Healed by Fire (20 page)

You’re not leaving me behind. I’ll teleport
myself to the Games if you try to leave me.” I was not giving up on
this. No matter what he said I was going.

“She’d probably teleport herself right into
the center of the ring,” said Koda more to himself than anyone
else.

Ares growled. “I am not taking you there!
What if Maurice catches you?”

“I’ll teleport out,” I answered quickly.

“She has a point,” said Koda.

Achilles walked towards us, a deep frown on
his face. “What’s going on?” He must have sensed my anger and come
looking for me.

“Artemis’ former friend is being fought in
the Games. She wants to go with us and threatened to teleport
herself if we leave her behind,” summarized Koda.

Achilles stared at me in shock. “You can’t
go to the Games. It’s not really even safe for Ares to go to the
Games. What if you get captured?”

“I’ll teleport out,” I said calmly.

“It’s not that simple,” Achilles said
angrily, “They could kill you before you had a chance to teleport.
And we all know that you wouldn’t leave us behind just to save
yourself. You are not going, Artemis.”

My mouth dropped open. Achilles had never
spoken to me that way before. I expected it from Ares, but not
Achilles. “You don’t make the decisions for me,” I said quietly
trying to summon my anger, but in my shock I was unable.

“I am your mate, whether we’ve
mated
or not and therefore I do have a say in what you do, especially if
it puts your life, and consequently mine, at risk. Plus you’re the
Princess of the Sidhe and it’s every Sidhe’s job to protect you. Do
you really want to fight off the entire Sidhe race just to go
rescue Bret?”

Never in my life would I have expected
Achilles to speak to me like this. “You’re trying to push me into a
corner.”

He smiled. “No, sweetheart, I shoved you
into the corner and shackled you there. Ares, Koda and I will go to
the Games and save your friend. You will stay here, guarded by
Sidhe guards whom I know you won’t hurt and you will wait for us to
return. Are we clear?”

I turned to Ares. “He can’t really do this,
can he?”

Ares smiled sympathetically. “He just
did.”

Erebos, Heracles and Theseus walked towards
us from the training ring where they’d been sparing. Without a
word, Erebos grabbed hold of my left arm and Theseus grabbed my
right and together they held me in place.

“Let me go!” I yelled as I struggled against
them.

Ares said, “Maybe we should get Hades?”

Achilles smiled. “That’s a much better plan.
Hades!”

“What are you going to do, have him kill
me?” I asked angrily.

Ares, Achilles and Koda all rolled their
eyes at me at the same time. Ares stepped forward and kissed my
forehead softly. “We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

Koda kissed my cheek and then Achilles
stepped in front of me. “I don’t like doing this to you, Artemis,
but your safety is my top concern. I can’t lose you again.” There
was such pain in his voice that it made my heart ache and made me
wish to touch him and console him. Unfortunately I was being held
against my will so I found the strength to refrain.

“Achilles, please let me come with you. I
can help you. I don’t want to be sitting here on my hands fretting
and wondering if you’re okay or not.”

He smiled and kissed my lips softly, sending
a pleasant shock through my body. “You won’t have to.”

Hades stepped forward and smiled at me.
“Hello, Princess. This won’t hurt, but you’re going to feel a
little woozy.”

“Ares! Achilles!” I called to them as they
walked away from me. Neither man turned back around towards me. I
felt my heart hammering against my chest as they walked away and my
hands started shaking. I didn’t want to be away from them. I didn’t
want separation. Hades pressed his hand to my forehead and chanted
a few words in a strange language. I struggled against Theseus and
Erebos, but my limbs were growing heavy and my eyelids were
becoming increasingly hard to keep open. “This. Is. Cheating,” I
panted out just before Hades’ spell slipped me into sleep.

~~~

The look on her face tore at my heart. I
hated forcing her to stay behind, but I could not bear to see her
get hurt. Her indignant feelings would mend when we returned, but
her death would ruin us all. Especially since if she died, I would.
If we died I wouldn’t even be able to grieve for her, which would
eat at my soul for eternity.

“You did the right thing, Achilles. I’m
actually very surprised and proud of you,” said Ares as we headed
towards the main building and my mother’s quarters.

“I know I did the right thing. I just can’t
stand the look she gave me. She feels as though I’ve betrayed her.”
Part of me was still angry at Ares for what I’d learned from the
healer, but I didn’t want to tell him yet. I’d tell him soon, but
not yet. And for now I dismissed the anger and focused on the task
at hand.

“She’s only worried for your safety. She’ll
be asleep so she won’t even have time to fret,” said Koda.
“Besides, she knows you only did it to keep her safe. She’ll
forgive you.”

I wasn’t so sure. She may forgive me, but
that didn’t mean she’d trust me again or look at me the same. I
already missed the smell of her skin, the touch of her hand.

“You think Hera will be in a good mood?”
Ares asked as we entered the building and headed down the left
corridor towards her room. The paintings on the wall became
progressively darker with scenes shifting from peaceful meadows to
a stormy sea to a bloody war. They were the visual progression of
my mother’s moods when she was displeased, or at least that’s what
I thought.

“I doubt it, but she owes us much for the
past one hundred years,” I answered quietly as I knocked on the
door.

“Enter,” exclaimed my mother in her most
regal voice.

I pushed open her door and stared in shock
at my mother, the Queen of the Sidhe, in a fluffy pink bathrobe
sitting in a chair with maids painting her fingernails and
toenails. “Achilles!” she said happily. “To what do I owe this
visit?”

“We need your help,” I said still in shock.
“We need to rescue someone from the Games and bring them back.”

She stood up and all of her maids backed
away. “A Sidhe is in the Games?” she asked angrily.

I shook my head. “No, it’s a werewolf, one
who used to be a friend of Artemis’.”

“Where is our favorite halfbreed?” she asked
as she examined her fingernails, no longer worried now that she
knew it wasn’t a Sidhe in the Games.

“Hades put her to sleep because she was
refusing to stay behind and threatening to teleport if we left
without her,” Koda explained.

Hera smiled. “She’s very feisty.”

Ares scoffed. “That’s an
understatement.”

“What is it that you need from me?” she
asked as she sat back down in her chair and let the maids resume
pampering her.

“We need you to teleport us to and from the
Games,” I said as I plucked a grape from a dish on the table beside
me and popped it into my mouth. The grape was perfectly ripe and
extremely juicy. Of course, the Queen of the Sidhe demanded the
best.

Hera sighed. “I was afraid you were going to
say that. Very well, let me get changed and I’ll teleport you
all.”

Ares, Koda and I walked out of her room and
leaned against the wall in the hallway. “What’s your plan for when
we arrive?” I asked Ares.

He shrugged. “Find where they have him, take
him.”

“That’s not a very well thought out plan,” I
said incredulously.

He smiled. “I’ll figure something out. I
always do.”

“Like the time we stole Dad’s Pegasus to
race him against the elves and started a war?”

Ares smiled. “You’re the one who called the
elf names and started it all. I only gave you a way to end it. It’s
not my fault that my spear accidentally fell while we were racing
and tripped their steed.”

I shook my head and laughed. “Right. And it
wasn’t your fault that the elves’ shields all disintegrated during
the war either.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny if that acid
was from my personal stores or not,” Ares said in a monotonous
tone.

I laughed and then sighed. “That battle
lasted five years. Father was furious with us.”

“But, who won? We did, because elves are
awful at battle strategizing.”

“And because you pull crazy schemes out of
your butt and they actually work,” Koda said as he shifted against
the wall.

Ares smiled. “You’re both just jealous
because I’m the God of War.”

“Conceited,” I whispered.

“Vain,” Koda whispered at the same time.

Hera stepped out of her room and frowned at
me. “I hope you aren’t talking about me.”

I smiled. “Of course not! I would never
speak of my lovely mother in such a manner.”

She didn’t seem convinced, but she left it
alone. “Ready?”

We all reached a hand out and touched her
shoulders. “Try not to land us in the center of the arena, please,”
Ares said.

She sighed. “So little faith. I will
transport us in the back area where they keep those to be
fought.”

She closed her eyes and sent us whirling
through the vortex of teleportation. I hated the feeling more than
anything else, preferring even to have a sword cut me than to spin
around and around.

“You can open your eyes now,” she
whispered.

I opened my eyes and found us in an
underground room with stone walls, dirt floors, and a metal gate.
“You teleported us to a prisoner’s cell? How did you know to come
here? When were you in a prisoner’s cell?” I asked.

“There are many things that you don’t know
about me and many more things that I will never tell you. Just be
happy that I had knowledge of this place and could get us here.
Otherwise, we would be trying to walk through the front door.” She
pushed open the cell door and marched down the aisles of cells as
though she owned the place. Ares and Koda searched each prisoner’s
face as we wound our way through the holding area, but they did not
find who they were looking for.

The crowd roared above us and dirt sifted
from the ceiling down onto us. “Perhaps he is already fighting,” I
suggested.

Ares sighed loudly. “I did not want to go
out into the arena.”

Hera grabbed a guard who had been watching
the fight through an iron fence. “Who fights right now?” she asked
him as she pressed him up against the fence.

“A werewolf and elf.”

She smiled and grabbed his keys from his
belt. “Thank you.”

She opened the gate and turned to Ares. “We
run out, grab him and teleport, got it?”

Ares smiled. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

We stepped out into the arena and my eyes
widened in shock. Bret wasn’t just fighting one elf, he was
fighting six. His sides were smeared with blood and his chest was
heaving up and down quickly as he gasped for breath. The six elves
stood around him in a loose circle holding spears.

The crowd was cheering loudly, but then all
eyes turned to us and they silenced. Maurice stood from his seat in
the
pulpit
, smiling down at us.
“I’ve been waiting for you.” He turned to the crowd and said, “It
seems we have additional fighters.” He looked at our group a moment
and then frowned. He was probably annoyed that Artemis wasn’t with
us. For once we did not let her endanger herself and her hurt
feelings no longer bothered me.

The crowd took a moment to understand the
shift in the situation, but then they cheered loudly in
anticipation of bloodshed. I looked around the stands and was
surprised to see beings from every race,
including Sidhe
,
attending the Games.

Ares turned and smiled at me. “I’d always
dreamed of fighting in the Arena, but father wouldn’t allow me to
in the Roman days. That’s why I owned that group of gladiators and
trained them instead of fighting. Oh, Spartacus, that was one hell
of a gladiator. I do wish he had let me turn him.” He stopped his
reminiscing and looked at the elves. “You think the elves remember
me?” He ripped his shirt off and took a half shift, growling loudly
at the crowd, sounding more like a lion than a wolf.

The elves turned and fixed their gazes on
him. Yep, they remembered him. Ares charged forward, slicing one of
the elves’ heads almost completely off at the neck with his claws.
Bret limped towards Ares, clutching his side and a wound which was
dripping blood onto the sand.

The cool night air caressed my skin as I
took a step forward. Small glass balls enchanted with a light spell
sat in little holders around the arena and throughout the stands so
the attendees could see everything even though it was night time.
The smell and feel of the sand at my feet and the roar of the crowd
brought back many memories of my younger days in Rome. Of course
back then I’d been revered as a god, sitting in the pulpit,
watching, and determining the fates of the gladiators, not
participating. Like Ares I had always wanted to participate, but
father had forbidden us from fighting. I looked around at the eons
old architecture and wished Artemis was here, knowing she would
have enjoyed seeing the coliseum. Although it was not nearly as
spectacular now as it was compared to its original days. I did have
to admit that it was nice to be able to look in the stands without
finding couples fornicating though. Romans were such vile
creatures.

I turned back to the issue at hand and ran
forward, releasing my powers, but not my wings and used a fireball
to push back the elves. Koda ran at my side, now in wolf form and
snapped his teeth at them.

Hera walked behind us at a leisurely pace as
though we were simply walking through a park.