Chapter 6 Soraya
God, it’s hot. I blink, trying to get the glare out of my face.
I sit up and look around. Bloodied armor is scattered on the carpeted floor.
The soft curling of the smoke from a fire pit disappears into the air.
It mixes with the scent of rawhide and sweat.
I blink down and look at my feet, seeing a spear resting to the side of them and a shield leaning on a tent post. What the hell is this?
I hear a groan and see a half-naked man lying on his stomach; dark black hair covers his face. His back bears battle scars, both old and new. I squint, only to see fingernail lines running down his back. His breathing is heavy…labored. The sun filters through the canvas resting on his blocked face.
Who is he? I lean forward and brush the hair away from his face.
I edge away from the bed, my hands falling onto a wooden tent post. “Ares?”
His shoulders shift, and he awakens as I still try to bumble around the tent. What the hell is my Black ass doing in a tent? Is this glamping?
“Talia, my love.” Ares’s voice is rich with timbre.
My love? Who is he calling ‘Talia’?
“I am not Talia,” I reply, slowly moving around the room, opening a trunk filled with soft silks and gold bangles.
I guess this must be Talia’s.
“My love, come back to bed. You can be anything you desire to be.” Ares flips the fur, tapping the ground beside him.
I shake my head. “No, I am not Talia.”
“Very funny, my love. Look in the mirror and see.”
The mirror was a large polished silver disk, set in what seemed to be copper.
When I stare at my reflection, it isn’t me. A woman looks back at me with fair skin and green eyes. Red hair spills over her shoulder.
Her lips move. “Free me…Soraya.” Her eyes become hollow, like dark pits. Her purple toga is shredded and covered in blood and ash.
She screams out, stretching her hand out to me. “You must die.”
That was the dream I had last night. I think it’s because I ate late, added to the fact that Ares and I had sex.
I groan out loud, pressing my hand to my face.
I can feel his weight pressing down on me, the rhythm in the way he drove into me.
I can still feel him pounding inside of me.
God, how pathetic am I? Begging, asking for his permission to come.
Sex with Ares was rough, thick, heavy…punishing.
I loved every minute of it until he walked away.
“Can we have these?” Nisa interrupts my thoughts as she pushes a sugary box of cereal in front of my face.
“Sure.” I push the trolley down the aisle. Did we need groceries? No. In fact, I think groceries and market vendors come to the house. I just needed to get out because it felt like a lot. A lot of emotions, a lot of things left unsaid.
Michelle hasn’t called. We said we would meet after I grocery shop.
My phone shrills, and I take it out of my bag.
“Hi, Mich.”
“Where are you?”
I look at Nisa, who picks up a box of sugar cookies. I shake my head. “I’m at Buster’s Market on Lower Baker Street. I’m so excited to see you.”
Nisa puts a soda into the basket.
“Same. I’m five minutes away. I’ll see you soon.”
I put back the soda, and the huge chocolate Nisa dropped in the trolley.
I raise my eyes and see the silver mirror sitting at the top of the aisle.
To my right, I see a man in a long coat texting.
Everything about him feels off. Who the hell wears a long coat in the middle of summer in Bakersfield, Florida?
No one. Perhaps I’m being silly, but something has heightened my senses.
I push forward; Nisa doesn’t need to be alarmed.
I move down another aisle, and he is there again.
No, I am not being paranoid. He is following me.
Should I call Ares? Or Phobos? No, I just need to get out of here.
Leaving the basket behind, I grab Nisa’s hand and hurry to the security guard. “Hi, there is a man following me.” I feel Nisa tense beside me.
“Where is he?” The guard asks.
I look back, and no one is behind me. “I’m telling you, I am being followed.”
“No one doubts you.”
I leave the basket and food behind. “Let’s go, Nisa.”
I appreciate Nisa’s urgency. She is moving next to me.
“Sorry, let me escort you to your car.” The officer huffs to the side of me like he was trying to catch his breath.
“Um, sure,” I reply, moving Nisa from the center to my side. Just as I’m about to reach my car, a black van opens and three men jump out.
Nisa screams, and they move to grab her.
“Let her go!” I shout. Every fiber of my body is tense. I knock a man on his head with my bag. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the guard freeze, one hand hovering near his radio, the other tightening around something in his pocket. He is not helping. He’s waiting.
“Noooo!” Nisa screams. Her teeth sink into the assailant. He delivers a backhand, and instantly she collapses.
“I am going to kill you.” No one in the parking lot stopped and helped. They all stare as I am being hoisted into the car.
“Let me the fuck go! Help!” Then, I feel a prickly pinch on the side of my neck.
My world tilts, and I feel my knees go weak. “Ares,” I whisper right before it all becomes dark.
ARIC
“Seventy-five million,” I state.
On the other side of the laptop, the figure sits in darkness; their voice is distorted through a diffuser. “That asking price is too high.”
“Why does this mortal think he can hide from us?”
“Well, that’s my asking price,” I stop mid-sentence as the air shifts around me. Something was wrong. My scar pulses.
“I will contact you tomorrow.” I don’t wait to hear his response. I close the laptop and head out of my office. I know Nisa and Soraya ate breakfast this morning. I smelled the pancakes that she had made.
“Soraya?” I shout, knowing that she was not in the house.
“Something is wrong, Ares.”
I lift my head and sniff to see if an entity had entered my house. But I get nothing.
“What the hell is going on, Aric?”
I take my phone out and dial her number, and it goes straight to voicemail. Maybe they’re in the garden having a picnic. I dash back into the office and pull my blinds aside.
“Hecate!” I shout. She doesn’t show up. I close my eyes and breathe.
“Phobos, Deimos, come to me, please.” I pace the length of my office.
Deimos appears, sitting on one of my office chairs. He stretches his arms over his head, and the pink shirt rides up, showing off his tattooed abs. The belt hangs open on his emerald green pants.
“Just as I was about to get some head, you—”
I shake my head like I was trying to clear away fog. “The girls are missing.”
Phobos walks in. “What girls?”
“Raya and Nisa.”
Phobos, whose face is normally devoid of expression, grimaces. “Where did they go?”
“I don’t know?”
Deimos sits up. “How the fuck do you not know where your nanny and ward ran off to?”
“I said I don’t know, Deimos,” I mutter low with a warning.
“Give me a sec.” Phobos disappears out of the office.
Deimos shifts his gaze to the chalice still sitting on the side table and then back to me.
“Shouldn’t that be in a glass case or something?” He flicks his head in the chalice’s direction.
I look back at the chalice and then at Deimos. “I have to find her, Deimos.”
Phobos reappears. “She took the Audi. I tracked it to Buster’s.”
Both Deimos and I have blank expressions on our faces.
“Pray tell, brother, what’s a ‘Buster’s’?” Deimos shifts his legs off the arm of the chair.
Phobos’s face remains flat with no expression. “It’s a grocery store. Anyway, after some questions, I fear they are not there. They were kidnapped.”
The air feels cold. “Are you sure?”
Phobos nods. “I moved through Buster’s and found the security booth. I saw it all.”
Deimos cringes. “And you just left?”
“No, I took care of the camera and tapes.”
The scar pulses, and my skin feels like it’s about to burst. I inhale and feel like I am being submerged in hot lava. I throw my head back and stretch, allowing Ares to take over.
“Oh no, the ugly part of Father has arrived,” Deimos comments.
“You’ve never had a pretty side, Deimos.” I look over to Phobos. “Where is Hecate?”
Phobos shrugs. “I don’t know.”
My muscles tighten, my breathing shortens, and the vein in my forehead pulses. I close my eyes and inhale and kneel.
“Is he kneeling?” Deimos says. “This is Ares, right, not Aric?”
“Shut up, brother.”
I bend my head; my palms are upward, resting on my knees. “ánassa Hekáte triples hodo? kyría. P?r nyktós kaí klês ski?n. árēs s’ epikale?tai; élthois, déspoina, hōs symmachos polémou.”
(Queen Hecate, mistress of the triple road. Fire of night and key of shadows. Ares calls upon you. Come, Lady, as an ally in war.)
Cold air rushes through the room. The lights flicker, and I open my eyes, seeing the pointed part of her black stilettos.
“I can get used to this.”
I get off my knees. “Where have you been?”
She tilts her head and throws her hair over her shoulder. “Doing important shit with Nyx, unlike you three.”
“The girls are gone. They were kidnapped,” Phobos states, and Hecate stops and looks at me.
“I can find them. Remember the little bracelet I gave them? It’s like a homing device,” Hecate says.
I nod. “I need their exact locations.”
Hecate walks to my coffee table and pushes some coffee books to the floor. I watch as she says her incantation. My heart stops as a miniature part of Bakersfield appears on the table.
She hovers her hand at the edge of the map, and black sand seeps from her fingertips, forming one straight line, moving between buildings, until it reaches one.
“There. They are being kept there.” Hecate enlarges the image. Thorne Enterprises.
I clench my fist. “Can you tell me exactly where in the building?”
Hecate closes her eyes, and the sand turns into one singular grain, moving through the building until it falls to the last floor.
“Is that a parking lot?”