My vision blurs as I shift positions, black dots dancing in my eyes. Blood loss. Shock. I blink hard, forcing my eyes to open and focus.
His feet appear at the edge of the boulder. I count his steps as he circles my hiding place, timing my attack before he gets a chance to.
Now.
I launch from behind the boulder, swinging my machete toward his legs. My blade connects with his thigh, splitting flesh, and he howls like a wounded dog, stumbling backward. I try to use my advantage and finish him while he’s still down, but the sudden movement causes the arrow shaft to snap against the boulder, the wooden length breaking off with a crack that reverberates through my entire body.
The barbed head remains buried in my shoulder, grinding against my bones with each movement until blinding pain drops me to my knees.
Benedict recovers before I do. His blood spreads across his torn pant leg. His face contorts with fury as he tosses the empty crossbow aside and draws a hunting knife from his belt. "You'll pay for that," he snarls, all pretense of refinement gone. "I'll skin you alive before I'm done."
I scramble backward, one hand pressed against my wounded shoulder, the other still gripping the machete, though my fingers have gone numb. Then my back hits a tree, halting my retreat.
Benedict advances, his eyes never leaving mine as he closes the distance between us.
With a desperate surge, I push myself upright and lunge into the undergrowth, abandoning stealth for speed. The dense forest swallows me as I start running through branches that whip against my face, and roots that threaten to trip me with each step. I need to find shelter, find an advantage, then strike again.
But before I know it, Benedict's weight slams into me from behind, driving me to the ground.
The impact forces what little air remains from my lungs and gets the machete to spin from my grasp, landing just beyond reach.
"End of the game," Benedict hisses, flipping me onto my back, his knees pinning my arms to the ground. His knife presses against my throat, the cold steel promising nothing but death. Blood from his wounded thigh drips onto my stomach. "I'll tell Ares how you screamed before I finished you."
I stare up at him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of fear. If I'm to die, I'll die as myself, not as the whimpering prey he wants me to be.
"You've already lost," I whisper, my voice steady despite the blade against my jugular, while trying to reach the knife in my pocket without him noticing. "You’ll die either way."
Benedict laughs. "You think yourgodwill kill me? He’s just waiting for his death, chained and—"
The rest of his sentence doesn’t register as something huge and dark breaks the trees behind him. One moment Benedict is above me, knife ready for the killing stroke; the next, he's simply gone, ripped away with such speed and force that I'm left staring at empty air.
A roar shatters through the night, making me push myself up onto my good elbow, squinting through the darkness at what’s happening in front of me.
Ares holds Benedict by his throat, the bastard’s feet dangling a foot above the ground. This isn't the Ares I know. It’s something else, something darker. His skin ripples with black veins. His muscles have swelled to impossible proportions, tearing through what remains of his t-shirt. And his eyes are black voids, endless pools, reflecting nothing of the moonlight that bathes the clearing of trees he just made around him.
Benedict's scream is cut short as Ares tightens his grip. The sound of his vertebrae cracking echoes through the trees, but Ares doesn't stop there. With a casual move, he rips Benedict's right arm from its socket.
The sound of flesh tearing, then the crack of bone separating, is like a song to my revenge.
Benedict's mouth opens in a silent scream, his brain unable to process the horror being inflicted on his body as Ares tosses the severed limb aside and reaches for the other arm.
I should look away. Normally, a human being would look away, unable to watch. But I can't tear my eyes from the punishment this bastard deserves.
Benedict's left arm joins his right on the forest floor. His legs follow, ripped from his torso with the same terrifying ease. Blood soaks the ground, turning dirt to red mud beneath Ares' feet.
Through it all, Benedict somehow remains conscious, clinging to his last moments of life as his torso hangs limply in Ares's grasp while his eyes are wide with incomprehensible agony.
The final mercy, if it can be called that, comes when Ares grips the man's head between his massive hands and twists, separating it completely from the body and keeping it in his hand like some grotesque trophy.
For a moment, Ares stands motionless, Benedict's severed head dangling from his grip, the body parts scattered around him in a show of carnage.
Then, he slowly turns toward me and starts walking.
Benedict's head drops from his fingers as he crouches before me, massive and terrible and so fucking perfect. His hand reaches toward my face, and I don’t even flinch. His thumb brushes my cheek, smearing blood—mine or Benedict's, I don't know. I don’t even care at this point.
"Little curse," he struggles to speak as his voice is deeper and rougher than I've ever heard it. His gaze moves to my shoulder, to the broken arrow shaft and the blood still seeping from the wound. The God of War kneels before me, covered in the blood of my enemies, and I see both the monster and the man I've come to love.
"You came," I whisper, unable to say more.
