I looked around for Hera’s spy, spotting her on the floor near to the stone table. Her gaze was fixed on the winged sprite as she flitted about the room, gathering bottles.
“Do you intend to pounce?” I asked her coldly.
She turned slowly to me, blinking. “I have a vested interest in this girl’s life. If she dies today, Hera will know that you are to blame.”
“Me? She got herself stung!”
“Because you goaded and distracted her.”
“Why do you or your master care?”
“You know why, warrior god. And you had better pray that if she lives, she does not find out.”
11
Bella
Bright light penetrated my closed eyelids, and my first thought was that something furry had died in my mouth. Shit. I must have drunk too much tequila. I blinked, finding it hard to open my eyes, and a slight man with thick glasses hazily came into focus.
“What the...” Before I finished my croaky sentence, a rush of memories crashed through my brain. Joshua, dead on the ground. Ares, God of War, telling me I was a goddess. Hades, Persephone, Olympus... Escaped demons, huge cats with scorpion tails... “What happened?” I tried to sit up but my head swam and the dizziness stilled me.
“Drink this,” the guy with glasses said, putting one hand behind my back and helping me to sit up. I did as I was told, recognizing the taste of nectar from when Persephone had given me some. Warmth and strength flowed through me as I sipped, and I concentrated on my surroundings. I was in a room lined with shelves on every wall, and it looked like a drugstore from a fantasy film. Glass bottles and stone bowls filled with crazy colored liquids and powders were everywhere. I jumped in surprise as a tiny woman with sheer pink wings appeared in front of my face, hovering excitedly.
“Erm...” I said.
“You got yourself stung by the manticore.” My eyes snapped to Ares, standing a few feet from me, huge arms folded across his bare chest.
“What the fuck is a manticore?” The winged girl flinched at my cussing and I gave her an apologetic look. She gave me a hesitant smile and fluttered away.
“The cat with the scorpion tail,” he said. I took another long sip as I tried to recall what had happened. We had been at the campsite with the fighters, and they had wanted me to be their cook. I replayed the scene in my head, until I reached the part where I’d tried to pull back on that tug in my stomach. Something had happened. I had felt something move through me, flow into my knife. But then... Pain. I guessed that was when the scorpion tail got me. Squashing the excitement that I may have actually used a little bit of magic, I looked at the thin man.
“Where are we?”
“My apothecary. I was able to heal you with epikóllisi paste, rather than using Ambrosia.”
“What’s Ambrosia?” The man’s eyebrows shot up, and Ares coughed and moved toward me.
“Now that the poison is dealt with, we should get going,” he said quickly. It appeared I’d put my foot in it again.
“Thank you for healing me,” I said to the man. He shrugged.
“I do as I’m paid,” he answered, but his eyes were warm and I didn’t believe his indifference.
“Perhaps we should buy a few more things, while we’re here,” I said, turning back to Ares. “More of this paste seems like a good idea. I mean, we’ve only just started and I got hurt.”
“You didn’t just get hurt. You almost died,” said Zeeva in my head. I gripped the edge of the stone table I was sitting on and peered down. Zeeva blinked back up at me, tail swishing.
“Was it that bad?” I asked her.
“You were blue, Bella. It was that bad.”
“Then we should definitely buy more of that paste,” I said, setting down my empty glass and pushing myself off the table. I felt surprisingly well for someone who had apparently nearly died. “Why don’t I feel worse if I was so badly injured?”
“Your body expelled the poison very quickly, and the actual wound wasn’t very deep.”
“Oh. Good.” I gave my body a mental high five for looking after me, then panic gripped me when I realized my knife was no longer in my pocket. As soon as I started frantically patting down my jeans though, Ares held out his open hand. My closed little knife looked tiny in his huge palm, and I snatched at it gratefully. “Thanks,” I said, for some reason unable to meet his eyes now that he’d done something I was genuinely grateful for. His heavy shoulders lifted in a shrug, and I realized that avoiding his eyes meant I was staring straight at his nipples. Heat flushed through my cheeks.
“I know how it feels to lose a weapon,” he mumbled.
“Right,” I said awkwardly, and spun to the store-keeper. “So how about some more stuff that’ll save my ass again if I need it?”
We left ten minutes later, Ares grumbling about puny mortals and lighter drachma pouches, and my rucksack heavy with tubs of paste and bottles of nectar.
“Look, we don’t know how close to one of these apothecary places we’ll be if we run into trouble again,” I said, then froze in my tracks as I stepped into the bright light and the sounds and smells of Erimos hit me.
We were in a bazaar, fabric-covered stalls surrounding us, and each filled with more delights than I could ever want. Food, weapons and clothes were on display everywhere I looked and my stomach growled as the smell of cooking meat washed over us. “Can we get something to eat?”
“Fine,” he muttered, and stamped toward the nearest vendor. A large barbecue was set up across the front of her stall, and a joint of meat was spinning slowly on an iron pole over the smoldering coals. As Ares asked the woman behind it for two portions, I ambled over to the next stall. It was selling armor, but nothing like Ares’ gleaming, clanky gold stuff. This was all soft, supple leather, and it looked badass. I wondered as I stroked my fingers down a leather corset top if the manticore stinger would have had more trouble penetrating my skin if I’d been wearing something like this. The t-shirt I had been wearing was torn and bloodstained, and I’d had to change it in the tiny washroom in the apothecary.
“No,” said Ares from behind me. I spun, and he held out a piece of meat on a small wooden skewer. I took it from him and clamped my mouth around it immediately. I was freaking ravenous.
“No, what?” I asked him, once I’d swallowed a few mouthfuls.
“No clothes shopping.”
“But if I had armor I might not have been hurt,” I protested.
“I am not wearing armor,” he said, gesturing to his ridiculously perfect chest. “And I was not hurt.”
“No, but you seem to be happy using my magic power as a shield whenever you damned feel like it,” I snapped back. He glared at me for a few seconds, then tossed his empty hand in the air in annoyance.
“Fine. Buy yourself some armor. You’ll still end up dead in a damned day.”
“Ooh, first time I’ve heard you use a naughty word,” I said, grinning and holding out my hand. He shoved the rest of his meat, minus the skewer, into his mouth, then pulled the drachma pouch from his pocket and dropped it moodily into my hand.