War God for Hire- Gladiator by David Burke (books under 200 pages .TXT) 📕

maidens. She fought by his side, was one of his personal guards, messengers, and generals.”

“How could that be? Isn’t she only a human? How would she be able to do anything to have protected Krig? I may not have his memories, but the glimpses and impressions that I get are that he was so far beyond anything a human could do as to make her support meaningless,” Kyle said.

“Krig didn’t need guards in the way that you are thinking. He wasn’t some mortal tyrant to need to be protected in his sleep. He had guards because they protected his honor, and envoys or generals because it pleased him. The gods have some strange rules amongst themselves. Servants of all different levels are required, but she was made so much more than a mortal by Krig.”

Suddenly partial understanding dawned on Kyle. “You mean she carried one of his divine slivers,” he said.

“Precisely. She was a talented warrior and swore marriage vows to Krig. She and all the other weapon maidens swore those vows and each received a divine sliver from Krig and became one of his chosen,” Hilde said.

Kyle’s thoughts were racing as he asked Hilde, “So uh… me and her… we uh… you know…”

Hilde laughed. “As I told you before, it wasn’t like that. Krig didn’t do that with any other being; goddess, celestial, human, or elf. He just wasn’t interested, but that didn’t mean that the weapon maidens didn’t take their vows seriously. They were a bit of a cult, in my opinion.”

“Whew… I sorta had bad luck with the last woman I slept with who looked at me with as much anger as Marie had. Krig still must have been daft. I mean, she was smoking hot. No hotter than you, but you’ve definitely got some competition now. But that begs the question, why is she mad at me?”

“I can’t say for sure. Remember that after Krig passed the mantle on to you, I became trapped in it, and until you reformed here a few weeks ago, I had no idea what was going on in Verden. She undoubtedly sensed that you are Krig, well partially so. Just like I could sense that there is still a remnant of divine power in her. She doesn’t possess a full sliver, but she will still be far stronger than a normal mortal woman.”

“Okay, so we need to avoid her. I don’t need another scorned woman in my life,” Kyle said.

“Maybe. On the other hand, if you could win her as an ally, she might be quite useful. Again, there was a reason that Krig had mortal servants,” Hilde replied.

“I need to think about this. And I need to clean up, maybe get some sleep.”

“Not so fast, Kyle. We still need to talk about what you just did with Nyda. I am assuming you don’t know what you did, but you apparently weren’t listening when I told you that words have meaning here on Verden.”

“Oh, you mean my promise to protect her. Yeah, that was sorta wild. I felt caught up in it and as soon as I made the promise, it was like there was some type of connection between us, almost like the air was electrified between us. In a way, it was like what happened with Marie earlier. Then it was like energy came out of my very center and went into her. Do you think she felt that? Is that why she ran away?”

“She would have had to have been dead not to feel it. You made an oath and sealed it with your divine essence. Remember that it’s a unique resource that even for gods is limited. Your very life force now will serve to protect her, and the most logical way for you to do that was to empower her. So, you just offered her a sliver of your divine power.”

“I what?”

“You heard me. You just shoved a sliver of your divine power into her. But she still has to accept it. If she does, though, then she will be bonded to you as one of your chosen and will be empowered. Remember, you can only have seven chosen at a time, so you can’t go around doing that for every pretty girl that you feel protective of.”

Kyle thought about it for a moment. “You know what, I don’t regret it. I like Nyda. She is brave. She showed that today when she was trying to finish her task, even though she knew she was risking her life. And you said that she has a power hidden within her. It might be kind of cool to have my own elven sorceress.”

“So, our war god goes from celibate to hound.”

“I can only be who I am,” Kyle replied.

They talked for a bit longer but, in the end, Kyle refused to feel bad about it. He definitely knew that juggling feelings for Hilde and Nyda, along with the new interest in Marie and even Meeka, would be complicated, but he had decided to pursue a different path. He was going to be the best, but he was going to do it with people he cared about.

It didn’t hurt that they were all smoking hot.

Chapter 22 - Training for the Lash

It took Kyle a while to fall asleep that night. Balancing the feelings of the women around him with his focus on winning. Normally he would have gone over what he knew about an opposing pitcher and team before the next game. The problem here was that he had very little knowledge about Marie or Lash. He started trying to mentally call her Lash, because calling her by a name that he only knew because of reincarnated knowledge was only likely to cause problems.

Fortunately, Hilde knew some things about Lash, even if she was acting strange. Twice during the conversation, the celestial asked if they had to keep talking about that mortal. At first, Kyle chalked it up to the celestial’s general dislike of the mortal