The Immortal Game (book 1) (41 page)
Ares finished the story he was telling, “… Cerberus couldn’t care less that I was trying to get a tune out of those blasted pipes. It was the ambrosia in Ruby’s pack he wanted.” The table erupted in laughter.
Ruby smiled and shifted the silver bow that leaned against her chair. Artemis had given the bow to her as a present, not for the wedding—the goddess of the hunt was not that sentimental—but after hearing from Ares about Ruby’s abilities with it.
Ares took his arm from around Ruby. He became serious and leaned in toward the center of the table. “What happened after we left? There is peace among the gods, obviously, but how?”
To Ruby it was as if nothing had happened at all. Olympus was as serene as ever.
“Zeus called those who would support him against you: Poseidon, the Cyclopes, Hephaestus, and the others,” Athena said. “But if they were going after you, we were ready to stop them.”
Fierce loyalty jumped into Ruby’s heart.
“Zeus had been expecting a fight,” Aphrodite said. “He didn’t get as much support as he wanted, but he was willing to take us on. It was Apollo who ended it before it started.”
Ruby’s eyes shot across the room to Apollo. Zeus, Hera, and most of the older generation of Olympians had left the party early. Apollo sat alone at the Table of the Twelve. His eyes were fixed on the white tablecloth before him.
“Apollo told Zeus we should have never gone to Earth,” Athena said. “He said it was all a mistake. He said he would never return. He swore it by the Styx.”
What?
Ruby was stunned Apollo would do that. “What about you?” she asked Athena.
“Me too,” Athena said with a downward nod. “I swore too. We all did.”
“It was a long time coming, Ruby,” Aphrodite said, heading off any blame. “It couldn’t last forever. No one wants war among the gods. Zeus is king.” The green-eyed goddess smiled, and then glanced at Athena so quickly Ruby almost missed it.
“What else?” Ruby asked, feeling like there was more they weren’t saying.
Aphrodite shook her head. “We got you in the bargain, anyway.”
Ruby’s forehead pinched together. She hoped they hadn’t paid too high a price.
…
Ruby looked around the room in Ares’s abode,
their
abode. It was the room she had come to think of as the front room, the room where she and Ares had eaten dinner her first night on Olympus, the room with the dog tapestries, and the ruby and diamond chess table.
She had gotten everything she truly wanted: she had Ares. Her heart tightened when she thought about what Apollo and Athena, and everyone else, had given up for them.
Ares poured two goblets of nectar and handed one to her. It was their wedding night. She decided to save her regrets for tomorrow.
He raised his goblet. “To the goddess of boundaries. The goddess of transformation. The goddess of dreams and aspiration.” He paused. “To the goddess Ruby.”
She smirked. It was going to take a while to get used to that one.
“To us,” she agreed with a smile, and clinked her golden goblet with his.
She took a sip of the spicy liquid. Ares reached for her cup, put it on the table, and took her face in both his hands. His eager kisses took her breath away.
He pulled at her peplos and she at his chiton as he picked her up and carried her out of the room and across the huge entranceway. She was lost in his kisses when he hurried up the curving stairs and into the bedroom she had chosen for them.
He laid her on the crisp cool bedspread and hovered over her with all the gravity of the god of war in his eyes; blue, bold, luminescent. His olive skin was flushed around his bare neck and chest.
“I love you,” he whispered over and over; across her hot skin, into her short hair, between their parted lips.
When his hard body met with hers she felt the binding of
hieros gamos
as the wholeness they had always shared annealed and deepened. Their passion swelled, and broke, and swallowed them whole.
And Ruby, the goddess of boundaries, crossed over.
END OF BOOK ONE
Thank you for reading
The Immortal Game
.
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Acknowledgements
Special thanks to my husband Fran and to our children Olivia and Corbin, for their constant love and encouragement; to my sister Hope Corbin, for showing me every day what it means to never give up on your dreams; to my brother-in-law and developmental editor Drew Cherry, who makes me laugh at the same time he tells me to write that part again; and to my parents Suzan Kohn, and Will and Rori Corbin, for teaching me I could grow up to be anything I wanted.
Thanks to my dear friend Melissa Fenn, who patiently listened to me talk about Ruby and Ash since the very beginning, and to all my other first-readers: Dayl Phillip, Debbie Ritter, Sabine Sloley, Selah Tay-Song, Wanda George, Betsy Oppelt, Mary Melloh, Stacey Killian, Laura Osterloh (and a good portion of her book club).
Thanks to The Private Writer’s Group, for their incredible talent with story; and to the Upstart Crows Writer’s Association, for their expertise in everything about books that
isn’t
writing the story.
Thanks also, to the histology crew at NWP for listening to me talk books in the wee hours of the morning, and to Tom Klein—AKA: Super Geek—who saved Ash and Ruby in their darkest hour, yes, when the computer crashed.
And thanks to everyone who reads this book! You are as much a part of the tale as the writer and the characters. The story lives in all of us.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joannah lives in northwest Washington State with her husband, two awesome teenagers, and a black dog that sheds relentlessly on her white furniture.
When she’s not writing, Joannah likes to read, spend time with her family, and take long walks in nature.