Page 2 of Phoenix Chosen 3
I hold my breath and bite the side of my wrist. I can feel the tension rolling through my back into my core. I squeeze my eyes closed. Their voices fade as they continue up the muddy street. When they’re finally gone, I bury my face into Kalistratos’s chest and let out a strained cry. He checks if the way is clear, then streaks through the intersection like a ghost, immediately turning down an alley so narrow the soles of my sandals drag along the clay wall. Eventually, the passageway widens. There’sa set of stone steps on our left, and Kalistratos goes up them to a door that looks ready to fall off its rotting hinges.
“Please be here,” he says before rapping the door with his foot in a clear staccato pattern.
Thirty seconds later, a voice says, “Name yourself.”
“Kalistratos.”
There’s a clatter and whine of an interior gate opening, then the door unlatches. A woman with hard lines creased at the corners of her eyes peeks her face out. Her graying hair is pulled up into a bun hastily tied with strips of white linen, and she wears a muted sage green chiton draped over her shoulder and cinched at the waist with a weathered leather belt adorned with several pouches. She frowns warily.
“Zona,” Kalistratos says. “I really need your help.”
Uh oh. I know the expression on her face. It’s the look of someone over your shit.
“And why in the name of the Gods would I help a swindler like you?” she says.
He winces. “Well, because it’s your business to treat swindlers. And thieves, bandits, rogues, assassins, bounty hunters…”
“Only when they don’t swindleme,” she replies sharply.
“Listen, I was going to deliver the rest of the drachmae, and?—”
“Yes? You only managed to remember now? After you led the entire Keresian Horde to my doorstep? I had to offer their Archon my best healing potions just to keep them from burning my place to the ground.”
“I swear, I was planning on paying you, but…”
Her sharp gaze turns to me for a moment. “You were too busy impregnating omegas?”
“Zona, this is my mate?—”
He’s cut off when she slams the door shut. I’m surprised it’s not the death blow that throws it right off the frame.
“Uh, Kalistratos,” I say, “what in the holy Circeana did you do?”
“Tried to steal from the wrong people,” he explains sheepishly. “Zona cured my wounds, and I might not have given her all I promised.”
“Kalistratos…”
“Hey, I was going to get her the rest of the coin, but we were hot on the trail of the temple map. It’s been nearly a year; I didn’t think she would still be so angry.”
“Dude, I would be fuckingpissed?—”
Boom. I’m rudely interrupted by a cascading chain of contractions that absolutely decimate my ability to do anything except howl in pain. Kalistratos curses and hurries back down the stairs. I see the look of desperation break across his face as he tries to figure out what to do next. Taking me to just anyhealer in Athenos wouldn’t be safe. It has to be someone he can trust—and obviously, that list is pretty short.
“Don’t worry,” he tells me. “I’ll take care of this.”
“What?” I grunt. “Are you going to deliver this thing yourself?”
He stares back at me with a determined look on his face that I might’ve found endearing if not for the damn circumstances. The reality that I might really be pushing this baby out in the middle of an alleyway has now taken hold, and I’m on the verge of tears.
“Hey!” a voice calls.
We both look up and see Zona standing in the doorway, palms pressed firmly onto her hips. She sighs, then beckons with a wave before returning inside.
2
KALISTRATOS
Astream of pungent herbal smoke wavers up from the nose of a bull incense lamp and fills the dim room with a gray haze. Two windows cut out of the wall are covered with woven reed blinds, and hot sunlight slices through the smoke like white blades. Tyler is lying on a hard wooden bed next to me, naked save for a thin linen towel over his groin. Zona’s fraternal twin Aylourosi assistants, Xanthe and Xanthos, work quietly attending to Tyler. They drape cloths soaked with warmed oil over his abdomen to help with the pain—but it doesn’t seem to be doing very much.