Sherrilyn Kenyon - Dark Bites

But a farmer was the last thing she’d wanted to be tied to.

Now, it was too late to become a priest.

Perhaps it was bitter irony that he’d ended up in the service of a goddess, after all.

“What are you doing?”

Bathymaas looked up from her sfora at Malphas’s question. The small orange ball allowed her to spy on their recruits. “I wanted to make sure that our two newest additions didn’t meet with resistance from the others.”

“Are they mixing well?”

“They seem to be.” She studied Aricles as he continued to masterfully whittle while his brother diced with the others. “Do you think we made a mistake forcing Aricles to leave his farm?”

Caleb gaped at her question. “Is that doubt I hear?”

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Mortal feelings are beyond me. But I know how complicated sensory beings are. I don’t want him to be in pain because of our decision.”

Caleb arched a brow at that. In all the centuries he’d served his goddess, he’d never heard her question a decision before. Stunning, really.

Nor had she ever cared about someone’s feelings. He wasn’t sure what to make of that. Or what it was about Aricles that would cause her to doubt her decisions now.

Weird.

“Sentient beings adjust… in time.”

She met his gaze. “You’ve never adjusted to being without Lilliana.”

He winced at a bitter truth that stung him hard. “I’m a demon and very different from them. Besides, Lil changed me from what I was, and then was violently taken from me. It’s not the same as leaving home to serve a goddess and defend my people.”

Bathymaas pulled back from saying anything else. She knew how much it hurt Caleb to talk about his wife. And for the first time, she felt a strange ache in her chest for him over his loss. She wasn’t sure why.

Yet there was no denying it was there.

If only she knew why she felt this now.

Bathymaas watched Aricles sitting alone on the bank of a small stream. Since they had moved the Ēperon from her Theban temple to the Atlantean island that was centrally located in the Aegean, she’d kept a close eye on her men. They were targets now. Not just from the Chthonians, but from the gods as well. And the last thing she wanted was for them to be attacked before they stood ready to defend themselves. While they were all valiant warriors, it was harder to fight against demons and gods than mortals.

And while the other five were eager to take their places as elite warriors, Aricles stood alone with his reticence for battle. As with now – while the others were off to seek fleshly comforts – he sat on his grassy bank with no other company than his shadow.

Frowning at him, she had no idea what it was he did there, or why he appeared so content with it. Nor did she understand why he wasn’t with his brethren…

Aricles cocked his head as he felt Bathymaas’s presence behind him. Strange how he was so attuned to her. Even before the scent of sweet lilies reached his senses, he’d known she was here with him. “Am I needed, my goddess?”

“No.” She paused by his side to touch the handmade pole he held in his hands. “What is it you do?”

He pulled at the line. “I’m fishing.”

“For what?”

“Fish.”

Her frown deepened. “Is this how it’s done?”

“It is. Would you like to try?”

“I’m not sure. What does one do to fish?”

Aricles smiled at her innocent question. While the other members of his band lost patience with her inability to understand human activities and emotions, he found her quite beguiling and endearing. “Come and sit with me, my lady, and I’ll show you.” He removed his cloak and laid it down on the ground to protect her clothing and to give her some padding from the damp grass.

In the daintiest and most graceful manner he’d ever seen, she sank down by his side.

He carefully showed her the metal hook he’d made. “You bait the hook.” He picked up a worm from the small clay pot where he’d gathered them a short time ago and showed her how.

“Does that hurt them?”

“I try not to think about that.”

“Oh, sorry.”

He wiped his hands. “Once it’s anchored to the hook, you place it into the water and wait for a fish to take the bait. Then you pull the fish to shore and capture it.”

She watched as he tossed the line in. “How long does it take?”

“It could be right away or hours from now, or even not at all.”

That seemed to confuse her even more. “Does this not bore you?”

He shook his head as he heard his brother’s insults in his mind over his favorite pastime. “Not really. I find it relaxing to sit with my thoughts and listen to the wind whispering to me through the trees.”

“You do have a serenity about you that others lack.”

That was a polite term for what Galen called his boorishness. “I’m a simple man, with simple needs.”

She ran her hand over the carvings he’d made on the pole. They were for the god of water, Ydor, who was said to favor fishermen. “And what are those needs you speak of?”

Aricles scratched at his chin. “Good company. No conflict. And a full belly is always nice.”

Bathymaas was amazed at his short list. “No love or shelter?”

“Shelter can be found anywhere. A cave or tent. As for love… I’m quite happy without it.”

How very strange to her. “I thought all men wanted to be loved.”

“Personally, I’d rather not have the pain of it.”

“Is that why you’re not wenching with the others?”

Aricles laughed. “What they’re about today has nothing to do with love, my lady. That is a physical act that doesn’t involve their hearts.”

That made even less sense to her. “Then why aren’t you with them?”

“What can I say? My brother wenches enough for both of us.” Aricles paused as he saw her trying to understand his flippant explanation. She was so intelligent about most things, but when it came to human emotions, she was as childlike and innocent as Malphas had warned them. “The honest truth, my lady… when I was a boy and staying with my grandfather, my aunt came in late one night. She was hysterical and in tears to find herself pregnant from a man she thought loved her. She’d given her body to him and when she conceived his child, he’d confessed that he’d only been dallying with her and had no interest in making her his wife. My grandfather told me that women, unlike men, quite often confuse sex with love, and that many women attach great significance to the physical act. I loved and adored my aunt, and when she killed herself days later, after she’d gone to her lover and he’d again insulted and denied her, it tore a hole in my heart. I vowed that I would never hurt a woman like that, and that I would take no lover except for my wife.”

“But you’re not married.”

“And that is why I’m fishing instead of wenching.”

“Oh,” she breathed then hesitated as she digested his explanation. “So you’ve never had a woman?”

Cringing internally from that question, Aricles blushed. “And I would deeply appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone that, my lady. Men can be quite insulting over such things.”

“Why?”

“Honestly, I’ve never been quite sure. It seems to me they would be grateful that it’s one less competitor in the market, and yet that’s not how they see it at all. Rather they think it makes a man weak and effeminate to not tup every female he meets.”

Bathymaas tried to make sense of that as something began to tug at the pole in her hands. “Is this a nibble?”

“It is, indeed.” He moved to sit behind her and wrap his arms around her so that he could show her how to pull the fish in. The warmth of his body and rich, manly scent of his skin made her head reel in a way it never had before. For some reason, she wanted to bury her nose against his skin and revel in it…