Red Mortal

by Deidre Knight

She sighed at his obstinacy and kept her hand against the joint, praying silently for some reprieve for him. “When we do get to Apollo’s, I’ll ask him to heal this. He can, you know . . . and I believe he will.”

  Leo nodded, slowly standing upright again. “Let’s keep hiking.” He shielded his eyes as he stared up at the sunlit peak, covered in mists and clouds. The angle of the light indicated it was morning again on Olympus. “We don’t have much farther to go.”

  Huge, tremendous understatement, but she didn’t say that, either.

  Leo took one formidable step forward on the path, hesitated slightly, and then took another. Soon he’d resumed his former pace—but not quite.

  She wanted to argue against the pointless absurdity of his making the full climb—she could snap her fingers and they’d be almost to their destination. But right now, she knew he was feeling far less capable than he by every right should; she also saw his logic about steering clear of Ares’s sights.

  Praying that they were literally on the right path—and figuratively, too—she followed in Leo’s careful footsteps, trying to ignore the unevenness of his gait, and the way he favored that blasted knee.

  Ares began to laugh, and not just a light giggle, or a girlish chuckle—a heart-deep snicker. The sight that greeted him, far up in the treetops, was one of the most wickedly amusing things he’d witnessed in years. Well, there’d also been Leonidas rolling around in that field the other day, weighed down by a mere cloak. Ares had wanted to roll around, too—in fits of uproarious laughter. That moment probably trumped this one, but not by much.

  He grinned in pride; he was such the comedian of late, so very droll in the punishments he meted out. And this high-wire act up in the treetops was particularly delicious.

  He planted hands on both his hips, surveying the beautiful carnage overhead. Two hawk men caught in nets like plump, overgrown moths. Wasn’t it just a perfect day when you orchestrated something so flawlessly horrid? With a lifted eyebrow, he studied the way Aristos’s net spun and swayed with the warrior’s struggling, kicking efforts.

  “There’s no way out, dear boy,” he murmured under his breath. “I’ve got you where I need you for the next few days.”

  A shrieking sound pierced the darkness some twenty yards south and Ares beamed.

  So he’d caught the other one, too! Nikos, so big and smart and strong, with natural tracking abilities to boot, and yet he’d flown into that net like a mind-numbed pigeon. Well, he wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon, not even to return to that human marine he was so moonstruck by.

  The two Spartans were irrevocably fastened in those nets, at least until Ares deigned to free them. The meshing had been formed from silk, a rare type that only came from bees living along the banks of the River Styx. Native to the underworld, the fiber was indestructible. There was no way for either trapped warrior to claw, cut, or gnaw their way out. Prayer wouldn’t help a whit either, not with Ares’s dark magic involved.

  These Spartans were indefinitely contained, period—and right where Ares wanted to leave them for the coming days. The thing of it was, he could have hauled them down and tortured them fully, played with their minds, ended their immortality. But that wouldn’t have been interesting. He already had plenty to occupy him right now, what with ending Leonidas’s pathetic life. These two winged dunderheads, well, he’d savor their demise later . . . and it wouldn’t be long, because the feeble Spartan king was almost out of time.

  And now, where was that centaur of his, and why wasn’t the beast here, at the scene of the crime, as he should be? Ares frowned; he didn’t like the scent of rebellion he detected on the night winds. He held his head high, sniffing, and the acrid odor grew stronger.

  Sable had led them here, not realizing—of course—what Ares had planned. And the demon had not liked it at all, once the nets were sprung and the Spartans captured.

  The demon’s dull thoughts began to come clear in Ares’s own mind.

  Sable had signed on only to keep Sophie away from the king . . . this was more than the centaur had ever intended—and it wasn’t a plot he planned to see through to the end. He was done, unwilling to go this far into the darkness again.

  “You are not light!” Ares hissed, a flash of furious fire shooting out of his fingertips.

  With another snap of his power, he instantly held his riding whip in hand, the one with the barbed spurs, always useful with his team of fire-breathing horses, probably just as good for taming wayward centaurs.

  It was apparently time to show a certain horse-demon exactly who was the glorious god . . . and who was the demon slave.

  Leo’s breathing came in tight gasps, and he hoped to Hades that Daphne couldn’t tell, not from her position behind him. When had he ever been so winded during a simple climb? Not a time that he could recall. He kept forging ahead, thankful when the steep incline leveled out a bit. Yes, Daphne could’ve teleported them, but he didn’t like that idea because it left them vulnerable. The last thing he wanted was for her to come to any harm because of his weakness; he’d die here and now before seeing that bastard brother of hers hurt her, not in even the smallest way.

  And he wasn’t kidding himself that they were in safe or even neutral territory here on Olympus. Ares was undoubtedly lurking about, as were his minions. The god might even have a sneak attack planned, anticipating that they might seek Apollo’s help. Well, at least by approaching the mountain’s peak via this overgrown trail, with their advance semiconcealed, they had a shot at getting past Ares’s invasive gaze.

  And they had to be getting close by now, based on their position along the trail. Pausing, he looked out through the dense foliage at the far side of the mountain. Every palace was unique, gleaming like a gemstone in the dappled sunlight. But where would Apollo’s citadel be?

  Daphne joined him, wrapping her arms about him from behind. “I think we are close enough now.”

  He turned curious eyes on her. “The peak is still a bit farther.”

  She nodded, pointing out past the trail. “But see that absurdly large palace? The one with the ostentatious, solid gold pediment? That’s Ares’s home. So that means”—she reached into Leo’s new quiver of arrows—“it is time for your good captain to go to work.”

  “What if Eros wasn’t correct . . . what if this fine weapon can’t part the mists?” Leo rolled the arrow within his palm. “Perhaps Karanos lacks that particular skill.”

  Daphne laughed. “Eros commanded him for centuries, don’t you suppose he’d know what the captain can and cannot do?”

  Leo smiled, and by answer, the arrow itself hummed in his palm. “Fair enough, Spartan,” he said with a grin. “Fair enough. This is quite the first run together, my friend.”

  Leo hoisted the bow upward, sliding the arrow into position, and was about to release the arrow when a thought occurred to him. However, would he be able to bring the captain home?

  Their curse is one of compliance. . . . He practically heard Eros’s words in his head.

  “Captain Karanos, go thee forth and part the mists,” he commanded, “revealing the palace of Apollo. And when you are done, good warrior, return to me!”

  With a singing noise, the mighty arrow sailed into the clouds—farther and more powerfully than any mortal arrow could ever have done.

  Daphne clutched his hand, leaning closer, neither of them releasing a breath. This had to work, everything was riding on the plan.

  “I can’t see him . . . I lost him in the clouds.” Daphne became distressed, lifting onto her toes. “We should be able to see!”

  Leo took a step forward, shielding his eyes as he stared upward at the sunlit peak—yet making sure he stayed concealed on the trail. Daphne moved with him, holding his hand like a lifeline. Seconds ticked off, became several minutes.

  “Give him time,” Leo murmured under his breath. He could practically feel her panic, it was that palpable.

  “Oh, by the Highest,” she groaned. “What if . . .”

&
nbsp; Her words trailed to nothing as a gorgeous, multicolored light exploded at the very top of the mountain. In a tableau of color and radiance, a pearl-white palace emerged from the mists, bringing lilting, tinkling music along with the visual display.

  “That’s it! That’s it!” Daphne bounced on her feet, then flung her arms about him. “We’re almost there, my love!”

  “Yes,” he agreed with a huge grin, “so we are.” Maybe they were closing in on real help, an actual method for battling back Ares’s deathly blow.

  Daphne leaned her cheek against his chest, seizing him as if she never meant to let go. “I can teleport us now. Just hold on to me, I’ll take us.”

  “We can’t go yet.” Leo clutched her waist with staying hands. “We must wait for Karanos. I ordered him to return.”

  A hissing sound answered that concern, as the arrow landed squarely by Leo’s boot, piercing the earth with a downright cocky hum.

  Leo couldn’t help laughing. Talk about personality. No wonder Eros knew this Spartan so thoroughly; the captain was as blunt and obvious as Aristos, mute though he was. “Well done!” Leo praised the warrior, retrieving him from the ground. “Karanos, extremely well done. A very good first day together, indeed.”

  He slid the arrow back into the jeweled quiver, and then turned to Daphne. “Now I’m ready to go.” From experience, he knew that for them to teleport together, they needed to be physically close. Extremely so. He gave her a devilish grin, pulling her right into his arms. She responded in turn, wrapping both arms fast about him, burrowing her face against his chest. There was barely any separation at all—he’d not held her very much closer when they’d made love in the pool. She found a way, though, to move even farther into his physical space, one leg hitching up about his, her hands wandering along his back.

  “Closer is better,” she murmured after a moment, but he had the distinct feeling that there was far more than traveling logistics on her mind.

  “I like teleporting, I think,” he laughed. “If it means holding you this close.”

  In answer, Daphne hiked her other thigh about Leo’s hips, and he clutched her waist, fastening them firmly together.

  She gave him one long, lusty look. “I can’t wait until we’re home, the curse broken—”

  “And I’m tupping you like mad,” Leo finished in a husky voice.

  Daphne planted a wet, slow-burning kiss on his lips, and he felt the earth vanish from beneath his feet. What a way to travel, he thought, falling with her, into her . . . and into the rushing wind of the dimensions.

  Chapter 21

  “It’s not everyone who succeeds in parting my mists,” Apollo told Daphne, a gleam of approval in his coal-black eyes. He stood waiting for them on his front lawn, only a few yards from where they’d materialized. Leo and she might as well have been meeting him on a train platform, he was that unsurprised by their arrival.

  “Daphne, you’ve always been a particularly capable Daughter. Welcome”—he indicated his palace entry with a magnanimous sweep of one robust hand—“please, come into my home. Luncheon is nearly served.”

  Daphne gaped at him as she’d done all those centuries ago. It was as if he’d been expecting them—as if nothing about their arrival or their success in penetrating his fortress had surprised him at all. While she stood frozen, Leo waiting for her to follow the god, Apollo finally turned to her again.

  “Why are you waiting, Daughter? Come!” he boomed cheerily. “It is a happy day, to entertain one of my finest ones here.”

  She was speechless. Again. There was something about Apollo’s very nature that silenced her completely, despite how normally talkative she tended to be. He was . . . unlike any other god she’d ever seen, a contradiction in that alone. Would she even be able to make him understand her need for help, when he was so utterly alien to her?

  Apollo smiled, seeming to read her thoughts as he’d done long ago. He gathered her pale hands in both of his dark ones. “My Daphne, still no words for me, not even now?” A twinkle came into his eyes. “You’ve kept me waiting for so many years.”

  She blushed furiously, staring at the ground. “I’m sorry about that. . . . I was . . .”

  As he’d done before, he patted her cheek with surprising gentleness, “You were but a child.” Apollo glanced sideways at Leo, lifting an arch eyebrow. “But not anymore, I see.”

  Then the god did the unthinkable—he bowed to Leonidas, deeply, reverentially. “I am honored, great king of Sparta. Humbled. How pleased I am that you’ve chosen one of my very own for your bride. She’ll satisfy you well . . . she already has, I sense it.” Apollo rose and cuffed Leo’s broad neck, grinning from ear to ear. “As it should be!” he declared heartily. “A balance . . . strength. I approve!”

  Daphne feared she might actually faint on the spot, her legs turning rubbery as noodles, her vision swimming with dark splotches. Thankfully, Leo anticipated her reaction—or at the very least sensed it—because one of his muscular arms shot out, encircling her waist.

  Apollo released a belly laugh, as unexpectedly loud and deep as everything else about him. “Daphne, my Daughter, save the swooning for your fiancé. Congratulations are in order.” He turned, waving them toward the entry portico. “We must uncork the wine . . . and I’ll play you a wedding piece.”

  For a minute, she just stood watching Apollo stroll forward, swinging his heavily muscled arms as he hummed his way back inside his palace. And she’d have sworn she heard gentle rolling laughter from somewhere around them . . . the garden? The palace interior? Deep, masculine, husky laughter.

  She shook her head, disbelieving. “He does it on purpose,” she whispered, pressing a hand to her lips in amazement.

  Leo only looked at her, quirking an eyebrow, but after so many years, she’d solved a riddle—Apollo enjoyed unsettling her. He did it out of pure mischief, a desire to loosen her up . . . simply because he cared about her, and a great deal, at that. He was full of heart, an outrageous abundance of it; she’d just been too young to appreciate that fact before. So all the myths and rumors were indeed true: Apollo cared greatly for his own.

  She grabbed Leo’s hand with a radiant smile because she knew with absolute certainty that Apollo, god of Delphi, would move Olympus itself to help her if he possibly could.

  Sable concealed himself in supernatural shadows, knowing that at any moment Ares might detect him. The barbed horsewhip in the god’s hand was menacing enough to send Sable galloping into the night, except for one fact: the unfolding scene was not what he’d signed on for. He’d agreed to lead Aristos and Nik after Caesar’s trail as a distraction, a way to keep Aristos from healing the aging king. But he’d never agreed to help Ares capture these two warriors.

  He used his demon’s sight to zero in on those two giant nets up in the treetops. Both Spartans kept struggling, their traps spinning as they fought against the restraints.

  What had he been thinking? How could he not have realized that Ares ruined everything he ever touched or planned?

  Sophie would never forgive him, Sable was sure of it. Whatever nascent love they shared, whatever tenuous relationship, if he couldn’t make this right, they were finished. And Sable’s conviction about that point only intensified as Aristos’s net spun, giving him a better view. From Sable’s vantage point on the ground, it almost looked as if Ari’s right wing might be broken; it was bent back at a terrible, unnatural angle. He heard the warrior groan in pain, the sound an aural blend of a hawk’s wounded cry and a man’s utterance.

  Caesar emerged in that clearing, and Sable slid farther into the brush and shadows, as quietly as his hooves and big body would allow. He narrowly missed ramming into a boulder with his rump, and grimaced in pain as one of his rear legs caught the large rock painfully. A jagged edge tore into his fetlock, always a tender spot. Wincing, he held his breath, hoping against all odds that the slight noise hadn’t drawn attention from Ares or Caesar. And that they wouldn’t catch the tangy scent of the blood
he’d just drawn.

  This was his worst weakness as a centaur—his legs, which could so easily be broken or shattered, rendering him lame. He’d always taken care, best he could, so that he didn’t wind up in any situation where he was unable to walk or rise up on his four legs. With his horse’s heft, he couldn’t be down for long, not without the situation quickly becoming deadly.

  He tried to ignore the pain in his rear leg, and heightened his hearing, hoping to learn something about what Ares had planned.

  “The foul Djinn’s rebelled against me, again—I scent it in the air,” Ares said, his voice filled with seething anger. “I want you to find him. I have a punishment in mind . . .” Suddenly Ares stopped talking.

  “What are you going to do?” Caesar asked, in that eerily hollowed-out voice of his.

  “Silence, you imbecile,” Ares hissed, lifting a hand. “I sense something . . .”

  And then Ares issued venomous curses in ancient Greek. He was livid—beyond the pale, for sure. Whatever he’d perceived, it had enraged him.

  “Get them strung down,” Ares hissed furiously. “Now. I can’t leave them here . . . I have an important errand to make. They need to be secured.”

  “Where are you going, my lord?” Caesar asked obsequiously. “I’ll do whatever you wish, of course.”

  Ares ignored him, lifting both hands high and toward the captured Spartans. An explosion of sparks and electric power shot toward both nets, and a wretched burning smell filled the night air.

  Sable tried to hold his breath, hoping against hope that the god hadn’t just scorched the warriors to death. That, he was certain, was truly something Sophie wouldn’t forgive—if the two Spartans died by his own treacherous actions.

  “There,” Ares announced, as the nets lowered under the thrall of his power. “I just weakened them. Enough that they won’t possess power or strength to escape. I want you to take them downtown,” Ares hissed at Caesar. “The club. There’s a panic room in the back; it’s got walls that not even immortals’ powers can penetrate. Go now!” Ares raised his epic arms and in a shower of golden light, the captured warriors and the demon trader vanished, presumably rematerializing at whatever club Ares had referred to.