by Meg Xuemei X
The unquenchable, lustful fire kept burning in me, and there was no channel for it to vent out of.
Ares seemed no better. Agony, lust, and half-insanity brimmed in his now blood-shot eyes, yet his will and reason still won.
“Damn myself to the seventh hell,” he agreed and pulled further away from me. “Let’s get the things you need and get out of here.”
We kept our silence. I stormed toward the end of the alley, and he stayed a step or two behind me. I was sizzling. Ares looked like he wanted to destroy the world when I looked over my shoulder. I glared at him and gestured for him to keep the fuck up. I didn’t care for his self-inflicted and much-deserved torment, though I would pity anyone appearing in front of us now.
When we both exited, a vendor who was selling an assortment of weapons looked at us, face paling, as if seeing ghosts. I glanced at his booth and didn’t spot any angelic swords. They were extremely hard to get anyway and only valuable when fighting an Angel. There hadn’t been reports of Angel sightings for decades.
A few blocks away, I found the shop that fit my needs.
It was the largest, busiest clothing store in the area. Rows of hats were at the front, women’s tops and pants and dresses followed, and scarves and undergarments were all the way in the back.
I strolled in, grabbed two long dresses and a hat, and headed upstairs.
“Get what you need,” Ares advised. “I’ll pay, and then we go. We’ve been out for too long.”
“Whose fault was it?” I hissed.
“Fine,” he grated. “Take all the time you need.”
“I’ll get five pairs of boots,” I announced. “They wear out too quickly.”
“We’re mostly flying,” he said.
“Are you being cheap?” I demanded.
“What?” He widened his eyes and frowned at me. “I have all the gold in the world. I’m one of the richest men alive. You can have tens of thousands of boots after we find the witch. I’m just being practical while we’re on the road.”
“Will you let me have new boots or not?” I asked. “I don’t want to meet the First Witch with my toes sticking out of the holes in my shoes. It will reflect very badly on you.”
He sighed and followed me upstairs. I heard him murmuring quietly behind me, “—the first female who drives me mad … the thorn on my side … I pray to Earth Goddess that the witch will be—”
“—the opposite of me,” I finished for him. And good luck with that, I snickered. “You don’t need to follow me. You can wait at the cashier and be ready to pay her. I’ll come to you after I try all the dresses and the boots on the second floor.”
“Like hell I’ll let you out of my sight,” he said.
While I selected the boots—I was picky—he never took his eyes off me. At one point, I caught him watching me with dark fascination. Now he was fascinated. What about moments ago at the alley? I was still frustrated and fuming beyond words, and his proximity still affected me.
Even though there were so many other shoppers around, all I felt was his potent presence and the charged electricity between us.
Soon I found I wasn’t the only one affected by his sexual energy. Women gazed up at him in heated appreciation. A few of them placed themselves between us and swayed their hips, talking and giggling loudly to get his attention.
I picked up two pairs of boots then nodded toward the third, fourth, and fifth on the shelves. “Do you mind, Ares?” I asked. “My hands are full.”
Ares blew out a long-suffering sigh, then snatched a pair of crimson hunter boots, “Aren’t they too bright?” he asked as he trailed after me toward the fitting room.
Must he criticize everything I did? “I like red,” I said in a clipped tone.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll get two shop girls to assist you. I’ll pay them extra.”
Then a velvet, sexy, and cultured feminine voice reached us. “We aren’t in Babylon now, are we? And this shop has its own charm.”
A stunning blonde glided toward us, escorted by her companions and servants. She was obviously a lady of noble birth in a poor disguise.
She didn’t spare me a look, but stopped right before Ares, eyes widening in a delightful surprise. “Oh, hello,” she greeted him, her voice musical.
“Hello, my lady,” Ares said with a soft, silky voice that he had never used on me. With me, his voice was always hard, hoarse, or very much annoyed. With me, he was not a delight for even a nanosecond but full of negative charge.
He stepped aside and gestured, politely giving the lady the rights of path. He’d never treated me with such respect. Most of the time he was yelling at me, “Freyja, stop it. Freyja, don’t screw it up!”
The noblewoman didn’t pass by. She tilted up her elegant head to gaze at Ares with a scorching heat. She was tall and slender, but he was taller at seven feet.
Ares was enormous and powerfully built, but she seemed more taken by his feral, handsome face. Following her line of sight, I reevaluated his features and mostly focused on his sensual lips and his bedroom eyes. When his eyes and mouth weren’t hard, they made him seem even more handsome than he already was.
The other female shoppers stopped talking and glared at the noblewoman. She outshone them all. A noble like her could afford the best tailors in town. Perhaps she simply wanted to walk on the wild side.
The half-blood prince could be any woman’s wildest ride if she could rein him.
A faint spark of jealousy tugged at my heart when I noticed Ares’ eyes shining at her.
A smile tugged at his lips as he darted a glance at me. Ares wanted to see how I reacted.
The jealousy left me.
I was wild. I was free. And I saw a better way out of my slavery to the Dragonian prince.
I flashed him a meaningful smile, and he frowned at me.
The duo of nobles started introducing themselves and engaged in effortless, pleasant conversation. She called herself Agatha, and Ares called himself Aston. I snickered.
Ares asked Agatha where she came from and if she had any news from the south. He’d left Atlantis for a few months now, and in this part of the continent, we didn’t get updated intel quickly.
I loitered around and listened carefully. She had a lot of information about the south.
“Freyja,” Ares ordered, “go try the boots. The day is short.”
Agatha looked pleased at the prince dismissing me.
I shrugged and strode toward the entrance to a row of fitting rooms.
When I looked over my shoulder to see if Ares was keeping an eye on me, I saw he was, even as he cozied up to the woman.
I checked out the fitting room area. Just as I hoped, there was a narrow staircase leading downstairs. I would have to decide soon if I really wanted to flee.
I calmed my racing heart, stepped into a fitting room, and quickly put on the new dress. Its silkiness caressed my skin. I looked at my reflection in the mirror. The green dress went well with my dark emerald eyes, pale skin, and lush, flaming hair. And more, it pushed up my half-exposed breasts to the maximum effect.
An urge to let Ares see me in a dress was so strong that I glided out. I could walk like water flowing and breeze passing as well.
His eyes, which had never left the entrance, brightened to a molten gold at the new me. His interest in Agatha waned as he looked me over.
“How do I look, Lord Aston?” I purred.
“Passable,” the prince said.
Agatha stared at me, as if she had just seen me, but she didn’t seem pleased to see me.
“Pick something practical,” Ares said. “If you want fancy dresses, there are plenty of places I can take you to after we get to our destination.”
“Where’s your destination, Lord Aston,” Agatha asked, “if you don’t mind me being curious? We might be heading the same direction.”
“I’m gonna try the boots,” I said. “Would you be a dear and fetch me a few practical clothing to your standard downstairs, Lord A
ston?”
He growled. He definitely didn’t know how to take an order. He checked himself when he realized the pretty women were watching him, and he turned his snarl into an awkward grin.
“The shop girls can do that for you,” he said, about to clap his hands to summon the girls.
Agatha laid her long fingers on his massive arm. “I’ll help, Lord Aston. It’d be a pleasure. The shop girls seem to be somewhere else. They’re having a crazy sales day.”
As a fine opportunist, she wanted to get him away from me and work on him. I’d play along, but not because I was in an altruistic mood. This presented the perfect opening for me to make a graceful exit and part with the prince on relatively good term.
He wanted the First Witch, and I would give him one.
A sudden searing pain surged through me and rammed into my heart. My body rebelled at the idea of me leaving Ares. For a second, I was shocked at its fierce objection and its independence of my reason.
My superior will was trapped in a base body that only wanted to gratify its carnal needs.
Ares nodded in agreement at the noblewoman and sent me a warning look—it would be the last annoyed look he would ever cast my way—and headed downstairs reluctantly.
“Earth!” I cried out, my palm banging on my forehead.
Ares lunged to my side in a second, his hands gripping my shoulders. “What’s wrong, Freyja?”
I would never get used to how fast he moved.
Agatha maintained her exquisite smile, but I could see right through it. She now considered me an opponent that needed to be eliminated.
“Are you ill?” Ares asked urgently. I was surprised at his genuine concern.
I blinked hard a few times, then stilled.
“Freyja?” he asked, seemingly wanting to pull me into his arms.
He’d acted instinctively at my cry. Just as Merlin had said—Ares’ first instinct was to protect me.
“Ares,” I whispered, my eyes widening, as if I was shocked by a vision.
“Yes?” he answered.
I fell backwards, waiting for him to catch me, and he did.
I ignored him and stared at Agatha in amazement. Ares turned to look at Agatha then back at me with suspicion.
“It’s her,” I said.
“It’s her what?” Ares asked hoarsely, realizing what I was saying.
Agatha shifted uncomfortably. “I might not be what you think I am,” she said, “but—”
She was talking about her masquerade, thinking I might have seen her in the court while she didn’t recall seeing me anywhere. Anyone with an average intelligence could see her breed of nobility. She carried her refinement and entitlement like a second skin.
I straightened, twisted myself out of Ares’ arms, and curtsied deeply at Agatha. When I returned my attention to Ares, I gestured for him to lower his head so I could whisper a secret to him.
He obliged and bent toward me, his hand on the small of my back. It instantly set my body on fire. Every touch of his did just that. More than that, I realized of late that his touch could juice me up, like he was a battery to me.
I suppressed a strong need to throw myself into his arms.
It was unfortunate that soon I would have to part from him forever. A moment of thick emotion flitted through me, and the desire in his golden eyes reciprocated. But no matter how much he wanted me, he wouldn’t act on his lust for me anymore.
“I found her,” I breathed, my hands pressing on his face. “She’s your First Witch.”
Ares spaced out for a second, whether by my touch or words, I couldn’t know. But I was patient to wait for him to come around instead of shaking him as he had done to me.
Instead of roaring in joy, Ares narrowed his eyes on me. “How?”
I squinted at him as well. “What do you mean ‘how?’”
He stared at me with that uncertain, forlorn look and, for a moment, I almost felt guilty. But then I remembered his deeds. Had he ever shown a trickle of remorse when he had forced me to leave my home and my pack? All he had said was, “Haven’t you gotten over that already? How long are you going to hold the grudge? Why could you think it from another angle? I saved you from the wilderness and opened great possibilities for you.”
Dot, dot, dot. All that crap.
I sent Agatha a quick glance. She shifted her weight, looking very much like she wanted to come between Ares and me, but her proper upbringing and court manners stopped her from acting on a whim. So, she waited for “Lord Aston” to return to her, like a puppy insisting on a treat.
“She’s admitted that she’s not what she appeared to be—a masked noble lady,” I whispered, making sure she was out of the earshot. “She’s the witch.”
“Are you sure?” He frowned in disappointment.
“She looks exactly like the First Witch in my vision,” I said.
“But you said she’s the opposite of you.”
“Isn’t she? Do you see any common trait between her and me?”
“You said the First Witch was plain,” he accused.
“I was trying to make you mad.”
“Why do you always try to make me mad?”
This conversation was going sideways.
I rolled my eyes. “It turns out you’re a lucky man, Prince. She’s golden, just like you.”
He blinked, then asked softly, “You think I’m golden?”
I waved my hand toward his eyes. “She has yellow eyes just like you. That’s what I meant. You two will make quite a pair and breed golden or yellow babies, for all I care.”
My heart contracted at the picture as if an iron hand squeezed it mercilessly.
“What if you got it wrong?” he questioned.
“You asked me to find her and I found her,” I said exasperatedly. “And now all you want is to discredit me? What’s wrong with you?”
“It’s too easy. You said we should go east to find her.”
“We did! We headed east. This direction is east. And it wasn’t easy! This was the most difficult journey for me. The search is over, as is my suffering. I’ve fulfilled my obligation to you, and I don’t even want your gold.”
“Suffering?” he asked in displeasure. “No one has mistreated you. I’ve been doing my best to accommodate you. I’ve fed you in the day and given you a warm bed at night. I brought you shopping! I’ve done things for you that I haven’t done for any other females.”
He made me sound like an ungrateful bitch.
“That’s not the point,” I said. Then a light struck home. I hit my palm with a fist. “You still want to hunt. You want it more than you want the First Witch.”
“That’s absurd.”
“You don’t want your hunt for your witch to be over so soon, which seems anticlimactic. You want it to be epic, and the generations after will talk about your hero’s journey. But fate has a different plan for you. You can’t always get exactly what you want, Prince. But today is still your lucky day. Your wait is over.” And I mouthed to him: you won’t be tortured by your unholy lust anymore. You can fuck her. Tonight.
Even as I said so, my heart bled.
He scowled at me, then turned to glance at Agatha, making sure she didn’t hear us before returning his dark gaze to me.
I almost felt sorry for him when I watched the torn look on his face.
“Not yet,” he said. “Not before we can make sure she’s the witch.”
“If I say it’s her, then it’s her,” I said. “Didn’t your Oracle say that I would lead you to her? I did just that. I’ve fulfilled my end of bargain. Now do your part.”
He sneered. “Can’t wait to get rid of me?”
“You’ve found the one you’ve been looking for. Why do you still need me?”
“I’ll bring both you and her to see the Oracle,” he said.
“That’s not our original deal,” I hissed. “You said you’d release me the moment I found the First Witch for you.”
“Only when I’m one hundred
percent sure the witch is authentic,” he said. “The Oracle will know.”
“The Oracle said I would know,” I said. “Why are you so put out that I’ve found her for you? She looks nearly as fair as a Fey. Aren’t you Dragonians obsessed with the fairies? You’re finally getting one that’s as close as can be.”
He gave me a look of disapproval, then decided the conversation was over.
“Stay here while I go fetch you the damn clothes,” he ordered.
Did he really think I, Freyja, would let him drag me along with his noblewoman?
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m curious as hell what your witch can offer you. I want to see you happy.”
He shot me a sour look. “I have a feeling that seeing me happy is the least of your concerns.”
“Then you think too small of me,” I said. “You and your true mate have my blessings. Go and mate and have dozens of mixed babies. And old Freyja will still be here.”
He didn’t move. If I hadn’t known any better, I’d say Ares didn’t want this noblewoman to be his fated witch.
I swatted his hand that was still on the small of my back and shoved him away. “Go take care of your witch before you piss her off. It took me great pain to find her. I won’t let you ruin this. The witch can disappear like the wind.”
He returned to her, and the duo walked downstairs together. Ares looked back at me before his head disappeared under the stairs. Regret tainted his expression.
I darted into the fitting room, shrugged off the dress, and put on my travelling outfit. I turned the cloak inside out so the gray lining was outside. If Ares ever went to seek me, he would look for the girl with a red cloak.
I flew down the narrow stairs, my hood concealing my face.
On the first floor, I spotted Ares and his fake witch chatting with ease while choosing outfits for me. She was in no hurry. She shook her head, put back the clothes Ares had picked, and led him to another rack.
There was this impatient and tormented look on Ares’ face. At another time, I would think that was funny.
Then she laid her hand on his arm. He stiffened at her touch, but he didn’t shrug her off. He stared at her intensely—at that moment, he didn’t see anyone but her—and she gazed back at him with open admiration and blatant desire.