Flame of Cytherea: Cytherean Chronicles book 1 (12 page)

He had made a dreadful mistake, he knew it wasn’t his
responsibility, but he surely had a partial claim to it.
 
All this fought for his attention in his mind
as he focused on the women around him, fighting to keep him safe as he fought
to keep them safe.

That was all that mattered, if they lived through this, they
could deal with the rest of it then.

He felt his energy dwindling and risked opening his eyes.
 
His women and the other fifty talents had
managed to kill around a thousand of them, maybe a little more, but they were
still looking at close to two to one odds, and he simply didn’t have anything
left.
 
Maybe they should have run?

He mumbled, trying to keep his concentration, “I’m about
out, maybe we should retreat?”

Then he felt a rumbling below in the earth and he heard
Anton’s voice scream out, “ATTACK!” as close to a thousand men emerged in the
field from the same holes the Egerian soldiers had used just fifteen minutes
ago.
 
He started laughing in hysterical
relief as the thousand men with him surged ahead and a general melee
started.
 
The odds had been cut back to
about even, but the moral of the enemy troops wasn’t all that high and they
were off balance from being taken by surprise.

The
Abelawethan
soldiers quickly
routed the enemy while they only lost about a fifth of their force, very few
Egerians escaped…

He was grinning with relief when Anton walked over and explained,
“When the hillock collapsed, about ten of the earth mages decided to just fall
in while controlling it.
 
They managed to
save a thousand of us and led us to those tunnels,” he frowned, “Still, today’s
victory feels like a defeat, we lost four thousand good men to that trap, I
should have listened to you.
 
I failed
those men with my arrogance.
 
I was a
fool on top of that, for not heeding the wise words of a Flame of Cytherea.”

With a feeling of dread, he watched Anton fall to his knees
and make an oath, “The strength of Abelaweth is yours in this troubled time, I
Prince Anton will take orders from you in regards to this war only, for the
duration of it, and pledge the support of the crown behind your decisions.
 
Do you accept this oath?”

From what he could understand, Anton was putting him in
charge of the war effort.
 
If he
accepted, it would be all his responsibility.
 
Well he had been angry they didn’t listen to him, but he wasn’t sure he
wanted the full responsibility for it either.
 
He suppressed a sigh, time to put his money where his mouth was so to
speak.

“I accept.”

He spent the next hour helping the soldiers and healing the
wounded.
 
His magic felt low, but he had
enough for that if he went to each one and physically touched them.
 
He also figured out how to focus his
magic.
 
If he just turned it on, it would
actively try to restore, heal, protect and change.
 
But if he focused hard enough, he could get
it to just heal and restore the soldiers, they had no need of protection or
change at the moment and it was a waste of magic.

The oath Anton had given him didn’t mean he had to come up
with all the ideas, it was just when there were conflicting ideas he could
force his through.
 
No one had a
differing opinion though, the way forward was obvious.
 
Take the sixteen hundred men that were left
and free the southern villages.
 
There
were still five hundred enemy soldiers down there, though split up in the towns.

For now anyway, he was convinced the commander of the enemy
invasion had escaped, he had a feeling he would go for the towns as well, to
collect his remaining troops and set a new trap.
 
Though the end of the battle had been a rout,
they had lost about four hundred of the two thousand soldiers that survived the
trap.
 
Still, in a battle, five to one on
the butcher’s bill was a huge win, even if it didn’t feel like one.
 

He did use the oath once though during the strategy meeting.

Anton said, “I need to go back north, report to the king and
collect more troops.”

He shook his head, “No, you’d be gone over a week.
 
You need to lead the forces doing actual
battle, why don’t you write a report of what happened, what troops you need,
and send an air talent to deliver it.”

He had some good ideas from Earth’s history and had smelled
out the trap, but he wasn’t a general.
 
He didn’t mind giving Anton orders, but he couldn’t run the
soldiers.
 
He was also getting more
comfortable with the culture and how things worked here, but he still knew he
had a lot to learn.
 
The problem was, he
didn’t know what he didn’t know.
 

As long as Anton was here with his own ideas and advice he
wouldn’t do anything too stupid in ignorance.
 
Like get four thousands soldiers killed?
 
He sighed at the thought, Anton wasn’t all that happy about staying
because of his blunder, hopefully he would get over it.

Although he could probably depend on Nora for that instead
of Anton, he didn’t think the soldiers would follow a woman’s orders, plus, she
was in charge of their little group, she couldn’t do both at the same time, at
least, not well.
 
He also thought that
though she had experience in a small squad and could lead, that might not
translate well to leading a much larger force.

The battle had only taken a couple of hours, once things
were settled and they had gotten some food down, they set out for a half days
march.
 
The faster they went, the more
likely they would catch the Egerian soldiers in small numbers.
 
Even so, it would be this time tomorrow
before they reached the first town.
 

He was a little tempted to go on ahead with the ladies,
together they could probably kill fifty soldiers easily, but he held back from
that idea.

He moved himself right next to Nicci and asked softly, “You
doing okay after that mess this morning?”

She shrugged half heartedly and said, “Seeing all that
death…
 
It drove home what a self
absorbed brat I’ve been.
 
I don’t need to
prove anything to anyone.
 
I just need to
do my best for the people around me.”

Trying to cheer her up he said, “You forgot beautiful, a
beautiful self absorbed brat.”

What the hell?
 
Why
did those dumb ass things always sound better in his head?

She asked with head hanging, “Is that what you think of me,
really?”

Obviously he had failed miserably at the cheering up thing
so he tried again, this time without the humor that wasn’t funny.

Softly in denial he said, “Of course not,” in a serious tone
he added, “I think you grew up isolated, and it’s just taking a while for you
to open up to what’s around you.
 
Self
absorbed has a… selfish connotation, and you have never been that.
 
Just, trouble connecting at first.”

She smiled a bit, a mischievous twinkle growing in her
eye.
 
He guessed he got it right the
second time.

She cocked her head cutely and asked, “So not beautiful then
either?”

He snorted, “Fishing for a compliment?
 
That’s like the water asking if it’s wet.”

At her confused face he said, “Merely beautiful is a major
understatement.”

She looked up with an innocent smile, then winked.
 

That was another issue he had, the words translated but the
sayings didn’t.
 
Right as rain, fit as a
fiddle, fishing for a compliment etc…
 
Still, at least he got her to give him a smile, so, mission
accomplished.

He also noticed he wasn’t getting that hold off feeling
anymore while talking to her, yet he had no idea why, or what had prompted it
before.
 
He was starting to have
suspicions about his feelings and those promptings during sex.
 
His power connected to the goddess, but that
wasn’t unique.
 
Still, he wondered if
Cytherea had been, and still is, feeding him non-verbal advice that he was free
to accept or reject.
 
So far he had
followed those feelings and it had always turned out well…

Besides, one could do a lot worse than having the goddess of
love as a relationship coach and to improve his ability to sense what would give
his partner the greatest pleasure during sex.
 
He would be a fool not to listen.
 
It sounded absurd to him, but there it was.
 
He had originally thought it related to his
magic, but none of the things his magic did had anything to do with identifying
a woman’s secondary erogenous zones.

He frowned at that thought, his magic did enhance the
pleasure during sex, so perhaps he was reading into it too much, and the truth
was it didn’t really matter either way.
 
He was after all, still learning about his new power, perhaps there was
more yet to understand…

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, very glad,
that his instincts weren’t having him hold off anymore.
 
All of the women attracted him, but in
different ways.
 
In Nicci’s case it was
her fresh innocent face and incredible body, it evoked a strange mix of
protectiveness and the need to have her in every way imaginable until he
collapsed in exhaustion.
 
Her cute looks
and the way she flirted seemed to enhance that innocence and in short, drove
him crazy.

He also loved that she had a joy that was infectious, and a
wonder of the world around her that probably came from her being closeted in
the castle so much.

He admitted to himself he may have disregarded the inner
urgings to leave her be, if his libido hadn’t been getting plenty of attention
from Nora and Kat.
 
Those two ladies more
than took the edge off, and held his complete attention.
 
He saw her mouth twitch and knew he’d been
busted staring again, fortunately she not only didn’t mind but seemed to eat up
his attention.

They talked for a while longer before he went off to spend
some time with the rest of the women, after all, if he planned to spend most of
tonight with Nicci, assuming she said yes, he needed to make sure he didn’t
neglect the others…

---------

Arnath
stared down from two
thousand feet, fighting off his rage.
 
He
wanted nothing more than to go into a dive and kill the cursed Flame that had
cost him so much.
 
That wasn’t his purpose
though, at this height he was sure they would never detect his presence.
 
He was following to be sure where they were
going.

It looked to him they planned to start at the westernmost
village and sweep the border going east from town to town.
 
It wasn’t a bad plan, but worthless now that
he knew.
 
He managed to force himself to
break off, his anger growing.
 
He could
feel nothing else now, just anger and fear, which simply made him angrier.
 
It had been a struggle for him to control himself.

He headed for the town east of where they were going.
 
He would simply gather his troops, sweeping
east a day or two ahead the whole way.
 
They should have close to five hundred in the last town.
 
He was tempted to gut the towns on his way
through, but his king wanted to make the
Abelawethans
slaves, not dead enemies.
 
He had a
feeling he would already be in enough trouble for his failures.

He wasn’t sure yet what he would do, once they were all
gathered.
 
If he could set a trap, he
might consider it, or he may take what was left and head for the border.
 
He considered it as he flew…

----------

Kat was a hunter, a tiger made of mostly muscle, designed to
stalk and kill her prey.
 
Her magic lent
her even more skill and strength.
 
She
was stalking a deer about a mile away from the main force.
 
She had killed many soldiers this morning and
needed time to come to terms with it, to absorb the strange turns her life had
taken.
 
Hunting was in her blood,
familiar, and felt normal.
 
She needed
normal.

She didn’t for a moment regret her feelings for Justin, or
what they shared together.
 
Quite the
opposite, she loved him more than she ever thought would be possible despite
their first meeting being a scant week ago.
 
She would never regret following him that afternoon.

But the battle had hit her hard.
 
She was a hunter, but one of animals, for
food and sustenance.
 
She was not a
killer… or at least, not until this past week.
 
They were invaders, and she had protected her intended mate, and she had
reveled in it.
 
The first two points
didn’t bother her at all, it was the third that had drove her to escape, to be
alone with her thoughts, to go on a simple hunt.

Did she revel in the fact she had protected Justin, kept him
safe?
 
Or was it the kill, the power to
take a life with such speed and ease.
 
She hoped, she wanted it to be the former.
 
But she just wasn’t sure.
 
So she was out here, doing what she knew best
while trying to make sense of it.

She
bared
her teeth, having
successfully snuck up to striking range her body scrunched in tight, muscles
contracting, and she dove forward.
 
The
deer didn’t even see what hit it, as she closed her jaws around its neck and
twisted.

----------

Nora shrugged off the guilt as she followed Kat’s
trail.
 
She had recognized the look in
her eyes, it was the same look Nora had worn after her first battle.
 
Back then, it had been her sisters, who had
been there for her and explained it.
 
The
guilt she felt was simply because she was growing to like Kat a lot.
 
Outside of sharing Justin, she was becoming a
real friend.

Now she was planning to tell Kat what she had been told,
something that until now, had been shared only within the ranks of her own
unit.
 
It was something that had brought
her closer to her new sisters two years ago.
 
The guilt was because it felt like a betrayal, but that was stupid she
knew, so she did her best to ignore it.
 
Kat needed her.

She still remembered it like it was yesterday.
 
It was her first fight off the streets, the
first fight with actual casualties.
 
She
had killed three men that day, and had enjoyed it, she had felt… powerful.
 
Afterwards, once her heart slowed, and her
adrenaline dissipated she had felt horror and thought herself a monster for
enjoying it.

She remembered how
Bria
had set
her straight.
 
It was slightly cruel, but
effective,
Bria
had explained after, emotions trump
logic every time.
 
She just hoped she
would be able to pull it off.
 
She wasn’t
much of an actress.
 
It wouldn’t be an
immediate fix of course, but it would help Kat put things in perspective.
 
She found Kat skinning a deer with her claws
and walked up and took a seat on the ground and just started talking.

“You know, it feels like that every time.
 
The adrenaline, the way their life drains
from their eyes.
 
The satisfaction and
thrill of it that makes a heart beat in excitement.
 
I been killing those fuckers for two years, I
practically get off on it, nothing better.
 
Did you know they send in small parties all the time, it’s only the
large ones that get noticed overly.