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then he nodded and Onya slid it over the woman’s head, pulling it all the way down to her knees. “Perhaps it would be best to leave her here, my Lord? Or in another room?”
    “What? You think I’m going to be able to get through that?” he snorted as he pointed at the hidden space between the sleeping woman’s legs. “I’m an Olympian, not a magician,” he sneered. “Besides, I want her where I can keep an eye on her and not where she’s free to wander around my home in the dead of night stealing whatever catches her eye.”
    Onya ventured a question she knew she should not. “And where would she take such things, my Lord?” It was an island and there was no boat. No plane. No helicopter. Even if the woman should wake up and rob Ares blind, she could never get off the island. He knew that.
    Ares turned a cold stare as he looked down upon her. “No more questions. This is my home. Don’t forget it.”
    “Never,” Onya agreed, looking down at her feet.
    “That’s better. Off with you now, go to your quarters.”
    The women in his charge did not have separate quarters; instead, they shared a large communal room, the only entrance to which was a door in his bedroom. This prevented his guards from gaining unfettered access to the women. It wasn’t that Ares didn’t share; he loved to share some of his toys but only on his terms and in his own time.
    2
    With dawn only a few hours away, Ares carried her up the stairs to his bed where he laid her in the middle of it. He locked the door to the harem chamber and stripped himself of his clothing before crawling in next to her, remembering the kiss she had bestowed upon him with much fondness. In her sleep she cuddled close to him looking for warmth.
    Nearly two hundred years ago Zeus, the God of Gods, cast his son Ares out of Olympus and stripped him of his Crown and Scepter. All over a simple misunderstanding but, of course, none of the Olympians would listen to Ares’ side of the story. They would never consider entertaining the idea that he was innocent. Instead they shunned him. None but Hera, Ares’ Mother, and Artemis, Ares’ sister, had ever given him a second thought. Artemis was long gone. Two hundred years is a long time for anyone to sit in exile, Man or God, and the loneliness and boredom were beginning to take their toll.
    For a while, Ares occupied himself with the Mortals—a skirmish here, a war there. Enough to keep him busy and entertained. Yet there was nothing out there able to catch and hold his Warrior’s Interest. Mortals had become soft and weak. When they weren’t yammering on cell phones or playing with their Internet, they were nothing but sheep bleating in the night. He had no use for them or their gadgets. The longer Ares lingered in exile the more he lost interest in Men. They had all become too weak to care about any longer.
    Back in the Days of Old, way back before Jesus Christ walked the Earth and men were men and wars were fought over tangible things such as land, treasure, and power, to him things were better. Men faced their enemies in battle and they went to Hades not from a mile away by some coward hiding in a bush but at the end of a blade, three feet away from his opponent’s eyes, his blood seeping down over the blade while his life force drained away and Hades came to collect his due.
    The once Grand and Mighty God of War now spent most of his time languishing here in his huge and hollow cave on his island in the deep blue Mediterranean Sea with a staff of servants that was nearly a third of what it had once been. A few guards to watch over the island and a handful of women to please him. Once, his home on Olympus was filled with hundreds of guards and an equal number of women to bring him pleasure, but no more, now it sat collecting dust. Once he had ruled over a fierce army of hungry warriors, and now he spent his days in solitude.
    Not too long ago, one night when he was wandering some city out there in The World