The Heart of War Read online

  The beach below was empty, only two guards stood at the door, the other two having gone off in search of the stranger. Ares raised that sensitive nose to the air and took in a long breath and the very faintest tinge of honeysuckle rose to him on the wind. Honeysuckle did not grow on his island; the smell came from the woman. The underlying scent of decay that had once accompanied the sweet scent was no longer present.

  In the stillness of the night, he moved south and followed her scent.

  3

  The woman on the beach woke up shivering and coughing in the wet sand. Surrounded by the cold dark of night she didn’t know where she was or even how she gotten here. Everything about her body hurt, but nothing more so than her chest, which ached and throbbed without mercy. Her throat was so dry she would gladly drink the saltwater crashing against the shore. She didn’t know how long she had lain on the chilly sand of this island; she only remembered seeing it off in the distance. If that was today, yesterday, or even the day before, she couldn’t tell. She knew that seeing its outline as she bobbed up and down at the mercy of the current was like seeing the Gates of Avalon rise up from the ocean. As the tide swelled, she’d kicked as she hard as she could. Her bound hands were nearly useless but she tried to chop through the water in front of her as her tired legs propelled her forward. When she could kick and chop no longer, the tide swept her to the shore.

  Sitting on the beach shivering, she looked around for others. Anyone else who had survived the wreck, but she saw none. She called out in a raspy voice that had no strength and a parched throat that protested loudly in agony.

  No answer came to her lonely ears. She had to face the fact that she might be alone on this island. Finally turning her view away from the vast empty sea in front of her, she was able to make out a great cliff face in the glow of the moonlight. It was very steep and very tall; she could not climb it in the daylight never mind in the dead of night.

  She had to find shelter, at least some small place out of the sea breeze where she could rest until her soaked clothing dried. On tired quivering legs, she stumbled along the shore for what seemed a long way until the cliff subsided and, in the dark, her eyes made out an opening leading away from the sand and shore. It looked like a path to a hill that might lead to a flat patch of land. Barefoot and hands bound the climb was not quite as easy as she’d hoped and she fell several times, slicing her feet upon sharp rocks and three times becoming entangled in thick patches of briers that ripped her wet, cold skin.

  Covered in dirt and leaves, she made it to the top of the hill—a hill that in the light was probably much easier to climb—and did come to a flat patch of land but it was thick with woods. She had hoped to find light maybe from a house or even a shed. It seemed she was indeed alone here on this island. With nowhere to go and no direction home, she started walking back in the same direction in which she’d come. The forest floor was not kind to her bleeding feet as she stumbled upon rocks and twigs, branches whipped her in the face, and more briers clawed at her ankles and the skirt around them.

  She was thirsty, oh so damn thirsty. Her throat was drier than the desert. Every breath she took caused her lungs to ache and wheeze. All she wanted was to find some place, some small, soft, safe place where she could lay down and sleep until the sun came up. Then she would find food and hopefully a supply of fresh water on this island. There had to be a stream or small pool of fresh water somewhere.

  Her head was pounding, a booming sound that resounded with each step she took. As she walked, she tried to remember just what happened. At first she discovered a terrifying thing; she could not remember her own name. She stopped walking and stood very still, as she told herself it was ridiculous that she could not recall her very own name! What type of an idiot didn’t know their own name?

  In the quiet of the dark night, she closed her tired gray eyes, tried to take a deep breath, and then got an image in her head. It was of a young black girl smiling up at her. She held out her arms for a hug and cried, “Maggie!”

  “Magdalena,” the woman muttered to no one. “My name is Magdalena.” That made her feel a little better, a little surer of herself. The girl had been in a refugee camp in Ceres Agar, a dismal and forgotten little part of the world if there ever was one. A true Hell on Earth. The fighting between warring tribes never stopped. Overrun with warlords and opposing factions, each posturing for money, power, diamonds, and food. Public executions, gang rape of women, and the chopping off of limbs were the order of the day and no one was spared no matter how old or how young. For fun, men with machine guns and machetes nightly barged into tents taking women and girls off into the night. Some were never seen again. Maggie had gone there

  (Run there)

  several years ago in order to

  (escape)

  help the refugees.

  A deep chill went through her, sinking deep beneath her wet clothes right down to the marrow in her bones. It made her nipples quickly harden. She would like to wrap her arms around herself to try to retain her warmth if the rope at her wrists would let her.

  Maggie looked down at the rope and wondered why her wrists were bound. Who bound them? When? The more she tried to remember the more violently she shook, the further the iciness sunk into her bones. In spite of that she tried to think, tried to remember her life before the camp, and came up blank. She tried to think, tried to remember the shipwreck, but there were only small fragments of memory. Nothing more than out-of-focus snapshots in her head. How had she left the camp? When? Why? Where was she going?

  She couldn’t remember.

  The only thing that came to her clearly was the memory of seeing this island on the horizon.

  Nearly everything before that was a blur.

  Trying not to panic, Maggie told herself that with a little rest, some food, and a lot of water, she would be feeling much better. She was dehydrated, malnourished, and just plain exhausted. Everything would come back to her once the shock wore off.

  Snap.

  The sound of a twig breaking not far from her brought Maggie out of her daze. She stopped in her tracks, afraid it was a wild animal and yet hoping and praying that it was a person. “Hello?” she croaked to the dark. “Is someone there?” Every word was agony as she pushed them through dry vocal chords. Standing very still and quiet enough to hear her own heart resounding in her chest, straining and wishing with all of her might, she heard nothing but silence in answer to her plea. Probably just a rabbit or something small passing by. She began to walk onward holding her bound hands in front of her, searching for obstacles in the dark. A few feet on and there was a rustling in the bushes or trees up ahead; it sounded as though something large were rummaging around over there. She wanted to call out again but fear closed her throat. Then the rummaging got louder, it got closer, she heard…growling.

  A bear?

  Were there bears here? Just where in the hell was here anyway?

  “OH!”

  Before she knew it, something charged and knocked her to ground. It was low and covered with fur. It growled as it jaws snapped close to her face and she tried to lash out at them with her bound hands. Maggie connected on the first blow; hitting the thing full force in the jaw. Throwing it off her body, she scrambled to her feet. Trying to sprint away now that she was standing, she realized it was not a bear but a wolf that had hunted her down. The beast was swift; from behind, it pounced and knocked her to the ground once more. Its sharp claws dug into the soft flesh of her back, shredding it like cheese as they ripped through her shoulder blades and her waist. Maggie let out a tormented cry as she crashed to her knees beneath the solid weight of the animal. “Get off of me!” Maggie bucked and rolled until the beast jumped from her back. Grateful to have the weight lifted she began to feel her own blood soak through the wet blouse. “Stay away from me!”

  Above her the clouds parted, allowing the moonlight to shine down upon the island. She took in the sight of her demise. It was not just any wolf, it had a black and gr
ay pelt that was very thick as it lay over toned muscle. This was no mangy mutt; she thought the damn thing must belong to a gym. Certainly it was as bulky and defined as any body builder she’d ever seen.

  Yet, it was its eyes that caught her attention the most. As the creature stared at her, seeming to size her up, its pitch black eyes glowed red with flames. “What kind of wolf are you?” she hissed at it as her bound hands searched the ground for anything she could use as a weapon and fell upon a rather large stone that she did not hesitate to pick up and raise.

  The wolf bared its teeth; it seemed to grin at her as it settled back on its haunches, making ready to spring at her.

  She had not survived the wreck and days at sea just so she could be dinner for some wild beast. “Well come on then, what are you waiting for!” She wanted the damn thing to strike while the moon was still uncovered so she could see it and hit it. If it waited much longer and struck in the dark where it had a severe advantage, she was dead for sure. “Come on!”

  The wolf took her up on her offer. It leapt at her with its mouth open and claws pointed at her. She swung out at it and missed; the stone fell out of her hands. The wolf knocked her to the ground for the last time, clamped its teeth around her throat, and held her down. Feeling the warm thickness of its saliva and taking in the strange smoky scent of its breath, she groped around for the stone that had betrayed her. Her hands seized upon it as the jaws around her throat started applying pressure. Any second those sharp fangs would bite through her flesh, spilling her blood all over the ground. Turning sharply to the side, going in the direction of the bite, Maggie hit it in the side of the head with the heavy stone as hard as she could. With a yelp of what sounded like surprise mixed with pain, it rolled off her, backed up, shook its head, and made ready to strike again. With the stone in her hand thick with the blood of the wolf, Maggie scrambled to her feet, feeling the blood dripping from the small wounds at her throat. For a fleeting moment, she prayed the beast wasn’t a werewolf. Perhaps it infected her with some horrible disease that would have her baying at the moon.

  It was not a werewolf. It was something…more.

  In a brilliant flash of red light, the wolf turned into a man. A handsome man as strong and brawny as the wolf he had been but a moment before. “You’re a ballsy bitch, you know that? You hit me!” He held a hand to the wound at his head and came away with a palm covered in Ichor. “No one strikes me and gets away with it.”

  Holding her bound trembling hands to her sore wounded throat Maggie could not believe her eyes. “Who-what… the hell are you?”

  “What am I? I am Ares. Who the hell are you?” Standing here with her in the moonlight those gray eyes of her almost seemed to glow. “What are you?”

  “Ares?” She asked in a cracked whisper of stunned disbelief as she looked up, up, and further upward to his face. Afraid to look him in the eye, her gaze quickly wandered down his frame. He was a brute. Just look at those arms—thicker than small tree stumps— and that chest—as wide as a twin bed. She would not want to come up against him in a dark alley. “God of War, Ares? Olympus, Ares?”

  “I see you’ve heard of me,” he said with a sly grin and drew the dagger from his vest as began taking slow steps toward her. “Now that I have told you my name, I expect you will do the same, woman. How did you get to my island? Why are you here?”

  Maggie backed up, one step, then two. “You’re not real; you’re a fable, a myth.” Yet, she was already starting to feel that might not be true. It was in the way he held himself. That cocky, confident, self-assured stance and those Godly good looks that led her to believe that even if he was lying, he thought he was telling the truth. Maybe he was some insane magician living on this isolated island.

  “Do those feel like myths to you?” Ares countered as he pointed at her bleeding flesh. He watched as she tried to reach the wounds on her shoulder blade. “Did I make them with these nails?” He held up his neatly manicured hand to show her the short fingernails upon each long digit. “Do you think they came from the claws of a wolf? Shall I inflict more to convince you?” The God of War grinned as the moonlight shone off the metal of the blade and the jewels at the hilt of the dagger in his large hand.

  Maggie didn’t hear him, didn’t listen. Couldn’t listen. What he was saying just didn’t make any sense, except…“Greece,” she stuttered, not to him but herself.

  “Yes, Greece,” Ares agreed proudly, “It’s a far cry from the Celtic Lands, is it not?”

  His intimidating voice was beginning to fade away from her ears even as she answered him. Those pale gray eyes turned up to meet his dark brooding stare. “Celtic? I was in Africa.”

  “Africa? Hmm?” Ares stroked the goatee on his chin. She didn’t look African, she didn’t speak with that accent, either. Ares traveled the world far and wide and if he had to say where this one was from, he would pick a small region in a country known as America and the city of Boston. “What on Earth were you doing in Africa, woman?”

  The refugee camp and the smiling ebony girl flashed through her mind.

  She had been there. Yes, she had. That was real. But this…was this real?

  “Who are you? How did you get here? What was the name of your ship? Tell me now!”

  What was the name of the ship? How did it wreck?

  “Who sent you here?” Ares asked in a voice rapidly from going from cold to curious as he watched her eyes glaze over.

  “This is a dream…a nightmare…it’s not real.”

  Of course, it wasn’t real. Of course, it was a dream. A hallucination or even some type of delusion brought on by all she’d suffered these last few days. That could cause anyone to hallucinate. Couldn’t it?

  Perhaps she was still in the ocean. Perhaps she had drowned long ago.

  (Perhaps this was her punishment for having run away from her duties.)

  Everything crashed down upon her. Before she knew it, the black night went as grey as the hair on her lovely head. Maggie was out before she hit the ground.

  Ares looked down at her as she fainted. He could have caught her easily, but instead let her collapse to the ground as he sighed and rubbed his wounded head. The gash would heal within a few moments, but still it was here now and that did not please him. Ares could not remember the last time a Mortal had drawn his Ichor. Yet, she had almost gotten the better of him even in her weakened state. For this reason, she bore watching or killing.

  It would be easy to drag the sharp blade across her throat, merciful even. She would never feel it; she would simply stay asleep for eternity. She would not bother him any longer.

  He would not solve the riddle of where she’d come from or who she was.

  She had clocked him in the head with a rock and drawn his Ichor.

  Such spunk. Ares was always a great admirer of that particular quality.

  Hovering over her with the dagger in his hand, Ares made his decision. “Women,” he huffed as he cut her bonds free before tossing her limp body over his brawny shoulder and taking her back to the cave.

  Chapter Two

  Warm & Dry

  1

  Ares came upon the entrance to his cave only to find the majority of his guards standing there, chatting and smoking. Ares frowned on both activities. He enjoyed a good cigar now and then as most mortal men did but cigarettes disgusted him, as did their putrid scent. “Ares,” Nicco said with mild surprise as he saw the Lord of the Island coming upon them in the dark with something slung over his shoulder.

  “Nicco,” Ares said lightly and smiled. “Do me a favor will you, Nicco?”

  “Anything, my Lord.”

  “In the morning,” Ares began thoughtfully, “remind me to kill each of you, hmm?” Nicco’s eyes grew wide with surprise and he took a step back. “All of you, you couldn’t find this one woman?” He pointed to the rather shapely ass draped over his brawny shoulder. “Why do I keep any of you around? I said it before and I say it again; you’re useless.” Turning swiftly on hi
s heels Ares sauntered through the halls of his home with the woman slung over his shoulder bellowing for his favorite woman to come and help him. “Young One! Come now, woman!”

  It was not long before her bare feet were rushing down the steps from the floor above.

  “What is it, my Lord?” Onya asked as she stared at the dirt floor.

  She was always so sweet, so tacit and ready to please. Ares smiled to himself. “Are you blind, woman?” he asked as he put his load down on a long rock that served as bench or lounging area in his throne room. The throne room was his favorite room in the cave, well after his bedroom and the spa in the basement. Ares spent most of his time in this room lounging upon his Throne of Bones by the gigantic hearth. “Take care of her.” Ares wandered over to his throne where he settled and stared at the sleeping woman with the gray hair. “She’s soaked to the skin, take her clothes off.”

  Onya, no more than 22 and the youngest female in Ares’ stable, looked from her Lord to the new arrival and back again. “Would you like me to take her to one of the other rooms, my Lord?” she asked shyly as she thought of the stranger’s modesty and perhaps the woman did not want Ares to see her in all of her glory.

  From his place on the Throne of Bones and tanned skins, Ares snickered deeply as he stared at her with those smoldering eyes. By far, Onya was the most beautiful woman in his stable. The others were pretty, but she was a true beauty with auburn hair hanging to her slender waist, sparkling emerald eyes, pale flesh, and she was petite was well. When Ares stood next to her, Onya rose to no more than his hip, which made her the perfect height. That was a fact he allowed himself to indulge in to both their pleasure. “Where did I get you from again, hmm?” he chided with a snort and then openly began to mock her. “Oh, that’s right; I found you eating out of a dumpster in a back alley after your parents threw you out for sleeping with your uncle. So, what do you say…you don’t make me sorry I saved your life, hmm? Just do it.”