A/N: Happy New Year, enjoy and leave a review!

Chapter 6:

Her body hurts. Hurts like it never has before. Lines of fire spread across her back, like hellhounds licking fire up her spine. The whip cracks down again. She loses count of how many times the whip has slashed across her back.

She almost wished to die just then. Anything. Anything to stop the pain.

Then she slips into unconsciousness, and the inky darkness is welcome as the pain ebbs away. But it's only temporary.

Cold, chilly water is rudely thrown onto her back. Someone is screaming. Loud.

The female voice is piercing in the air, and she wishes the screaming female would just stop. Just stop screaming and stop showing weakness. Then something slaps her mouth and she tastes the iron of blood on her tongue. The screaming stops, but she refuses to open her eyes.

She wished she wasn't so weak. But she's too cowardly to slip into the black depths of death. Every time the angry man swears at her, hits at her, taunts her with insults, she refuses. Refuses to beg for her life. Her father's face is there, at the doors of death. But his stance isn't welcoming; the arms he extends aren't one of an embrace. He turns her away, as if telling her it's too early for her to meet him.

She screams why, why he doesn't love her, why he doesn't want to see him. Her father only smiles wanely, and then he vanishes.

Her body is broken. Her mind refuses to extinguish its own life.

Then the whipping stops as her body flails around. Her hands reach for anything, punch, scratch, squeeze for anything to stop the pain. She hears a crash, like somebody stumbling against some sort of furniture. A body falls.

There is silence for a while, except for her own heavy breathing.

Soft hands reach for her. They're warm, but she hates the feeling. The touch of men, scrambling to tear away her clothes. The hands touch one of her wounds, and she screams again. The person mutters an apology, and the hands do not brush her back again. But they hold her up, and she feels herself being carried like a baby.

She opens her eyes up and her savior slowly comes into focus. Golden hair, like the wheat fields she was forced to tend to day and night. Her torturer has the same features, but this one is younger. Much younger.

Her head goes slack and turns to one side. Then she sees the body. Her mouth opens to scream but no sound comes out. Tears come out instead. But are they tears of horror or relief?

For on the floor is her master. Her owner. Her torturer.

He faces the floor, his golden hair splattered with red flecks of blood. A chair lays fallen by his feet as if her master has tripped over it, one of its wooden legs splintered.

"Don't look," the savior says, his voice grim.

She turns back to him. His voice is pained, and his eyes are wild. Wild with fear like hers was.

"Outside," she manages to whisper.

She does not want to die in this slave compound. She could feel the darkness overtake her, and she is prepared to meet the ghosts of the Underworld. Perhaps her savior will listen to her request. She wants to see the sky for the very last time. Instead, her eyes meet a sky-blue gaze before her mind fades to unconsciousness.

Piper woke up to a chill blanketing the area. She shivered, pulling on a soft cloak for its warmth. During breakfast, the Greek leaders discussed traveling to the borders of the Greek and Roman territories.

"Not everyone believes that we signed a treaty," Annabeth grumbled. "We've been getting reports that there are still skirmishes along the borders. If we show support together, that should stop the fights."

Leo leaned over to Piper and whispered in her ear. "Think something happened to them last night?" He nods to the direction of Annabeth and Percy, their heads bowed together as they pored over a map. "I saw Annabeth coming out of Percy's tent this morning. And her hair was all tangled!"

Piper managed to keep her blush down. When she had gone to grab her clothes from the little pool, Percy and Annabeth were already gone. But she had a feeling that she knew what sorts of things had transpired, especially since she prompted such things to happen. And karma hit her not too long after that. Gods, she was never going to be able to face Jason again. "Something probably did happen between them then."

"I don't think anything too saucy happened though. Pity. There were absolutely no lewd noises last night, and my tent was near Percy's." Leo lobbed another fireball at the campfire, smirking at Piper's grimace. The area of warmth spread.

"I didn't need to know about that. Ugh, now I have to get rid this image in my mind."

"Why so embarrassed, Beauty Queen? Aren't you a child of Aphrodite? Can't you tell when two people are in love or something? Or like whose someone's true love is?"

"If I could tell you somebody's true love, then you'd probably be with your intended and you'd stop hitting on pretty girls."

"Hey, the ladies love the Leoster."

Piper laughed, nearly choking on her bread. "The Leoster? In your dreams." She thought of her own dreams and grew somber. "So where exactly by the Greco-Roman border are we heading to?"

"To the Epirus mountains, apparently."

Piper's face darkened. She abhorred that place, where bad memories lay in waiting.

Leo grimaced as well, brushing off the crumbs from his clothes as he stood up. "I know. I don't like it either."

He, too, harbored nothing but hatred for the home of his former slave master.

"I suppose you'll like going back to your family's villa," Reyna commented as the praetors overlooked the legion's morning training. "How long has it been since you've been back?"

"Ten years." He kicked at a stone, watching as as it bounced over the dying grass.

"That's a long time. And to think you've been with the legion ever since."

"Yeah," he said, smiling softly.

If Jason was being honest, he would never want to go back to his family's villa. Not like it had ever felt like his family cared about him, other than his half-sister Thalia, and even Thalia had her own family with the huntresses of Artemis. His mother had passed away when he was only six, while his uncle, his mother's older brother, was busy conquering lands and laying waste to its people. He had been thankful that his uncle was often out in battle, for the few times the general was home in the villa brought only pain. The legion was the closest thing to family for him.

"Mark, don't forget to strike when you block with your shield!" Reyna called out.

Jason watched as Mark, a son of Venus, struggled to block attacks from his partner. Hmm, a son of Venus. He wondered if Mark had ever heard of such abilities that Piper had. At the very least, it couldn't hurt to ask. Mark was the oldest of the Venus children, and there were only three of them.

As soon as practice was over, Jason caught up with Mark.

"Oh, hey, Jason. Sorry, I just don't seem to be improving on the battlefield," Mark said sheepishly. He rubbed his dark brown hair, his handsome features contorted into a guilty frown. Ever since he was nearly captured by a monster, the son of Venus focused less on taking care of his appearance and more on training. Jason didn't even have the heart to tell Mark that his hair stuck out in odd angles after removing his battle helm.

"No, man, you're doing great! You managed to block at least half of the attacks. A couple more practices, and you'll be parrying attacks!"

"You think so?" Mark looked hopefully.

"Of course! Hey, I wanted to ask you about something that I hope you can help me out with," Jason said.

"Oh, sure, what do you need?" The brunette asked curiously. It wasn't every day that the praetor sought out a common demigod like he was. Mark was just glad he wasn't in trouble for sucking ass at fighting.

Jason looked around to make sure no one was listening. "I wanted to ask you about a power that children of Venus or Aphrodite have."

Mark's face darkened so quickly that Jason wondered if he had tread on a sensitive topic. "If Octavian is talking shit about charmspeak, then you can tell him to shove his words in his ass where shit belongs."

Jason blinked at Mark's harsh words. The normally calm demigod was nearly red in the face. What had happened there? "Um, no, I wasn't going to ask you about charmspeak. Has Octavian been harassing you about it?"

Mark muttered something unflattering towards the augur. "It's nothing. But if you aren't talking about charmspeak, what Venus ability are you talking about?"

"It's about the ability to induce feelings of want or lust in others, as well as in the caster themselves." It was amazing that Jason was able to say such a thing without blushing.

Mark paused in thinking. "Hmm, that's a rare blessing given by mother. It's usually only given in times when the human populace is dwindling."

Jason blinked. "Wait, what?"

"Well, you know how we Romans and the Greeks have been fighting for years now, right? It's taking a toll on both sides, even if we don't admit it. More and more people are being pulled in the army, and now we've got these monsters that are trying to overrun us. Less and less people are farming, growing food to sustain the nation and towns just keep getting razed and razed. No doubt the number of citizens has decreased. So, Mother sometimes bestows one or two of her children with such blessings so the human population number can go back up. Causes people to have urges to find compatible partners and er, well, reproduce. But, the blessing can only be used once in a lifetime and it only affects people within very close range of the caster and up to about a dozen people."

Jason frowned, remembering that Piper had more than one occasion had let loose her spell of desire. His whole Cohort, around forty warriors, had fallen to their knees at the spell. "So they can't constantly use such blessings?"

Mark shook his head adamantly before reluctantly telling the truth. "Well, okay. This is just a legend that I have heard. Sometimes, a child of Venus can persistently choose to invoke such powers of inducing lust. Usually, when such a child is born, it's taken as an indicator that something bad is going to happen, like a huge war, famine, disease, or whatever calamity that it is. Rome was founded by Romulus, a child of Venus, so Mother would not want us to fall, so the blessings are there as a precaution." Mark looked curiously as Jason. "Such powers are extremely rare, and hasn't been bestowed since nearly a hundred years ago. I only knew about it because my father was an actor who passed down such stories. Charmspeak is the ability more likely to be granted. Where did you learn of a power like that?"

Ah, that's right. Mark wasn't on the battlefield that day when Piper unleashed her ability against the Romans. "I read about it in a scroll."

Mark stared at him, almost through him, but Jason kept his composure steady. "Jason," Mark turned serious, "if you do know someone like this, that's a very dangerous sign for us all." He turned uneasily, eyes scanning to for any eavesdroppers. "Not only is it a sign of an era of evil, in past history the Romans have always executed those with such powers because they were afraid that the child of Venus was a harbinger of doom."

"That doesn't make sense! The child of Venus should be a sign of fortune, to increase our population!" Jason's head was swimming, already calculating on the next steps to take.

Mark smiled wryly. "Yeah, well, we Romans have always been superstitious people. You want to know what they did to the child of Venus before the execution?" Jason's stomach turned, but Mark persisted. "The stories whispered among us Venus children is that those with such powers are used to cast their spell of fertility and desire, and then killed right at the height of the climax to ensure fertility. The new generation born would be more powerful and healthy than their parents, guaranteeing that the nation lives on."

Jason grabbed Mark so suddenly the young man almost slipped. "Don't breathe a word of this to the others. Not a single word, you hear me? If somebody else asks about what I've asked, don't let them know."

Mark pursed his lips, brushing off Jason's hard grip. "So you do know someone like that. No wonder, with the state of our nations going to shit like this." Mark's gaze steeled. "I'm not going to pry for more information, because I don't want to be a part of this. Children of Venus or Aphrodite, it doesn't matter to me. We're all children of the same goddess, and we should protect each other to the death. There's been too much senseless death. Whenever the child of Venus is killed like that, Mother always curses the people who partook in such murderous activities."

"Do your siblings know about this?"

The brunette shook his head. "They're too young to have heard such tales. Jason, you have to be careful." Mark turned serious. "I've only given you a washed down version of what I know. The stories I've heard of, passed down by my father, they're not pretty. They-they used to force the child of Venus to induce the whole city with desire in violent orgies and depraved activities, and then use the child for their own sick, twisted pleasures before killing the child. You have to protect whoever they are, Jason. My sibling, whoever they are, can be the key to saving our nation from collapse, but I don't want this damn nation to kill off another one of my sibling in cold blood. Mother will curse us all if it were to happen."

Jason's heart stilled. If what Mark said was true, then Piper's life was in extreme danger. There were so many soldiers out on that battlefield when Piper unleashed her power, but thankfully it seemed like no one else knew about the truth that Piper held. And if the rest of the Romans were to find out about her and kill her, then the Greeks would massacre them all.