Omega Series: Omega Part 31

"It won't work ... next time," I said between breaths.

He didn't ask what I was talking about. He already, and always, knew.

"Why are you here, Adonis?" I asked and pushed myself to my knees. "Really."

"To spar."

"No. I felt a ping. That's not true. To spy on me for Lantos?"

"He told me what you wanted him to help you do." He rose and held out his hand.

I accepted and let him pull me up. "And he told me if I end up crucified so he can get whatever it is he wants from the other side of the portal, he'll have me torn limb from body."

"He has his reasons."

New anger tore through me at the calm claim. "His reasons," I repeated. "Because that's all that matters."

"There's a lot at stake."

I started away, furious I'd been drawn in again. After the arena, I wanted to believe there was a part of him capable of being good.

"Alessandra." He caught my arm.

"I'm not going to let anyone do that to me!" I snapped and pulled free.

"Neither will I."

"You'd disobey your boss?"

"Lantos wouldn't take it that far."

"You doubt the man who threw you into the arena out of a hissy fit?" Adonis was too smart for this! "Your loyalty blinds you, Adonis! He claimed he would. Whatever game you're playing, stop!"

"No game. He sent me to tell you his intentions to protect you."

"Ah. Another deception from Adonis. You didn't come to spar of your own free will."

"If I recall correctly, you told me to stay away."

"And yet you're here."

"I was left ... dissatisfied with your command."

No ping this time. The tension between us was of a nature I didn't understand. Thick and energized, ripe with promise, despite our sparring. The urge to put something between us was back.

"I meant it," I managed.

"I don't think you do."

"I don't care what you think!" Adonis twisted me into knots. The words were difficult to say. "Don't come back, Adonis."

"Alessandra."

I waited, arms crossed, forcing myself to recall all the bad news I'd heard of him to keep from remembering the human parts that left me raw, vulnerable to him.

"I don't want this," he said finally.

"Then stop being you." The moment the words left my mouth, I heard how cruel they were. "I'm sorry. I mean ... I know who you were once. The creature who saved a child because you knew she was in danger. I don't know who you are now, Adonis, and that terrifies me. I can't ... I can't let you in my life." My voice quivered. "Do you understand why?"

"Because you're afraid of me."

I nodded.

"You have been hurt by too many people and you think I will hurt you, too."

G.o.ds when he wanted to be, he was so ... sweet. Lethal yet sweet. The combination was perfectly him and so complicated and confusing, I was starting to panic. I waited for him willed him to say more. But he didn't.

This time when I walked away, he didn't try to stop me. My victory was bitter. Even I had to acknowledge I didn't really want him gone. Part of me hoped Mismatch didn't listen even if Adonis did.

But he did.

That night, after I pulled on a t-s.h.i.+rt for bed, I turned off the lights and waited for him to appear.

Mismatch didn't come. I stayed up as late as I could and fell asleep feeling sad and angry with myself for it. No grotesque perched on my balcony.

I was alone, and it hurt more than sending him away.

Chapter Twenty: The Grotesque Prince.

A man's character is his fate.

Herac.l.i.tus The second the last golden ray of Hersperides left the sky, I began to hear them. Thousands of voices. They filled my head. Subtle whispers, and sometimes louder yells, turned into a form of soothing music. As I flew into the air to hunt my dinner, they were joined by memories. The voices felt like they belonged, old friends returned, even if I didn't understand who or what they were yet.

But the memories were strangers to me, from a different time and world, of a man who had been buried deep inside me for too long. A man I didn't know anymore.

The voices drowned out the memories as I flew over the central Temple of Artemis. I was drawn to her temples without understanding why and this night, many of the voices seemed to originate from there. Hovering over it, I decided to stop and walk among the grotesques and gargoyles, as I often did.

I dropped to the ground and folded my wings, tilting my head to listen.

Welcome back, brother!

Where have you been?

Did you not hear us asking you to visit?

The stone statues were speaking. Each had a voice. I walked from one to another to yet another, listening to his or her distinct voice before stepping back into the center.

Spotty before this, the memories began to flow more rapidly, of the day Alessandra visited this very temple as a child and awoke me from the stone. Twisting, I spotted the platform where I used to stand and crossed to it. No other creature had taken its place.

"I'm from here." The words were a growl when I was in my monster form but I needed to hear a sound from outside my head to help me focus. The stone creatures around me were excited and drowning out my ability to think. "How is this possible?"

The voices fell silent, and I closed my eyes, sensing the answers in my own head.

This time the memories. .h.i.t me with such force, I was driven to my knees. Gasping, I rested my clawed hands on the roof of the temple. These weren't recent memories but those of a life long pa.s.sed.

"Don't fight them. They're a part of you. Let them flow." The soft female voice came from behind me.

Too overwhelmed, I hadn't noticed the priestess approach. She wore the gla.s.sy-eyed look of a woman in a trance. Her body was stiff, and she didn't even seem to breathe. Only her mouth moved.

I had seen this before. G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses spoke through their respective priests and priestesses, possessing the bodies of the willing to send messages.

"Ar ... artemis?" I growled.

"Yes. It is time for you to recall who you are. What you are."

With some apprehension, I did as she said and allowed the memories to flow.

Mycenaean Greece. Four thousand years ago. I rode my warhorse along a beach whose white sands were soaked with red from my latest battle. Victorious, I'd once more defended my kingdom from the sea raiders from the south. The last rays of sunlight reflected off the armor of the army at the other end of the beach.

I rode away from the army for the sole purpose of relis.h.i.+ng my victory. Rejoicing in the bloodshed of the enemy and the crushed hulls of their s.h.i.+ps listing in the bay.

"Another great victory that will be spoken about for years to come," said the priest beside me.

"Had you any doubt?" I replied.

"Never, your grace. The Oracle of Delphi foretold your victory."

I smiled. My kingdom was enjoying a golden era of wealth, military conquest and glory.

"You have doubled the size of your kingdom. You will conquer all peoples by the time you are twenty five."

"I will leave the world to my heirs."

"The first of which I bring you news. The child is a boy," the priest added. "Healthy and strong like his father."

"The G.o.ds bless us." I smiled. An empire, a son, an army unlike any that had ever been created. I would be the one to realize the dreams of my forefathers.

"They do. He is likely the first of many of the servants and slaves you've taken to your bed."

"You wanted heirs," I said with a wink.

"One will suffice." His grave features were even more serious than before. "The Oracle believes he will be as mighty as his father."

"Good."

"Which leaves us to the final message I wish to impart to you."

I glanced at him. Final? He was elderly but not yet near the age when men died naturally in their sleep. At seventeen, I was a feared warrior not about to die in my sleep either.

"Artemis has seen your battle and requested your service."

"Artemis?" I echoed. "The G.o.ddess of women? Not a mighty warrior like Ares?" After each battle, I was summoned by a G.o.d and usually given the location for the next battle and advice for defeating my enemies. We worked together, the G.o.ds and the Bloodline, for the glory and power of my kingdom.

Artemis was not known to favor battles, though, unlike some of the other G.o.ds who were constant benefactors. I was curious what peoples the G.o.ddess of women and hunting would have my army conquer next.

"She offers you this." He handed me a small pouch. I accepted it and dumped the glowing teal gem into my palm. Holding it up to the dying sun, I admired the sparkle and facets.

"Flawless. Fit for a king," I said in approval. "Tell her I will go where she wishes."

The priest bowed his head. "We thank you, your grace." He left me in peace to ponder my next great battle. I listened to the ocean in case Poseidon sent word through the waves of enemies trapped in the bay in need of slaying.

The sun sank beneath the horizon, and an immediate chill seized me, tickling my toes and traveling upward through my body. I felt ... stiff despite the battle l.u.s.t still in my system and glanced down at the toes that suddenly didn't move.

They were gray, and the strange color and stiffness was climbing up my body.

"Priest!" I bellowed.

My thighs, hips, lower back and torso were soon too stiff to move. My fingers went next and it raced up my arms and shoulders, finally swallowing my neck and head.

I fell from the horse, helpless. I couldn't even blink.

"The curse of the Bloodline," came the priest's sad voice. "The price for the blessing of the G.o.ds."

My eyes opened. The memories flooded my mind. Scenes of previous victories, of battle, war, blood-edged politics and strategy that explained my ability to see what others didn't in the manipulative maneuvering of the Triumvirate.

And then there were the four thousands years frozen in stone where my mind and senses were alert in my role as a temple guardian even though my body never moved for four millennia.

I looked anew at the others around me, understanding why I resembled them, why I was comfortable visiting them. Why we were connected. Horror spread through me and I crossed to the nearest grotesque. It told me the answer without me asking.

Two thousand years.

The one next to it had been frozen for only a few hundred.

I was surrounded by my family, Bloodline, forefathers and heirs. My heart twisted inside me to recall what it was like to be among them and then the ecstasy of the first breath I took after Alessandra awoke me.

Phoibe. I froze in place. I had been seventeen when I sired a child. The Silent Queen, a descendent of mine, was eighteen, but the image in my head was of her as a child close to Alessandra's age when she woke me.

"Do you remember why the queen is silent?" Artemis asked through the priestess.

"Because I told her never to speak so the priests couldn't trick her into the curse. She was supposed to remain mute until I returned for her." I was struggling not to feel, not to let the emotions inside me take over. "I never returned. That was twelve years ago."