A Spartan's Kiss Read Online Free PDF Page A

bright.
    Ares enjoyed playing with Aeros and his men. Was this just another game designed to give his spoilt god of war something to do?
    The possibility had Aeros simmering.
    The witches. They posed more questions. For instance, why would they meet him? They had to know who he was, and, more importantly, who he worked for. Why meet with the man who worked for the man you had just stolen an artefact from?
    Maybe the women didn’t know who he was. But could they be that out of the loop? Most, if not all, immortals knew the Spartans and their history. Or thought they knew.
    Not many understood the real deal. Once brought back from the afterlife, he and his men had sworn their alliance to the god of war. Ares ruled them loosely, requiring little more than their worship and, of course, their defence of his honour and their service on all immortal councils in his stead. In exchange, he’d given them immortality.
    Aeros fought evil much as he had thousands of years before. Only now, instead of battling neighbouring Persia, he fought Death Stalkers or the other evil immortals. Such combats weren’t a hardship. Spartans survived on honour, and serving their god alongside other immortals bent on protecting the innocent, the weak, and the unsuspecting was a worthy duty. Aeros had simply exchanged his loyalty to his once-beloved Sparta for loyalty to a cause. If need be, he supposed he would serve for eternity.
    Now if that wasn’t depressing, he didn’t know what was. Shifting the vehicle into park, he worried that cheery thought like a sore tooth.
    Yeah, eternity was craved by many, but none understood the reality – until they were immortal. Hell, as it was, his life had taken on a dullness he couldn’t seem to shake. Battles didn’t break up the monotony. Battles were simply another facet of the never-ending struggle of each day, each week, each fucking decade.
    Eternity spanned ahead like a dark road with no end, but Aeros had to believe whatever deal Ares had made to bring him and his men back from the dead, eternity was now theirs. The problem with eternity? It went on for fucking ever.
    Aeros slumped back in the seat and examined the parking lot for the tenth time. No new cars, no sound of people, nothing. The club was subterranean. He wouldn’t hear the live band down there unless the band headed up the ten floors and hopped out into the parking lot with their equipment and started singing.
    When was the last time he’d gone to a club? Drunk a beer? Hung out with the men?
    Hell if he knew. The thought should worry him, but, like everything else in his life, worry didn’t occur much any longer. Worry was distant, like the sound of a storm a hundred miles away.
    If he did have immortality, would this be the way of it?
    A sports car pulled up next to him. Two passengers. They stumbled out of the open wing-back doors and loudly headed off.
    There were benefits to the job. He’d not lost a single man under his command since their return to this world. Could he? Lose a man? Some of his men had suffered from deadly blows. Some had had the very flesh burned from their bones, while others had lost limbs only to regenerate and survive.
    Aeros fiddled with his keys, disquieted over such thoughts. It was as if seeing that white rose had somehow ripped a grey mist from his vision he hadn’t realised had obscured his sight. His men meant a great deal to him. What if he’d neglected their well-being because of his own impenetrable ennui? There used to be laughter amongst his men. They used to joke at the smallest things. They used to…live. He’d not spoken of his own struggle. But he no longer sat on the beach of his homeland and watched the sun sink, a glowing orange ball, into his beloved, cerulean sea.
    The sound of a motorcycle pulling up next to him drew him out of his thoughts. Hands still holding his keys in the ignition, he turned the idling engine off, glanced over, and froze.
    His breath lodged in his throat, and he