~ Chapter Twenty Six ~

Deathwish

"You... you love me." Ares stated on a very deadly tone, stressing every single word she fed him, giving a knife-like sonority to each particular letter, as his eyes were drilling a low pitched hole right where her now seemingly nonexistent heart had had its layer, and the moment his abusive gaze finally reached her eye level, he could have sworn he noticed something that he hadn't seen for a long time in her usually bold stare; plenary blasted fear.

As he took one firm step closer, diminishing the unnecessary gap between them, he just stood there, inches away from her proudly displayed physique, his visage as impassive as a rock, restricting the outside access of any sort of emotion or pain, blocking any trace of human feelings still lingering inside his cursed to suffer heart, those pitiful past occurrences that had forced him to change states, burdening him with the rotten smell and awareness of mortality.

He suddenly sensed his pulse racing as his left hand cupped her chin, and mirroring himself in her eyes, it didn't take long for him to see that there was indeed no softness in his features, no vulnerability, no hidden gentleness.

Just as he had wanted it.

Instead, the electrifying energy radiating from his fury charged aura, had already started spreading all around her, his dark intentions of skinning her alive with his teeth and getting drunk with her effervescent blood in the process, annihilating any positive thinking she might have clung to.

"HOW DARE YOU!?"

He had all the reasons to kill her there and then, no justification what so ever necessary, and much to his surprise, he could tell that though she was well aware of the life threatening situation she had created for herself, her muscles hadn't tensed yet, as if there were nothing important going on that very moment, her face still unbelievably relaxed and normal as if she was just having some ordinary day to day, boring chat with the irritating Blondie.

Getting ready for what was just about to happen, actually seemed to be her last concern in the whole wide world, and there was no way in Tartarus that she wouldn't have seen it coming, blindly relying only on the fact that he might have been in the mood to limit his attack at mere words, dropping any other hostile action for the sake of plain, fruitful conversation, since her clever eyes had already scanned him and read between the lines the most likely to happen scenario.

The point was that indeed, she knew better than that, and she was smart enough to realize that willingly or not, she had just crossed that awfully thin line between bantering and scorning in a very, very nasty and unworthy way one of the twelve Olympians, trampling the God's exposed feelings as if they were some useless rags, hurting him in a way that he had always avoided to hurt her, even when the chances of getting what he wanted from her by simply playing with her heart like that, were at their best.

Clenching his teeth and finally letting a slightly perceptible frown invade his forehead, the God couldn't help asking himself if the woman standing just like that, in front of him, as if she hadn't done anything wrong, examining that lifeless mask stuck to his face as if she had been looking at some hard to read handwriting, having no care in the world what so ever and at the same time carrying an unbearable load on her shoulders was suicidal, or what?

The extremely violent impact of Ares' knuckles against the Warrior Princess' cheek, and the technically applied knee to her stomach followed by a heavy strike to the back of her neck, took a totally freaked out Joxer by surprise as his trademark cowardly shriek overlapped with the God's stone-hard yelled command, one that he was usually using with most of the soldiers serving in his army.

"Get up and face me. Now! And don't let me say it to you one more time or the next thing you'll be seeing will be Charon's dull figure asking you for a silver dinar!"

Instead of granting Ares' command, she simply knelt there clutching her disturbingly aching stomach, refusing to submit under his order.

"You know what's sad?" She managed to cough, eyeing him boldly, questioning the expectancy that the Olympians assumed everyone to cater their wants and needs at the drop of a hat.

"A God who can't even do his own dirty work. Want me to hold your hand, make it easier?"

Though he wasn't really that second rated average type of bully boyfriend that had the nasty habit of losing control faster than he breathed, anger being so to say the other dirty face of war, for Ares himself, this degree of mockery, even intentionally directed towards his own edgy persona in order to achieve some crazy risky goal, was more than he was willing to take, and his determined attitude had in fact nothing to do with the intensity of his boiling wrath that had by that time reached unbearable levels, touching a soft spot in his well shielded heart or ego, but with the plain reality that he consciously refused to accept the fact that this unique Woman for which he was literally capable of giving anything up as long as he had her love, was turning him down over and over again, denying him even the simple joy of reading in her eyes the passion she felt for him, replacing it instead with cheaply disguised shades of detachment, arrogance and derision.

"Okay Princess, if you insist, two can play this game. But as you know, you'll probably find your role... not very enjoyable, so to put it, so, just beg when you want me to stop, okay Sweetie?" Ares barked gnashing his teeth as another thundering slap over her face and a kick to her stomach crushed her to the ground again, leaving her no time to react.

Clutching his hand into her tangled hair, he violently raised her severely hurting body high enough for her to face him, forcing her to watch him in the eyes, and when he finally had her full attention, his fingers gripped around her neck choking her, inducing her another different type of pain, due to the lack of oxygen that was gradually leaving her lungs.

"Does this give you any pleasure? You like this? See? You do, don't you, and you do enjoy every moment of it, right?" The God inquired, contemplating her tormented face as tears started to roll down her cheeks, trickling tardily on his hand, as warm and comforting as her silky body had been the night before.

He had no reason to stop though, not without her imploring him for once to let her live, at least through their bond if voice was definitely not her forte at that particular time.

"I was thinking Xena, not that I give a damn or anything, but this is probably how little Callisto felt seeing her parents killed in front of her. The same strangling sensation, the same lack of air, the same despair of wanting to do something to prevent what was happening without any real chance to actually do it, the distinct impression of being trapped inside and having no escape to access. Kindda' cool I should say, don't you agree?" Ares hissed as he brutally threw her full force at his feet, pinning her there with his other hand that only enhanced the grasp that was by now almost useless since the Warrior Princess' body was already giving up the useless struggle of escaping the God's steely hands, the impulse of gasping for air becoming obviously expendable, since it was but an unworthy energy consuming effort that only gave her torturer the satisfaction of seeing her fighting for her life with the last resources she still had.

"I can't hear you Princess. A 'pretty please' should do the trick, you know! You said you love me... how about now? Still all crazy about me?"

"Just let go of her Ares, you're killing her!" Joxer yelled pushing the God as hard as he could from Xena's weakened body.

"Xena, wake up! Come on, wake up!" The Warrior's voice broke out, as he grabbed her by the shoulders, shuddering her half dead body.

"Isn't this as touching as it could get? The comic relief himself trying to save my unbelievably ungrateful Chosen from receiving a free way ticket to the other side; an abject wannabe Warrior, unable to hold a sword in his hand, protecting MY Destroyer of Nations." Ares stated gravely, contemplating the picturesque scene unfolding just inches away from him.

"By Zeus himself Xena, I swear it on Styx, and you listen to me, and listen well." The God of War added rising to his feet, a wave of his hand magically cleaning the dust from his leather pants.

"The next time you pull a similar scheme I'll reduce to ashes anyone standing beside you that very moment. 'Cause if you value your life less than I value any stinky mortal walking upon this Earth, you probably don't feel the same way for any other wretched soul having the misfortune to be in your presence that blessed day."

"Let me save you the trouble, because I'd rather die than crawl back to you!" Xena threw in response, squeezing tightly Joxer's hand, encouraging him to trust her instincts when it came to the mighty God of War.

"Kill me! Do it!" When she said it, she said it with such conviction not even Ares himself could decipher the translation.