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

wouldn’t have even required stitches, but the way the man was moaning you would have thought he had been gutted.

“Get Mistress Selma over here now. I’m not going to end up with a scar because you botched this,” the noble demanded.

“Lord Soren, I keep telling you, that if you only lie still, I will have this sorted in a couple minutes,” the beleaguered mage replied.

“I don’t want your clumsy hands botching this up,” Soren snapped.

“Mistress Selma is busy now healing those with life threatening injuries…” the mage began.

Soren slapped the young man interrupting whatever he was going to say. “You mean that she is busy treating my property. You don’t pay someone to mend your shirt before you fix the wound beneath. Well, I don’t care what happens to those slaves. Get her over here this moment.”

Kyle had heard just about enough. Something about the tubby shack of shit shoved into a torn toga had his blood boiling. Entitled rich people were the same in any world, but here they didn’t even seem to make any pretense about caring about other people. At least back home, the team owners had gone out of their way to treat him with respect and ensure that he stayed healthy, so that he could make them more money undoubtedly.

He stood up to put an end to the man’s blathering. The irony of the fact that he had become a multi-millionaire playing a children’s game was completely lost on him. He had always thought of himself as a worker who earned his money, not as some spoiled richie who’d inherited it.

Kyle sized up the two guards next to Soren. He decided since they were barely paying attention to anyone other than the poor flesh mage that he could finish them off before they even had a chance to react. Hilde’s voice broke into his mind, “If you do this, then we will have to run. Are you ready for that?”

He thought back to her, “Good to hear from you. I seem to pass out way too often.”

“Yeah, I think the strain of summoning me in the flesh was too much. But I was glad to clean up your mess for you. You need to practice more often, because it was fun getting to touch you in the flesh, even if you were unconscious. I have never minded letting a man lay on his back while I did all the work,” the celestial replied.

Kyle knew that she was being seductive on purpose to distract him from his murderous intent, and damn if it wasn’t working. “I guess I don’t have to listen to his whining anymore, but mark my words. I am gonna put that man in his place at some point.”

Then as he walked out of the infirmary, while being eyed by the guards, he asked her, “So what happened while I was playing Sleeping Beauty?”

“Nothing much. I finished what you started. The monster was grievously wounded, and I just burnt it up from the inside. Then Lash and I had a pleasant conversation.”

“Somehow, I doubt that. First off, you didn’t get hurt fighting that thing, did you?” Kyle asked.

There was a pause and Kyle could feel uncertainty ripple through Hilde. “No, it never even got an attack off on me.”

It was hard to say without verbal clues and non-verbal communication, but Kyle felt uneasy about her tone. “Is something wrong?”

There it was again, that same pause. “No, I just don’t get it. The first thing you ask about is if I’m okay. Don’t you want a summary of the battle? Don’t you want to know any intel I learned about the monster you fought or its minions?”

“Yeah, of course, but you don’t stop to watch game film before finding out if your teammate is okay. Your wellbeing means more to me than any status report. Trust me, though, we are gonna kick the ass of the next one of those things we run across.”

“I don’t know whether to be furious with you for leading me on, or to feel sorry for you that you just don’t get it yet,” Hilde replied.

“If you speak in riddles, then how am I supposed to know what it is I’m saying that upsets you?” Kyle asked. In his experience, he often didn’t realize when he had lost a woman’s interest. It was something he would have to work at harder in this life. The thing was, the more attentive he tried to be towards Hilde, the more frustrated she seemed to become.

Then in what Kyle would have called typical fashion for all too many of his girlfriends in the past, Hilde said, “Never mind, it isn’t important. I will fill you in on the details later. For now, we should talk about what the plan is.”

He was tempted to push but decided not to. “I don’t know that anything has changed. We wait to be sold, I guess.” Kyle infused the word with all the disdain that he felt for the practice of slavery.

“And then?”

“I guess we join whatever team they put us on and get some more training in. Do you not think that is a good plan any longer?”

“The stronger you get, the less benefit you will gain from these mortal fighters. Tonight, you fought monsters and did fine. Well, even. At this pace, a few more weeks and you will be so strong as to make these games a joke. I honestly didn’t expect you to be able to summon me for several more months. You are a natural,” Hilde said.

“Well, I’ll take the praise, but some of this is just coming instinctually. I need to be able to do more of it on command,” Kyle replied.

“You are starting to get there. You called on your Rage Burst and Earth Armor pretty easily. You are also starting to use War Essence to enhance your movements and strikes without thinking about it. Since you touched your mantle, your growth has improved exponentially.”

“Maybe it’s because I