Page 12 of Rise of the Gods: Vardor’s Destiny (Time for Monsters)

T he scent of mold, fire, and wetness roused me. I was cold, so cold. My beautiful wedding dress clung to me like a second skin, and I was soaked to the bones. Disoriented, I tried to focus on my surroundings. Wild ivy grew over old walls, crumbled pillars littered the ground. In the flickering light from the fire and torch I made out something dark blue between the ivy leaves, parts of a mosaic. Brittle, dull, and long forgotten.

I had no idea where I was or who the man who had taken me was. But I wasn't going to sit by and let him manhandle me. Not while there was an ounce of fight in me. I was disoriented when I came to, but one look at his face brought it all back to me. He looked so fearsome, like one of those barbarians of old who had ransacked cities and violated their women.

The hair plastered wet to his skull was just as black as his eyes. His deep olive-brown skin hinted at a different ancestry than mine. His face was square, all hard edges and angles, except for his crooked nose and arched eyebrows. His neck was as thick as my thigh, maybe thicker. Broad shoulders made an impenetrable wall. He was bare-chested like a barbarian, too, with incredible muscles that scared the soul out of my body. He was everything I had always feared in a man: hard, brutal, unyielding.

Scars ran up and down his arms and torso, making me shiver at the thought of how he had gotten them. Where did he come from? Had he escaped a circus? Or maybe he belonged to the gypsy bands roaming the streets of London? I had never seen anybody like him before.

Dirty bandages were wrapped around his upper arms. They looked like... no, that couldn't be, my imagination was running wild with me, but for one moment I could have sworn the bindings around his arm looked just like the linen that had been wrapped around the mummy.

The ring on my finger warmed and pulsed strangely, but that was the least of my worries, because my abductor was leaning forward, holding me, and... his lips pressed on mine.

Stunned, I didn't move. I froze. His tongue pushed against my teeth. The revulsion that should have run through me was absent. Instead it felt... nice? No, nice wasn't even close to describing the myriad of sensations he aroused in me. Where there should have been fear, there was only longing. Where there should have been resistance, there was only surrender. Where there should have been rage, there was only the torment of a desire I refused to name.

That frightened me more than the man himself. I needed to get away from him. Now! Before I... before I... before I what? I had no idea, but I opened my lips on instinct, parted my teeth, and when his tongue entered my mouth, I bit down. Hard. When he reared back, chuckling, I slapped him. Not giving him or me time to process what I had done, I rose, grabbed the hem of my dress, and ran. I ran as fast as I could. Out. Away . These were the only thoughts on my mind.

I nearly slipped over all the debris littering the ground, not only rocks, but bottles, mostly broken, moldy wrappers, a torn, long forgotten shoe, and—I shrieked—a nest of rats.

The further away I got, the darker it became. Blindly, I stumbled forward, sensing more than hearing his heavy footfalls behind me. His steps were measured, not done in blind fear like mine. He would grab me at any moment, and that realization made me sob.

This was supposed to have been the happiest day of my life. Right now, I was supposed to be sitting at a high table with Thomas, eating roast beef or maybe cutting the cake. Instead, I was running for my life through what I now recognized as the ruins of an ancient Roman villa or temple.

My dress clung to me, heavy from the rain, and hindered every step I took. I wished I could rip it off. My corset was so tight, it was hard to breathe.

Finally, ahead of me, I glimpsed a trace of light. Suppressing another sob, I called up the last of my strength and dashed forward, right into a large opening that must have been the Roman garden a long time ago. Some sculptures were still intact, as was the large fountain in the center, but it had been changed into a firepit around which sat six men. They were laughing rowdily and passing a bottle of cheap liquor between each other.

"Well mate, what do you know?" One exclaimed as I dove through the opening. I was going too fast to stop, even when I realized what I was running into.

"If you wish it, you shall receive," another laughed.

"A bride! Bloody hell, come here, my beauty!" A hand grabbed me roughly, pulling me forward.

The men laughed, and one pulled on what was left of my veil, ripping it off. "Such finery."

"A lady!" Foul breath hit me, made me nauseous.

"Fuck me, I've never seen the tits of a lady before," another grabbed my bodice. I tried to lash out, but my arms were grabbed from behind.

A loud roar froze all of us. The barbarian thundered into the circle like a god of war. He grabbed the first man who had the misfortune of being too close to him, took his head in his hand, and twisted it. A sickening, cracking sound echoed like the beat of a drum through the night, raising vomit in my throat that spilled over when he dropped the lifeless body like a discarded, broken toy.

Mercilessly, he grabbed a second man and rammed his head into the unforgiving wall of the fountain/fire pit. The hands that had been holding me let go, and I stumbled back. Three of the remaining four pulled long, wicked-looking knives out. As one, they advanced on the barbarian. My heart thundered inside my chest, and my hand flew up to cover it while my other swiped the vomit off my mouth, ruining my dress even further.

I should have taken this moment to run, but I was frozen with fear. Besides, if these men were any indication of the kind of people who dwelled here, there was nowhere for me to run to.

One man lunged forward, knife out. My abductor stepped to the side, quick as lightning. Reaching out, he latched onto the arm holding the knife, grabbed it with both hands, and brought it down over his knee, breaking it. The man screamed, and the rest rushed forward as one. The barbarian kicked the first so hard in the chest that he flew straight into the fire, screaming as his hair and clothes began to burn. The acrid smell of it permeated the air, making me gag once more.

In the blink of an eye, it was over. He stabbed one with his own knife, and he broke the neck of the last. He wasn't even breathing hard when he stepped forward toward me. Incredibly gently, he laid the palm of his hand—the same that had just killed six men—on my right cheek. "Are you hurt?"

My entire body shook, and the skin where he touched me burned. Six men lay dead at our feet, killed by him, all within a few blinks. And he wanted to know if I was hurt?

Who was this man?

Slowly I shook my head, unable to form a single word. He bent forward and picked me up, and this time I didn't protest when he carried me back to where I had first run. I was numb, both from the cold and from what had just happened.

The fire was still burning when we returned to our spot. Nervously, I looked around to see if there were more unsavory folks, but besides the dancing shadows from the torch and fire, there was no movement.

"You must be freezing," he said, pulling a dank-smelling, ripped blanket off the ground. "My apologies. I will see to it soon that you have better accommodations and warm clothes. I swear."

Who is this man ? My mind screamed again.

Tenderly, he wrapped the stiff blanket around me. Despite its scratchiness, smell, and stains, it felt good. At least it was dry. A sniffle escaped me, followed by a tear, and my voice returned, albeit small. "Please, let me go."

He hunched down next to me, taking a lock of my hair. He wrapped it around his hand and let it spill over his fingers as if it were water. A smile curved his brutal-looking lips. "Trust me, Vaelora, once you remember who you are, you won't want me to let you go."

Insane ! The word seared through me. That's what he was. This man had to be insane. Perhaps he had escaped from St. George's Fields. Now that would be ironic, wouldn't it? Unfortunately, I didn't have the mental fortitude to dwell on it, because the word insane repeated itself in my head.

How did one treat a mentally unstable person? Abbie told me that she humored her brother sometimes when he believed he was back home and only a boy. I didn't want to humor this man, though. I didn't want to encourage his delusion.

"My name is Roweena," I said quietly.

"Roweena?" He smiled warmly, then shook his head. "No, that doesn't fit you, Vaelora."

"Who are you?" I had no idea where my courage came from, but something about him staring at me with those burning black eyes while his hand still played with the strand of my hair was hypnotizing.

"You don't remember." It was a statement, not a question, and the look of hurt and longing that passed over his face tore at my heart. Slowly, I shook my head.

"Vardor. You made me your god of war."

Oh my God, this man was even nuttier than I feared. Now he was a god? If his claim hadn't been so outrageous, it would have been fitting. Hadn't I thought earlier that he looked like a god of war?

"Where did you come from?"

"A long time ago," he answered enigmatically.

My stomach churned and cramped, trying to bring up more to throw up as my fear deepened. "What are you going to do with me?" My voice was barely louder than a breath.

"Hmm." He still rolled the lock of my hair between his fingers. His eyebrow arched, and a deep, arrogant smirk raised the corner of his lip. "What am I going to do with you?"

His voice was deep, barely a rasp. My heart stuttered, and a flutter moved through my stomach. A strange wetness filled my lady parts—had I just peed myself? It didn't feel like I did. Heat rushed through my insides, starting from an unmentionable point.

"I might have a few ideas."

Oh my God , his voice. The way he looked at me. Had I not been sitting down, I was sure I would have sunk to the ground. Nobody had ever looked at me like this. Spoken to me like this. He was like a magician, pulling me under his spell. I couldn't force my eyes away from him, he made me long for… I didn't know what. But a deep yearning for something was spreading through me, filling me. The sensation was bordering on painful, but in a strange, good way.

"Please let me go," I pleaded one more time. Please don't, another part of me contradicted.

His head tilted to the side, and his arrogant smirk turned playful. "I like it when you say please. You know I always have."

Fear warred with my already confused emotions. What was he doing to me? I fought the urge to smile back at him, to lift my hand and... place it on the side of his face. To feel the hardness of his cheek. A tremble moved through me that had nothing to do with the cold.

A deep sigh moved through him, and he let go of the lock of my hair. "You really don't remember, do you?"

I shook my head numbly. Remember what? Him? I would have remembered if I’d seen him before. He was everything I had always feared. I didn't like men with muscles, strong men. They reminded me even more of how weak I was. How unprotected. This here, right now, only emphasized how founded my fears were.

Men like him didn't have room in this world any longer. They inspired too much fear. Just look how easily he had overpowered Thomas and the others in the church—how he had killed six men! Sweet Jesus! He killed six men! And now he was sitting here in front of me, looking at me as if I was the most prized possession in the world. The scariest part? Something inside of me liked it.