The Warrior God (The Ares Trials #1) - Eliza Raine Page 0,51

the sword faster, and we both could have taken out the cyclopes, but you insisted on acting like an arrogant asshole.”

“We have to work together,” he ground out.

“Why? I’m no damned use to you like this!” I yelled, gesturing at my aching body, anger reaching fever pitch. Feeling so useless was burning a hole in my gut, in my soul. I always had my fighting spirit, my speed and strength. Not having it was unbearable. “You’ve taken everything out of me, right before a fight! Do you know how that feels?”

“Yes!” He shouted back at me so loudly that my churning fury was momentarily halted. “I know exactly how that feels,” he roared. “I have been living with it for months! Zeus stole my power and to taste it again from you is-” He stamped his foot, snapping his mouth closed as if he’d said too much. He rubbed a hand across his face, his long hair falling over his shoulder, and an unexpected stab of empathy jolted through me.

He’d gotten carried away in the fight. He got a taste of the thing he missed most in the world, and he got carried away. I could understand that, on some level.

But not at another’s expense.

“I won’t fight with you. I won’t help you. I can’t. You were right before. We’ll get each other killed.”

Joshua’s face filled my mind as I spoke, pouring guilt over my boiling anger, but I knew my words were true. We would get each other killed if we carried on like this, and then I’d be unable to help anyone. Ares was rash and selfish and impossible. I would just have to rely on his huge ego to be justified and pray he could defeat the Lord’s tests without power. There was no doubt he was a good fighter and could withstand pain, magic or none.

I felt sick as I thought about watching him from the sidelines, Joshua’s life at stake and me doing nothing, but I couldn’t see another way if he was going to treat me like this.

“I do not believe I can win this fight without your help,” Ares said after a long pause, almost too quietly for me to hear.

“I have no power left for you to use! And that’s your damned fault!”

“That is why I need you. With no power, I need your help. To fight whatever we are to face next.”

I blinked at him. Had I heard that right? He was looking down at his feet, his huge arms folded across his chest.

“You need my help to fight? Not to just use me as a fucking battery whenever you feel like it, but to actually fight?”

He looked up at me, and the look in his eyes made my eyebrows rise even higher. He looked... normal. Like a normal guy, asking for something he hoped he would get.

“I do not know what a battery is,” he said.

The simplicity of his statement took me by surprise. “A battery is a power source in my world,” I said quietly.

“Oh. Then yes. I would like you to help me fight whatever Pain is going to put in the pit with me next, not as a battery.”

I stared at him. I wasn’t getting an apology, that much was clear. But I reckoned this was as good as the same thing from a god. He was asking, politely, for my help and he wouldn’t do that unless he wanted me to get killed, or actually thought I could fight.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Are you trying to get me killed so that you get my power that way?”

He pulled an affronted face. “If I was going to kill you, I would do it with honor.”

“Like over the dead body of my friend?”

“That is not how I had planned to kill you,” he answered gruffly. I held my hand up, signaling him to stop.

“Look, if you actually want my help, telling me how you had planned to kill me is a bad idea.”

“Agreed.”

“Would you look at that. We actually agree on something,” I muttered. The sincere look in his eyes, the absence of angry defensiveness, along with my intense desire to not walk away from all of this had mounted up, and somehow my anger was melting away. It was almost as though him turning his anger off had also turned off mine.

Truth of the matter was, I wanted to fight. I had a point to prove to that crowd now. If Ares really was willing