Taming Darkness: Artemis Lupine #4 (8 page)

“Let me contact
Draco Blu first. Maybe the Dragon Council knows of a different way. One that doesn’t include a sacrifice,” she pleaded.

“Sacrifice? What the hell is going on?” Koda asked.

“Artemis will explain while I am away. Keep her on the bed and do not let anyone inside and do not let her walk,” I ordered him. I pulled away from Artemis and walked out the door to find my father.

ARTEMIS

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

“Artemis, what is going on?” Koda asked. “Why does Ares need a sacrifice?”

I sat down on the bed and cried, unable to hold it in any longer. “Ares is dying,” I croaked out between sobs.

“What?!” Koda bellowed in shock. “How?”

“Death’s way of getting one over on Ares for getting my soul back. He cursed Ares with Noctum, the black illness.”

“Is there a cure?” he asked.

I nodded my head
and wiped my eyes, trying to calm myself down and recompose myself into the leader that I was. “Yes, but it requires a sacrifice.”

“Done,” he said seriously, “I wi
ll sacrifice myself.”

I wanted to slap him. “NO!” I screamed. “You are not dying! We need you!”

“Darlin’ you don’t need me. As long as you have Ares that’s all that matters. Besides, if I can ensure he will live then I would gladly give my life.”

“Koda stop it. You are not dying,” I said angrily.

“Alright, calm down,” he said, but I knew he wasn’t being completely honest with me.

I rolled onto my side and put my head in his lap. “I can’t live without you.”

“That’s sweet, Darlin’, but the only one you can’t live without is Ares. I’m just your packmate.”

“Stop it,” I ordered him.

He stroked my hair and whispered, “I missed you so much those hundred years. And when you died, it tore a piece of my heart out. I thought I would never feel whole again and then you came back and I had never been so happy in my life. I realized then that even though I can never have you as my mate and you will never love me like you do Ares, I could at least be happy knowing that you are alive.”

I sat up and stared at Koda in shock. “What are you saying? Tha
t you love me?” I asked him. He had never spoken to me in such a way before.

“Yes,” he said seriously, “But I do
not expect you to say anything or even acknowledge my feelings for you. It is enough for me that I am in your life.”

“Does Ares know?” I asked, still reeling from this news. How could he say such things?

“I assume he does, but we have not discussed it. Do you understand now why I would sacrifice myself for Ares and you? To save either of you from death would be the greatest death for me,” he whispered.

“I order you to stop,” I said to him. “You are not going to die. No one is going to die!” Tears were streaming down my face and I couldn’t see.
Why was this happening? Why did everyone have to die around me?

“Alright, easy,” he whispered as he pulled me closer to him. “Let’s drop the subject.”

“I can’t let anyone else die. Never again,” I whispered. A plan formulated in my head and I knew it would work. I only had to convince Ares and Zeus to allow it.

* * *

The next day the meeting was called again. I sat down and listened as they argued for an hour and held my tongue, but as nothing was accomplished still, I raised my hand and everyone turned to stare at me. “I have information regarding Maurice’s plan and another bit of information that I feel everyone here must know.”

“What information? Where did you acquire this information?” Zeus asked. I knew he wasn’t trying to be rude to me
. He was just exasperated with the situation of everyone arguing in circles.

“When I was grieving over Achilles I allowed myself to be captured by the vampires. They took me to Maurice and I used my ability to create sunlight and surrounded him and all of the vampires in the room in sunlight. All of his va
mpires died instantly, but he didn’t,” I said.

“He is resistant to sunlight
?” Victor said in shock. “I never knew.”

I nodded my head. “He sat in the sunlight with no pain whatsoever. He is in fact able to walk in sunlight.”

“We are doomed! How will we defeat him?” one of the trolls asked.

I waited until the room was quiet again and said, “He is still vulnerable to fire.”

“So why didn’t you use fire?” Alianna asked.

I smiled. “I did, but he escaped and I was too weak to pursue him. I returned back to Ares after that.”

“What is the information you have about his plan?” Ares asked. I could see he was irritated that I had not mentioned it to him before, but I had been a little preoccupied with finding out about his impending death.

“I have a plan that I believe will ensure the demise of his reign. It will take a lot of coordination and will require you all to trust me, but if we do this I am sure we will win.”

“Is it suicidal?” Ares asked.

I sighed in exasperation. “
No.”

“
Has anyone contacted Draco Blu since the funeral?” I asked.

“No,” Zeus said, “The dragons have always preferred to be neutral so we did not contact them
to discuss our battle.”

“I’ll co
ntact him tomorrow,” I said, “I am sure that they will come when I tell him of the news.”

“What news?” Hera asked.

“I would prefer to reveal it to all of the races at once. I do not wish to cause undue alarm. I would ask that we reconvene tomorrow morning and I will reveal everything then and we can begin to arrange our attack.”

Zeus nodded his head. “Agreed. We will reconvene tomorrow at eight in the morning.”

I stood up and Ares linked hands with me, walked beside me as we headed out of the room and to our chambers. “You seem different,” he said softly as we walked.

I smiled up at him. “I am just remembering that I am not a little girl anymore. I am over one hundred years old and I am the leader of the werewolves just the same as you are. I have to start acting like the alpha that I am.”

He wrapped his arm around my waist and whispered into my ear, “I like it when you talk like an alpha.”

I laughed and pulled away from him when we got to our chambers. “As soon as Victor pops in I will tell you what I learned since I know you will pester me until I tell you.”

“I do not pester people,” Ares said indignantly, “I order them and they surrender and gravel at my feet.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “I am not going to gravel at your feet.”

Amber rolled over his eyes and he said, “That would be a very fun thing to see though. Perhaps I should give you an order as your alpha.”

I smirked at him and backed up towards one of the chairs in the room. “You could try.”

I started to sit down and Victor said, “While I do find our friendship has grown, I had not known it had moved to the point where you would sit in my lap.”

I growled and spun around, sitting in the chair opposite him. “I hate when you do that.”

He smiled. “Ah, but I do love the shock it gives people.”

“Hopefully he gets over it within the next hundred years,” Ares said.

“So,” Victor said, drawing us back to the topic at hand, “What news do you have? You have guarded your mind so well with thoughts of unicorns and kittens that I have not been able to discern it.”

“Unicorns and kittens?” Ares asked.

I shrugged. “I had to figure out a way to keep him from hearing my thoughts and I figured he would grow bored of me thinking about those animals.”

“Well played,” Victor said, “Although I did see that whatever it is will cause widespread panic across the world.”

Ares sat down in the chair beside Victor and I took a deep breath and began. “Your father believed that I was permanently in his hold so he thought it was okay to divulge his strategy to me because there was no way I could get the information back to Ares and let him know. Maurice has stationed vampires all around the world in anticipation of our group attacking him. When we lead our attack he will signal his vampires who will attack all of the defenseless beings who were left behind. They will march into Lyngvi for example and his vampires will kill every female, child, and submissive male that has been left there.”

Ares growled and began pacing around the room.  Victor linked his hands together and rested his chin on top of them with his elbows resting on the arms of the chair he was sitting in. “It’s a brilliant plan.”

“Even more brilliant now that we know,” Ares said in a deep growl.

“How so?” I asked.

“Now that we know what he is planning, we will have to split up our attack force. Instead of all of our strongest attacking him, we will have to send some of each to protect our weakest. He has successfully separated us and diminished our force,” Victor said. He looked at me a moment and then said, “But you have a plan for that.” I smiled and started thinking about a kitten riding a unicorn. He scoffed. “Think about all the kittens and unicorns you want. I will wait until tomorrow to hear your plan.” He stood up and bowed to me. “Good bye,
Mon Papillion
.”

He disappeared and Ares plopped down into the chair he had just vacated. “You have a plan?” I nodded my head. “Are you going to tell me it?” he asked. I shook my head. He sighed. “I am your mate and you will not tell me your plan?”

I smiled and said, “I have a plan and I will reveal it and these details to everyone.” Something moved inside of my stomach and I looked down at it in shock. “What was that?”

Ares walked over to me and rested his hand on my stomach. “Did the baby kick?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It felt like a weird bump.” I looked at my stomach, which was noticeably larger now. When had my stomach expanded so much?

He titled his head to the side and placed his ear to my stomach. The strange feeling happened again and Ares smiled. “The baby’s kicking.”

I smiled and rested my hand on top of Ares’ head. “In order for my plan to work, we will have to wait until after I have our child.”

Ares lifted his head up and rested his chin on my stomach so that he could look at me. “Why do I get the feeling that I am not going to like this plan?”

I leaned forward and kissed his forehead. “You are a very perceptive man.”

He growled. “You are infuriating.”

I closed my eyes and felt exhausted. Would we be able to cure Ares before I had our child? “Am I going to have stretch marks?” I asked him with my eyes still closed.

He laughed softly. “Yes, but they will heal almost instantly. After you have the baby your body will repair itself quickly.”

“I’m scared,” I whispered.

He moved and before I could inhale we were lying on the bed and he was cuddling with me underneath the blankets. “I will do everything that I can to keep you safe.”

I nuzzled his throat and intertwined our legs together. “I’m not scared because of that. I’m scared of childbirth.”

“Speak to my mother. She can talk with you about it and ease your fears,” he whispered.

I kissed his neck and then settled against him. “Sometimes I wish we could pause the world and simply live in moments like this.”

“So do I,” he whispered.

“Ares?” Koda called through the closed door. “Has Artemis eaten yet?”

“No,” Ares said, “Please get her something and me as well.”

We heard Koda’s footsteps walk away and only after I was sure that he was gone did I relax against Ares again. I dozed in his arms until Koda returned and then tried to eat despite the nausea which had decided to return as soon as I sat up.

“Get Selene,” Ares whispered to Koda when he thought that I was not paying attention.

“She is at the door,” Victor said from the chair beside me.

I lifted my head to look at him and immediately regretted it. Victor grabbed me and a moment later set me on the floor of the bathroom with my head over the toilet and my hair pulled back in his hands. “
Thank you
,” I thought as I threw up everything that I had just eaten.

“You’re welcome.”

Ares came into the bathroom and took Victor’s place holding my hair. “Selene is here and she has good news.”

I took a deep breath and forced my stomach to stop squeezing its contents out. I hoped this was not going to be a constant thing. After being sure that I was done throwing up I nodded at Ares and he picked me up and carried me out to the bed.

Selene placed her hand on my forehead and chanted a fever reduction spell and then made me drink a disgusting tasting anti-nausea potion. “Better?” she asked. I nodded my head and she sat down beside me on the bed. “I spoke with Draco Blu yesterday. He and two thirds of his flight will be joining our battle against Maurice.”

“That’s great,” I said with a smile. Having the dragons would be a huge advantage for us because of the fire they produced in an endless quantity.

“And,” she continued, pulling a chain from underneath her shirt which lifted a vial that was attached to it, “he gave me this.”

The vial had green liquid inside of it that
glowed softly.

Ares walked towards us and Selene placed the vial and necklace in his hand. “Is this dragon’s blood?” he asked.