Cursed [malexmale]

Chapter Fifteen

"Emergency bunker," He responded and when I frowned, Ares gave me a grim stare, "Zeus had them installed, but only the gods are allowed to enter." I tensed at something that hadn't even been told to me. While I was technically a god, I suppose my Atlantean blood made me expendable.

"Then why aren't you with them?" Arikos asked, pushing off the wall and helping Hannibal lay down to avoid face planting on the rocks.

"I'm not a coward," He answered dryly, then paused to put on his sunglasses again, glancing up at the sky that was dark with storm clouds, so he didn't necessarily need the sunglasses, but I had a feeling he was using them to hide the glint of red in his normally blue irises, "Besides, not everyone ducked for cover. Athena, Dionysus, and Hermes went to warn the other creatures in the market. Aphrodite is going to check on our children. But it looks like the damage is gone for now." Arikos nodded at that, then paused to grimace at Teslius.

"Why did you bring him here?" He asked. Ares turned his head to look at me silently and I frowned.

"Teslius... needed my help." I said after a moment. Arikos frowned.

"What, being an asshole?"

"Arikos-"

"No," Arikos cut me off abruptly, surprising me by the hardness of his voice, his silver eyes flashing coldly, "I don't want to know. I'm taking Hannibal back to the temple and going to check on Menoetius. I don't want to be anywhere near that guy. I'm done dealing with the Khalian." He stooped down, and with some effort, managed to pick Hannibal up under the arms, teleporting themselves away. I sighed, turning to look at Ares, who was studying Teslius with a cock head before looking at me.

"Zeus is going to pitch a fit if he's not restrained."

"I don't think he's going to fight," I answered grimly, "At least, he won't be able to fight hard enough... Poseidon, Heracles, and Artemis were the ones who went after him." Ares's eyes darkened.

"Heracles?" He asked. I nodded. From what I could see with Ares's sunglasses obscuring his eyes, something told me Ares's relationship with Heracles was a strained one. The demigod son of Zeus was one of his favored and the love and affection Zeus showed him definitely inflated his ego to the size of Egypt, tainting his soul too much to enter Elysium. Now he was a member of Olympus, a spoiled bad boy with an attitude problem.

"Anyway," I said with a frustrated sigh, "I'm not sure what to do with him. I don't want Zeus to hurt him. Is there anyway you can convince Zeus to let you hang onto him? I know it's a lot to ask, Ares, and I have no right to-"

"Don't worry about it," Ares interrupted, making me look at him in relief, and he almost looked uncomfortable with my murmured "thank you, so he cleared his throat and looked at Teslius, "I'll manage something. What about you? Apollo's bound to come looking for you." I nodded.

"But first I need to find someone. Do you know what Zeus did with the merman Apollo brought from Atlantis?" I asked. Ares's eyes darkened.

"Merman?" He asked. I grimaced.

"Yeah. I take it by the question you don't know."

"I don't, but if I were you, I'd get him somewhere else. Fast." Without elaborating, Ares heaved Teslius up once again and vanished on the spot. I frowned, confused by Ares's response before I went to pick through the rubble. Part of me was hoping to find Kallisto, but another part of me was terrified I wouldn't find him in the same state I'd last seen him in. Thankfully, but also nerve-wrackingly, I didn't find a single trace of Kallisto and my time had drawn considerably short as a tingle down my spine indicated someone was teleporting nearby.