The Heart of War (20 page)

“Where are we going?” she asked again as they emerged into the bright sunlight and Onya held up a hand to shade her eyes.

“Shut up,” Kat spat. “I’ve got a job for you and you’re going to do it.”

Trying to keep her balance as they made their way along the narrow path leading to and away from the cave, Onya thought she heard the soft sound of voices and she looked down at the beach below. “Who’s that with Alena?”

“None of your damn business.” Kat gave Onya’s wrist a rough yank as she plodded along but she looked out of the corner of her eye and worried once more just what Apollo was up to and why he was here.

Onya craned her neck to look back and below as they went forward. She had never seen that man before and Ares was going to be very upset when he found out there had been a visitor here while he was away. “You know him? What’s he doing with her?”

“You should be more worried about yourself, you stupid little bitch.”

No longer able to see Alena and the blond man on the beach, Onya looked up before she turned her head forward. Back there the guards were glaring at her with cold grins. Nicco was not among them nor was Scopas. “Oh no,” Onya muttered to herself and then, out fear and desperation, she called out for her friend who probably could not hear her. “Alena!”

Kat stopped walking and turned around abruptly. “Shut up!” Kat growled just before she slapped Onya hard across the face, leaving the smaller woman’s cheek red and stinging. “She can’t help you, so just shut up.”

Directly below Ares’ cave, set deep in the steep Cliffside facing the north shore, were caverns so inaccessible they were nearly useless to any mortal. Ares stored nothing in them and they were so hard to get to even the creatures didn’t make homes there. Dragging a squirming and protesting Onya sideways down the steep rocky slope so as not to lose her precarious footing, Kat found Nicco and Scopas were already waiting for them. “Here she is, do what you want with her but don’t leave any marks,” Kat warned as she shoved Onya toward the waiting arms of the men.

Onya flew into a panic, she began to scream, to kick, to bite, and the two guards laughed as she they pushed her down to the dirt floor. “Ares will kill you for this!” Onya shouted out her warning.

“No, he won’t, because you won’t tell him. If you do, I’ll deny it,” Kat said calmly. “I’ll tell him how I came in here and found you fucking the two of them. How much you were enjoying it.” She got down on her knees next to the squirming woman, grabbed hold of her bottom jaw. “What do you think he’ll have to say…to do…about that? His precious little Onya riding the pony behind his back.” Kat pushed her tongue deep into Onya’s mouth while the free hand grabbed hold of shaking breast beneath the fur halter. “I think he’ll be very upset with you and the next time he leaves, I’ll let all of them have you.” Satisfied that her warning was understood, Kat pulled back to watch.

Standing over Onya, Nicco dropped his pants and then straddled her head. One thick leg resting heavily on each of her arms pinned her firmly in place; he grabbed a hold of her jaw. “I watch you suck Ares’ cock all the time, let’s see how you do with mine.” He brushed the tip of it across her lips but she wouldn’t open her mouth. Nicco applied pressure with the hand holding Onya’s jaw. She opened her mouth to let out a cry of pain and Nicco slid his hard cock inside. “Bite me and it’ll be the last thing you ever do.” Letting go of her jaw, he slid his hand under the back of her head to wrap his fingers deep in her auburn hair. Nicco brought her mouth up to greet him and then began to surge in and out. Onya wasn’t complying with the level that he wanted and Nicco had waited a long time to sink into this one again. She was not going deny him every inch of pleasure that he sought. “Suck on it!” he demanded and tightened the fist in her hair to emphasize his point. Still she did not comply, her mouth only sat motionless around him as he thrust. With his free hand, he slapped her still stinging cheek and felt her teeth rattle against his hard shaft. “Do it, you bitch!”

The frightened woman began to suckle even though all she wanted to do was wretch.

“Better,” Nicco said in a darkly soothing voice. “Do it like that, don’t stop.”

Gagging and choking on the hard shaft jamming its way down her throat, Onya tried suck but air was a rare commodity. Between Nicco sitting on her chest and the cock blocking her airway she couldn’t draw breath enough to create a vacuum. Her arms flailing from the elbows down, instinct urged her to push him off but her arms were of no use. Her legs were free and she planted her feet firmly against the dirt, gave an upward heave with as much force as she could gather and bucked like a prize bull. Nicco, his weight resting on the balls of his feet and his knees, pitched forward and his cock scraped along her teeth as he went tumbling off and out of her. The tang of blood dripped against her tongue along with little bits of flesh.

Pain bright and plentiful in his cock rose up through his gut. Scrambling to his feet, Nicco looked down to see his shaft shredded in four deep slices: two on the top and two on the bottom. Turning his eyes upward again, he glared at the woman who caused him so much agony.

Onya knew she was in more trouble than she could have ever before imagined. “No, no, wait, I didn’t mean…”

Nicco’s cock was throbbing but it was still hard, harder than he could remember, and it was hungry for vengeance. “Get her,” he spat through tight lips.

Scopas grabbed Onya from behind, wrenched an arm up behind her back, pushed her forward to Nicco while he raised the little fur skirt upward, grabbed a ruthless hold of her inner thigh and then yanked upward to raise the leg off the floor as his hard cock twitched between her butt cheeks. Onya pitched forward, little pussy open and waiting, Nicco’s large, throbbing and unforgiving cock impaled her. She cried out at the ruthlessness of his entry. “How’s that, you bitch? Huh? You like that?” Nicco whispered as he thrust forward, deeper into her. Grabbing the raised leg, he wrapped it around his waist before grabbing the other one and doing the same. He leaned back against the rough rock wall, pinning her feet between it and his back. “Come on, tell me how much you like it.”

Giving up hope of rescue, Onya slumped forward to rest her less than considerable weight against him. “I like it,” she muttered.

“I knew you would. You’re a tight little one, aren’t you?” The hands grabbing and kneading her hips pushed down, jamming more of him inside that snug hole. “I see why Ares keeps you to himself. But not today. Today, I’ve got something else for you,” Nicco whispered in her ear and then raised his eyes to meet Scopas’ gaze. “Come over here, let’s split this bitch.”

Licking his lips, Scopas looked down at Kat who was looking on with great malicious curiosity. She’d raised her little fur skirt and was starting to rub off. Stopping to dip his own throbbing cock into Kat’s mouth for a moment, he made his way up behind Onya and rubbed the newly lubed tool between her ass cheeks. He would get back to Kat in a minute, but this first. “I think you’re really going to like this.” Reaching down he pried those already spread cheeks apart and made his entry into her firm ass.

The woman caught between them let out the faintest cry of pain that was so exquisitely sharp it made both their cocks harden and twitch. As Scopas’ hands slid down her, Nicco brought his hands up from her hips to the sides of her face. Pulling her head away from the nape of his neck and her hair back, he stared into her frightened pain-filled eyes. “Take it, you take it. That’s a good little whore.” That was when the tears finally started to fall; he turned her head around so Scopas could see them.

“Harder,” Kat commanded breathlessly as she watched the scene growing more excited with each surging thrust. “Fuck her harder. Break her in right.”

“Whatever you want, mistress,” Nicco returned with a cold smile and the two of them worked her from both ends with all they had.

2

Psyche & Artemis
(As Told by Apollo)

Ares’ exile started when Psyche took a nosedive from the top of the Tower she shared with Eros to the bottom of Mount Olympus. The question was: Did she jump, or did someone push her?

Being civilized creatures the Olympians held a trial. Eros claimed to have looked up from the bottom of the mountain only to see his wife falling and his Father, Ares, at the top of tower looking back at him with an angry snarl.

Apollo gave testimony that only an hour or so before he had inadvertently walked in on Ares with Psyche in the parlor of Eros’ Tower. He could not say for sure if Psyche was enjoying the way Ares was fucking her from behind. To him it looked as though she may not have been, he could only say with certainty that he had walked in on them at a very intimate moment. Ares being Ares, upon seeing his brother he did not bother to stop putting it to his Daughter-in-law but instead kept right on going, asking if Apollo wanted to join him. Apollo said he had declined and warned the two of them to stop whatever they were doing before Eros found out.

A short while later, Apollo still outside the tower, said he heard yelling and shouting. He recognized the voices as belonging to Ares and Psyche. When Apollo looked up, Psyche was falling. It was his belief that Ares had thrown her from the tower to keep her quiet about what transpired between them.

Ares did not take this lying down and instead protested his innocence. It was Ares’ assertion that it was Apollo and not he who was being intimate with Psyche that night. Psyche appeared to be greatly enjoying the act as she cooed, gyrated, clawed and drew Apollo closer to her. That it had been he, Ares, who warned the couple to call off their affair. Yes, he followed Psyche up to the bedroom at the very top of the tower once he saw Apollo leave. It was only to talk. Yes, perhaps he was angry and his voice raised, but he did not raise a hand to her, he did not threaten her. Psyche, cowering and shaking, screaming at him nearly incoherently backed away from him until she could back away no more. At that point, she climbed the wall, still facing Ares who was still approaching but by now doing so with the intent to grab her and pull her away from danger. Just as he lunged for her, Psyche jumped. She did it on her own and he did not understand entirely why, but he did not throw her and he did not push her. “I never even touched her.”

The Great Council Chamber in Zeus’ Palace high atop Mount Olympus fell silent as the Gods around him considered what Ares said. If any other person, Man or God, stood here and told them the same thing, they would not be looking at them with such suspicion and disdain. When the silence became deafening, it was Apollo who broke it with his lyrical voice. “I have her,” Apollo returned with an undertone of victory as he lovingly gestured toward the beauty at his side. “Aphrodite. So what need would I have of Psyche?” Aphrodite stood there with a smug look on her beautiful face; hand on hip purposefully jutted out to one side.

“You and I both know, Brother,” Ares began arrogantly, “scratch that,” he stroked the beard on his chin while he made a circular motion in the air with the index finger of his other hand. “All of us here…” he looked around and took a quick head count, “yeah, all of us… know…she’s not as good as she looks.”

Aphrodite looked around at the others trying to gauge their reactions, but they were all stoic. “You know him,” she said in a strong but gentle voice. “We all know what he did to Artemis.” The stoic stares turned into knowing glances.

It was hardly twenty years before that Artemis suddenly turned up dead and all of Olympus was still reeling from it, now this. Everyone remembered that day. Who could forget the sight of Ares God of War, with Artemis lying limp in his arms, splayed out like Jesus on the cross as he carried her through the snow covered Gates and into Zeus’ Palace? Although Ares appeared deep in the clutches of grief—his face haggard, his dark eyes red and swollen from crying—they all wondered what part he had played. None of them could prove Ares had something to do with Artemis’ death, he always asserted that all he had ever done was find the bloody remains of her body and brought her home to Olympus. They had been suspicious of him from that day on.

The cold grin on his face turned into a sneer as Ares bared his teeth. “Don’t bring my sister into this, woman. I would never harm her. I loved her and she loved me.”

“Love?” Aphrodite hissed. “What do you know about Love anyway, Ares?” She looked at the others one by one. “Lust and desire, you know. No woman will ever love you, what woman could love War? Not even Artemis could do this, that is why you raped her, and
you
killed her! Just as you killed my Daughter-in-law…in cold blood!” Aphrodite charged in a strong voice that rung through the Great Council Chamber. A low murmur of agreement followed.

Standing in the middle of the Chamber, surrounded by his Kin, Ares balled his fists and railed at them. “You bitch! I never touched either of them!”

Aphrodite had their attention and the wound of Artemis was still fresh and gaping. All of them desperately wanting to punish someone—anyone—for the heinous crime. “You. You are cold and you are ruthless, you are selfish and you care nothing for anything that does not directly benefit you. All you know is what you want. All you care about is what you want; the whys and the hows and who gets hurt do not matter. Not to Psyche and not to Artemis.
You killed them!”

With that, Olympus shook and rumbled for days as the Gods argued over the deaths of Psyche and Artemis.

All of this left Zeus in quite the pickle. To his mind, there was only one way to solve the mystery of how Psyche died. Zeus finally demanded that Hades call Psyche forth from the Underworld to be questioned. Hades was never a big fan of letting those in his kingdom out for a little walk, but he capitulated even though he had already told Zeus the woman knew nothing. They summoned the Soul of Psyche to Olympus and to the Great Council Chamber. This was no easy feat, Hades did not do it lightly, and he warned Zeus that he could not do it for long.