She scowled at him. "I don't understand."
Swallowing hard, he forced himself to make a bargain he hoped he didn't live to regret. "The god threatens what I love, and I plan to challenge him, and while I know what a capable warrior I am, I also know that I lack the abilities to destroy a god on my own."
A slow smile curved her lips. "You are a ballsy bastard... and that I respect." She paused to consider his words. "What will you give me for this favor should I grant it?"
"Name it, my goddess, and I'll pay it."
Apollymi approached him slowly. She jerked his chlamys away from his left shoulder blade to show where Bathymaas had placed her mark on him after he swore himself to her alone. "What have you done, mortal? Rezar will kill you for daring to touch his beloved daughter."
"Have you never been in love, goddess?"
She growled low in her throat. "Love makes fools of us all, eventually. Even the great Bathymaas." She pulled his chlamys back over the mark. "I still should kill you."
Aricles didn't flinch or react to her words at all.
"Have you nothing to say to that?" she asked him.
"I'd rather you not."
She laughed. "You are lucky you're so brave. That alone has saved your life today." She stepped back and narrowed her gaze on him. "And unfortunately, you can't kill Apollo... as much as I'd love for you to."
Aricles felt his spirits crash at her words.
"But... you can defeat him, and when you do, bring him to me, bound and gagged, and that will be my fee." She manifested a bronze xiphos and held it out to him. "Use this to level the field and once you have him defeated, bring him here to me."
He frowned at the weapon in his hand that didn't look any different than the one he normally carried into battle. "What is special about this sword?"
"It was dipped in the River Styx. It will allow Apollo to bleed as any mortal."
"Thank you, goddess."
She inclined her head to him. "Good luck, Aricles, and beware of treachery."
"Always." After saluting her with the sword, he strapped it on as she vanished.
He placed his hand on the hilt and he left her temple. Now he had an appointment to keep, and Apollo was definitely going to bleed.
January 24, 12,248 BC
Aricles sighed contentedly as he held Bathymaas in the quiet morning hours. Now that the others knew the truth, they'd laughed at him when he'd gone to bed in their barracks.
"You have a beautiful goddess for wife and you'd sleep here with us, alone? Are you insane?"
He smiled at the memory of Galen's indignant tone. Brushing the hair back from her cheek, he placed a kiss there at the same time a bright flash lit up the room.
Aricles barely had time to blink before he was blasted out of the bed and pinned to the floor. Every bone in his body felt shattered. Unable to move, he was forced to lie there as a huge man stalked him with murder in his gold eyes. Well built and stout, he was obviously someone's god of war.
Bathymaas came awake with a gasp. "Papas, no!" She leapt from the bed, dragging the sheet with her so that she could wrap it around her naked body. She grabbed the god's huge biceps. "Don't hurt him!"
"I don't want to hurt him. I want to kill the rancid bastard dog!"
She planted herself between them. "I love him, Papas. If you kill him, you will destroy my heart."
His eyes tormented, Set pulled her into his arms and held her tight. He pressed his lips to her head as he glared at Aricles. "You have a heartbeat?"
She nodded.
Set cursed. "When Apollo said he'd seen you with a man, I went to gut that Greek bastard, but Ma'at stopped me. Have you any idea what you've set into motion, daughter?"
Tears fell down her cheeks. "I don't care. He is all to me."
Brushing her tears aside, Set sighed heavily then released whatever invisible hold he had on Aricles. "I wish you'd told me first."
"I knew you wouldn't approve and I didn't want you to hurt Ari."
Completely embarrassed, Aricles quickly dressed.
Set growled deep in his throat as he stepped away from Bathymaas. "Leto is calling for your removal and punishment. She says that the war you've been waging against the Greeks isn't one of justice, but rather a favor for your Atlantean husband."
She was aghast at the ludicrous accusation. "Ari wants nothing to do with war."
Set scowled at him. "But he's your best fighter."
"Who wants nothing to do with war," Aricles repeated. "I was a farmer before all this, and I preferred that to fighting."
Set laughed angrily. "None of that matters. They're still demanding blood from us."
"And I've demanded Apollo's."
Bathymaas gasped as she stepped away from her father to face her husband. "What have you done, Ari?"
"I issued a challenge to Apollo. We are settling this the only way the Greeks understand. With violence."
"No," she breathed. "You can't!"
"He's right."
She glared at her father. "No, he's not."
"Yes, daughter, he is. If he beats Apollo, it would end the bloodlust and intimidate the others. They'll back down."
"And if they don't?"
Set brushed his hand against her chin. "You are new to emotions, Bathy. And I doubt you understand the power of fear." He looked past her to Aricles. "When are you to fight him?"
"Two days from now."
"Make sure you don't lose, boy."
Aricles glanced to his wife. "I promise, I won't."
But even as he said that, Bathymaas had a terrible feeling in her gut. Something bad was going to happen. She had no doubt.
January 25, 12,248 BC
Bathymaas trembled as she watched Aricles sparring with Galen. Terrified over the upcoming fight, she glanced to Caleb. "Do you think he can win against Apollo?"
"Honestly?"
She nodded.
"I do."
"Are you saying that to comfort me?"
Caleb laughed. "I keep forgetting that you have emotions. So, no. I don't think about comforting you, even now."
How she wished she could forget she had them.
Over and over, her mind conjured images of Aricles dying horribly. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't banish them. They kept returning to torture her.
Unable to stand it, she left the others and went to Mount Olympus where Apollo lived with the majority of the Greek gods. As much as she hated it, she had to make a deal with her enemy. It was the only way to ensure Aricles's safety and life. While she believed Malphas's words that Ari could defeat the god, she couldn't risk Apollo cheating.
And Apollo was definitely not above that.
Apollo dropped the lyre he was playing as she manifested before his chaise inside his private temple. "Has the equator frozen over?"
She rolled her eyes at him. "I'm here to issue you a challenge."
He scoffed. "I'm tired of these challenges from you and your boy-toy. Not to mention, I already have a fight tomorrow."
Shrugging with a nonchalance she didn't feel, Bathymaas arched a brow. "I'm impressed. I had no idea that you craved humiliation so much."
"How do you mean?"
"We both know you can't beat Aricles. He's the best fighter who ever picked up a hoplon and sword. And as of tomorrow, everyone else will know it, too. I merely came to try and save some of your dignity. But since you're so desperate for public degradation, who am I to deprive you?" She started to leave, but he stopped her.
"What did you have in mind?"
"A contest between gods. You and I. That way, if you lose, no one will mock you for it."
"And if I win?"
As if that could ever happen. But she needed to give him some kind of hope, otherwise he'd never agree to this. "What do you want, Apollo?"
"You to stand down and allow my mother to be the supreme goddess of justice."
She was aghast at his request. "Truly? That's what you want?"
He nodded.
Leto wou
ld never be a decent goddess of justice. The bitch had no understanding of it. But that didn't matter. Apollo would never defeat her.
"Fine then... I challenge you to a contest of bowmanship. We are both gods of archery. Grab your bow and meet me outside my temple."
"Now?" he asked in shock.
She glanced about his empty temple. "You have something better to do?"
He narrowed his gaze on her. "I want witnesses to this."
Gaping, Bathymaas was astonished by his request. "What? You think I would cheat you?"
"Who knows what you might do? You have emotions now. I wouldn't put anything above you."
She lifted her chin as anger ripped through her. "Never have I been more offended, but since I know you're far more likely to cheat than I am, I, too, will bring a witness. I'll see you there in an hour."
He inclined his head to her. "One hour."
"Are you sure about this, daughter?"
Bathymaas reached up to touch her father's cheek. "I am. I can't take a chance on Apollo harming my husband. Ari is everything to me."
Set held the bow he'd given to her when she was a child. Only Bathymaas could draw the string to it, and she never missed whatever she was aiming for. With the exception of Ari and her father, it was the one thing she treasured most in the universe.
The air behind her stirred.
Turning, she found Apollo and his twin sister, Artemis. With long, curly red hair, Artemis was one of the more beautiful goddesses.
Even so, a chill of foreboding went down Bathymaas's spine at Apollo's chosen second. "You asked your sister?" It was known by all that the god had little use or love for his twin.
"You didn't give me much time to prepare." Apollo eyed her father as if Set made him extremely nervous.
And well he should. A primal god, her father was known to rip the fun body parts off men he didn't like. Which was why she'd asked him to come. With her father present, she was hoping Apollo would be on his best behavior.
Bathymaas took her bow and jerked her chin toward their targets at the end of the field. "Three shots."
Apollo made no move to conjure his weapon. Instead, he pursed his lips. "Perhaps we should make this more interesting."
She narrowed her eyes on him suspiciously. "How so?"
"As you said, we're both gods of archery. How about we shoot at my sister's golden hinds?"
Artemis gasped. "Apollo, you can't! They were gifts to me and I need them to pull my chariot."
Apollo gave her a withering glare. "You only need four of them and you have five. I say we take one and release it in a herd of other deer and let them run. Whoever shoots the golden hind in the heart wins."
Artemis curled her lip. "I vote I challenge Bathymaas and we shoot at you, brother dearest."
Set and Bathymaas laughed.
Apollo not so much.
Turning his back to his sister, he faced Bathymaas. "Are you up to the challenge?"
"Where are these hinds?"
"In Artemis's meadow."
Bathymaas frowned at the obvious trick. Should her father step one foot on Olympus, the other Greek gods would call out for a supreme war. "You'd allow us to venture to Olympus?"
"I can have one of the hinds put here if you'd rather."
"Of course, I'd rather."
Without reacting to her tone, he glanced over to Artemis. "Go fetch the first hind you see and mix it with a herd here. Then let us know when you release them."
"I hate you," Artemis snarled under her breath before she went to comply.
Bathymaas lowered her bow as Artemis vanished. While they waited for Artemis's return, she couldn't shake the uneasy feeling in her stomach.
Something awful was going to happen. She could feel it.
But before she had time to fully examine that sensation, Artemis returned. "I have a buck mixed in with the others. Say the word and they're released."
Apollo finally manifested his bow. He glanced to Bathymaas. "Ready?"
"Whenever you are."
"Release the deer!" Apollo called out.
Bathymaas nocked her arrow and waited.
After a few seconds, the deer herd ran through the trees in front of them.
Apollo shot a heartbeat before she did. His arrow went into the flanks of the hind. Hers went straight to its heart.
Relieved it was over and she'd won, Bathymaas started to smirk, until the hind began to change form. Her breath caught in her throat.
No!
Dropping her bow, she teleported to Aricles. Naked, he lay on the grass with Apollo's arrow embedded in his thigh.
And hers in his heart.
"Ari," she sobbed, sinking to her knees. She pulled him into her arms. "How?"
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. His breathing came in short, ragged breaths. "I was... with Galen..."
Bathymaas screamed out for her aunt to come help her.
Ma'at appeared instantly then froze. "What is this?"
"Apollo... he transformed Ari into a hind and I shot him."
Her eyes filled with tears, Ma'at knelt by her side. "Child, you know I can't heal your arrow wounds. No one can."
Utter despair claimed her as she stared into the pain-filled eyes of her husband. "Ari... I didn't know it was you."
"Shh," he breathed, reaching up to cup her cheek. "Don't cry, Bathia. You are my heart and I will always be with you. If it takes me ten thousand lifetimes, I will find my way back to you, I promise." As he went to smile, he expelled a single breath and his hand fell from her face.
The light faded from his eyes and as it did so her amulet that he wore around his neck broke into two halves.
Screaming in utter anguish, she cradled him to her chest and rocked his body as grief tore her apart. Someone, she assumed Ma'at, placed a comforting hand to her shoulder.
"Rezar! Stop it!"
She looked up at Ma'at's cry to realize that it was Artemis by her side, and her aunt was trying to keep her father from killing Apollo and Leto.
Tears glittered in the Greek goddess's green eyes. "I didn't know, Bathymaas. I'm so sorry. He was grazing outside my temple. I just assumed he was one of mine. I had no idea my mother had done this to him and to you. I swear it." The agony in her voice attested to the truth of her words.
But it changed nothing.
Aricles was dead.
By her own hand, and by Apollo's and Leto's treachery. And as she sat there with his body in her arms, a frightening cold filled her. It chilled every part of her being and stilled her beating heart.
She'd been conceived as a goddess of justice. But this wasn't just.
It wasn't right.
And her husband's wrongful death would not go unavenged.
Kissing his cold lips, Bathymaas laid him on the ground and covered his body with her cloak.
Artemis gasped and shrank away from her as she rose to her feet and turned toward Apollo and his mother.
For this, there would be hell to pay.
And hers would be the hand that gathered the payment.
Epilogue
January 3, 12,247 BC
Set held his infant daughter in his hands as his heart broke all over again. With tears streaming down his cheeks, he met Ma'at's gaze and saw his own sorrow mirrored in her eyes. After the death of her husband, Bathymaas had gone on a bloodthirsty rampage that had almost cost the Olympian pantheon all their lives. But since Apollo's life was tied to the sun, they couldn't allow her to kill him, or else the entire world would have ended. But her rage had been such that no amount of logic could keep her from her vengeance.
Uniting for the first time in history, the gods and Chthonians had all gathered to lay a death sentence on her. Something Set couldn't allow. Desperate, he'd gone to his sister, who'd conceived the plan to have Bathymaas reborn with half a heart and with no memory of her precious Aricles.
Now she slept again in his arms, tiny and defenseless.
"Will you ever let me hold my daught
er?"
He glanced up at Symfora's request. She lay on the bed where she'd delivered his daughter to him just a few minutes ago. The Atlantean goddess of sorrow and woe, she'd been the perfect mother for his child. If anyone would understand his daughter's pain, it was Symfora.
Kissing his daughter on the brow, he carried her back to Symfora and placed her in her mother's arms. "She is beauty incarnate."
"As is her father." Symfora cradled her with the love he wanted his girl to know. "So what are we to call her?"
"Bet'anya."
Symfora arched a brow at that. "House of Misery?"
"She is to be your goddess of misery and wrath, is she not?"
"Indeed." She glanced down at her daughter and offered a rare smile. "But I shall call you Bethany, little one."
Set cringed at the name that was almost identical to Aricles's nickname for her. Symfora could use it if she chose to, but he would never call her by the name her husband had given her. She would always be his precious Bet.
He took her small, fragile hand into his. I hope I haven't harmed you, daughter. Because of the Source powers they'd used for her birth, Bet only had half her heart.
The other half lay with her Aricles and wouldn't return to her until he did.
You better find her, you bastard.
Otherwise, Set would rain a wrath down on this world that would make Bathymaas's seem merciful. But in his heart, he knew true love when he saw it.
Come what may, Aricles would find and reunite with his Bathymaas. And no matter what powers sought to divide them, Set held no doubt that they would one day be together again...
Read more about Bathymaas and Aricles in Styxx.
PHANTOM LOVER
1
"Men are the scourge of the universe. I say we line them all up along the highway and then mow them down with big trucks." Chrissy paused as her light blue eyes widened with a new thought. "No, wait. Steamrollers! Yeah, let's steamroll them all until they're nothing more than slimy wet spots on the road."
Arching a brow at the rancor, Erin McDaniels looked up from her desk to see her co-worker Chrissy Phelps gripping the edge of Erin's tan cubicle wall. The large brunette's eyes were flashing mad and Chrissy had the look of a woman one step away from the edge.
"Having trouble with the boyfriend again, eh, Chrissy?"
"Actually, it's my younger brother who has me ticked, but since you brought up the boyfriend thing, take my advice: Be the black widow. Find a guy, have fun with him, then eviscerate him in the morning before he can brag about it to his friends."