OF WAR Anthology Novels 1-3

by Lisa Beth Darling

  Raven stood at the top of the marble stairs watching her fall. Alena’s momentum caused her actually fly over the top four steps but she hit the fifth one hard. Her shoulder and the side of her face hit the unyielding stone, the impact knocked her out, leaving her unable to brace herself or protect the baby inside her from the remainder of the fall. Alena tumbled down the other nineteen steps, hitting each one along the way, no more than the limp body of rag doll thrown by an angry little girl.

  When she landed at the bottom bleeding and unconscious, Raven stared at her with a sneer as he his hand ran along Spirit Walker’s thick fur. Since there was hardly any sound, no one else in the Fortress was alerted to the fact that the Mistress of the house might be dying at the bottom of the staircase. “You should have just kept your place, foolish little whore.” He turned around, went back in his room, lay on his bed, and turned on the TV. The anchorman continued informing him that the world below was in utter turmoil as it loomed on the brink of destruction. By the time the other Olympians got their heads out of their asses long enough to realize what the entire planet was already in fear of, it would be too late for them to do anything about it.

  The End

  Lisa Beth Darling

  February, 2011-August, 2011

  CHRISTMAS EVE

  ON OLYMPUS

  BY

  LISA BETH DARLING

  A Short Story Enhancement to the Of War Series

  Moon Mistress Publishing USA

  Moon Mistress Publishing

  New London, CT 06320

  This book is a work of fiction. 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.

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

  Copyright 2011—Lisa Beth Darling-Gorman

  ISBN-13: 9781452470399 (Moon Mistress Publishing)

  Cover Art Designed by Lisa Beth Darling

  Text set in Calibri11

  The Entire “Of War” Series Has Been Written

  In Loving Memory Of

  KTS

  1963-2002

  Gone far too soon

  As Always, this book is Dedicated To:

  Red & Andy—

  Here’s a little sumthin’ to keep you warm, boys.

  Christmas Eve on Olympus

  Part of the “OF WAR” Series

  by Lisa Beth Darling

  Copyright 2011-All Rights Reserved—This story takes place after Book #1-The Heart of War but before Book #2-Child of War-A God is Born. It is meant as an enhancement to the series.

  Chapter One

  Santa Claus is Coming to Town

  A few weeks ago, Alena in her very diplomatic way, approached her Husband, Ares, and asked if he would mind if they celebrated Christmas and Yuletide. She said she would do all of the work associated with the holidays and he wouldn’t have to do anything. He was on the verge of saying ‘no’ when the sparkle of hope in her eyes caught his attention and plucked at his heartstrings. Olympians didn’t celebrate Christmas, but it wouldn’t be the first new holiday Alena brought to the mountain. “All right,” he whispered as they lay in bed.

  Ares was a man in love and he would do anything for Alena. He would do anything to make her happy and cause her to smile at him this most delightful way. That included celebrating Christmas and Yuletide.

  As Ares could have predicted, Zeus didn’t approve, Hera didn’t understand what was going on, and the rest of the Olympians stood high on their porticos and watched them earlier today with guarded curiosity as Ares planted a ten-foot blue spruce in the middle of the Fortress Courtyard and dragged another large evergreen inside. He heard them murmuring under their breath, felt their stares on his back, and their confusion.

  As Ares hauled the trees from the Mortal World below Olympus, Alena sat in the Throne Room with their Son, Raven teaching him how to thread cranberries and popcorn onto to string. It was tedious work and Raven didn’t understand why he should do such a thing with his hands when he could do it in an instant with his mind. The impatient little boy became quiet miffed when the fragile popcorn continued to break apart between his fingers. “Be patient,” she told the boy with a warm smile as they sat in the parlor, which had once been the Throne Room, in Ares’ large massive Fortress.

  Patience wasn’t Raven’s strongest point and he jammed the needle through the tender popcorn nicking his thumb on the other side. “Ow!”

  Alena looked over to see the little droplet of blood riding from the pinprick and took his small hand in hers. Gently gliding her own thumb over his she wiped away the red drop and then kissed the new tiny wound. “See, that’s what happens when you’re impatient. Be gentle, just take your time, there’s no rush.”

  Raven was always in a rush. He was barely two years-old and already he was the size of a Mortal six year-old. One day he would be quite handsome with dark hair and its gray streak starting just over his right gray eye. Those eyes, so serpent like, with their amber pupils and stormy irises.

  “Slow down,” Alena encouraged once more.

  Raven huffed out a sigh and did as his mother told him. He tried it again and soon found the more he followed his mother’s advice the more success he had with threading popcorn. Within no time, he was stringing one cranberry and one bit of popcorn like a pro and beaming with pride as he did.

  “See? Very good,” Alena praised and tousled wavy hair.

  When they reached the end of their bowls of popcorn and cranberries, they took their long garlands outside to where Ares was finishing securing the gigantic blue spruce. “Well?” He searched high and low for the perfect tree from the forests of Greece to those of Scotland where he found this tree growing near the ruins of Cernunnos’ burned out Fortress.

  “Perfect,” Alena chimed and smiled for her Husband, “just perfect. Thank you.” Giving her son a nudge, Raven hurried off to his Father and she watched with a warm heart as Ares put Raven high upon on his shoulders and walked around the tree as the boy looped the garlands of popcorn and cranberries on the sturdy branches of the evergreen. Remembering Yuletides past, when she was still a girl, in the Golden Lands of the Fey, Alena hung small mirrors with candleholders and colored glass balls from the branches. The balls, made of the finest crystal, glittered and gleamed in the afternoon sun of Olympus.

  It had been a very long time since Alena made these magickal balls, she tried back in Ceras Agar but the materials just weren’t available. Here on Olympus everything was at her fingertips but that wasn’t her way. Instead of conjuring them, wishing them into existence, Alena traveled to her Scottish homeland and to a very old and not well known little store where she carefully picked out each crystal ball. She brought them back to Olympus and spent a day brewing up potions in the kitchen with Ares and Raven popping in every now and again to give her a queer eye as they wondered what she was up to. That evening she brought out her freshly brewed potions in colored decanter and her crystal balls, she sat them down by the massive hearth in the parlor and had her Husband and Son each of them pick three balls. Then they scrawled a wish for the coming year onto tiny scraps of paper before rolling them up, unread and unseen by the others, to put them into the shiny balls. Alena pointed to the decanters and said what each was imbued with; Love, Luck, Prosperity, Wisdom, Dreams, and lastly Good Health. Raven and Ares picked which potions they thought went best with the wishes they scribbled and filled with each ball. Alena put them all on a silver tray and let them sit in the window under the light of the full moon to charge.

  Now those wishes adored their tree. With all of the decorations hung the young Family stood back to admire their work.

  “Now Daddy?” Raven asked as he bounced on Ares’ shoulders.

  “Not yet, not until sundown,” Ares returned looking up at the boy, “besides, there’s somethin
g missing, isn’t there? A star for the top, isn’t that the tradition?” Turning his hand over a delicate crystal star appeared and he held it out Alena who took it gingerly in her hand while Ares put Raven down. “Your turn, you get to put it on the top.”

  Alena giggled at the idea of climbing onto his back and reaching up so high but when he got down on his haunches and waited she had no choice but to oblige. Swinging one leg over one of his brawny shoulders and then following with the other she perched on his shoulders while he stood and walked closer to the tree. She hadn’t done this since she was a little girl sitting on her father’s shoulders to trim the last beautiful piece upon the tree.

  “Oooo! Pretty!” Raven exclaimed as he watched her place on the highest branch and then she settled back to the snow soft as an angel descending from the heavens to touch her feet upon the Earth for the very first time. “Now?”

  “No,” Ares chided feeling the weight of the collective stares of the Olympians peeking at them through their windows and doorways, “now your mother’s going to make cookies.”

  Raven’s young face lit up, “Cookies! I love cookies!” He dashed back into the Fortress and raced into the old-style kitchen to wait for her at the heavy oak preparing table in the center.

  Together mother and son spent a few happy hours making chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, peanut butter cookies, and snicker doodles until the whole Fortress filled with delicious aroma of a fine bakery. When they were finished making dozens of cookies, they laid them on silver trays and brought them out to the parlor where Ares waited. Instead of a proper dinner, on this Christmas Eve, plates of warm fresh cookies were gobbled and gallons of milk swallowed as stocking were hung over the massive burning hearth bring light and heat to the room filled with ancient weaponry and Ares’ the Throne of Bones. Alongside it sat the smaller, more feminine throne, Ares carved for Alena while she was pregnant with Raven. The Family sat together at the long marble table eating cookies while Alena helped Raven write a note for Santa to leave his stocking.

  Bellies full of warm chocolate and sweet dough, they decorated the tree sitting by the fire. More garlands of popcorn and cranberries but here the tree also had a more traditional approach. Alena had gone to great lengths to celebrate this holiday properly, she brought hundreds upon hundreds of strands of small colored lights they had to carefully string upon the branches to her very exacting specifications. Then they hung colored balls from the top of the tree where Alena insisted four long ornaments that she called ‘tear drops’ be placed on the highest branches to the long bottom branches where large balls hung. She had assorted decorations of elves, Santa Claus’, sleds, snowflakes, and for some reason Ares couldn’t fathom-mice. Lots of little mice in little red Santa hats ready for bed.

  When Alena finally pronounced their work done, Raven turned to her and in a nearly exasperated tone asked, “Now?”

  Ares and Alena exchanged a glowing glance; “Now,” they announced.

  “YES!” Raven clasped his small hands together and then made a beeline to the front door of the Fortress with his little fists pumping up and down as he ran. “Hurry up!” The boy demanded as he stood at the heavy and forbidding double-door towering over him by twelve feet or more and shuffling from one excited foot to the other.

  With his arm around his Wife’s shoulders, Ares used his power to throw open the door and let the glittering night beyond in to the Fortress. Raven sprinted through as soon as they parted and ran to the tree.

  With the last of the sun’s rays descended over the horizon, Alena strode up to her young son,” Close your eyes and make a wish,” she whispered to Raven as she knelt down by his side.

  Raven closed his eyes tight, “Got it,” he murmured.

  “Open your eyes, my son.”

  Ares used his command over fire to perform the trick Raven had been waiting for all day.

  Before them, all of the candles on the tree sprang to life reflecting off the mirrors behind them and tossing light into the twilight of night. Alena wasn’t sure which was brighter the tree or the expression on Raven’s face with his wide eyes and his little mouth hanging open. “Do you like it?”

  “It’s beautiful,” he mumbled in amazement as he stood between his parents holding onto their hands. “Tell me again about Christmas and Yule and why we have two trees.”

  Raven was always full of questions and she’d told him several times but didn’t mind telling him again. “Christmas celebrates the birth of…”

  “Christ,” Raven finished as prompted.

  “Good, that’s right. Jesus Christ, the prophet of the Christians and the son of Joseph and Mary. In their tradition tonight’s the night of his birth and it brought great change to the world and great joy for many. But Mary and Joseph didn’t have any easy time, they were poor and they were young when they had to travel all the way to Bethlehem to be counted. The journey was long and tiring, Mary was very pregnant with Jesus as she rode on the back of a mule. When they finally made it to Bethlehem, there was no place for them to stay. All of the inns were full and they had to take refuge in a barn with the animals. Joseph made his wife a bed of soft clean hay and there she gave birth to Jesus. From such simple and humble beginnings arose a great and courageous man. The Christians believe he was the Son of God.”

  “Joseph was God?”

  Alena smiled as she held onto Raven’s hand, which was growing chilly. “No, they think God put Jesus in her belly by magick.”

  Above them Ares cleared his throat.

  “Not everyone believes that,” Alena continued. “Some people believe tonight is the night that the Goddess gives birth to the God. Do you know who those people are?”

  “Pagans,” Raven answered swiftly, “like you.”

  “Yes, like me, but not all Pagans are the same, right?”

  “Right.” She explained to him earlier that there were a lot of paths and religions and traditions that came under the word ‘Pagan’ just as there were a lot paths, sects, and traditions, that came under the word ‘Christian’. “All roads lead to Rome, right?”

  “If you follow them along enough they do,” Ares interjected.

  “Would you stop?”

  The smile on his handsome face faded as he motioned for her to continue.

  “Remember Halloween? How you dressed up and got candy? I told you that on that night we were celebrating the passing of the Sun God? The days would be longer and longer as the sun faded away.” She watched Raven nod. “Tonight he’s being reborn, the Goddess is in the throes of labor as she pushes and struggles to bring him into this world for us once more. So we decorate our trees outside with popcorn and cranberries to keep our friends the birds hearty and hale through the coming winter. We light the branches on our trees to light the Sun God’s way home to us. We make our wishes for the coming year and rest our hopes on His new life.”

  Raven loved listening to the two stories and the way she told them but they left him confused. “Not much difference…right?”

  “Right,” Alena agreed, “not too much, but the differences are very important,” she reminded him. “You’re right, tonight the Light returns to us no matter who we are or where we are.”

  “The tree inside?”

  “Well, Santa has to have some place to leave your presents, doesn’t he?” Alena tousled Raven’s hair.

  Ares stood there basking in the simple joy of his Son’s awe and his Wife’s beauty. She was glowing as much as the candles on the tree as she stooped there in the red velvet cloak trimmed in white fur he’d given her, the cowl drawn up and over her head with its silver hair sparkling to match her eyes. Ares looked down at Raven, “Now you have to hurry off to bed so that Santa can come and leave you a present.”

  “Oh, do I have’ta?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Alena agreed with a grin before scooping him up and carrying him inside. “It’s the only way Santa will come.”

  “I can think of another way Santa might come…or two or three.”r />
  Raven looked up at his father with questioning eyes but Alena did so in admonishment as she blushed. “Don’t listen to him, Raven, come on.”

  In the Throne Room, Raven picked out cookies to leave for Santa because his mother said Santa liked that and that it was always good to give something back. Alena took a gift from under the tree and presented it to him. “This one you get to open tonight.”

  Raven’s eye lit up as he grabbed the squishy package from his mother’s hands and then tore into it to find new pajamas, robe, and slippers. “Awww.”

  “Uh-uh,” Alena chided, “everyone gets new pj’s on Christmas Eve its tradition. Don’t you like them?”

  Raven looked down at the clothes in his hands; they were blue and black plaid flannel. Very soft, he brought them to his cheek and rubbed them along his skin. “Nice,” he said changing his mind. His old pjs didn’t fit very well since he was growing so swiftly and the new slippers would keep his feet warm. “Thank you.”

  “That’s better,” Ares said from behind Raven.

  “You’re welcome. Now come, let’s put them on and get into bed. Santa will be here very soon.”

  Upstairs in his room, Alena and Ares tucked Raven into his bed and told him he had to go right to sleep and there was no peeking to be had or Santa would be mad. Raven promised to go right to sleep. To ensure that was the case, Alena stretched out on the bed with her son in her arms, his head resting on her breast as he cuddled to her. “‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”

  For the next few minutes, Ares stood in the doorway watching and listening as Alena recited the old Christmas poem from memory she didn’t miss a word, a syllable, or a beat. By the time Santa was bidding ‘All a Good Night’, Raven was snoring away, worn out from the busy day.

  Chapter Two

  All is Calm, All is Bright