The Warrior God (The Ares Trials #1) - Eliza Raine Page 0,26
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.”