The War Within (Curse of the Gods Book 1)
Page 3
Fucker laughed. “I came to see if I could offer you any assistance,” Poseidon said.
“I don’t need your help,” Ares growled back at him. “I can figure out my own damned curse.”
“If you insist,” the Sea God said, turning to leave. “Before I go, let me just tell you. The way to break the curse is not what it seems. You already have all the tools you need, you only need to know how to use them.” And then, Poseidon turned himself into water and trickled down the winding staircase back to the water below.
“You only need to know how to use them,” Ares repeated in a nasally, high-pitched, mocking voice. “Just who does that motherfucker think he is? Like I would ever ask him for help. I can break my own curse.”
He kicked at the railing in front of him. The metal groaned, but held fast. Ares shoved his hands into his front pockets and glared out over the water. So many things were whirling around in his head, too many for him to focus on at the same time. He needed a release. Now.
He jogged down the stairs and onto the waiting ferry at the base of the statue. As he allowed the boat to bring him to the mainland, Ares huffed several times in frustration. He watched the dark waters swirl around the bow while leaning on the railing. A splash off in the distance caught his attention and he looked up just in time to see Poseidon's head disappear below the waves. The Sea God was not alone, either. A mermaid's tail splashed the water next to him just before disappearing into the depths as well. Ares ground his teeth together in frustration.
As soon as the boat docked, he was off and running. The place he had in mind was sure to get him some action. His feet shuffled his body to 34th and 8th, and it did not disappoint.
Madison Square Gardens was just up ahead when he came across a group of men in their twenties that were all gathered around a vehicle that had been lowered so that the bumper nearly dragged the ground below it. They were drinking and smoking, and Ares knew immediately by the smell that it wasn’t tobacco they were imbibing. This is perfect, he thought as he approached the men.
“What are you doin' here, cracka?” one of the men said. His skin was black as the night with a red bandana on his head. He wore a baseball cap over the material, but it was still visible. Ares had been around enough to know these men were gang members and “cracker” was not a compliment.
“Just seeing what kind of trouble I can get into,” Ares replied with a sadistic grin.
“If it’s trouble you’re lookin’ for, you found it,” another man said. This man was as white as the other was black. Tattoos covered his forearms and the nine millimeter in his waistband glinted in the light of the street lamps. The other five men all fisted their hands and nodded their heads. They were ready and willing.
Ares grinned, knowing it was his mere presence that was igniting the gang members’ anger. He may not have the unlimited power he had grown accustomed to, but he could fight. He cracked his knuckles and balled his hands into fists. “Let’s do this, then,” Ares said with a wide grin.
“You got a death wish, cracka?” the first one asked as he moved to stand in front of Ares.
“Maybe I do,” he replied. “Maybe I just don’t like you.”
The gang bangers were already bouncing on the balls of their feet, ready for action. So when Ares threw the first punch, breaking the man’s nose, they wasted no time jumping in. One came up in front of him, brandishing a steel pipe in his hand. He swung it at Ares, but the God of War was too fast for him to impact. He ducked out of the way and threw a left hook at the man, connecting with his jaw and sending him back on his ass.
Another snuck up behind Ares and whacked him across the shoulders with a baseball bat. The impact stung, but it only fueled the need to fight within the god. He spun on his heel and grabbed the assailant by the throat. He lifted the man until his feet were no longer touching the pavement beneath him and gave him a proper shake before tossing him aside like a ragdoll.
“Come on guys, surely you can do better than that?” Ares taunted.
Two loud pops rent the air and Ares felt a burning in his chest like nothing he had ever felt before. He looked up only to see the first man standing there, facing him, his pistol in hand. The barrel was pointed at him, a thin line of smoke rising from it. Then Ares looked down at his chest where two red splotches were quickly becoming larger, staining his shirt. He had been shot and he was bleeding. The gangbangers laughed and took off at a run while Ares stood there, dumbfounded. He was bleeding. He had never bled before. Yes, he had been shot at, but the bullets either missed their mark or had just bounced harmlessly off the immortal.
Immortals did not bleed.
Or so he thought.
Ares was at a loss for what to do. The burning had subsided and was replaced with a total body numbness that was equally foreign to the god. One thing was certain, he needed help. With no friends and no magic, his choices were severely limited. His feet began to move and Ares went to the only place he could think to go.
Chapter Five
Emma sipped her hot chocolate slowly while staring blankly at her computer screen and waiting for the pizza she had ordered. She should be typing, but no matter what she tried, her brain just wouldn’t cooperate with her. She couldn’t concentrate on anything. That wasn’t entirely true, really, since her mind was filled with the memory of the tall, handsome, irritating stranger that she had run into.
A part of her wondered if he was okay, and if she had inflicted any real damage with her assault. Had he actually deserved it? Emma knew she could be a bitch at times, but physical attacks were not something she partook in. What in the world had come over her?
He was a big, scary man. That was what.
Except, she wasn’t afraid of him. Not at first sight and not when he showed up on her doorstep. There was something about his eyes … No matter how hard she tried, Emma couldn’t erase the memory of those eyes. They were wise, as if they had seen it all. A thousand years of knowledge rested behind that stare. And then there was the heat that same stare promised. He looked at her as if he wanted to eat her alive, and not in a bad way. Her insides tightened up and her heart picked up the pace within her chest. She wondered if she would ever see him again. Hell, she didn’t even know his name, but just the thought of seeing him once more made her tingle from the inside out. She hadn’t had this kind of reaction to a man since, well, ever.
There was a firm knock on her door and Emma shoved the thought of the strange man out of her head as she got up to answer it. She grabbed the cash off the table and opened the door. It was not the pizza guy. Not by a long shot.
That man that she couldn’t get out of her head was standing in her doorway. “You,” she accused him with narrow eyes.
He grumbled something unintelligible and held his hand out to her. It was covered in blood. Emma sucked in a breath and nearly slammed the door in his face, but that was when she realized it wasn’t just his hand that was bloody. The entire front of his shirt was bloodstained as well.
“What the hell?” she demanded, taking his hand and roughly pulling him inside her apartment. “What happened to you? Who did you piss off?” She led him to a kitchen chair and motioned for him to sit. The fact that he followed her without a word was a bit concerning. And just why was it that she was concerned for him, anyway?
Ares looked into her beautiful eyes and knew he had made the right decision to come to her. At first, it was a lack of options. He hadn’t connected with any other human being since his arrival. Sure he talked, he fought, he fucked, but no one had held his interest for any amount of time, unlike this woman. He watched her as she moved around her kitchen, gathering a towel and wetting it under the tap. She came to him and grabbed the hem of his shirt, pulling it up to his neck.
Emma didn’t know where her courage came from, usually she couldn’t stand the sight of blood, but this man needed her help. When she pulled his shirt up without permission, she sucked in a harsh breath. He had holes in his chest. Two of them. “Holy shit someb
ody shot you,” she said, turning away from him and reaching for her phone.
“No,” he managed to say.
Emma spun around and glared at him. “What do you mean, no?” she asked. “You can’t just show up on my doorstep, bleeding to death, and not expect me to call an ambulance.” She continued to dial her phone and began to speak. “We need an ambulance right away,” she said into the phone.
Ares wanted to stop her, but he lacked the strength. He didn’t know what was going on. He had never bled like this before and he had never been so weak. He hated it that he was weak. Where the fuck were all his godly powers now? What good would an ambulance do, anyway? He was immortal, wasn’t he? Ares could feel the truth pounding at the back of his mind, but he refused to believe it. Instead, he watched helplessly as Emma rattled off her address to the dispatcher.
After she hung up, Emma grabbed up the towel and pressed it hard to his chest. Ares groaned in pain, but she did not relent. “I don’t know what you got into or why you came to me, but you’re going to the hospital,” she told him.
Ares shook his head but Emma continued. “You are in no condition to argue, big boy. Now hold this tight.” She took his hand and shoved it to the towel. There wasn’t even a good explanation as to why she felt the need to help him, other than he needed it.
The ambulance arrived quickly, but by the time the techs got into the apartment, Ares was having trouble drawing breath and was unable to argue with them about taking him to the hospital. It took three of the men to get him onto a gurney where he was strapped down like a psych patient. As they rolled him out of the apartment, Ares reached his hand out as far as he could toward his warrior.
“Stay with me,” he whispered to her.
I must have lost my damned mind, Emma thought as she took the strange man’s hand and walked alongside the EMT's out of the apartment.
***
Ares became aware of his surroundings slowly. He felt as though he were stuck in a dream, one in which he wasn’t fond of having. One in which his body had suffered greatly in battle and had been left bloody and broken on the battlefield. As the fog cleared from his mind, Ares became aware of several things. One: he was not in a battlefield, but in a room, lying on a bed. Two: this place reeked of disinfectant. And finally, three: his chest was on fire.
Ares tried to move his hands in an attempt to put out the blaze that had surely been set by Hades himself, but all of his limbs were too heavy to move. Breathing was no easy task, either, and the more he tried, the hotter the fire became. With every ounce of his will, Ares pushed his back off the bed and yanked his eyes open, ready to fight.
“Whoa, slow down there,” a woman’s voice said.
Ares turned to see where it came from only to find a beautiful redhead sitting by his side. The strength in her stare told him everything he needed to know. She was a warrior. His warrior. Hazy memories of coming to her, bleeding and in trouble, came back to him.
“You aren’t in any condition to try to get up,” she said, standing and coming to his side. She placed her hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him back down.
“You stayed,” Ares said in a gravelly voice.
Had he eaten sand while he was injured? And that was another issue all together. How had those thugs been able to injure him? What was going on? He was a fucking immortal and immortals did not bleed.
“Do you remember what happened?” the warrior asked him. Ares nodded. “Good,” she continued, “then you can start telling me because frankly, this is all crazy. You show up at my place, bleeding all over, and then try to refuse an ambulance! You could have died. If the doctors hadn't gotten to you when they did, you would have bled to death. I don’t even know why I stayed here, except that I don’t even know your name or why you’re stalking me!”
Ares felt the corner of his mouth twitch the need to smile. She was pissed. He controlled the urge to smile at her. It was odd, the way this woman affected him. It was almost as if her presence alone made his pain lessen, more bearable.
“Ares,” he said.
“What?” she asked.
“My name is Ares,” he told her.
“Emma,” she replied with a nod. “Now what the hell happened to you? And why are you stalking me?”
Ares breathed in deep and winced in pain.
“Good lord, I’m sorry,” Emma told him, her eyebrows furrowing with concern. “You must be in terrible pain. I’ll call the nurse.” She pressed a button on the side of his bed and when another woman’s voice talked to her, Emma explained that he was awake and in pain. “Just a few minutes and she’ll be here with some meds,” she said.
“I don’t need meds,” Ares stated, even though there was a voice in the back of his head that was singing praises. Meds meant less pain, and the God of War did not need pain management, right?
“Yes, you do, and don’t argue. You dragged me here and I don’t know a thing about you except that you’re a complete ass.” She paced the room as she spoke. “I want to know what happened, and so do the police.”
“Someone shot me,” he said.
Emma spun on her heel and glared at him. “No shit. Who was it?”
Ares wanted to tell her the whole story, but he was just too weak. It burned his ass that he was weak and that she would see him this way. “I don’t know, I didn’t see who,” he finally lied.
Emma blew a puff of air at her bangs. “That’s just wonderful,” she said more to herself than to Ares. “Now why did you come to me?”
“No one else,” he said, gritting his teeth through the pain. “Warrior,” he said in a near whisper.
“Why are you following me around?” she demanded just as the nurse came in with a syringe.
“You are my warrior,” Ares told her as the meds worked their way into his system. His head spun for a moment and then blessedly, the pain subsided to a more acceptable level. Sleep began to pull at his consciousness and no matter how hard Ares fought it, he knew he was going to lose.
Just as the world was fading and sleep was taking over, he heard Emma say, “You’re going to be fine. Please stay away from me.”
Yeah. That so was not going to happen.
Chapter Six
Ares moved back and forth between conscious thought and dreaming. At one point, he was absolutely certain he heard his sister, Athena, chewing his ass and warning him to go back to Olympus before the damage was irreversible. No matter how hard he tried, though, he could not open his eyes to see for himself. But that was impossible, wasn’t it? She was cursed to Olympus just like all the other gods. Except he had escaped. Couldn’t his conniving sister have done the same?
Then he had been pulled into a dream world where he was back on Olympus. Zeus and Hera had welcomed him home with open arms and there was no doubt in Ares’ mind that this was a dream. The only thing he knew for certain was that he was injured and in pain. He heard voices of people talking around him and periodically he felt the relief of the pain medication given to him through the tubing in his arm. None of those voices he heard belonged to his warrior, though. Emma, he thought. What a lovely name. It fit the person it belonged to perfectly. He could see her face in his mind’s eye and he could remember her scent as if it were his to memorize. Why he had decided that she was his was beyond Ares' ability to comprehend, but it was there just the same.
"You gonna sleep the rest of eternity away or what?" A deep, rumbling voice said and Ares forced his eyelids open.
Yep, just as he had suspected, Poseidon was standing over him. The fucker had a stupid grin on his too handsome face. Who even had the right to look like that, anyway? Ares had heard that one of the Sea God's sons had been gifted with the looks as well, and that he had mated with a dragon from Earth. Ares wondered if that had anything to do with the god's curse being broken.
"I know I'm pretty, but when you stare at me like that it makes me feel all dirty," Poseidon said sarcastically, rubbing his hands over his torso as if to wipe the feeling off.
"I would like to," the sea god told him, "but you see, your sister was here and I don't like her very much."
"Athena," Ares muttered with his eyes still closed. So he really had heard her voice. "How did she get here?"
"Damned if I know," Poseidon answered. "But she makes a good point. You're supposed to be immortal, so why in all the realms of Hades are you lying there in a bed, stitched up and in pain?"
Ares yanked his eyelids back and tried not to squint in the bright daylight that was streaming through his window. He had just been wondering that very same thing. "What do you know?" he asked, pushing himself to a sitting position.
"Now, easy there," Poseidon told him, grabbing an arm and helping Ares upright.
"I don't need your help," he growled.
"I don't care," Poseidon shot back. "You're getting it. You see, you escaped. I kept wondering what the difference was between you and I, and I found it. I never escaped my realm when I broke my curse. I stayed in the water. But you," he paused for dramatic effect, "You were supposed to stay on Olympus. Somehow you got out and brought that bitch with you. Your body is growing weaker, and I am willing to bet that your powers are as well. Hell, usually when I'm around you, all I want to do is punch you in the face. But no, not now. I actually want to help you."
"Get to the point," Ares told him, growing tired of the Sea God's rambling.
"The point is, the longer you stay here on Earth without breaking your curse, the more human you become."
Ares thought that over for a moment. Human? Surely not. But it did make sense. He could only use a portion of his powers from day one and they had been getting weaker. And now, here he was in a human hospital, waiting to heal just like a human. On some level, he knew he was healing faster than a normal human, but it wasn’t godly fast, like it should have been.