The Immortal Game (book 1) (9 page)

Ash looked back to his brother and sister who remained silent. “It’s my mess. It’s my thing. But she gets to know.”

His
mess
?

Ruby opened her mouth to speak, to protest, but a darting look from Langston kept her quiet. Sage also looked at her. Ruby thought Sage liked her, but now she saw only suspicion in her odd grey eyes. She spoke to Ash but she kept her eyes on Ruby. “We had a deal. Are you going to break it over a—”

“You don’t understand.” Ash’s voice rose. He looked to the worn rug and then at Ruby. “She quiets it. I’m not sure how. But she does.”

Sage’s eyes ran up and down Ruby’s body, as if seeing her for the first time. “Do
you
love
him
?” She said it like she was asking Ruby if she was willing to take part in a murder.

Ruby glanced at Ash, now completely healed. She thought back to when he came stumbling into the house the night before. She thought back to when she had looked at his wound and
knew
he would die. She thought of bungee jumping and rock climbing, of living in the moment. She thought of the way Ash made her feel. Calm. Whole.

She didn’t say anything. She was too confused. There were too many questions. Too many emotions. It was crazy. Wasn’t it? People didn’t fall in love in a matter of days.

The silence grew long. Not even Langston had something to say. Sage’s arms fell limp at her sides.

“Well, do it then,” Langston snarled, an unrefined sound that startled Ruby. “Just keep us out of it. See her when you have to, but don’t expect us to cover for you.”

“No.” Ash shook his head and looked at Ruby. “She’s coming too.”

Langston’s head whipped around to Ruby. She saw an image from something half remembered; snakes coming out at her and the word
perilous.
She jerked, aware it wasn’t real but feeling like it was a sleight he could pull forth on demand.

She swallowed and found her voice. “What are you talking about? Go where? I have class and studying …”

“Oh, shut it,” Langston shouted and walked toward her. Her heart pounded faster with each of his steps, but he passed by her and walked out the front door.

Sage handed her the bag of Ambrosia Bars and then she too was outside, closing the door behind her.

Ruby looked to Ash, still sitting in the old chair. Sunlight streamed in behind him. His clothes were a mess. They hung on him, limp and bloody.

He didn’t say anything.

She walked toward him and put the bag of bars on the table. She wasn’t sure where to start. “Someone shot you,” she said. “I have the bullet.” She pulled the squashed and shredded piece of metal out of her pocket. “I thought you were going to die.” Her eyes went slowly from the bullet to his face. “Why didn’t you?”

He laughed, but it was a flat sound.

“What happened?” she asked.

He stood and took the bullet from her. He closed his fist around it and shoved it in his own pocket as if to dismiss it. He reached out his hand to touch her.

She pulled away. “How did you heal like that? Where do you want me to go that Sage and Langston don’t?”

“Do you love me?” was his response.

She laughed. “What?”

But did she?

His face remained serious.

“Ash,” she pleaded. “I don’t know. We’ve only known each other—”

“You know.” He continued to look her in the eye.

She blinked repeatedly and turned her head away. She let herself feel those feelings; the wholeness, and then the feeling that she would lose him. Her head lowered. If she said yes she’d be tied to him. Eventually she’d lose him. If she said no, she’d lose him now.

He put his hand under her chin and raised her head to look at him. His energy was steady and smooth.

She searched his eyes. “I’m not even sure I know what love means,” she said.

“It means we jump together.”

Her breath caught in her throat at the image. She remembered what she had said to him on the bridge. “I’m not very brave.”

“It’s okay to be afraid, but you can’t let fear stop you.” He touched her cheek with the back of his fingers. “And I can feel your strength,” he whispered.

She closed her eyes, blocking out the sight of him. A deep chill ran through her shoulders and clear up into her ears, damping down her eardrums. She swallowed and opened her eyes again. “I …” She hesitated. “I love you.”

The muscles in his face relaxed, almost imperceptibly. Only a person who had studied his features well would have noticed.

He kissed her and this time she let him. It was the kiss she wanted on the bridge, the one she wouldn’t allow herself to want the night before. His tongue was electric against hers. He pulled her in at the waist and her body bowed into his. She smelled the sweat and blood on his clothes, but something primal kicked in and even those scents fanned her desire for him.

“I
knew
you felt it,” he said later, kissing her softly between his words.

She laughed at being caught trying to deceive them both. She shook her head and pulled away. “Ash, how …?” She wasn’t sure where to begin. “Why …?”

His face became serious and in the next moment he answered all her questions with a single sentence, and created a thousand more.

“I’m Ares, the god of war.”

SEVEN

She took a step back. “Ash …” She whispered, not sure why he would take this moment to make a bizarre joke.

“I could lie,” he said. “I could even make you believe it. But you have to know the truth.”

She blinked, repeatedly, trying to wash away the absurdness of it. “The god of war?” She laughed, still searching his face for the punch line.

He didn’t say anything. His eyes did not shift from hers. There was no smile. There was not a hint of mirth anywhere. She opened her mouth, about to plead for reason, but was interrupted by a succession of three quick knocks at the door.

Her eyes shot around the room, and then back to Ash. “Langston?” she asked, frightened.

He took her by the arm and pulled her behind him, shielding her with his body. “Who’s there?” he bellowed.

“Is Ruby home?” A tentative voice came from the other side of the solid wood door.

For a split second Ruby felt relief. The voice was unsteady. It wasn’t like Langston’s at all. But the reprieve passed as quickly as it had come. Who then? It was still early in the morning. She stood behind Ash and looked at the back of his shirt, at the blood dried there.

“Who is it?” Ash said with more force.

“A friend,” came a puzzled reply. “From school.”

Her face screwed up in confusion. She had no friends. Her study group might have passed for friendship to a casual onlooker, but it was a loose collection of people held together by ambition and not much more.

The voice came again, more confident. “Is Ruby around?”

Ash turned to her. She shrugged.

“I wanted to know if she checked her organic grade yet,” the voice broke in on them.

Ruby’s eyes shot to the door. “Mark?” Was her voice shaking?

“Ruby? Are you okay?” he said with a nervous tenor.

“Yeah.” She laughed, feeling almost hysterical. “Yeah, of course. I’m fine.”

“Oh,” he said, sounding relieved.

She looked to Ash again, to his torn and bloody clothes, to the blood on the floor. “Um …” She couldn’t think. “It’s not really a good time …” She cast her eyes around the room, looking for any excuse that didn’t involve blood or bullets.

Instead Mark spoke. “Dr. Reed posted the grades.”

Ash’s eyebrows went up in surprise, or maybe it was disbelief that grades would mean that much to him. Or her.

“You got a ninety-eight,” Mark said.

“What?” She moved deftly around the pool of Ash’s blood and walked to the door. “How do you know?”

“I,” he paused, possibly searching for his own excuses. “My roommate’s a chemistry major. He knows the teaching assistants that did the grading. I thought we could go over the exam. You know, if you’re not busy.” He paused again. “I brought you a coffee.”

Wasn’t it illegal to ask about someone else’s grades? Or unethical? Or both?

She didn’t care. A
ninety-eight!
She hadn’t studied, at least not enough. She’d been so distracted. She remembered the adrenaline-crazed feeling of being late for the test and then how focused she had felt when she thought of Ash.

“Ruby?” Mark said with a mixture of curiosity and concern.

“I …” She still couldn’t think. Fatigue and fear crowded in on her.

“Are you okay?” Mark asked again.

“She’s fine,” Ash said from behind her.

“Ruby, who is that? Should I get the police?”

“No!” she said, too fast. Her eyes widened at the thought of trying to explain any of this to the police.

She turned to Ash, looking for help. He stood in the middle of the front room in a shaft of sunlight streaming in through the window. Rust-red puffs of dust rose up off his shirt, his pants, and his skin. In an instant the blood was gone.

She felt her jaw slacken.

He held her gaze. From the corner of her eye she saw more of the dark red dust move into the air; from the chair where he had been sitting, and from the wooden floor between them.

She looked down. The powder did not move lazily into the air, but with a great force, as if it had been blown off by the very boards themselves. In a moment the dark oval was gone.

Her breath left her in a rush. Still Ash looked at her, unsmiling.

She swallowed as she saw the rusty clouds coming off her own clothes. Not from the sweatshirt and sweatpants she had put on to go to Athenaeum, but from the T-shirt beneath. She held her breath, though she felt nothing, and in an instant the cloud was gone.

“Ash?” she whispered.

But from the other side of the door came, “Ruby—”

She turned, reached for the door handle and swung it open wide.

Mark stood there with a paper coffee cup in each hand. His eyes darted from Ruby to Ash and back again.

She forced a smile. “I’m fine. I just …” but still she had no excuse.

It didn’t matter. Mark filled one in for her. “Oh … right.” His boyish face fell. His cheeks colored clear up to his blond spikes. “Sorry to interrupt.”

Ruby searched his face. She thought of herself, obviously in night clothes, and Ash still wearing jeans and the ripped shirt, boots even. Did it look like she hooked up with some random guy?

“No. It’s no problem.” She tried to be casual, though everything felt deliberate.

“I thought we could go over the exam,” Mark repeated his earlier reason for his visit.

Ruby’s mind reeled. And then, with Mark standing in front of her, a reminder of her normal life before Ash, before chess games and bungee jumping, and fatal injuries that healed in the night, she felt clarity descend upon on her. With it came flashes of memory: Ash retelling battles as though he was remembering, not reciting; Ash winning at chess, not sometimes, but always; Ash in a coffeehouse she’d never been to before, waiting for her.

Not Ash, she realized. Ares, the god of war.

“You like lattes, right?” Mark stretched out one of the white cups to her. “Vanilla?”

She took the coffee in her numb hand, but she didn’t invite him in.

…

Ash still stood in the front room, in the sunlight, where she first saw the blood fly off him in a cloud. They locked eyes and he stepped toward her. She backed up, though there was little room between her and the closed front door. He stopped short, halfway to her. Confusion spread across his features. “Ruby—”

She shook her head. He took another step in her direction. She turned and ran to the kitchen. Hot coffee splashed out of the drinking hole in the lid of the cup she was holding.

“Ruby!” he shouted.

She stopped in the kitchen and turned on him. “How …?” She didn’t know where to begin. “What was that?”

His hands were up in front of him like stop signs. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

This hadn’t occurred to her.

“Please.” He paused. “I need you.”

She felt her knees go weak. The cup fell from her hand. The plastic lid came off and sent sprays of creamed coffee around the room. The cloying smell of artificial vanilla filled the air. She felt Ash’s arms encircle her, strong and solid. They propped her up and held her close against him.

A sob escaped her. He put his rough face next to her cheek, and whispered softly, “I’ve got you.” And the feeling was there, the feeling of Ash, the calmness, the connectedness, the wholeness.

Her mouth was thick and hot, and when he kissed her she shuddered and cried harder. It didn’t matter who he was or what it meant. She did love him, and already it hurt.

He held her tight, until her sobs quieted, until she could stand again. His steady energy flowed into her. He led her into the front room and sat with her on the couch. “Here,” he handed her one of Sage’s bars. “It will help.”

“I wanted the coffee,” she said with a weak laugh.

“Trust me.” He laughed. “This is better.”

She looked at the bar, suspicious now. “What is it?”

“Trust me,” he repeated.

She took a bite of the Ambrosia Bar and savored the unusual taste that she could never quite place. She felt her fatigue slide away. It wasn’t like coffee, she didn’t feel up, but she wasn’t as tired anymore either. “What is it?”

“Ambrosia,” he said. “The food of the gods. Not pure, of course. That would be—” He didn’t finish the thought.

“You … You can’t …” she said. Her eyes searched a narrow space in front of her. “You can’t be serious.” Her emotions rode a fine wire just beneath her control, her rational mind on one side, her gut on the other. Her thoughts jumped to her father. She licked her lips and spoke in a whisper.

“Why war?”

His jaw clenched. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again he shook his head. “I didn’t choose it.”

He reached for her hand, motionless in her lap, but she pulled away, not ready, not yet. “I don’t understand.”

Gods, like everyone, feel the energy of emotions, he told her. “A happy person can bring you up. A negative person can bring you down.”

Gods could direct and move that energy, but they also reacted to it, and certain energies resonated more or less with certain gods. The energy that resonated with each god wasn’t a choice. It was a part of them, like dark hair or blue eyes.