Red Mortal (44 page)

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Authors: Deidre Knight

Tags: #Man-woman relationships, #Goddesses, #Gods, #Paranormal, #Delphian oracle, #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal romance stories, #Immortalism, #Daphne (Greek deity), #General, #Leonidas, #Contemporary

BOOK: Red Mortal
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But a sound made her turn. It was familiar, and she wanted to weep in relief as Sable came galloping up toward the castle steps. He sliced dual swords, routing several demons as he cut a swath toward her. Ajax fought beside him, agile despite the wings upon his back, and as powerful as she’d ever seen him.
“Sophie!” Sable cried out, thundering right toward her.
He loved her. She saw it in his eyes. No matter what he’d done, the only thing that
really
mattered was that he was here now, when she needed him.
“Take her with you. To safety,” Jax shouted to Sable above the din. “I’ll keep them at bay. Just protect her any way you can!”
“You can count on it,” Sable said, briefly clasping Jax by the shoulder. Then, with an angry stomp of his front hooves, he reached down for her. “In a mess again, are you,
my Sophie
?”
She took hold of his hand and he swung her atop his back in one fluid move. “I’ll ride you to safety,” he promised. “I won’t let these bastards harm you. If it’s the last thing I do, I won’t let them touch you.”
He galloped like the wind itself, eating up the ground in long, graceful strides until they finally reached an empty clearing. But no sooner had he slowed to a gentler gait, huffing heavily as he surveyed the battlefield, than an acrid wind blew over them. A strange battle call accompanied that hot, desertlike wind.
“It’s Ares,” Sable told her under his breath. “He’s raising his troops, directing them.”
“Toward what?” she hissed, wrapping her arms about Sable’s chest and holding tight.
After a heartbeat of a pause, he answered simply.
“Us.”
The god’s voice answered, rumbling over the moor. “Kill them. Both of the infidels.”
“Fuck that,” Sable cursed, launching into a frenzied pace once again. He galloped harder, so hard she feared she might get thrown off, and yet he managed to keep her steadily upon his back.
After several long moments, she realized he was headed toward a rocky incline. She kept her arms fastened about his waist as he poured on the heat with his gallop. She could feel his entire body heaving with the exertion, and tried to push her terror aside. His heart hammered crazily beneath her hands—too hard.
She told herself none of that mattered with a demon—a beautiful, complicated demon whom she loved with all her heart. Who was being hunted down and chased by a rabid band of murderous demons.
“Hold tighter!” He shouted the words over his shoulder. “Jump ahead. Hold me.”
Oh, my Djinn, when this is over, I’m never going to let you go.
Burying her face against his sweat-slicked shoulder, she kept her eyes shut. The “jump” actually looked more like a treacherous drop-off, a craggy set of rocks that led to a stream down below at the base of the incline.
She felt the rise of his forelegs, the lift as he took the jump gracefully, carrying her with him on that familiar ba-dum-dum rhythm of a horse jumping. Only, with a sickening crack—an audible one that seemed a second too late—Sable’s forelegs buckled beneath him. Or maybe only his right foreleg? There was just the horrible sense of his massive body rolling forward, almost an accordion effect as he slid and slipped, taking her down with him.
Only the fall didn’t stop; it became a roll that threw her down into the flowing water—but sent Sable struggling down the large drop-off that neither of them had seen. Sable scrabbled at the mud with his hands, trying to stop his horrible fall. But the force of momentum was too much. He was too big, weighed too much, and kept rolling and skidding until he finally landed at the bottom of the drop.
Sophie screamed, struggling to her feet, the mud suctioning her shoes deep and in place. “Sable! Sable, oh my God! Are you all right?”
No answer. Then a hideous cry from down below, a groan, another cry.
She scrambled to the edge of the waterfall, peering over; she nearly became ill when she realized it hadn’t been a five foot drop at all. The drop had been at least ten feet, if not more, and Sable lay on his side, his forelegs buckling with every attempt he made to rise. His eyes were haunted, his gaze filled with more pain than she’d ever glimpsed on any creature’s face. “Sable,” she said softly, “I’ll get down there.” She glanced quickly around, trying to see the best way to scramble to his side.
“Be . . . careful.” The words were gasped, and again he tried to lunge upward with his huge body, but crumpled down with a garbled cry of pain.
“Stay still. I’m coming! I’m coming right now, Sable. Just stay down.”
“My leg . . . my foreleg, Soph. I think . . . it’s shattered.”
She slid down the muddy embankment and landed near him in a tumbling heap. Rushing to where he lay on his side, she realized that his forelegs were destroyed, not just one—both. Unless he had some demonic regenerative power, he would never walk again. The bone of his right leg jutted outward, raw and hideous in how badly it was mangled.
“I’ll stand. I will.” He kept shoving at the ground, trying to get up, but wrestling his monumental body upward proved a failing effort. With his right hand, he reached for his leg, skimming his fingers over the protruding bone. He sucked in a pained breath, his eyes wide before rolling back into his head for a brief moment. Sophie searched the cliffside, hoping their enemies weren’t already upon them.
“You’ve got to get moving,” he rasped, but she pushed his hand away from his leg and began examining it.
Placing her hands squarely on the hideously broken leg, she began releasing her healing power, but nearly blacked out from the pain. He was experiencing a horrific level of it—more than even she could take on or attempt to mend.
“I can do this,” she said resolutely, but Sable caught her hands in his.
“Soph, no. Leave me and get to safety.” His own gaze tracked up along the steep hillside that he’d fallen down. “Any minute and that horde will descend on us. Go while you can.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, she removed her white T-shirt, tearing it into large strips. “I’ll wrap it. We’ll get you going. I won’t leave you, I promise.”
“Have . . . to. They’ll tear you to pieces . . . Soph, go!”
Any minute now and Ajax would realize they weren’t following behind him. He’d come back—they all would. “Stay still.” She began working with the fabric, using the strips as a tight binding on Sable’s mangled foreleg. “I’ve done this before, and I’m going to take care of you.” She kept her voice assured, confident when inside she was falling apart. He would never walk again, even if she could get him out of this crisis.
Far more important at the moment, however, was that his worst enemies were closing on them. Fast.
She shoved every fear, every clawing, deathly fear, far from her mind and focused on the task at hand. Deftly her fingers moved, cinching the broken leg as tight as she could in the soft fabric of her shirt, then tying it in a knot. With another look overhead and behind, she pushed against the long barrel of his side. “Try again. Try to stand, I’ll help you.” She scrambled toward his rear, putting all her weight in a forceful shove as he lunged upward . . . only to break the bandage into shreds and to stumble forward in a horrible, ugly dive. He cried out, in a ripping scream of pain that made her eyes fill with tears. For a moment, he buried his head in both hands, then dropping them away, twisted his torso to face her.
“Sophie,” he told her in a shockingly calm voice. “I am stuck. I’m not getting up. I
can’t
get up. You have to get out of here and
now
, damn it. By the gods, I won’t let you die here, not for the likes of me.”
“I love you.”
He doubled over in sudden pain, bracing both palms on the sloshing mud. “Just . . . go, sweetness.”
“Tell me you love me.”
The night was suddenly rent by the sound of beating wings—several of them, and Sophie looked up just in time to see Ajax and Kalias swooping down. They hit the ground at a run.
“What happened?” Ajax asked breathlessly, but with a quick look she could tell he already knew.
“I can’t get him up,” she whispered, feeling utterly helpless and lost. The tears began in earnest. “He fell from up there . . . his forelegs are broken.”
“Gods damn you, Sable,” Jax murmured, dropping beside the fallen centaur.
Sable laughed softly. “You’ve finally got me where you always wanted me. Dead in the water.”
“I don’t want you dead, man. Don’t talk that way. We’ll get you up and out.”
“He can’t stand, Jax. He’s right about his condition. I’ve worked with horses all my life . . . you won’t be able to get him up.”
Jax sprang suddenly to his feet. “I smell the horde. They’re on us. . . .”
“I’ll hold them off. Go,” Sable said, his whole body now quaking with tremors.
“You’re in no condition to battle them,” Jax said. “We’ll fight here, and keep them off of you.”
“Will you get her out of here, man?” Sable insisted. “You love Shay, you understand. Take her with you . . . I’ll handle the rest.”
Jax stared into the demon’s eyes for a long, silent moment. Sophie wrapped her arms about Sable’s waist. “Tell me what you’re planning. Why would you do this?”
“Just go.” Then to Jax. “
Now
, you understand? I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”
Finally, pulling Sophie upward and into his arms, Jax gave a brisk nod and his wings unfurled—and he flew them both heavenward. The last thing she smelled was singeing flesh and hair. With a downward glance, she saw a blaze like a funeral pyre.
Sable’s demon fire.
She screamed, thrashing in Jax’s arms.
Jax said nothing at first, and she slapped at his arms.
“He knew the only way to block those demons . . . was with his own demon fire.”
Sophie struggled, nearly free-falling out of Jax’s arms, but he held her fast, forcing her to look away from the inferno that was spreading like wildfire on the moors below. Sable’s fire, let loose, on himself, and raging free.
Chapter 35
 
L
eo fell back with his warriors, dropping behind the protection of the phalanx formed by his Spartans’ shields. It allowed just enough time to regroup against the god’s unrelenting assault. The demon army swarmed ahead of them, creating a barrier. Jax squatted beside him, “Commander, what next? He’s barely broken a sweat . . . but he’s breaking our demons. Many are already fleeing.”
He nodded, knowing his captain was right. Their forces were beleaguered from the Olympian barrage, but Ares seemed to only be hitting his stride. “We need something else. Something we’ve not tried yet,” he told Ajax.
“I know what that is,” came Daphne’s unexpected, tinkling voice. Leo jolted at her sudden appearance in their midst. She huddled along with him behind his shield, and then wordlessly passed over the bejeweled quiver of arrows. “You left these in your chambers.”
The battle had come so quickly, he’d not even thought to take Eros’s arrows with him.
She beamed at him. “I think you’ll find these prophesied weapons are just what you’re missing.”
“Seven more Spartans added to the fray,” he agreed. “Who could ask for more?”
“What?” Jax asked in disbelief.
“No time to explain now. But this could give us the break we need.” Leo notched the arrow in his bow, preparing to aim. “On my mark, drop your shields,” he told his warriors, and the command was murmured down the line until all were ready.
“Ready!” Leo thundered. “Mark!”
With the epic clanking of bronze, the phalanx came down around them.
 
What was this madness? Ares stared down at his thick, muscular thigh as if stung by a bee. For that was the pain the arrow had inflicted upon entering his leg. Nothing but a sharp and quick sting, nothing more. With a laugh, he reached down and yanked the offending weapon out of his leg.
“You think to fell me with weapons made by man? I can’t be killed! No god can!” He laughed, hurling the weapon toward Leonidas’s feet like a casual thunderbolt. “Surely you’ll bring me better than that. Measly effort.”
“That weapon was not made by a mortal’s hands,” Leonidas called out, striding toward him as if he were still immortal. “But by a
god
!”
Ares laughed. “Oh, which god would even try to forge a weapon against me? Don’t tell me it’s Eros, my weak-willed, lily-hearted son? By what power? Sonnets and verse?”
“No, Ares, someone you value more than your own son,” Leonidas told him, still striding forward, appearing untouchable. His band of demons clearly thought otherwise, surging toward the king. But Ares raised a hand, staying them. This riddle intrigued him.
And, he had to admit, the tiny prickling wound in his leg . . . had begun to throb. Not with pain, but something—some feeling—he could not name nor recognize.
Ares swatted at the tiny wound. “There are many, many gods and creatures that I value more than Eros. Be more specific, King Leonidas. Who forged this weapon of yours?”

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