The Warrior God (The Ares Trials #1) - Eliza Raine Page 0,25

worth taking if required.

“Fine. I’ll try something else first, but if it does not work, it will have to be Ambrosia. You can pay, I assume?” His eyes flicked to my headband as he spoke.

“Of course I can,” I snapped. “Get on with it.” He gave me a sarcastic bow.

“Voithos!” he barked, and a sprite appeared from a minuscule doorway in the back of the room. She was only two feet tall, and moved as fast as a cat.

“Yes, Giatros,” she squeaked.

“Get me some epikóllisi, and hurry up.”

“Of course,” she said, and scampered off to the shelves. I watched absently as sheer wings popped out of her back, and she hovered up the shelves, scanning for whatever she’d been asked to find. Giatros had fetched a large stone bowl and was pounding an orange flower in it.

If the girl died now, could I find the demon without her power? The days after Zeus had left, when I’d had nothing, were some of the darkest of my extremely long life. What was the God of War without strength? My father had stolen the core of me, my essence, the thing that made me who I was. The thing that made the world both fear and love me. That made my subjects respect me, drove them to achieve great things.

If it hadn’t been for that voice reminding me that my power existed in another form, in another world... I looked down at Bella, as Giatros smeared an orange paste onto her wound. The stuff made her skin look even more blue. The manticore toxins were spreading through her fast.

If she did survive, would she discover how she ended up in the mortal world to begin with? Did that damned cat know?

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