fall, she kicks my side so hard I feel my ribs creak.
I try to gasp in pain and get nothing. There's still no air, no breathing, not a bit of it. Scrambling towards the entrance to the cell, I gasp in a single breath—and Cara kicks me so hard that I go flying, back smashing against the concrete wall, air driven out of me.
"How does it feel?" She punches me in the chest, kicks my back, stomps on me, and leers at me sickeningly. "How does it feel to know you're the weak one? The mortal without powers? Bet you thought you'd be some kind of queen in here. Get real, bitch. You're nothing but a worthless whore—and no matter how many warriors you fuck, they won't give a shit about you."
Blood sprays out of my nose and mouth.
My vision fades to black as I run out of air for too long. I keep getting little gasps, moments of breath, only for it to go away. Just enough to keep me awake. Not enough to fight back. Oxygen has never felt so precious or so far away.
Cara kicks and kicks. She breaks more of my ribs. Smashes my face in. Thrashes me until my ears ring and I feel my body slide towards unconsciousness.
At least, that's what I think it must be. In all my centuries of living, no one has forced me to pass out. Not even the five kegs of beer I once drank in one night did that to me. The rules must be different now that I'm mortal.
Then all at once the air comes back fully, and I drink it in, even though each breath makes my ribs ache. It's beautiful, wonderful, to breathe deeply without struggle. I didn't even realize how good I had it until right now.
"Let's go," Tia snaps, as Cara moves her leg back for another kick. "My powers are up. Anymore and I'll lose the mark. You too—your muscles are deflating."
The blonde grumbles. "Think she's learned her lesson?"
I find myself spitting blood onto the ground, hands curled up weakly, legs trembling. Tia smirks. "If she hasn't by now we'll remind her again soon enough. C'mon—before the Block Commander sees us."
They grab me and drag me back towards my cell. I'm so weak my feet drag along the ground. I can feel the newly oxygenated blood pumping through my body, bringing sensation to my numb fingertips and making the pain of my cuts and bruises that much worse.
When they throw me down onto the ground of my cell and lock the door behind them, the only thing I can get the energy up to do is flip them off. Even that takes so much effort that they're gone by the time I manage it—probably for the best. I could've earned myself a second beating if they'd seen it.
"Gods." Portia is breathless as she leaps off the top bunk and crouches next to me, wide eyes taking me in, her sleek blonde hair golden in the overhead lights. "I've got to get you to a medic."
Straightening, she calls out a name I don't recognize. There's a low conversation; an exchange is made. Portia promises something in exchange for my safety and treatment. I drift in and out, hearing snatches here and there, barely able to hold onto the words long enough to understand them.
My mind is like sand running through a sieve or water held by loosely cupped fingers.
Finally, I pass out completely. It's probably for the best. I don't know how to live with this kind of pain.
No one has ever made my body feel this way until now.
* * *
I'm floating on clouds. No, floating in water. Warm, deep water, my body supported from below. I feel as if I'm in the clearest, most beautifu
l lake in the world.
My mind pulls me back to a moment like this, when I was young and Alek was beautiful, after we'd washed the blood from our skin and escaped our parents' attention. We found a lake, deep in parts of land unnamed, at least to us, and swam to its middle. There in the center of the water, with no one to see us and no horizon in sight, we kissed for the first time. Our tongue and lips were curious. Everything was new and different.
He'd kissed many others before me, and I'd had my romps in the hay with soldiers god-blooded and mortal alike, but this was our kiss. It belonged to us alone. We made it into something worth remembering. Then we leaned back in the deep blue water and floated in a current of our own making.
It takes a while for the pain to break through the gentle, easy current. For my mind to remember the air without oxygen, my empty straining lungs, kicks and punches that still sting. I reach up to press hesitant fingers against my cheek and wince—both because my cheek is deeply bruised and because my fingers are raw and numb.
Somehow I'm in a soft bed at the medic, an IV line going into my arm, warm blankets heaped on top of me. I can remember a little of a conversation happening near me. Portia traded something to get me here safely. She made an exchange of something valuable, a bribe for my treatment. I'll have to ask her what it was on offer to replace it. Probably her favorite dress or some dumb gold bauble. I'm sure she'll inform me, loudly and at length, as soon as she gets the chance.
"You're awake." I roll my head towards the medic standing next to my bed, a man in his late 60s or 70s who looks like he should be retired instead of treating godbloods. "That's good. Your vitals have improved significantly, but it'll be a while before you're fully on the mend." Reaching over, he grabs a thick plastic button with a cord and puts it near my lax hand. "Press this if you need anything. I'll be out to lunch in a moment, but back soon."
I blink at him. "Lunch? How long have I been here?"
"Nearly eighteen hours," he says cheerily. "Don't worry, though. I saved you a slice of cake from last night's dinner. They serve surprisingly excellent food around here, don't they? I guess even Gods of War have taste. Doesn't hurt that the spoiled arena warriors and sadistic guards have to eat the same food as the rest of us, and they insist it taste good."
I watch him lay a clipboard down at a small table near the foot of my bed, then walk through a door with a small window in it, which audibly locks behind him. Blinking, I look around and see only other, similarly empty beds like mine, the white privacy curtains between them pulled back. There are at least ten other beds, and maybe even more around a corner I can't see beyond.
At first it seems odd that Godblood Prison would bother to have so many beds sitting around unused, until I realize: the arena battles, of course. This place must fill up with pulverized half-dead warriors and chumps after every round. No doubt Ares and his sons revel in it, while the poor nearly-retired medic tries to stitch the victims back up.
Just like he had to stitch me up, it seems. There's a tight spot in my side where one of Cara's more enthusiastic blows must've broken enough skin to cause an issue. I can also feel bandages in certain areas, though my ribs are free; something about letting them heal themselves and move comes to mind, not that I can remember any details. Anything I learned about first aid has passed from my mind.
Whatever the good doc put in my IV bag, it's chased the pain away quite handily, and maybe even made me a little high. So whether it's a good idea or not, I find myself fiddling with my Ares gold cuffs again, eager to see what will happen if I remove them.
Maybe morphine dampens the hunger of going so long without eating. If so, now would be a great time to escape. Broken ribs are nothing—I can run despite them. Especially if it means getting out of this accursed place, which becomes worse by the hour. By tomorrow they'll be flaying me with whips and reading Justin Bieber song lyrics aloud to me as a form of torture.
Before I can get very far into my drug-induced escape attempt, the door opens up again. Expecting to see the medic or one of the guards, I shove my hands beneath the sheets, only to blink as a certain godblood with multicolored hair walks into my room.
"You've looked better," Jasper says, his tousled locks a strangely charming cotton candy pink today, which somehow goes with the tan of his skin, sharpness to his jawline, and the unnaturally bright blue eyes he's sporting. "Heard you ran afoul of the guards in your cellblock."
"They're not fans of escape attempts, apparently. Not that I got far into mine." Huh. I didn't intend to say that. Morphine must loosen tongues, too. "I'm thinking I'll try again now. Maybe it's just the drugs speaking, but it seems like better timing. As long as you don't plan on ratting me out."
Jasper chuckles, pacing over to my bed and perching at the foot of it. His mouth is so pretty. Especially curled up into a slanted smirk. I'm thinking about telling him when he says, "Don't stay on my account. But I was hoping maybe now that you've felt the wrath of the guards you would consider joining my team. We Browncoats like to take down the sadists like the ones who hurt you."
"Who-whats?"
"It's our unofficial name." He winks at me, and damn him, it actually seems cool when he does it. "Didn't I tell you before? Maybe not. Vesuvius's team likes to call themselves the Worshippers, because they're all about fealty to the gods and family loyalty. We call them the Redcoats, and ourselves the Browncoats—rebels through and through. And sometimes we pull off little moments of espionage and destruction. Like when we make sure certain guards just..." Making a motion with his hand, he raises his brows at me and says, "Go poof."
"As in you kill them."
Shrugging, Jasper shoos the thought away with one hand. "Sometimes they wind up dead. Mostly they just get stripped of their powers, have their memory wiped, and are sentenced to live out the remainder of their mundane mortal lives without any knowledge of the existence of the gods."
"How do you even do that? Since you're so clever and all, I'm sure you won't mind telling me."
Crossing my arms over my chest, I try not to feel self-conscious about how bruised and bloody I must be right now. Especially since the last time Jasper saw me, I was a hot mess with beer stains on my shirt.
"It's a long story, and I'm afraid we don't have that kind of time," Jasper says apologetically. "Dr. Moreland will be back soon. I just wanted to see how you're doing, and re-extend my offer of membership... though if I can make a suggestion?"
"No one's stopping you."
He chuckles. "True enough. My suggestion is that if you plan on escaping, you wait a little while. At least until you're in better shape. And make sure you know which guards are on duty in the parking garage—some are more amenable to bribes than others. Trust me, I would know. I've gotten rid of more than one guard that way."
"By driving over them with one of those ridiculous black vans?"
Another laugh, this one bigger than the last, followed by a grin that makes my heart do a funny flip-flip. "No, by bribing them only to turn around and get them caught taking bribes. After all, some of the ones on the take get greedy. It's always good to remind them who's in charge. And Mora?"
"Yeah?"
"If you need any help escaping, just ask." He reaches out and squeezes my foot through the thick covers, a strange yet somehow comforting act. "I'll give you whatever you need. Food to last you until you're out, info about the guard changes, even a few of my best knives. Just ask, and it's yours."
"As long as I become one of your Browncoats."
"Of course. Tit for tat is the way of this world. See you around, Mora."
As he shifts back to leave, my tongue says something before my mind can stop it. "How about you let me give you a handjob?"
"What now?" Two raised, pale pink brows. His eyes turn a dark shade of violet-blue that reminds me of Alek for a brief moment, even as the rest of him remains firmly Jasper-shaped. "Did you really just..."
"Offer to jerk you off? Yes." Sitting up, I push the covers off and lean towards him,
noticing the way his pupils have blown huge. "I could also suck you off with my mouth. There's this thing I learned how to do with my tongue and throat—it's been a few centuries, but if you'd just let me warm up a little, I could show it to you."
"I, uh." Jasper blinks, looking off-center and unsure of himself for the first time since I came here. "I don't think you're in the right mind for that? Though you seem very, very sure."
"I am. I bet you have a nice dick. Especially since you can shapeshift." Reaching out, I brush my hand against his abdomen, fingers stretching south. We're close enough now that his eyes drop to my lips, and I deliberately lick them, enjoying the flare of heat in his expression. "Just this once is all I'm asking."
"The doctor will be back soon."
"Bet I can make you come before he shows up." Reaching down, I feel the base of his cock through his absurdly white pants, and yep—he's getting hard. "Won't take me more than a few minutes. Here—touch my breasts so you're hard faster. I've been seeing you look at them. I know you want to cop a feel."
As I grab Jasper's hand and bring it towards my chest, though, he jumps back, even as regret flits across his face. A rueful smile curls up his lips. "You're high on pain medication."
"So?" I challenge him. "We're demigods. That's meaningless."
"I'm a demigod." He holds up his bare wrists pointedly. "At least for the most part. You're mortal as long as those cuffs and manacles are on you. And I'm willing to bet you've never been on morphine before."
Grumbling, I admit aloud, "I guess I do understand all those opiate overdoses I fed on in the city. Never used to get it before now. Always seemed like getting high was boring. Turns out it's pretty fucking cool."
"Right." Jasper licks his lips, staring at me with something like greed on his face, eyes pointedly gazing towards my chest, which is how I realize I'm spilling out of the top Lyonne gave me. "Not that I'm not flattered. Maybe if you weren't high on drugs..."