Page 1 of Achille's Earth Angel
Chapter 1
The bloodcurdling screamof a woman in distress brought Achilles to his feet in a single heartbeat. “Did you hear that?” He grabbed his tunic from the ground and slipped it over his head, the smooth silk curving along his sun-glazed muscles as it slid to his upper thighs and stopped.
Hercules, who was lounging in the sun with his friend beside the River Styx, replied, “Sure I heard it. So what?” He, too, jumped up and grabbed his tunic, already knowing the inevitable before he’d asked the question.
“It sounds like a woman in trouble,” Achilles snapped, plunging into the woods as Hercules reluctantly followed.
“So why do you have to be the one to rescue her? We should just stay out of it, Achilles,” he complained, panting. “Every time you play the hero, we get ourselves into trouble with Zeus again. The last time, we had to clean every stable on Mount Olympus! Talk about of load of horse...”
“Since when do you worry about Zeus?” Achilles asked, cutting him off.
“Since he banned all contact with earth’s inhabitants,” Hercules retorted. “He got tired of the Gods always being the bad guy in most of earth’s historical records. It was only because of my mother, Alcmene, that he didn’t completely wipe the ‘ungrateful asses,’as he put it, off the face of the planet.”
Achilles snorted and held back a branch so it wouldn’t flip into Hercules’ face. “You know darned well if you found another mortal and fell in love, your words would be ‘Zeus be damned.’” Achilles lightly mocked his friend, one of the few he had in the immortal world. One thing about the gods, they were temperamental and vengeful. Earth historians were right about that.
Hercules grunted, an unintelligible mutter of mixed curses and profanities. On earth he would have been the first one to come to a woman’s rescue, but since losing his fourth and last wife, he hadn’t felt the same. He supposed he should feel some shame for that, but it was hard to muster it up.
Living in the immortal world was boring and at times he longed for the simplicity of the mortal earth. People, for the most part, were kind and uncomplicated until you reached the hierarchies of the populations. That was when true greed for power came into play and left the rest of the mortals gasping in the wake of their often-cruel retribution and disregard for life. No, the gods didn’t have much of an edge on some of the rulers he’d met while he’d sojourned on earth.
“There she is,” Achilles exclaimed, stopping so abruptly that Hercules slammed into his broad back.
“Ow! I think you broke my nose,” he complained loudly, stepping around Achilles, his hazel eyes searching. His fingers gingerly moved his nose from side to side as he spied the couple struggling in the wash of the tide as it drained off the sands. He sighed dramatically.
Here on the Grecian Isle of Ikaria, the veil was very thin between the immortal and mortal world. The woman in trouble was on the mortal side and off limits as far as Zeus was concerned.
No matter what!
Immortals were never to mix with mortals and Achilles knew this well, but his friend couldn’t help himself when someone was in trouble. Hercules called it his “hero” complex. Not that Hercules didn’t have a hero complex of his own, it was just pretty rusty at the moment.
“You know she’s on the wrong side of the veil,” Hercules pointed out knowing it wasn’t going to make any difference. It didn’t.
“It’s Epaphras,” Achilles shouted, dashing towards the beach where one of Poseidon’s many sons was bending a young slender figure backwards over his muscled arm and trying to ravage his victim’s mouth. That was odd. When did Epaphras favor boys?
“Is that a boy?” Hercules asked, still panting as he raced along beside his friend. “I thought it was a woman by the unholy scream.” Maybe he needed to start exercising a bit. This sprint was turning into a workout.
“Doesn’t matter if it is, he obviously doesn’t want the sea brat’s attention either,” Achilles barked. He was in full hero mode pounding across the shifting sands.
Hercules rolled his eyes, “Zeus is going to kill us when Poseidon chews his ear off for this,” he muttered to himself. Not that Zeus would actually kill them, but he could make them wish they were dead for a while.
“Get your filthy hands off of me,” the boy screeched, his left hand pushing at Epaphras ’chin to avoid the smacking lips trying to latch on.
“Epaphras,” thundered Achilles, “let the boy go!”
When Epaphras looked up, his reddish-colored eyes annoyed at the interruption, the boy suddenly brought his knee up into a very sensitive area. His wet grip on the boy loosened as he bent forward with a groan. “May Hades slay you twice a day, Achilles,” he ground out in agony as he slowly slid towards the sand, holding his abused male sack.
Achilles had to give the boy credit, he had good aim. He was doubly surprised when the boy furiously continued his counter attack by bringing both fists down behind Epaphras’ head and then reaching out with a side kick in the face that completely annihilated any possibility of future resistance. The sea brat lay in the sand, a moaning mess.
“Well done,” Achilles boomed as he came to a stop behind the boy. He was caught off guard when the boy whirled towards him, sending his long hair flying about in riotous curls as whatever sort of band that had been holding it down his back slid off. Achilles’ mouth dropped open as he instantly realized that this was no boy. Standing before him, an angry scowl on her face, was a young woman more beautiful than Aphrodite herself.
“Holy mother of Zeus,” he breathed, his eyes drinking in the sky-blue eyes, the free-flowing platinum strands of hair billowing around her in the sea’s teasing breeze, and a body that would make the goddess of love herself drool.
Achilles had seen enough of earth’s changing fashions over the centuries to know that her dress was not unusual for the time. The sky-blue sleeveless knit shirt that left a slice of her satin belly exposed hugged her curves, leaving little to the imagination and matching her gorgeous eyes. The same-color pants were calf-length, leaving her feet encased in what they called running shoes or tennis shoes these days. Not since Briseis in the aftermath of the Trojan War had any woman had such an immediate and lusty effect on him. He wanted her like he needed air to breathe. “Where in the name of Hades did you come from?” he blurted out.
***
ANGE ALISSA GALANOSstared at the two men facing her. Briefly her eyes flickered to the man behind the first one, effectively dismissed him, and returned to the one in the forefront. Instinct told her that these two meant her no harm, not like the one behind her who was still a wallowing mess on the sand. Adhering to the principal that it was better to be safe than sorry, she stepped sideways so he was in her peripheral vision while never taking her eyes off the god-like males before her. “I live here, what’s your excuse?” she asked haughtily.
She reached down to pick up her hair tie so she could get her windblown hair back under some semblance of control. There was nothing she could do about the rapid beating of her heart which had her slightly out of breath. A breathlessness that had very little to do with the struggle she had just engaged in.
