Daughter of the Gods-Dark Illusions
by Lisa Beth Darling
Adult Daniel Jackson Fan Fiction

CHAPTER TWELVE

Same Night
1313 Mockingbird Lane
Silver Springs, Colorado

On a Hot Summer Night,
Would you offer your throat to
the Wolf with the Red Roses?

Hot Summer Night
MeatLoaf
(words & music by Jim Steinham, baby)

David turned his head toward the door as he watched it swing open and Calla came into his view. There was something in her eyes tonight, something very deep and dark. Standing up he heard his back give out a series of pops and cracks. "How you doin' tonight, Callie?" He lifted his arms in the arm and then waved his hand in front of his face. "I guess you've noticed by now, I could use another shower. Any chance?" There was no recognition in her face, and she just stared through him with a blank expression. "Hey, I'm up here." He said in a louder but still gentle tone. "Callie?" With mixed surprise and something that felt like dread, he watched as she produced a small silver key from her pocket. It was the key that unlocked the chains on his wrists. She had left him enough slack, not only to walk around the small room, but to get his wrist to his mouth. David could easily unbuckle the leather straps with his teeth, but there was no way in hell, he could get the second lock off by himself. Nope, there was no gnawing through the solid metal. At this point, if she were going to feed him, she usually told him to sit. Then she threw the lever so the chains rolled back to the point where the only thing he could do was get the fork to his mouth.

Not this time. There didn't appear to be any dinner tonight. Well before the time she came down, he could smell it cooking in the kitchen directly above him. Tonight there were no aromas of something warm and yummy being cooked up for supper. Something different was going on tonight. She brought the hand that had been hiding behind her back to the fore, in it sat Danny’s 9mm.

With the key in one hand and the (still empty) gun in the other, Calla made her way to the lever. "Sit down." She told him and waited for him to comply. He did so without fuss. Calla tossed the lever and secured David to the bed to the point where he could not move. "I'm going to leave this here," she put the key on the small tray table by the bed. "If you let me do this, I will let you go."

"And if'n I don't?"

In return, she raised her eyebrows and gave the weapon in her hand a nod. "I guess I’ll just have to shoot you.”

"What are you gunna do, Callie?" David asked nervously. Calla advanced toward him, kicking off the small flats on her feet as she walked.

"You just lay still and behave," she told him as she licked her lips, "this won't take long. It'll be over soon." From the pocket of her dress, Calla produced a very badly rolled joint. It was loose and would canoe easily. Nevertheless, it would smoke and right now, that was what was important. "This will help," she said easily as she put it between her lips and lit it. Calla took a massive toke off the joint and then stuck it between David's lips. "Go on, have some." She encouraged and watched the head of the joint glow as he sucked down the smoke.

"I thought you wasn't sup'osed to touch that." He remarked as she took it away again and took another hit.

"Daniel's dead," she said flatly, "there's no one to tell me what to do now." She held it out to him again. Calla became completely and totally committed to what she was going to do next the second she took the weed from the cabinet. She had no Master, no Lord, no Naganti, no Sa'Tan to guide her mind, all she knew was that she was growing weaker and her children would suffer because of it. Calla knew of only two ways to get what she needed, since she never had the stomach for killing, this was the last resort.

David took another hit. It was burning fast and crumbling; maybe she'd get another hit out of it before it burned her fingertips. Her eyes were distant and blank. David wasn’t sure if Calla was actually in her own body, and not just the room, right now. He broke out in a cold sweat as she tossed the burning roach to the floor and reached for the button on his jeans. She had done this a lot, he had come to be most appreciative of the unique style, and ability she possessed in this area but that was not what she had in mind now. No, they were going to do something else. Calla took his jeans down to his knees. A warm and skilled hand took hold of his half-flaccid cock. In no time at all it was standing at full attention and he was waiting with dark anticipation to see if she was really going to do what he thought she was. Satisfied that his cock would stand up to the task, she unzipped the floral print dress and let it fall to the floor, she wasn't wearing anything else. David saw large bruises on both sides of her stomach, in the middle of which looked like puncture marks. "Calla, what happened to you?" Some sort of medical testing, he thought. She had brown bandages on both forearms above the elbows as if she'd had blood drawn. Well, it seemed that he was about to be the sole benefactor of some very bad news.

"Not long." She repeated. "It'll be over soon. Just be still." Calla settled herself over him, spread herself wide with her fingers and impaled herself on him. "Not long." She whispered as she began to grind on him.

Beneath her, David winced; Calla was dry and not ready. Entering her was rough and tight, but luscious nonetheless. David wrapped his fingers and the palms of his hands around the chains binding his wrists; he pulled his body weight upward gaining what advantage he could. It wasn’t enough to push fully into her. “Calla, come up here,” David whispered as his moist tongue flicked out of his mouth. “C’mere.” It had been a long time but that didn’t mean he had forgotten what she tasted like. No, no, not at all. David was anxious for another drink of her. Her distant eyes turned dark as she dismounted him, he expected her to rise to his mouth but she did not. Instead, Calla‘s head descended over his dirty cock and she took him into her mouth. When she was satisfied that it was well oiled, she settled herself over him again and slid down. Entry was easier this time, she was still tight and hot but wetter now, he slipped smoothly in and out of her as she rode him. Fuck Me Freddy, even pregnant she was better at this than any other woman he’d ever known. Long silky strands of auburn hair skipped over his face, cheek, and neck, as she rocked it created a soft breeze that both cooled and heated him, as he lay powerless underneath her. "Unchain me," David moaned with lustful hunger. "Lemme go."

Calla’s hand reached down and covered his mouth as her eyes opened. “Be silent,” she demanded, “it will be over soon.” Her full hips ground themselves harder and faster down upon his anxious cock, her hand pressing against his mouth and nose cutting off his air supply. “Quiet.” She hissed.

At first, he tried to move his face away from the palm of her hand, realizing she would not release her grip; he tried to push further back into the pillow to allow for the slightest breath that she was not inclined to give him now. Her knees and hips locked to his flanks as she thrust herself upon him repeatedly with something that felt a whole hell of a lot like revenge. Under her, his eyes grew wild as his cheeks reddened and he tried to suck air into his lungs, she smiled a viscous little grin down at him. As the hand that had been holding her weight in the middle of his chest moved in to close around his throat, David realized he knew everything he ever needed to about Naganti Kanan.

Looking up into a pair of wild eyes, he understood she was not going to stop until she got exactly what she wanted. Maybe then she would let him breathe again. Just before he passed out from a lack of oxygen, David’s cock spit forth the biggest, hardest load it ever had; it seemed to come from somewhere deeper than the core of the Earth. With the last bit of air he had left in his lungs, David's face reddened deeper as he let out a muffled cry of lustful fulfillment. Calla ground her hips down harder upon him as he pulsed and throbbed inside her. The world closed in on itself like an old black and white television.

David woke to find himself still bound to the bed. His jeans had been pulled over his hips and fastened. Calla, now dressed, was sitting in the chair across the room. She was staring at him with those big green eyes of hers. They weren't wild any longer, they had gone back to absent and distant. “You dun wit me?” He asked in an accusatory manner, he felt as though he’d just been raped but that wasn’t possible. One could never rape the willing. Still, it didn't change the feeling that he'd been used, abused and put away dirty.

“For now.” She agreed and rose from the chair to cross the room and pick up the key she left on the tray table by the bed. “I promised I would let you go,” she said cautiously as she reached out and unlocked the MasterLock on his left wrist, she pressed the key into his free hand. "You do it." Leveling the gun at his head. She took two steps back.

David unlocked and then unbuckled his right wrist. Suddenly, there were no more chains on him. Thanks to the ride she had just given him, not a lot of fight or energy either. "Now what?"

"Go." She waved the gun toward the open door without turning her eyes from him.

No argument was forthcoming from him; David exited the room, passed the washer and dryer, and began to ascend the stairs. He stopped when he realized she wasn't behind him. "Aren't you coming with me?" David turned around and strode down the three steps he climbed to walk back to where she was leaning against the washing machine. She didn't seem to hear him, her eyes were fixed on the stairs she'd come down earlier, the arm without the gun was busy easing her bruised and swollen stomach. David wasn’t the only one with a severe lack of energy then Climbing down the stairs and latching onto his hips so harshly as she straddled him had put more stress and strain on her already aching knee. From the look in her eyes, she wasn’t sure she could get up the stairs. His eyes sparkled as movement came from under her blouse, a small hand or foot was stretching itself in there, trying to find more room in the cramped quarters it was sharing with its brother or sister. "C'mon Callie, lets go upstairs, we'll get yew som'than ta drink." David reached out his arm to help her, Calla pulled away from him. “Listen, hon, you just fucked my brains out, I’m not inclined to hurt you just now. That was fuckin’ awesome, by the way. Thanks, doll, you're a real peach.” David reached out his arm again and this time she let him slip it around her back and leaned on him to pull herself away from the washing machine. Reaching the landing to the rickety old wooden stairs, he said; "You better go ahead of me."

"No." She didn't want his help or the feel of his skin on hers. Did not want to have to hear the insincerity in his voice. She wanted Daniel and he was pale imitation of that. Still he was here and Daniel was not.

"Yes, if you fall, I can catch you. Now go on." He said as he slipped into Daniel's voice. She didn't respond right away and he waited a few moments and watched while she gripped the banister tightly in her right hand, moving the gun to her left. Calla essentially pulled herself up the stairs rather than walk up them. Any second she was going to teeter over, he was sure of it as he watched her unsteady pace and listened to the painful thumps of each footstep.

Emerging through the basement door, if she was going to take him up to the bathroom as he had requested earlier, they should have gone straight up the stairs to the second floor but instead Calla turned into the kitchen and sat down hard in a chair at the table.

"I can't," she said as she tried to catch her breath. "You go, take your shower. We need to talk after that."

"You're just gonna let me go?" He asked and she nodded. She was worse off than he thought. "What do we have to talk about?"

"I have a proposal for you. Tell me, Dan . . . " she caught herself before she could say it. He was doing it to her again, playing with her mind, trying to lull her. "David, how do you feel about Chicago?"

Pursing his lips at the sound of his name and scratching his head, he sat in the chair next to her. "Ye olde Homestead, huh?" He stretched his legs out long and lean beneath the kitchen table. "Got left to you, did it? Congrats." David sucked on his bottom lip for a moment. "Why?"

"You can't stay here any longer."

"Oh, no, hon. I-tell-you-wot, I think you mean you can't keep going up and down dem stairs no mo'e." Calla said nothing; she just sat there with the gun in one hand and her big belly in the other. What she’d done to him in the basement just now astonished her. She looked like she couldn't take one more thing, no matter how small or insignificant it might be. Calla was just about ready to toss her hands in the air, scream ‘Uncle!’, and give up completely before she broke into tears. David reached out and touched one fingertip to the spot between her breasts where he'd plunge that needle into her so many months before.

Her sad swollen eyes look up at him as she moved slowly away from his touch. "Do you care about these children at all? You must." She said as she thought about the other day when he'd come out of the shower. He hadn't made a move to harm her, not physically, he was just trying to trick her and it almost worked.

"Are they mine?"

"I don’t know." Calla admitted. “Does it make a difference? Will you go with me?"

"To Chicago?" She had said she didn't know, that was probably true enough. Even he was aware of the fact that identical twins have identical DNA and none of them would probably ever know if it was him or Danny whose swimmers had made it to home first. That little fact must be killing her.

"Yes." Her dewy distant eyes stared hard at him. "You can do what you want with me. I don’t care anymore. Just promise me you won’t hurt my children."

Well, now, there it is and there it was.

Surrender.

The lady might as well wave a big white flag in front of his face, but no. Not Calla, she laid it on the table before him, soft and sweet, as though offering herself to him was nothing more than simple dinner conversation.

“You don’t care?” Calla’s proposal definitely intrigued him as he slipped into his brother's voice again. “Anything I want?” That was a very interesting proposition.

“I am dying, you're not blind, I know you can see this. It will.....” she looked over at him with disconcerted eyes as she paused, “it will be over soon.” She finished. “So what does this life, this body, mean any more? Nothing. I‘ll tell you something, if you don‘t come with me,” she reached into the pocket of the dress and produced a large syringe, “I will shoot you and take what I need from your cold corpse.” Even more than the idea of having his cock inside her she loathed the idea of replacing Daniel’s essence with David’s within Eros’ gift. If he would not come then she would have no other choice but to kill him and fill herself with it. "Which option sounds more pleasurable to you?"

“You're serious, aren't you’? “ David asked as he took in the needle laying on the table and wondered why she hadn't just done this in the first place. Then he figured that the idea of killing someone, no matter who it was, probably didn't sit right with her. She could hold him hostage and use him in the most delightful ways but killing him was just too far over the line. "What if I let you take it?" David pointed to the base of his neck. "Will you be mine then? No one else can touch you?" Before she could answer him from outside there was the loud sound a car door slamming shut. David got up and peeked out the kitchen window to behold the yellow pick-up truck he’s seen a few days earlier. "Looks like your lover’s back."

"Don’t call him that!” She hissed weakly. “He is not my lover. He won’t go away. He tried to talk to me on the base today, but I wouldn't listen to him." She returned and tried to rise. "You have to get out of . . . "

"Too late." David said suddenly, "he's not goin' to the front door."

"Hide!" She demanded in a voice which had been zapped of all its strength. His shadow reached the kitchen window before Michael Blood did. "Please, David...."

David sprinted back to where she was standing just before Blood could peek in the window. With his back to the Peeping Tom, David leaned down and kissed her full on the mouth. Calla did not try and fight him off; she welcomed the feeling of those soft full lips on hers. The gun dropped from her hand to the kitchen chair as she wrapped her arms around him and her tongue explored the back of his throat. The door on the pick-up slammed shut, and then it sped off into the dusk. "I told you, I’d do my best to keep him away from you. Now he thinks you have a new lover," David said quietly as he broke her embrace and his finger tips traced the outline of her face, "he won't be so quick to bother you next time."

“More kiss.” Calla implored in a hushed voice and raised her aching body to tip toes, ready and waiting to feel his lips on hers again. “Please, more kiss.”

She had been a junkie for Danny and now she’d be his Strawberry.

There been no kissing before, during or after she fucked him. Just raw, full out, head on sex. That may be what she needed but it wasn't what she wanted at all. She wanted Danny. Danny didn't do her like that. David had watched, and learned, Danny liked to take his time with her, do it long and slow.

It wasn't sure just how he was going to pull that off, the logistics of it and all but, it didn’t sound like a bad idea to him. He was willing to give it the Old College Try.

David leaned down and kissed her again and felt the urgency inside her. It ran through her to him and back again, as she suckled on his bottom lip, her hands running across the bare flesh of his hard chest beneath the shirt she was unbuttoning with shaking fingers. His cock, which had been so satisfied but a moment ago, instantly woke with a firmness strong from which enough to hang a wet bath towel. With his lips tingling from the sweet taste of her mouth, he broke the embrace again and stepped back from her. Emerald eyes stared up at him, they called for him to touch her, caress her, and kiss her. “Those blow jobs weren’t good enough, were they, Calla?” he whispered as he ran his hands through her waist length hair, “Don’t get me wrong, little darlin’, they were great but, ah, not exactly what you need, are they? I can fix that. I can give you everything you need, where you need it." He reached down a hand between her legs, now it was both hot and wet. "I can be everything you want." He pulled her in close so that he could whisper in her ear. "You know I look like him, how about my voice? Do I sound like him, Calla?" His hot breath tickled the nape of her neck and inner ear. David's hand grabbed a soft but firm hold on the back of her neck and brought her face into the bare flesh about his chest. "Do I smell like him?" David's eyes closed as she drew in a deep breath to find out. "I feel like him." He reached down for the same small hand which had threatened him with the needle and placed it on his cheek. "Taste like him?"

“Give?” Calla requested as she parted the shirt and let his scent fill her mind, the tip of her tongue flicked out to taste the salt of his skin.

Somewhere in the darkest recesses of his mind there was a very loud pop! For a reason he wouldn't remember for another second or two; “Take?” He countered. Pop! Then he remembered, must have heard Danny say that to her once or twice just before they got down to it. Yes, that was it, sure it was.

“Yes. Give. Take. More kiss.” She begged breathlessly and began pulling on the collar of the shirt to bring his mouth down to her level. “More kiss.” So long she’d been drifting in this world without him. “Daniel, please . . . ”

David stood his ground and did not bend to her request. He had her right where he wanted her, she called him Daniel, she didn't even think about it. She was ready to fall, all he had to do was let her. Just let her believe. Her lips were mere millimeters from his, her chest heaving with anticipation. David tipped his head and his lips brushed over hers in a merciless tease before they were gone again. If he waited, just a few more seconds, she would...

“More.” She beseeched with quiet urgency. “I will be good, I promise. So good. Please. I need. Please, kiss. Please, come. Now.”

....Beg him for it.

Junkie. Strawberry.

She was dancing in the palm of his hand; all he had to do was . . .

Losing herself in the illusion he offered, Calla's fingers undid the remaining buttons on his shirt and then tossed it to the floor. Her lips descended over his nipple while she laid her head against the warm flesh that covered his beating heart.

Thump-thumpa-thump-thump, it beat at a rapid solid rhythm in his chest. Not the wump-wump-wump of the murmur which had given David away when she laid with David that night in the Mohegan Sun Casino.

Thump-thumpa-thump-thump. It was the rhythm of Daniel’s heartbeat.

That sweet illusion shattered like fine crystal.

Reaching deep down for the last of the strength within her she shoved him away from her body, "Daniel is dead!" she shouted and grabbed for the empty gun. “You are not Daniel!” She screamed. “What trick is this?!” Calla leveled the gun at his head. “Tell me!” She demanded. The twins began doing something akin to somersaults inside her, she could barely stand as their weight twisted and turned inside her.

“It’s me, Callie,” David ventured in Daniel's warm voice. “I know I've been gone awhile but it’s all right now so give that to me.” He held out the flat of his hand waiting for her to give him the empty gun. “You don’t want to hurt me. I love you.”

“Daniel is dead!” Calla cried out as he took another step toward her. “Stay away from me.”

“You’re not gonna shoot me, Cal.” He soothed. "You love me, missed me, I know you have. I'm here now. I won't leave you again." He smiled Daniel's smile. "It's all right now. It’s over. Just give me the gun."

“Stop it! Please stop.” Tears welled up in her eyes.

“Give me the gun, Cal.” Another step and he would be within but a fingertips reach of her.

"Daniel is dead! He's never coming back." She wailed. "Don't come any closer!" Nevertheless, he didn't heed her warning, he took another step toward her, Calla pulled the hammer back and released the trigger.

Nothing.

Holy shit! He couldn't believe it! She had actually tried to shoot him! Maybe she wasn't kidding about the cold corpse thing after all. “It’s empty,” he half-hissed, half whispered. “I took the bullets out days ago.”

“No!” Calla cried and began backing away from him.

Calla pulled the trigger again and again as David advanced on her; all it did was make that annoying little sound. David snatched out his hand to seize the weapon from Calla. Anger rising swift inside her, she shoved his hand aside and with all the weight and force she could muster. Reaching herself up to her tips toes and stretching her arm as far into the air as she could, Calla slammed the heavy empty chunk of metal against the right side of his head. Blood spurted from his temple; David's hand went to the wound as he crashed to his knees. Everything around her went red as she tossed the useless gun to the floor and grabbed both sides of his head; she rammed her knee up underneath his chin. David's teeth gnashed against his bottom lip, splitting it in two as his body splayed backward onto the kitchen floor.

David was about to find more than he ever wanted to know where Naganti Kanan was concerned.

Stretching her tired swollen body upward, Calla grabbed the thick co-ax cable line that her herbs had been drying on from the ceiling overhead. Calla doubled it over and wrapped the loose ends around her right hand. “Liar! False!” She railed at the top of her lungs, she twirled the makeshift whip around in the air to gain speed, it split the air with a loud Swwosh-swoosh-swoosh before she brought it down on his bare flesh.

“Sage’kotek!” (Outsider!)

She the whip crashed down again, his skin split open. “Aswanz!” (Die!)

The man writing in pain on the kitchen floor let out a cry for help as he turned away from her and tried to shield himself from the strap. As she lost herself in her rage, standing over him, bringing the whip down, his anguished cries only infuriated her further.

“Endo! Shyiot bagin!” (Stop this! Or I’ll kill you!) Again she brought down the whip, again a wide strip of flesh split open and spilled blood on the clean linoleum.

“In’ya, taka, Dech! Nin retake ginan!”

Th-whack! The lash snapped down.

“In’ya taka, Dech!”

TH-whack!

“In’ya taka, Dech! Nin retake ginan!”

TH-WHack! TH-WHACK!

Each time she screamed the phrase she brought the strap down with more force.

Stupid, fucking whore. How dare you defy me!

“Co!” The bleeding man shouted from the floor. “Co! Endo! Maen!” David didn’t stop to realize that not only did he understand what she was saying but what he was saying as well. “Endo, Cha’Dech!” His voice boomed as he rolled over and grabbed the tip of the whip as it came down for the last time. The stunned expression on her face said it all. “Maen! Byan!” He yanked the whip out of her hand. No more threatening than a wet noodle, it fell to the floor beside him. “Oh, God, Calla.” On the cold linoleum floor, David clutched his bleeding stomach. “That hurts! You stupid bitch!”

From the darkest shadows, someone sensed Victory. Finally! After so many years! His moment had arrived. The marks on Calla’s neck began to glow as she stared down at the man on the floor. “More trouble than she’s worth, isn’t she?” A dark voice came from the shadows. Ares emerged from the corner between the sun porch and entrance to the dining room.

“Yes!” David agreed as he continued to writhe on the cold kitchen floor.

“I’ll take her off your hands.” Ares invited.

"She's all yours."

“Do you forget your vow, Sa’Tan?” It was a question he waited her entire lifetime to ask.

“No, you will take her.” David looked from the blood on his hand to the God of War and back to his daughter with that annoying snapping sound going on in the back of his mind. Gee, he wished that would go away. It was like someone was endless snapping gum back there somewhere. Like rusted, un-greased wheels, slowly starting to turn over after years of sitting still. "Go on!” He shouted as he wiped the blood from his split bottom lip with the back of his hand. “Get her out of here! Fucking bitch. Get out of my house! Take your bastard children with you, Cha’Dech! Don‘t you ever come back!”

“I will take you.” Ares reached out his arms to the shaking woman. “Come home, Callestah. He never loved you. He never wanted you. You were nothing but a burden to him, a chain around his neck. Look at what you have done to him, the man you have loved so long and so hard. You’re trying to destroy him.”

“Master Daniel?” Confusion and shame were clear on her face while long streams of tears ran endlessly down her alabaster cheeks. “Forgive me?” Gazing down on him, she still saw red. Yet now it was not due to anger or fear, but Daniel’s life force, the blood which kept him going, kept the heart that she adored so much beating within him. It was spilled everywhere because of her. The ugly red welts on his smooth skin. Calla’s knees finally gave out and she sank to the floor near where he lay clutching his wounded stomach. Only wanting to reach out and touch him, Calla crawled to his side. Needing to tell him how sorry she was, that she’d never meant to hurt him, she loved him and was so elated that he was alive. “Is it really you? Please, my Lord, forgive me. I love you. I am so sorry. I didn’t know.” Before she could touch him . . .

“Ka’Nok Re!” He roared at her and shoved her away with heated anger. The snapping sound grew louder and steadier until it became more of a clicking noise, cards in the spokes of a bicycle. The wheel in his head starting to spin faster and faster. As they started to grind and get to some serious work, he found that they worked some type of fog machine. This one did not produce fog, instead, it was beginning to suck it from his mind.

“Father?” She turned her hurt filled jeweled eyes in his direction, looking for any sort of comfort from anyone who was willing to give it to her. “Forgive me? Take me home with you.”

“All is forgiven, daughter.” Lord Ares wrapped a large arm around her slender shoulders, catching her just before she fainted dead away. “Thank you, Sa’Tan, you learned well. I told you that you would see her again if you did. I could not have done this without your cooperation.”

The little fog machine was happily churning away now, all around him the haze was lifting. For the time he’d spent here with her this last week or so, he had never been David Jackson. He’d always been Daniel. Yet, still, he had been plotting against her, just as David would have. He was finding ways to earn just a tad more of her trust so that he could find another way to use it against her. All those nights she‘d laid with him in the basement room, needing what he had to give yet afraid to let his arms go. Afraid David ... . . he . . . would attack her. Maybe he’d wrap those chains around her throat the way he‘d done to Mary the Colorado Cable and Modem Lady. All those days and nights that he‘d laid there and watched her slowly wasting away without a thought of how he could help her or his children. No, his only thoughts had been for himself, and how he could gain control of her. “Ares.” Daniel whispered in shocked horror.

“At your service, “ he said with a little bow as he eased a gentle finger over her ruffled brow. Ares snatched the medallion from around her neck. "Here," he tossed it at Daniel, "you keep this. A little token of your time with her."

Daniel pulled himself to a half-sitting position and groped for the necklace which lay in a puddle of his blood. The thin silver chain slipped through his fingers, leaving tracks of blood in their wake. Daniel reached for it again and caught it, he held it tight in his fist while the agonizing pain burned in his torso and his head pounded to the point of bursting. His temple was pounding like a tribal drum, and he was sure that he had two loose teeth. At least now he understood that she could really get her dander up when she had to. Ares' daughter, should he really have expected anything less from her? “Can't you see that she’s dying? She needs me. I won‘t give her up.”

“You already surrendered your claim, and you can’t take it back. She’s mine.” He seethed while holding her firmly with one arm as though she were an infant. Ares began to rock her back and forth in his arms while he hummed a little tune. “No need to worry, my friend, I will take excellent care of her.” There was much sincerity in his voice as his golden lips kissed the top of her forehead. "When she wakes, she won’t even remember you or any of this sorry mess. I think that’s best, don’t you?”

“Give her back!” Daniel struggled to pull his battered body off the bloodstained floor. “Calla, wake up! Calla, it's me. I'm sorry, I didn't mean those things I said.” It was so difficult to stand, his body hurt but his mind was the worst. The fog was still dense back there, but it was a mixed up jumble of thoughts and memories running together in a seemingly endless stream. He couldn't tell what was real and what was false.

"Save it, Sa'Tan, she can't hear you now. She'll never hear you again." With Calla in his arms, Ares disappeared.

End Daughter of the Gods: Dark Illusions
Chapter Twelve
Continue to
Chapter Thirteen

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