Warrior Rising (11 page)

“You know if I stare at the blood I'm going to puke. Or pass out. Or both,” Kat said.

“Fine. Then just dab the blood occasionally and hold these god-damned fucking tresses back out of my way. I do not believe what a pain in the ass Barbie locks are.” Between stitches Jacky glanced at her and smiled sweetly. “That is unless you're too busy gazing at those blue eyes.”

Kat's cheeks burned and she could feel said “blue eyes” boring into her. She looked down at him and, sure enough, he was staring at her with an obviously guarded expression on his face. Their eyes met.
He thinks I keep looking at him because of his scars,
Kat realized. So, still meeting his gaze Kat said clearly and deliberately, “Can I help it if the man has gorgeous blue eyes?”

Patroklos chuckled drunkenly. “The princess thinks you have pretty eyes, cousin.”

“She also thinks she needs to borrow this,” Kat said, and reached out to pull the leather tie from Achilles' hair.

Achilles jerked back as if she had a hot iron in her hand and she was trying to press it against his cheek.

“Hey! Hold. Him. Still.” Jacky glared at Achilles.

“Sorry, that was my fault,” Kat said. Then to Achilles, “I just wanted to use your leather tie to get her hair out of her face.”

“Yes. Of course. Go ahead,” Achilles said in clipped words.

Kat pulled the leather tie from his hair, liking the feel of its thickness for the short time it brushed against her fingers. Then she pulled back Kat's blond waves and knotted the tie securely. “Here, that should help.”

“Thanks. Keep blotting the blood. Just don't look at it too long 'cause I am not in the mood to be picking you up off the sand, and I sure don't want to clean up puke.”

“I'll do my best not to inconvenience you,” Kat muttered, and went back to sneaking peeks at Achilles. Only now more often than not the warrior caught her looking at him because
he
was not looking at
her
, too.

“All right. That'll do,” Jacky said. Kat yanked her attention from Achilles back to the now less bloody and newly sewed up ungaping wound. “Hand me that strip of linen.” Kat handed her the bandage and watched as Jacky expertly tied it around the guy's arm. “Keep this clean and dry. I'll check on you tomorrow,” Jacky said to Patroklos. “He should rest now,” she told Achilles.

Achilles nodded and helped the decidedly groggy Patroklos to his feet. Patroklos promptly pulled away from his cousin to address Jacky, who was fastidiously reboiling the needle and what was left of the suturing material.

“Thank you for saving my life,” he slurred and swayed. Kat bit her lip to keep from giggling at him. He looked like a drunken frat boy. Actually a tall, cute, drunken frat boy.

“You weren't going to die of that scratch, idiot,” Achilles growled at him, though Kat could see that he, too, was stifling a smile.

“No. No.” Patroklos lifted his finger in the air like a great statesman making a point. “I insist that little Melia saved me, and I owe her a life. Mine. So I announce from here on she is under my protection.” Then he paused, frowned and blinked blearily at Kat. “That is if her princess will allow it.”

“Oh, please. Whatever,” Jacky said. “Just sober up and get well.”

Patroklos looked confused by Jacky's strange words, but seemed undaunted. “My pledge is honorable. Princess, if you deem it so, the lovely Melia shall be formally under my protection.” He hiccupped and swayed again, this time precariously close to losing his balance, but kept his expression drunkenly serious.

Kat thought he was absolutely adorable. It would probably do Jacky good to have blondie following her around like a lab puppy, licking her lily white ankles. Kat giggled at the visual image she'd just conjured. “Hey, it's all right by me.”

“Then it's official. Melia is servant no more, but is now war-prize bride to me. Patroklos.” He thumped his well-muscled chest and then cringed at the pain he'd caused himself.

“Huh?” Jacky sputtered.

Patroklos grinned at her as if she was a big, red-bowed present and it was Christmas morning. “And I proclaim your skill for healing, my lady, is almost as great as your beauty.” Then he bowed, and promptly fell flat on his face in the sand at Jacky's feet.

“Oh, sweet weeping baby Jesus,” Jacky said, completely disgusted. “Grab him. He's gonna mess up my stitches.”

The three of them were pulling Patroklos to his feet (again) when old Kalchas hobbled up to them.

“Agamemnon commands the presence of Achilles in his tent, and orders him to bring Princess Polyxena, the so-called oracle, with him.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Kat felt like a fish riding a bicycle as she trudged through the sand behind the silent and glowering Achilles and wished for about the kazillionth time that she had realized what the hell cute and totally messed-up Patroklos had been asking when she'd, stupidly, been all “all right by me” to his protecting Jacky. Who knew that meant Jacky would be whisked away to his tent and she'd be left best friendless to flounder along after Tall, Blond and Grumpy?

It was seriously a pain in the ass. They were almost to the Greek camp. The sun had set a little while ago and the scene on the beach in front of her was amazing, what with all the tents and torches and campfires. But the soft leather slippers on her feet were full of sand. The long dress/robe/toga thing she was wearing, while a great color and very flattering to her new young body, was also annoying as hell to keep lifted up so that she didn't stomp on the bottom of it and fall on her face. Her hair was long and thick and, yes, quite lovely she was sure, but the breeze from the ocean had picked up and, as Jacky would say, was blowing her goddamn tresses across her face. Plus, she was hungry. And tired. All she wanted was some carry-out, a bottle of wine and a
Top Chef
marathon on Bravo TV.

When a bur worked its way inside her slipper, Kat decided that she'd had it. She stopped and cleared her throat. Achilles didn't even pause in his trudge.

“Hey! You left me way behind,” she yelled after him.

He did stop then. She was pretty sure she saw his shoulders heave with what was probably a monstrous sigh before he turned around to look back at her.

She looked at him.

He looked at her.

“There is a bur in my shoe,” she called across the stretch of sand that separated them. “And I am tired of scrambling around back here trying to keep up with you.” When he made no response she rolled her eyes. “Your legs are longer than mine.” He still didn't say anything. “What? Are you a caveman? A little help here would be nice.” She threw up her hands, completely exasperated.

Achilles walked slowly back to her. “You talk a lot,” he said.

“Yeah, well, you don't talk enough,” she told him, and when he was close enough, she reached out and grabbed his arm so she could balance to take off her slipper and dump out about a gallon of sand.

Kat could feel his eyes on her as she peered into her shoe trying to find the bur, and she let him look. Finally she found it, plucked it carefully out of her shoe and then matter-of-factly grabbed him with her other hand so she could repeat the procedure on her other shoe.

“You do not fear me?” His voice was deep and somber, though he sounded absolutely perplexed.

Still using him as a balance, Kat slid on her other shoe as she looked up at Achilles. “Should I be afraid of you?”

“Women
are
afraid of me, whether or not they should be,” he said.

Shoes free of sand and burs, Kat stood up straight and breathed a relieved sigh before brushing her hair out of her face and saying, “You didn't answer my question.”

His lips twitched. “As you did not answer mine.”

“You haven't given me any reason to, so no, I don't fear you. I mean, I'd appreciate it if you'd slow down, lend me an arm and help me wade through this sand, but slight rudeness doesn't translate into fear in my mind.”

He stared silently down at her and she recognized an internal struggle reflected in the depths of his sea-colored eyes. Finally he offered her his arm.

“Thank you.” Kat smiled and slid her hand around his bicep and they resumed their trek to the Greek camp, this time with Achilles not acting like he was leading a death march.

“Melia seems to be a remarkable healer,” Achilles said.

“She is,” Kat said, not sure what else to say.
Yeah, she's a great ER nurse
was definitely inappropriate. Then a thought struck her and she decided to go with it. “What kind of man is Patroklos? What I mean is, will he be good to her? And, uh, is he a patient guy, because Melia is a rather unusual woman.”

“That I have already discovered,” Achilles said. “And, yes, Patroklos is a man of honor.” He glanced down at her and added, “He is also kind.”

“And he's not married already or anything?”

“No.”

“So, how about you?”

“Me?”

“Are you married? Or anything?” Kat asked, even though she already knew the answer.

“No. I have no wife. Or anything.”

The silence stretched between them. Before it could become any more uncomfortable, Kat said, “I'm hungry. Do you think Agamemnon will feed us?”

“No,” he said. “We will not break bread with Agamemnon. He and I are not comrades. He commands my presence only to show he believes he has control over me.”

“Doesn't he have control over you? He is your king.”

Achilles' look hardened. “He is not my king.”

“Oh, well, then I guess I won't worry about my stomach growling so loudly it embarrasses you in front of him.”

Achilles' laugh seemed to surprise him as much as it did Kat, and he looked down at her shaking his head and smiling. “Princess, we won't be in Agamemnon's tent long enough for your stomach to complain.”

“Glad to hear it. I'm starved. Oh, and you should smile more. It looks good on you.”

By their joined skin Kat could feel the little jolt that passed through Achilles at her words and she wondered how long it'd been since the guy had been complimented by a woman. Then she remembered what the goddesses had said about him—that he'd taken no lover in years because women feared him, and she felt an unexpected little jolt of her own sizzle through her.
This ancient hero and warrior
—
the man whose physical prowess people knew about thousands of years after his death
—
hadn't had sex in years.
Talk about starving . . .

“Rest assured, Princess, I will see that you are well fed when we return to my tent.”

Kat met Achilles' gaze and the little jolt that had sizzled through her crackled and flared until she felt a lovely rush of heat begin deep inside her.

“I'll count on it,” Kat told him softly.

Then they were both jolted out of their moment of intimacy by a shout of “Hail Achilles!” as a warrior in full armor saluted formally and then pulled aside the flap of an enormous tent for them.

Holding tight to Achilles' arm, Kat stepped into a cacophony of exotic sights and sounds and scents. Right away Kat decided gold must be Agamemnon's thing. The walls of the tent were scarlet, but practically everything else was gold gold gold. The thick woven carpets were gold. The chairs, most of which were filled with gray-bearded men wearing flowing robes and a bizarre amount of jewelry, were gold. The columns that held up the tent were gold. The goblets people were slurping wine from—gold. The three-tiered dais that was placed majestically at the rear of the tent, as if it were at the end of a catwalk—gold. And the pièce de résistance wasn't the huge gilded throne that sat on top of that dais, but the old guy that perched on top of the throne.

He was big, Kat had to give him that, and he was wearing an enormous gold tunic-toga thing that looked like the mutant love child that would have been born if an Elizabeth Taylor Cleopatra costume and a classic Liberace cape had been allowed to mate. Plus, he was wearing enough jewelry to make the other grandpas clustered around him look like cheap relations. Not to mention his (gold, of course) crown, which glistened in the torchlight.

But what Kat kept staring at wasn't the gold or the jewels. What freaked her out more than any of the opulence was his hair. It was long—as in down to his chest. And it was obviously dyed a dark, very fake-looking brown. It was also curled into Shirley Temple ringlets that somehow joined his long, totally dyed beard that was also ringletted. His eyes were lined in black, setting off his drag queen appearance perfectly. Actually she was finding it difficult not to giggle at the ridiculous pomp and circumstance until he spoke and she felt Achilles' arm turn from warm man to hard-edged steel under her hand.

“So good of you to answer our summons, Achilles. Though you are, as usual, late.”

Agamemnon's voice was powerful and contemptuous, as if he were addressing an annoying child. Its effect on the gathering was instantaneous. The talking stopped as everyone's attention shifted to Achilles. Kat couldn't help but notice how many of the men's eyes widened in shock as they took in the fact that her arm was wrapped through his. Automatically she lifted her chin and glared back at them. Hell, no, she wasn't like
other
women, those shrinking violets who peed themselves over a few scars and some grumpiness. She'd be grumpy, too, if she hadn't had sex in years. Crap. Now that she thought about it, she
hadn't
had sex in years. At least not decent sex. And not with someone besides the Magic Tickler.

Then Kat realized that as she'd been babbling to herself no one else had been talking. At all. Achilles just stood there like a statue of himself. Agamemnon's look was darkening and Kat braced herself for a kingly storm, when his expression suddenly relaxed and turned bizarrely jovial.