Warrior Rising (Goddess Summoning #6)(74)

Hera’s stomach fluttered with panic that she quickly squelched. Drawing on the dusting of lust Venus had sprinkled into her skin, she took his arm and smiled coquettishly up at Zeus, leaning her full breast and its erect nipple against his muscular arm. “I thought you called for me, my lord?”

“I did,” he said, obviously trying not to be moved by his wife’s unusually pliant attitude. “I thought we should go to Troy together—form a combined front.”

“Oh.” Hera pouted prettily, pursing her full pink lips and giving him a meaningful, sideways glance. “I thought you desired me for something more intimate than travel and official duties.”

“Well, I do, of course. As I said…” he began, and then stopped speaking as his wife lifted his hand and took his forefinger within the warm pink nest of her mouth and suckled it deeply, flicking the tip of it with her cunning tongue. “Ah, wife.” He moaned as her other hand found the hardening thunderbolt between his legs. “I have missed you, and you do please me.”

“I have just begun to please you, my lord.”

His need to travel to Troy replaced by a more immediate need, Zeus pulled his wife into his arms, and with a masterful motion transported them instantly to their bedchamber, where she did indeed please him, over and over and over…

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

"Patroklos, why can’t you understand?” Achilles said. He’d met his cousin returning from the Greek camp and the two of them were walking side by side down the beach as they argued. “I may have a chance to change my fate, and I intend to take the chance.”

“I do understand.” Patroklos stopped and faced Achilles. “I, too, want your fate to change. But that doesn’t mean you can’t lead our men in battle. It simply means you need to stay away from Hector. It’s only after you kill him that you’re fated to die.”

Achilles shook his head. “Battle is as simple as chaos. Saying I simply need to stay away from one of the Trojan warriors is well and good when I’m not possessed by the berserker in the middle of the smoke and blood and confusion of battle.”

“I’ll help you. All the Myrmidons will help you. We’ll be sure Hector gets nowhere near you.”

Achilles smiled and cuffed Patroklos playfully. “If you intend to nursemaid me, how am I supposed to lead anyone in battle?”

Patroklos moved away and said sharply, “This is not a jesting matter.”

“Do you think I jest about my fate?”

“No.” Patroklos sighed and ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “Nor do I take the prophesy lightly. The last thing I want is your death, cousin.”

“But you’ve grown accustomed to it.” Patroklos began to protest, but Achilles cut him off. “I’d become accustomed to it, too. I was to die before I saw thirty summers, at the gates of Troy, after I killed Hector, but my name was to live on for centuries. It was the choice I made, and when I was young, glory and the immortality of my name were all I thought of. Then I grew older and understood the nature of what I’d chosen and I knew regret, but my fate was a boulder rolling down a mountainside. I could only travel with it. Then she came and everything began to change.”

“Yes! That is exactly my point. Everything is changed now. The goddesses plucked Katrina and Jacqueline’s souls from another world, another time, and brought them here to change everything. How could they then allow your death?”

“Perhaps because I’d been foolish enough to ignore all that they sent me and blundered heedlessly back into battle?”

“Achilles, you said that today you kept the berserker from possessing you. That had to be a gift from the goddesses. Couldn’t they mean for you to use it in battle? To have the ability to fight and lead us without losing yourself to the berserker?”

“My gift is Katrina. She has enabled me to withstand the berserker. And she will not be going into battle with me. Ever.” He put his hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “I love her. I want to spend the rest of my life with her, and I want that to be more than a short span of days.”

Exasperated, Patroklos shouted, “I love Jacqueline! But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to fight for the glory of Greece.”

“You would not be fighting for the glory of Greece. You would be fighting for the glory of Agamemnon.”

“That’s not how history will remember this war,” Patroklos said.

“History be damned! I’ve had enough of living for what will or won’t be said of me in the future.”

“The men need your help, Achilles. You could save lives.”

“I have saved lives,” Achilles said between gritted teeth as he stared out at the moonlit ocean. “Over and over again Agamemnon has used me to fight his battles. For once I choose to save my own life. For once I have a chance at a future I’ve only dreamed of. I will not throw that away—not for Agamemnon and his greed.”

“That isn’t how I see it,” Patroklos said. “I wouldn’t be fighting for Agamemnon. I’d be fighting for Greece.”

“If you’re foolish enough to take a chance with your life and throw away the goddess-given love with which you’ve been gifted, then fight! I’m not stopping you.” Achilles turned and began walking away down the beach.