Warrior Rising
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Agamemnon’s voluminous tents were filled with celebration. Of course most of the revelers were Agamemnon’s contemporaries—men either too old or too highly placed to be involved in the actual fighting—but one would never know from their toasts and their boasts that they hadn’t been in the thick of the battle. And there were women aplenty. Young, supple war prizes who, if not exactly eager to please, were willing to pretend they were for the advantage such a night might gain them.
Briseis hated them—every old, shrunken-testicled, rutting goat. Though even as she hated them she shot surreptitious smiles to those she found the least repulsive. Agamemnon could tire of her at any time, and if he did, only one of these soon-to-be corpses would be all that stood between her and whatever peasant warrior managed to fight off his comrades for her.
What she wouldn’t give to belong to someone as virile as golden Achilles. His scars had never bothered her, and the thought of the berserker had always excited more than frightened her. But when she had belonged to him, he had never so much as glanced at her unless he’d wanted her to fetch wine or food for him. Since he’d allowed Agamemnon to take her, Briseis had cursed herself for not being bolder when she’d had a chance at him. She should have gone to his bed uninvited. She should have thought of bespelling him as Polyxena had.
“Briseis! More wine!” Agamemnon ordered, reaching down from where he sat on his golden throne to cup her breast and tweak her nipple for the benefit of the watching generals.
Briseis wanted to curl her lip and hiss at him like a viper. Instead she arched her back erotically and said huskily, “Anything you wish, my lord.” Then she picked up the large empty wine jug and took her time walking past the other men, stroking the smooth side of the pottery suggestively and allowing them ample opportunity to gaze at her aroused young nipples and fantasize about anything they might wish.
As soon as she left the tent, Briseis’s sensuous walk disappeared and she moved with the catlike silence she’d perfected when she was just a child. Naturally the bovine warriors who huddled around the wine casks didn’t hear her approach. When she heard his name, she froze in the shadows.
“Achilles! Truly? Are you certain?” One short coarse-looking man said.
“I heard from Odysseus himself. It must be truth,” came the reply from a taller, pockmarked soldier.
“With Achilles and his Myrmidons leading the charge, victory will be ours tomorrow, brothers!”
“I didn’t believe he would fight again. I heard that the Trojan princess had cast a spell over him,” said another man.
“She only cast a spell here,” the short man said, grabbing his genitals and thrusting his hips up, “and not here.” With his other hand he lifted his sword and swung it in a singing arch around his head. All the men laughed.
Briseis stepped out of the shadows. “Agamemnon wishes more wine. Fill this for me,” she said coldly and held out the jug.
The short man took it and said, “I’ll fill it for you.” His lingering gaze said that he would love to fill her as he did the jug, but Briseis knew that as long as she was Agamemnon’s war prize none of the men would speak openly of their lust. Agamemnon could do anything he wished to her, his men could not.
He handed her back the jug, eyes staring at her erect nipples plainly visible through her transparent robes. “What is your name?” she asked him.
He smiled, showing rotting teeth. “Aentoclus, my lady.”
“Aentoclus, if you ever so much as look my way again, I will tell Agamemnon that you tried to rape me, and I will ask my lover, your king, to bring me your testicles in retribution.” While the warrior blanched a sickly pale color, Briseis smiled and walked away, holding the jug carefully so that it didn’t splash wine on her clothing.
She quickly went back to Agamemnon’s side, this time ignoring the appreciative looks of the generals. She refilled his goblet and leaned into the king’s side, whispering to him, “I have news of Achilles.”
Agamemnon’s shrewd gaze darted briefly to meet hers and what he saw there made him clap his hands together and command, “More music and dancing!” The music flared as pubescent girls clothed only in gold chains undulated through the tent, pulling the attention of the men from their king.
“What have you heard?” he asked quietly.
“Achilles and the Myrmidons are leading the charge tomorrow,” she whispered, nuzzling his ear.
She felt the jolt of shock that went through his body. “You are quite sure about this?”
“Odysseus himself is passing the news.”
“If this is true…” His arm tightened around her. “You are a jewel of rare price, my dear.”
“I am your jewel, my lord. Always your jewel.” Briseis smiled smugly and snuggled into his side, sneaking one soft hand down to stroke the inside of his thigh. No, he would not tire of her. It didn’t matter what she had to do, she would remain Agamemnon’s war prize, even when they returned to Greece.
“Kalchas!” Agamemnon lifted his voice over the sensuous beat of drums.
“Here, my lord.” The old prophet seemed to materialize out of the air itself.
Just like a poisonous mist, Briseis thought, although she always kept her disgust for the revolting old man carefully hidden. He was a favorite of Agamemnon’s and Briseis was far too cunning to make an enemy of him.
“Fetch Ajax to me.”
“Ajax, my lord?”
Briseis noted the generals overhearing Agamemnon’s command looked similarly confused, as they should. Ajax was brilliant on the field of battle. Off the field of battle he could hardly put together a complete thought. The man was literally as big and strong and stupid as an ox.
“Yes, Ajax. I had a dream last night that he was key to a great victory tomorrow. I wish to tell him of the dream and of the reward I plan to gift him with for his heroic actions.”
“Yes, my lord.” Kalchas bowed and scuttled from the tent.
The generals who had overheard smiled and nodded at their king. Dreams were sent by the gods, and seeing their king acting on one of his was something of which they all approved.
Of course Briseis knew Agamemnon was lying. The only thing he’d dreamed of the night before had been her open thighs. He’d told her so that morning as, upon waking, he’d put his face between them.
She nuzzled his ear again and whispered, “What are you up to, my lord?”
In one swift motion Agamemnon pulled her onto his lap so that she straddled him and his erection pushed intimately between her spread legs. She leaned into him and, veiled by her hair, he spoke, “If tomorrow Achilles fights the Trojans, it will be his last battle, as well as the day we are finally victorious. I have waited almost ten summers for the damned prophesy of his death to come true, and I will wait no more.”
“But I hear from my sources in the Myrmidon camp that they believe Polyxena is thwarting the prophesy. Perhaps that is true—you know even Poseidon’s minions could not kill her.”
Agamemnon bit her neck and whispered, “All Achilles need do is to kill Hector and his death will follow. Zeus has proclaimed it. Not even an oracle protected by a goddess can change that. Polyxena has been keeping him from the battlefield, and thus away from Hector. Perhaps Achilles’ arrogance has led him to believe his little oracle can somehow protect him on the battlefield. I’m simply going to be sure Hector’s path to Achilles is clear and then let fate take over.”
Briseis laughed huskily. “My lord, you are brilliant!” Then she moaned and rocked against his hardness, closing her eyes and pretending she straddled the strong young body of a warrior.
"The spell couldn’t be that simple,” Achilles said.
“I keep telling you—it isn’t a spell, it’s self-hypnotism, and it is that simple. And that complex. The mind is amazing. It alone can make a person believe he’s sick, or better yet, believe he is perfectly well when he should be sick. I’ve seen some miraculous things in the ten-plus years I’ve been in practice.”
“And this self-hypnotism, which is not a spell but seems very much like a spell, can actually help me keep the berserker at bay,” he said, taking a thick strand of Kat’s hair, wrapping it around his finger, and then bringing it to his lips. “It’s like a sable’s pelt. I’ll never tire of touching it.”
“I got lucky,” Kat said, tilting her head so that he could touch her hair more easily. “Polyxena had a seriously nice head of hair.”
Achilles smiled. “I forget that this body has not always been yours. What color was your hair before?”
“Blond. It wasn’t long like this, but it was pretty good hair, too.”
“You would be beautiful in any form to me,” he said, and kissed her lips gently.
“That is a very sweet thing to say. But you’re not going to get me off subject so easily. Yes, self-hypnotism, which is not like a spell at all, can help you learn to control your body and your emotions so that you can keep both relaxed enough, no matter what is going on with you, to avoid the triggers that cause the berserker to possess you.”
“Ah, and then our son will not accidentally trigger me to be possessed by the berserker when he believes he cannot possibly drown because he is the grandson of a sea goddess,” Achilles said, looking into her eyes.
Trapped in the blue depths of his soul, Kat saw a future where she lived and loved at this amazing man’s side and she knew she would want his babies—she’d want them, and their grandchildren, and whatever was the ancient and magical Greek world’s equivalent of the traditional family and the picket fence. Hell, she even wanted the damn dog. She wanted it all. “And what if he is a she?”
Achilles blinked, obviously not having considered this as a possibility. Then he snorted and his lips twitched up in his little almost smile. “I suppose I will have to double my practice of self-hypnotism then—or perhaps not practice it at all. Would becoming a berserker be a good or bad thing when suitors try to woo my daughter from me?”
Kat grinned. “I think control is still the key here. If he shows up sagging or wearing emo pants and eyeliner, we let the berserker loose. If he looks like a good kid, you just growl and scare him a little.” Achilles’ brow knitted together in confusion. Kat laughed. “How about this—you only eat the suitors we don’t like.”
He frowned at her. “Not even the berserker actually eats people.”
She lifted her brow.
“Well, not usually he doesn’t,” Achilles amended.
Kat was just trying to decide if she really wanted to question Achilles further about the whole “usually he doesn’t eat people” thing when a woman’s shriek carried clearly into their tent. Achilles had just leapt to his feet when the shriek was followed by gales of giggles. He’d taken one hesitant step toward the tent flap when Kat grabbed his hand and pulled him back to bed.
“As embarrassing as it is to admit, that is Jacqueline. And, no, she doesn’t need rescuing.”
Achilles sat back down on the bed beside her. “Is she always that loud?”
“No. That’s her ‘oh, baby, I think I just won the lottery shriek and giggle.’ Which means that I can tell you with one-hundred-percent accuracy Patroklos is not still pissed off at you. He is out there giving Jacky the time of her life.”
“Huh.” Achilles grunted. “The boy is certainly causing a ruckus. He and Jacqueline should be quieter—more reserved.”
Kat’s brows shot up. “Achilles, you are a stodgy old spinster. My god, listen to you—you sound about a hundred years old.”
“I am not a spinster.”
“And to think Hera and Athena accused Jacky and me of being spinsters just because we’re, well, old. You, Mr. Hero Warrior, are actually an old fuddy-dud, without being old.” More giggles drifted through the tent to them, this time punctuated by a deeply sensuous and insistent male voice. “And he,” Kat jerked her chin in the direction of the tent flap, “is definitely no ‘boy.’ ”
“Are you lusting after my young cousin?” Achilles asked, blue eyes sparkling.
“How about I answer that question after I get all the details from Jacky tomorrow?”
“You are a tease,” Achilles said and, growling playfully, he pulled her back on the bed with him.
“Yep, and you are a spinster,” Kat said, pretending to struggle.
“Would a spinster do this?” Achilles bent and covered her mouth with his. The kiss was not wild and out of control. He remembered to pace himself—to monitor his breathing and be sure that lust didn’t overwhelm him and bring on the berserker. But that didn’t mean the kiss wasn’t deep and passionate and an intimate promise of more to come.
When he finally lifted his mouth from hers, Kat was breathless. “If I take back the whole spinster thing, will that mean you’re going to stop kissing me like that?”
“Never,” Achilles whispered.
“Glad to hear it, because I don’t want you to ever stop.”
“I won’t my Katrina, my princess…”
And Achilles made love to her. Slowly, languorously, letting her body serve as his blueprint he built her pleasure, one touch at a time, until they both found completion.
As Kat drifted to sleep in his arms she thought that having a man who loved her slowly and carefully was the most erotic experience of her life.
Venus materialized inside the dim tent after the lovers were deeply asleep. Moving silently as a shade, she brushed the bed curtain aside and smiled down at Achilles and Katrina. True love, she thought happily. I knew this woman was meant for somethingspecial the first instant I saw her—and Love is never wrong.
Then she raised her hands over the couple and whispered the spell:
Achilles, hero and warrior, I want you to sleep
Well into the morning, soundless, replete.
Wake when the sun is high in the sky.
What Love commands, you cannot deny.
From her raised hand a waterfall of diamond dust sprinkled over Achilles’ body. The warrior smiled and drifted deeply into Love’s magical embrace.
Sighing with self-satisfaction, Venus left their bedside, easily finding the place where Achilles’ famous armor lay discarded in the corner of the tent. With a slight flick of her wrist, she and the armor disappeared. Venus had one more stop to make to sprinkle a little conciliatory magic on stubborn Jacqueline, and then she had only to wait till dawn when she would meet Patroklos, clothe him in Achilles’ borrowed armor and a touch of her power and then this whole war issue would be dealt with. Venus sighed again… It was always work, work, work. When this was over she definitely would treat herself to a much deserved vacation.