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The demigods raised their shields instantly, covering the five of us, but even their enhanced shields could barely fend off the Glory that could erase an entire city with one strike. That was why they hadn’t tried to extend their shields over the students. Grief and rage rippled off them at the inevitable demise of the others.
I threw my hands up. There was one determination in my heart: I wouldn’t lose Yelena and Nat. I wouldn’t let my demigods be hurt. I wouldn’t let Marie, the Dominions, and the students die because of a god’s tantrum.
Pale crimson light blasted from me, forming an orb that covered everyone in the room. Not long ago, I’d first formed the orb in this same room to protect myself from Paxton. I had no idea how it formed, but it’d come to life at my command.
Even shielded by my orb, the students threw their hands to their bleeding eyes or ears, screaming soundlessly. The war god’s Glory was supreme.
The demigods cursed profanely, their shields trembling under the onslaught of the Glory. I wasn’t sure how long our combined shields could hold, but Ares hadn’t expected us to counter his Glory.
He stared at me with awe, raw need, lust, and greed.
He wanted me as he’d never wanted anyone before.
I shivered.
His Glory crashed against our shields, and my power drained so quickly that my knees buckled. Going against the God of War was madness.
As I fought to strengthen my shield to prevent it from collapsing, an idea hit me—the best defense is a good offense.
I lurched at Ares with a mental punch.
He felt it, captured it, and used my magic to pull me to him.
His power sucked me into the center of its magnetic storm and pinned me. I twirled, not to struggle free as he expected me to, but to latch myself onto his power source.
A dark surprise lit his eyes, and we locked together.
I was in his mind the next heartbeat, walking through his memories and feeling the pulse and impulse of his visions and desires.
The landscape before me shifted.
I was no longer with my demigods and the students in the combat class, but with Ares alone.
On ancient Earth, when the Olympians had first arrived on the alien planet, the God of War in his armor swiped his spear at his opponents. Wherever he prowled, bodies fell all around him. He cut them down like endless weeds.
His golden spear dripped red blood while it flashed silver light, piercing flesh and separating bones and tissues with brutal precision.
No one could stand in his path, yet the war god’s bloodlust wasn’t sated.
He threw his head back and laughed in wicked delight as men and women fell, crawled, screamed, and fled.
Even amid such horror and carnage, his glorious beauty didn’t lessen but magnified. He thrived in vicious battle and bloodbaths.
My stomach clenched and flipped. Nausea hit my center, yet a part of me felt the same thrill, wanting to join him and revel in battle glory.
He turned to me with a knowing smirk as he stretched a bloodstained hand toward me.
I accepted it.
I stood beside the God of War like his equal in my crimson armor.
I took in the carnage in front of me—tens of thousands of dead and the moaning, dying soldiers. Blood flowed on the dented ground and painted broken walls. At the end of the battlefield was a field of wheat. The plants were no longer golden but blood red, waving in a violent wind that sent the reek of blood and rotten meat miles away.
Black crows hovered in the sky, cawing, blotting the sun, then they swooped down on the corpses like the shadows of death.
“Let’s feast, Marigold,” he said. “You and I. You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for you.”
His deep, musical voice, so beautiful and enchanting in the bloody battlefield, echoed in my core, striking a chord, yet a part of me—the old, unchanged Marigold—registered how horrid and insane he and this whole scene were.
