The Warrior God (The Ares Trials #1) - Eliza Raine Page 0,42
It’s my damned power!” I shouted the words, the drums beating louder, and fire exploded in Ares’ eyes. For a second the world around me vanished, the ring of steel sounding loud, a rush of adrenaline flooding through me as a blissful need for glory took me. Ares gripped my shoulders with both hands, pulling me into him, and heat ripped through my core as something fiery and fierce and untamable burned in his expression.
But with as much force as he’d pulled me to him, he pushed me away, taking a huge breath.
“You will leave now.”
“Not until you tell me how to use my power.” I half choked the words, drums and steel and heat and fire clouding my mind. And a rare throbbing between my legs that radiated through the rest of my body, fueling the powerful energy and throwing me completely.
He moved to the door, swinging it open hard and avoiding looking into my eyes. Was he feeling this too? “Get out.”
I did as he said, not because he had told me to but because I didn’t trust myself with him a moment more. When he’d pulled me to him... I’d wanted him to kiss me. What the fuck was I doing wanting him to kiss me?
“This isn’t over.” I managed to fling the words over my shoulder as I stormed out, hoping to hell he thought I was talking about the argument about my power and not the fact that I apparently had the hots for a three thousand year old giant asshole warrior god.
18
Bella
I hadn’t realized how tired I was until I threw myself down on my own equally plush bed. My eyelids drooped as I stared at the cloth-covered ceiling above me, my churning brain and fired up body slowing down fast.
I’d never had a problem falling asleep. Except when I was in solitary confinement. But that wasn’t emotional, that was physical. I had so little to do, so little to vent on, so few ways to expend energy in that fucking awful place that I didn’t need to sleep.
Today, I needed to sleep. Perhaps it was my war magic at play all this time, making sure my body got what it needed to be a good fighter. I thought about the laser focus that I now knew was actually called ‘war-sight’, and yawned. I forced myself to sit up and pulled my shirt off over my head, then reached down to untie my boots. Sleeping in boots was not cool.
A flash of curiosity whipped through me about what Ares wore to bed, and I rolled my eyes.
Joshua. Think about Joshua. You’re going to save him from whatever the fuck that rotten-handed demon was, kick his ass for lying to you, then see if he wants to be your boyfriend, I told myself firmly.
My jeans soon followed my boots onto the floor and I tipped backwards again, letting out a sigh as I hit the mattress. Where had all this sexy stuff in my head come from? I rarely thought about sex at all, writing it off as something I could only do with guys who meant nothing because they all bolted when they found out what I was really like.
That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it. But I’d never understood why people went so nuts for it. My admittedly fairly limited experiences had left me pent-up and hyper, craving something I couldn’t get. I had to assume that I either wasn’t doing it right, or I hadn’t found the right person. Someone caring and patient like Joshua might be the exact sort of lover I needed to get me to wherever it was I couldn’t reach.
Someone hot and fierce and untamable could get you there a hell of a lot quicker, my confrontational inner voice quipped. I shoved it down. Maybe I was hormonal. Maybe it was avoidance. I probably shouldn’t underestimate the psychological impact of being told you’re a goddess and being kidnapped to a fantasy world.
Yes, that was probably it. Ares had turned my world upside down and awakened a possibility that I didn’t have to live the life I hated anymore. And my overwhelmed brain was confusing my excitement about everything I had yet to discover about magic and Olympus with him. Joshua would call it ‘projecting’ in our sessions. I was projecting my burning desire for a new life in a world where I belonged onto Ares, in a different form of burning desire.