Ares

by Heaton, Felicity

  She stood immediately. Just because he was bigger than she was, and freakishly strong, it didn’t mean that she was going to back down and let him have his way.

  “I said, take me home.” She rounded the couch and blocked his path to the door.

  “You got me into this mess, so you have to accept the consequences.” He towered over her, dark and menacing, and damned sexy with his glowering warrior look. She almost crumbled. “There might be food in the cupboards... or call the porter and he’ll get you a pizza on me. There’s a nice joint around the block.”

  That was just evil, tempting her to do his bidding by offering her food. He was worse than Daimon. At least Daimon had the guts to threaten her outright, not bribe her.

  Ares’s expression blackened and his hands settled on her shoulders, fingers curling around to grasp her.

  “Just don’t think about leaving here. I will know if you cross the threshold,” he said and her gaze shot to the front door and then back to him. “Believe me... you don’t want to see me angry.”

  Okay, she had been wrong. He did know how to threaten her outright and had trumped Daimon in the process. The darkness in his eyes backed up his words, and she had seen him fight and seen how quick he was to lose his temper. She definitely didn’t want to see him angry.

  He stepped back from her and his hands fell from her shoulders.

  “Wait. Where are you going?”

  He looked as though he was going to war.

  “To pay the price for that curse.” He disappeared, leaving swirling black smoke behind.

  Megan huffed.

  Great.

  Now what was she supposed to do?

  She stared at the apartment door.

  CHAPTER 8

  Megan took a few steps forwards, inching towards the apartment door. Ares had said that he would know if she crossed the threshold of his apartment.

  Would he really, or had that just been a threat to keep her in line? Had he been using his powers to keep the door shut when she had tried to open it?

  There was only one way of finding out.

  Heart in mouth, she reached for the door handle and then eased her hand back again. She really didn’t want to see him angry, not when he had geared up for some kind of war, packing guns, knives and a sword. He had promised to take her home.

  He hadn’t even said how long he would be out dealing with whatever business had come up though.

  What did he mean by having to pay a price for his cursing?

  Was someone going to punish him?

  When his brothers had been around, the proud looking one she thought might be Keras had mentioned that he had received a scolding because Ares had spoken that strange language in the alley.

  Had Ares gone to receive a similar scolding? Or worse?

  She didn’t like the thought of someone hurting him just because he had spoken some words. It seemed unfair to her.

  Megan turned left and padded onto the tiled area of the kitchen between the cupboards on her right and the breakfast bar. She checked the large black refrigerator. There were two bottles of mineral water on one of the shelves and that was all. Nothing to eat there and she didn’t think water was going to ease her hunger pains. She checked each oak cupboard next, both the ones on the wall and those below the black granite counter.

  In the final cupboard nearest the corner and the sink, she found a box of Pop-Tarts. She checked the box. Just the two years past their sell by date. Evidently, cardboard food wasn’t to his taste. She tossed them in the bin. He had a more refined palate that preferred food that arrived hot in cardboard boxes, fresh from a pizzeria.

  He hadn’t even told her how to contact the porter without leaving his apartment.

  She was going to starve to death.

  She rubbed her stomach and left the kitchen, trying to find a way to distract herself from the growing pains in her belly. He had left her trapped in his apartment. She would just have to take advantage of that and learn a little more about her protector.

  Snooping felt wrong so she called it investigating.

  She started with the DVDs and discovered the short black bookcase full of them wasn’t his whole collection. In the small room where he kept his beautiful motorcycle, there was a bookcase that lined the entire dividing wall. DVDs took up most of it, with a small space reserved for magazines, and a few books. He had a seriously extensive movie collection and she intended to put it to good use.

  She hit the CDs next and smiled at the sight of so many of her favourite albums and bands. It seemed they shared taste in music, connoisseurs of the rock genre. She found a few albums that she didn’t have but wanted, and glanced at the hi-fi. If she put them on, she might not hear Ares return or he might be angry with her for going through his things.

  But then, she was angry with him and she was damn well going to put on some tunes, whether he liked it or not.

  Just as soon as her investigation was complete.

  Her eyes slowly slid from his entertainment centre, off to her left, beyond the motorcycle to his bedroom.

  It called her and she obeyed. Clothes filled the long low ebony chest of drawers, running along a theme of black and more black. Nothing embarrassing there. It might have been nice to find something to tease him about.

  Megan frowned as something struck her.

  There wasn’t one family picture in his apartment, or anything of sentimental value. Didn’t he like his brothers? She shook that question away. Of course he liked them. He had almost fought Daimon, but even then there had been a glimmer of compassion in his eyes.

  In the closet, she found a frightening yet oddly impressive array of weapons, as well as the clothes that had been strewn across his bedroom floor last night. She smiled to herself. She had wondered where they had gone and now she knew. There was something typically masculine about what he had done, but reassuring too.

  He wanted to look good in front of her.

  She scanned over the weapons on the walls of the closet and frowned at a round shield mounted at the back. A long chain ran over it with a circular pendant hanging from it. She went to touch the amulet and her hand moved off to one side as she neared it. She tried again, coming close to touching it and failing once more as her hand moved of its own accord.

  It was almost as though her hand and the pendant were opposing forces.

  She lowered her hand.

  The ring of silver and the triangular piece of metal that filled one section of it didn’t look like anything special. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing that would have power. She thought about attempting to touch it again and then slid the closet door closed and moved on.

  She headed out of the bedroom and glanced into the bathroom. She would save that for last. There was another door on the other side of it, close to the apartment door. She twisted the handle and opened the oak door, and paused.

  More weapons.

  How many weapons did one man need?

  He had his own personal arsenal, big enough to supply a small army. Knives of every shape and size, guns that ranged from pistols to rifles, and throwing weapons covered the walls.

  Megan ran her fingers over a set of small knives with rings where a hilt should have been. They looked sharp, and deadly if the person throwing them had good aim. Something told her that Ares had a very good aim.

  She closed the door and headed for the final room. The bathroom. There was bound to be something revealing in it. People kept all manner of things in their bathrooms. She flicked the light on.

  Her gaze went straight to the double-width shower cubicle.

  Heaven, Ares had looked so good in the shower, wet all over, nude and glistening.

  She cleared her throat and focused on her mission. Investigating.

  The counter around the sink in the oak vanity had nothing other than toothpaste, a toothbrush, and some towels to offer. Boring.

  She checked the cupboard of the vanity. Shaver. Clearly, he needed to put it to use more often th
an once a week. Various bottles of shower gel, shampoo, and even some sunscreen. Not really interesting. She kept rifling until she had covered every inch of the shelves.

  The only interesting thing she noticed was a startling lack of protection. Either Ares didn’t have sex often or he did it unprotected. Not that she cared. It wasn’t as though she was planning to do the horizontal tango with him. Her cheeks scalded when her mind supplied that horizontal probably wasn’t in his repertoire. Dangerous men probably had adventurous sex.

  Bathroom sex.

  A noise came from the other room.

  Megan shot to her feet, pulse racing.

  “Ares?” She rushed from the scene of her fantasy crime.

  He stood in the middle of the living room with the dark-haired broadly-built man from earlier. She hadn’t caught his name. He hadn’t really spoken much other than to tell Ares not to go killing the man who had stolen his power.

  “Do not tell Esher about this. He’s been through enough recently because of me... sometimes I wonder if he’s getting worse.” Ares placed his hand on the man’s shoulder and the man returned the gesture, squeezing Ares’s muscular shoulder.

  The grim look on the man’s face didn’t shift but he nodded. Ares glanced at her and then more swirling ribbons of black smoke curled around him, writhing upwards from his feet.

  “Wait!” Megan lurched forwards, reaching for him, and hit the back of the red couch. He disappeared. “Damn it!”

  She turned on the man who had remained.

  He smiled warmly at her.

  He had to be at least five years younger than Ares, closer to his early thirties and nearer to her age, and his rich brown eyes sparkled but with intelligence rather than desire as Ares’s did.

  She continued to stare at him, waiting for him to speak, and his smile slowly faded.

  He sighed, rubbed his wavy brown hair and looked around the apartment. It seemed neither of them knew what to say.

  Megan could change that. “You’re one of his brothers, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Then go and get him back!”

  “That, I cannot do.” He sat down in the red armchair, his broad shoulders filling the back, and crossed his black-linen-clad legs. “Ares only asked me to come over because he thought you might like company, and it is quiet in Seville tonight.”

  “Doesn’t he trust me?” She glared at him, angered by the thought that Ares had sent one of his brothers to babysit her.

  Company, her butt.

  He could mask it in a sweet gesture, but she knew exactly what he was up to. He wanted to make sure she didn’t leave.

  The man held his hand out, gesturing towards the couch.

  She remained standing, refusing to do as he ordered, and then a frown drew her eyebrows together. Something he had said didn’t make sense.

  “Wait. Seville? As in, Spain?”

  He smiled. “You know your geography.”

  “How is that possible? You can’t honestly tell me you just came all the way from Seville.” It definitely wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be.

  She looked at the motorcycle and then the balcony. They had teleported her from her neighbourhood to here, and during that brotherly meeting some of them had talked about cities thousands of miles from New York.

  His smile held. “Do you think there is a limit to how far we can step? It is a matter of mere seconds travel from here to Seville.”

  Seconds.

  She wasn’t sure how many thousands of miles it was to Seville, but she couldn’t imagine travelling there in only a few seconds.

  She had travelled a fair distance via teleportation last night and it had left her reeling. The brothers all seemed to appear and disappear without any sign of dizziness. They did it casually, as though it was something perfectly natural to them.

  They also had a strange vocabulary. Daemon. Hellspawn. Carrier. And now, step.

  “You can take me home then. It’s not far.” She already knew what the answer would be but she wanted to test his allegiance and maybe learn a little about her protector at the same time.

  “And have Ares mad at me? No. Thank. You.” He smoothed the tails of his dark charcoal linen shirt. Now that she knew where he had come from, his choice of clothing made sense.

  “You’d just be taking me home.” She reluctantly sat on the couch, getting the feeling that she was here to stay.

  “You don’t know my big brother. He’s an avid believer in repaying people in kind. You help him, and he will help you. You fuck with him, and he kills you. He gets mighty tetchy if anyone gets in the way too. So you see, taking you home is not going to happen.” There was a hint of apology in his eyes that she appreciated.

  It made her feel that he wanted to help her, but his hands were tied and she knew why. Ares wanted to repay her. If this man took her home, would that count as ‘fucking’ with Ares?

  She sighed, brought her feet up onto the seat of the couch, and hugged her knees. “Since we’re stuck with each other... what’s your name?”

  “Marek.” He smiled, his rough masculine features shifting with it and his deep brown eyes lighting up.

  “So why you?”

  He quirked a dark eyebrow.

  “You said Ares wanted you to look after me. Why you?” She ran her gaze over his impressive build.

  He was big, probably matching Ares in width but falling short by a few inches in height. Had Ares asked him because he was the one most able to protect her?

  Did she need protecting?

  His eyes darkened. She was getting eerily used to how their eyes were their emotional barometer. She had said something wrong. It wasn’t going to stop her. He couldn’t lay a finger on her because Ares would kick his backside. That alone made her feel invincible.

  “Why not the tall one with the green eyes and girly tattoo... Keras is it? He was on the phone to him earlier.”

  “I am not good enough?” Marek snapped.

  Damn. She seemed to know exactly which buttons were their detonators. It was almost fun.

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” She really hadn’t meant to offend him. She had just been trying to confirm that Keras was the one she thought he was.

  Marek relaxed again. “Keras and Calistos are busy defending their cities against daemons. Daimon wants no part of this. Esher cannot know. Ares is right about that. It never goes well when he realises that Ares is... well... and Valen would likely try to seduce you.”

  “Which one is that?” She ran through them in her mind, trying to guess. “The young one with the long blond hair?”

  Marek shook his head. “The one who announced you were lying about that boyfriend of yours.”

  Megan shrank down into her knees, tempted to bury her face and hide. “Fine, I don’t have a boyfriend, okay?”

  He shrugged his broad shoulders. “We all knew anyway. It isn’t news.”

  She averted her gaze, fixing it on the black screen of the television as her cheeks heated. “So you drew the short straw. Guard Ares’s new ‘play toy’.”

  The bitterness in her voice surprised her. She hated being thought about as something Ares was liable to screw and discard. That was never going to happen. He might be sexy as sin and she might be attracted to him, but she wasn’t made for one night stands. They only ended up leaving her feeling broken and wretched for months afterwards.

  “Is he keeping me here until I put out?” She closed her eyes and ignored the ache behind her sternum. “Is that the game he’s playing... or did he invite you over to jump my bones too? A threesome perhaps?”

  She fixed him with a hard glare, her eyes narrowing into slits and lips compressing into a thin line as rage curled through her, pain trailing in its wake. She would never let it happen. She didn’t want to be someone’s plaything.

  Marek leaned back, pure shock written in every line of his face. “I am not touching you.”

  She huffed. “Am I that repulsive?”

  “Gods, no... b
ut brothers by blood or not, Ares would butcher me if I laid a finger on you.”

  That confused her even more. It made her feel dangerous things, like when Ares looked at her with desire blazing in his eyes, he really wanted her, and for longer than just a moment.

  “Why?” She rested her chin on her knees. “It’s not like I’m his.”

  “It is not my place to say, so let it go. You will have to get him to tell you himself.” The hard edge to his expression backed up his words and she decided to let it go and somehow find the courage to ask Ares about his intentions towards her.

  She wasn’t done with Marek though. He seemed talkative and she wanted to get answers to some of her other questions.

  “Fine... if you won’t answer that... then answer this. Where has Ares gone?”

  He looked wary at last, his expression losing some of its warmth and lightness. “They called him away.”

  “His brothers?” Couldn’t be. Marek had said that they were all busy or wanted nothing to do with her, and they had just popped into his apartment the last time they had wanted to talk with Ares.

  He shifted his gaze to the white ceiling. “They.”

  She wasn’t in the mood for cryptic answers.

  Her eyes widened. “Aliens?”

  She hoped to God he didn’t say yes. Things were crazy enough as it was.

  He laughed, the sound rich and warm. “Gods, no.”

  “Then I don’t understand.”

  His laughter died abruptly. “It is probably best that way. Just... do not go asking Ares when he gets back. Give him a little time before saying anything. He is always grouchy after paying penitence.”

  “Penitence?” That was another strange word to use. “Like to God?”

  “Ares cursed and he must pay for it. Our boy never learned to hold that black tongue of his.” Marek frowned at her when she leaned forward, curious now that they were on her heart’s current favourite subject—Ares. “Maybe I need to hold mine too.”

  He stood.

  “You’re leaving?” She didn’t want him to go. She had actually been enjoying his company and the prospect of learning more about Ares and his brothers.