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Pirithous
Thalia washed his shoulder carefully and covered his wound and the bandage she fit over it with a strange clear fabric she called plastic wrap, securing it with sticky strips of white cloth. He watched her peel out of her clothes, the distraction of her naked body enough to take his mind off the pain that shot down his arm with each breath. He let her help him remove his shorts, and grinned when she turned the water on and urged him into the shower.
Evidently, Thalia was determined to see him bathed thoroughly, for she followed and washed the rest of his body as carefully as she had his shoulder, with a soap as soft on his skin as oils. She scrubbed his hair as well, and he closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of her hands massaging his scalp, though he had to duck his head in order to rinse the soap away, and the movement jarred his shoulder.
If she meant to distract him from the discussion of Josh Andrews—a very strange name for a man—and her intention to leave him behind, she was successful in part, for she spent as much time caressing and kissing as she did washing him and he ached so much to bury himself inside her, he did not have the will to pursue the issue further. Especially not when she dropped to her knees and took him into her mouth.
There was nothing else for him, then, but her hands on his body and the feel of her lips and tongue wrapped around him. Even his arm stopped aching while she licked and sucked and slid her water-slick hand in rhythm with her mouth. He balled his hands into her hair, and groaned a warning, but she only dug her nails into his backside and swallowed him deeper still.
His release came hard, and she took it all, then washed him once more before she turned the water off. She dried him as attentively as she had done the rest, while he grasped the edge of the sink and thanked Aphrodite for delivering him into Thalia’s hands.
“Will you feel better sitting up or lying down?” she asked, checking the bandage on his shoulder, still dry beneath the wrapping.
“I feel much better already,” he told her, catching her by the hand when she meant to step away and drawing her back against him. He wrapped his good arm around her waist and kissed her, long and deep.
She pressed her face into the curve of his neck when he had finished, her arms encircling his chest. “Please don’t let them use you for target practice again.”
He kissed the side of her head. “I will try very hard not to let them hit me, at least. I cannot control the rest.”
“You can stay inside. We can stay inside. If you don’t go out into the woods, they can’t shoot at you.”
“I must build Persephone’s temple, Thalia.”
“Then don’t do it in the woods! We can get wood or stone or whatever in town and have it delivered. You can build it at the tree line instead of behind it. I’ll even help you, if I have to. Just—don’t put yourself in harm’s way like this. You can’t protect me if you’re dead, you know?”
“Protect you?” He pulled back, ducking his head to catch her eyes. “I thought you did not need protecting,” he teased.
She smiled. “I was just trying to appeal to your hero-complex. But I’ll admit that I’m not used to being shot at, and I’d really rather not have to worry about what’s going to happen to you if Alex shows up and finds me half-dead-by-poison-arrows in your arms.”
He laughed at the image she conjured, not even caring that it hurt his arm. “A woman who does not need protecting would not find herself in such a compromising position. She would have charged into the woods, sword swinging, and struck down the evil that lurked within it.”
“You know what I mean,” she said, her expression serious. “I don’t want you getting yourself killed charging into the woods any more than you want me getting myself killed doing the same, all right?”
“I promise you Thalia, I do not intend to die. Not as long as the centaurs live where they might hunt you.” He stroked her cheek and let her go, but when they opened the door the scent of smoke filled the room.
Pirithous cursed, reaching for his sword. Enough feeling had returned to his other arm after Thalia removed the arrow that he had no trouble freeing the blade from the scabbard, though it pained him.
“Oh, crap!” Thalia ran ahead of him down the hall before he could stop her.
He charged after her. If the cowardly beasts dared to strike at Thalia’s home with burning arrows, he would leap through the flames and strike them down, one-armed or not!
But he skidded to a stop in the kitchen. Thalia waved away smoke with a thick pad of cloth over the charred remains of some portion of meat.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, looking up. “With the arrow in your shoulder, I forgot all about the ribs.”
***
IT WAS NOT RUINED, but Thalia’s distress at having to serve him something so scorched combined with his relief that it had not been warring centaurs, made him laugh. Once he had reassured her—she seemed most concerned with what her mother might have said, had she been there—Thalia settled into a mild disgust, shaking her head occasionally as she carved the worst of it off and set it aside for him to burn to ash in meager sacrifice. He could not bring himself to tell her that the gods should be offered the better portions, not the worst, and promised himself he would offer blood to make up the difference. Since he had already shed a good portion, adding more to the flames would be an honorable sacrifice, and it was blood and fat and bone the gods wanted most, anyway.
After they ate, Thalia helped him carry the offering of meat and wine, and collected the wood to rebuild the fire. It galled him that he could not do it for himself, but she made no comment, and by the time he had blooded his palm and smeared it on the blackened meat, she had stoked the smoldering coals into a good blaze and stepped back, her fingers closed around the cross she wore at her neck.
He offered the libation first, pouring the wine carefully in two portions. The first, asking for Apollo’s blessing, that he might heal quickly, without fever, and the second in thanks to Zeus, his father, for keeping him safe. The flames jumped and flashed gold, and the sign did much to release the knot of tension in his stomach. The gods still favored him.
The bone, meat, and blood he dedicated to Persephone, promising again that she would have her temple. I have kept my faith, offering prayer and sacrifice, but I do not know how to find our people in this land. Thalia’s have their own nameless god, and I am but one man, out of time and place. Who do you mean for me to remind of their duty?
The goddess gave him no answers, but the spit of wine-red flame showed her acceptance. He was grateful even for that much. Thalia took his hand when he turned to her, her forehead deeply furrowed.
Inside again, she made him wash his bloodied hand and poured more of the foaming potion over it.
“You can’t keep doing this,” she murmured. “You’ve lost enough blood today already, and you’re turning the skin on your palm into ribbons. Not to mention the chance of infection. That knife must be filthy.”
“I keep the blade clean and honed, as all warriors do,” he said.
“Wiping it off in the grass and then against your thigh isn’t going to kill any germs. It’s just adding more of them.” She pulled a bottle from behind the mirror, slamming it down on the counter. It was a hazy white, the liquid inside clear. Her hands shook as she poured a portion out on a fabric-like pad. “I’m not a doctor, I’m not even good at first aid. And if you get sick, I can’t take you to the hospital. Give me your knife.”
He drew it from its sheath on his belt and she took it, rubbing the blade with the damp pad. “You do not trust me to clean the blade myself?”
“I don’t trust you to disinfect the blade, no.” She poured more of the clear liquid on the pad and rubbed it over the other side. “Will you promise me that before you go out and slice your hand open again you’ll wipe it down with rubbing alcohol, at least?”
He laughed. “For a woman who does not want to be protected, you seem determined to keep me from even the least harm.”
She dropped the knife, knocking the bottle over into the sink. “Damn it!”
He caught it before it spilled and set it back against the tiled wall. She crossed her arms, tucking her hands against her ribs, and turned her face away. Her eyes closed and she took a shaky breath, then another before the tension in her body eased. He waited, watching. Her concern warmed him, but he did not understand her objections, nor why his offering had upset her so.
“The centaurs, the arrow, the whole business about who you are,” she said softly. “How the hell am I going to keep you out of trouble, never mind healthy? And then the gods, and the blood. Nobody sacrifices food, or animals, or wine anymore. I’m not even sure animal sacrifice is legal.”
“Thalia, it does not matter.” He hated what he meant to say, but he did not know how else to reassure her. The gods required sacrifice and he would give it. For her sake, if not his own. “In twelve days, you will be safely away, and what comes will be my own affair. Is this not true?”
Her jaw tightened. “That isn’t fair, Pirithous.”
“But it is true,” he said. “And once you are gone, the rest does not matter. I will slay the centaurs, because they are my enemies, and if the gods take me after, so be it. Once I have seen you safe, I will give up my fate to them and be done with it.”
“What do you mean, be done with it?” She stared at him, her face paling. “What does that mean?”
He shrugged, his shoulder throbbing in response. “Persephone freed me to serve them. If what they ask of me is reasonable, I will serve. If it is not, I will refuse and accept whatever punishment they devise. Most likely, they will take my life. Perhaps send me to Tartarus. It matters little once you are gone.”
“You can’t just accept that!”
“I can.”
She closed her eyes, turning away, then opened them and paced to the door. She rested her forehead against the frame for a moment and he felt the dull ache of her distress, but he did not know what to say. What had she expected? The only purpose he had here was that which the gods gave him, but he had never served them without question and did not mean to begin now. Persephone would have her temple, as he had promised, and he would do what else he could to fulfill his pledge, that she might not search him out, or strike at Thalia to punish him. He would not let Thalia suffer for his sins.
It was easier in a way, knowing she would leave, and easier still, once she was gone. He need not live in service to the gods for fear of risking her, and better for her if she stayed true to her own nameless god. She would have that much more protection from his.
At his touch she turned into his arms, her face pressed into the curve of his good shoulder, her hair tickling his cheek. He kissed her head and held her, because he could offer her this much, for now, and she had more than earned what comfort he could give for as long as he could provide it.
“What else would you have me do?” he asked softly. “I have no place in this world. You have said as much, and it is not untrue.”
“There has to be a better way, something else. You must be here for a reason that makes sense. Something fulfilling for yourself!”
“That is not how the gods work, Thalia. Theseus served them in everything, and still they took his wives, his son and daughter too, and you tell me his kingship, when he returned to Athens. In service or not, I face the same threat. All I can hope is that those I care for do not suffer, and it is safer for you by far if you leave me here to the gods and the centaurs in the wood.”
She made a sound, caught between a groan and a laugh. “Don’t, Pirithous. Don’t make this about protecting me. Please.”
“Yet you wish to protect me, to keep me here instead of fighting the centaurs outside. You worry over how to keep me safe from your people. Is that not unfair as well?”
She pulled away, not meeting his eyes. “You should sit down, or lay down, or rest or something. Go make yourself comfortable somewhere, and I’ll find us another bottle of wine, all right?”
Thalia didn’t wait for his answer, and he watched her walk away, every step she took an arrow in his chest. Twelve days would be too many, he realized as she turned out of sight. Too many, when she had already found her way this deep into his heart.