Come Here, Kitten (God of War Book 1)

by Emilia Rose

  Elijah turned back to me. “Black hair and broad.”

  “Black hair? He was in his human form?” I asked, eyes widening.

  It was a known fact that hounds didn’t—or couldn’t—shift from werewolf to human. They were thought to be stuck as animals forever, which made them extremely dangerous.

  “Yes,” Elijah said. “My warrior heard Tony and the hound mention the stone several times.”

  Marcel slammed his hand against the wooden table. “That fucking prick knows where the stone is?” he asked.

  Elijah’s mule sloshed over the side of his cup and spilled.

  So much for emotionless reactions. I wiped a napkin over the spilled drink.

  Elijah shook his head. “I don’t know if he knows where it is, but he has information. My warrior said they seemed friendly.”

  “How could Tony do this? He knew exactly how Ares would react to you having information on the stone.” I pressed my lips together and shook my head in disbelief.

  Tony and I had spent so many nights together, and he’d never acted like this … but maybe he was always an asshole, always out to hurt, always out for power.

  “We need a plan,” Elijah said.

  “A plan?” Marcel growled. “Why don’t we go to your fucking mother’s house and torture the son-of-a-bitch until he tells us where that stone is?”

  I gnawed on the inside of my cheek, feeling as I thought Ares would in this situation. Cruel, violent, and bloodthirsty as the darkness begged for me to let it in. Mars wanted the stone, but Ares … he wanted the person who had it to hurt.

  Once he found out that Tony had information on it, he would do exactly as Marcel had suggested—run on Mom’s pack, capture Tony, and torture him.

  No. Questions. Asked.

  The thought should’ve terrified me, but it didn’t. If Tony had any sort of information on the stone and hadn’t told me—after watching me grow up in pain—he deserved to get punched more than a few times. And as for my asshole mother, who had traded me—her only heir—because she didn’t think I was good enough while the strongest alpha in the world did, I didn’t care what happened to her either. If she didn’t care about me, why should I care about her?

  Elijah sipped his drink. “Tony would rather die than tell Ares anything.”

  It was true. Tony had a tolerance for pain, both physical and emotional. Every time I had seen him fight—besides the time Ares had raided our pack—he was terrifying. During the first hound attack when we had still been young wolves, he had torn out so many throats and then swallowed them like a fucking psychopath. I didn’t put it past him to have something up his sleeve, so he could kill Ares and be claimed the most ruthless man alive.

  “I will tell Ares tonight,” I said to Elijah. “We will run on my mother’s pack early tomorrow morning. I will talk to Tony despite Ares demanding me not to speak a single word to him. I have to try to talk some sense into—”

  Marcel’s phone buzzed on the table, and he sat up tall, his pupils dilating. “I have to go.” He tossed me the keys to his car. “Bring it back.”

  “You’re going to run home?” I asked, brows furrowing.

  “It’s not like you can,” he said. The words came out lighthearted and shouldn’t have hurt as much as they did.

  I’d told Ares and Charolette to keep this a secret because I wasn’t ready for the entire pack to know just yet. I still felt like I needed to prove myself.

  Marcel furrowed his brows, as if he didn’t know why I was frowning at him. “Ares would have my ass if I let you run out in Hound Territory.”

  I plastered a smile on my face and nodded in agreement. Okay, good, nobody had told him yet. Marcel was just terrified of Ares, as he should be.

  Marcel left the tavern and disappeared into the woods in wolf form, carrying his clothes and phone in his mouth.

  I turned back to Elijah and grabbed his hand. “What will you do?”

  “What my pack does best,” he said. “Find information. Study Tony. Figure out who has the stone.” He grasped my hand tighter in his, smiling over at me. “Ares is taking good care of you?”

  I nodded my head, thinking about earlier at his father’s house when I’d told him that I loved him. The words had come out so quickly yet so naturally. I barely knew the man, but I already knew that I couldn’t wait to spend my entire life with him.

  “You have that spark in your eye,” he said, lips curling into a smirk. “The same one that Jeremy always used to have with me.” He paused for a moment, staring deeper at me. “You love him, don’t you?”

  My cheeks flushed. I had never felt this way before about anyone, except Jeremy and maybe Dad. Everyone in my previous pack loved me, and I loved them, but they always treated me differently. They didn’t love who I really was; they didn’t see me for me; they didn’t feel the pain I went through during each shift. They saw the fake me.

  Ares had seen the real Aurora, and he had loved every moment with her.

  I just hoped that it would stay that way.

  After another sip of his drink, Elijah gazed out the window in the direction of the cave. “When Jeremy told me that he loved me for the first time, he brought me to that cave in the north. It was in the middle of a snowstorm, twelve degrees Fahrenheit. We slept there that night in the freezing fucking cold, had frozen beer, and, Goddess, it was the best night of my life.”

  “Have you been back?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Not since he died. Heard it was taken over by hounds.”

  I brushed my thumb against his, hoping that the motion would lighten the mood. “I have a question to ask you.”

  Glancing back at me through his new black-framed glasses, he nodded. “What is it?”

  “When we find that stone, I need your doctor to implant it into Ares’s sister,” I said.

  Taken aback, he pulled his hand out of mine and shook his head.

  “Please, she has cancer and is going to die soon. He has tried everything to find it.”

  “Aurora …” he said. “I want to find that stone for you, so you can shift and be whole again.”

  “Then … you really won’t like this request,” I started, grasping his hand again and squeezing it tightly. “If one half of the stone doesn’t cure her, I need you to remove mine.”

  “No,” he said with finality. “I’m not doing that. I’m not going to risk your life for hers. I don’t even know her, and I promised Jeremy that I’d always keep you safe, no matter what happened to him or to him and I.”

  “Please,” I begged. “She means everything to him.”

  “Did Ares put you up to this?”

  “No, he’s against it too. He doesn’t want me to sacrifice my quality of life for her, but … she’s everything to him. And I want to see her healthy and happy. Promise me that you’ll do it. Please. He’s just trying to help his sister survive. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same for Jeremy.”

  He paused for a long moment, a grim expression crossing his face. “I don’t like this.”

  “But you’ll do it,” I said, hopeful.

  He tilted his head downward a few inches, and my heart leaped in my chest.

  I held out my pinkie. “Promise me that you won’t tell Ares. He would hate me for it.”

  He wrapped his pinkie around mine. “I promise.”

  Chapter 34

  Mars

  Aurora loved me.

  I washed off the last of my plate in the sink and grinned to myself.

  She loved me, and maybe she loved Ares too.

  Liam walked into the kitchen and placed his plate on the counter.

  Charolette followed him with her hands on her hips. “So, you’re not going to stay?” she asked him.

  He pushed some hair out of her face and smiled down at her. “I have an early morning tomorrow, sweetheart,” he said.

  I glanced at him and felt myself smile a bit wider. Everything seemed to be as Mom had always wanted it to be.

 
We were happy.

  Charolette had a good man who loved her, someone who had been there with her since she was diagnosed with cancer. They weren’t mates, but from what I had seen, he treated her well.

  And I had Aurora.

  Liam nudged my shoulder. “Later.”

  After he disappeared into the living room with Charolette, Dad squeezed my shoulder from behind and stared at me through the reflection against the window. “I haven’t seen you this happy in years, Mars,” he said. “Hell, I haven’t seen you in a while, only Ares. I can see Aurora’s doing something to you, son.”

  My smile widened even more, and all I could feel was happiness for once in my life. The pain I had held for years since Mom’s death seemed to vanish for a while whenever I was with her. She didn’t take it all away, but she made my life more bearable.

  She was changing my life for the better, and I owed her everything for that.

  Chapter 35

  Aurora

  I didn’t know exactly where Marcel lived, so I parked his car in front of Mr. Barrett’s house to give Charolette his car keys.

  Mr. Barrett answered the door with a huge smile. “Aurora!” He nodded back to the pack house down the road. “Mars just left. He seemed worried about you.”

  “Oh, I just wanted to give these to Charolette.” I handed him the keys. “Good night, Mr. Barrett.”

  “Hey, wait a minute. I have something for you.” He stuffed the keys into his pocket, jogged back into the house, and came back with a container filled with the biggest slice of cheesecake I had ever seen. “Whatever you said to Mars before you left, tell him again. I haven’t seen that boy smile like that since his mother was around.”

  My heart warmed in my chest, and I couldn’t help the grin that broke out onto my face at the thought of making Mars happy. Butterflies erupted all over my body. So, this was what it was like to feel loved, to love someone and their family all the same.

  After saying my good-byes, I walked down the walkway. Some chatter drifted out from the upstairs window, and I glanced up at it. The light was on in one of the rooms, and Charolette stood in the middle of her bedroom without her wig and with a huge grin on her face.

  She spun slightly, and I smiled up at her. She must be so comfortable with Liam. I wondered how—

  Marcel sat on the edge of her bed, grinning at her with a smile that I had never seen before. He watched her spin, grabbed her waist, and pulled her toward him, resting his chin against her chest and staring up at her.

  Before they could see me snooping, I hurried toward the pack house. Charolette and Marcel seemed like they were mates. I didn’t know if Mars knew about them, but I wasn’t one to tell secrets. But why did they act so cold to each other? I didn’t know that either.

  When I opened the door, he was passed out on the leather couch with Ruffles on his chest. They were both sleeping so peacefully that I didn’t want to wake them. I grabbed a velvet blanket from our room and draped it over his torso, deciding on taking a shower before I broke the bad news to Ares.

  Just after I covered him and Ruffles with the blanket, he snatched my wrist. “Where the hell are you going?” Ares asked, eyes still closed but his grip harsh. “I want my mate to lie with me, right here …” He patted Ruffles. “Right on my chest.”

  My lips curled into a smirk, and I sat at the edge of the couch, pushing some thick brown hair off his forehead. Well, I guessed that shower would have to wait. “I need to talk to you, Ares.”

  “Tell me you love me first.” He slowly opened his eyes, body jerking up when he sneezed. Ruffles jumped off of him, and Ares pulled me on top of him, so my chest was against his. “I want to hear you say it again.”

  When I’d first said it, I hadn’t thought I’d be saying it again so soon. Yet here I was, on top of my mate, who was begging me to tell him that I loved him again and again and again, like a sweet melody that he wanted to fall asleep to.

  I brushed my fingers against his cheek and watched the moonlight bounce off his golden eyes. “I love you.”

  He wrapped his arms around me, hugging me tightly to his chest, and rolled us over, so he was on top of me. He pressed his hardness against my core, his biceps flexing next to me, his hazelnut scent such an intoxicating aroma. I breathed him into me, relaxing under his fingers.

  “Ares”—I lightly pushed him away—“I have to tell you something about the stone.”

  He pulled away and then sat up. “What did you find?”

  “Tony has been meeting with a hound. Elijah thinks that he knows something.”

  Ares’s jaw twitched, his eyes turning a darker, harsher gold. “Tony, as in the fuckup who came on to you after I told him not to?” He growled under his breath. “I should’ve killed the fucking pup when I had the chance.”

  I pressed my hands against his chest to calm him down. “You can’t kill him. If he knows something, you have to let me try to get it out of him.”

  “He’s going to try to come save you from me again.”

  My eyes widened. Had Marcel told him about—

  “Yes,” Ares said, cutting me off. “He told me that stupid fucking prick thought he’d sweep you off your fucking feet when I raided Elijah’s pack.” He balled his hands into tight fists. “I should’ve killed him already.”

  “He will lead us to the stone,” I said, trying to calm him down. “Please, let’s go to my mother’s pack tomorrow … let me talk to him before you think about killing him.” I squeezed his hands. “He’s our only chance of finding the damn thing.”

  He growled. “He won’t talk to you.”

  “Yes, he will.”

  “He wants to fuck you, Aurora. He wants to take what’s mine.”

  He stared down at me, so territorial. And if I said that it didn’t turn me all the way on, I’d be lying. It was a hunger to prove his worth, an innate instinct to demonstrate his dominance. It was raw, real, and recklessly ravaging. And I loved the feeling of his arms wrapping harder around me, tugging me to his body, claiming me.

  “If he even touches me, you can snap his neck,” I said, feeling his heart racing beneath my fingers. “But let me talk to him tomorrow.”

  Ares should’ve exploded into a fit of anger like usual, but instead, he just growled. “If he touches a single hair on your head, even if it’s just his fingers grazing against you, I will rip his throat right out of his body as your whole pack watches, drench myself in his fucking blood, and challenge any of your mother’s warriors who tries to take you away from me.”

  “Deal.” I nodded in approval. “But whatever happens tomorrow, promise me that you won’t kill my dad. He doesn’t deserve death.”

  Ares stared down at me. “I won’t kill him.” He grabbed my jaw lightly in his hand, forcing me to look up at him. “But I can’t promise the same with Tony or your mother. If they touch you, I will kill them for betraying us and treating you like shit.”

  I swallowed hard and nodded my head. I didn’t expect anything less.

  “We run at dawn.”

  Chapter 36

  Ares

  Aurora didn’t just love Mars. She fucking loved me too.

  I held her tight to my chest, brought her to our bedroom, and lay down next to her, brushing a strand of her brown hair from her face. Part of me didn’t fucking believe it. How could she like me as I was?

  All I had was pain. All I felt was heartbreak. All I wanted was to make other people hurt.

  “Why do you love me?” I asked her, brows furrowed together.

  Hearing those words had made me feel so good on the inside, but after sitting with them, they didn’t make sense. Aurora should hate me.

  I deserved to be fucking hated.

  Moonlight flooded into the room through our window, bouncing off Aurora’s big eyes. A look of sadness crossed her face, yet she held eye contact with me and brushed her fingers against my stubble. “Because you’re the only person who’s ever accepted me as an equal.”

  My fingers dug i
nto her hips as I remembered how her family had treated her when I showed up. I had known that something was off about them. They hadn’t even fucking asked her to fight with them during the attack.

  She sighed deeply through her nose. “My old pack accepted me, but they never treated me as an alpha or even as a warrior. They always gave me work to do that didn’t matter, barely included me in anything, acted as if I needed all their protection.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I didn’t tell you about the stone because I thought … I thought you wouldn’t accept me as your mate either.”

  I pulled her to my chest tightly, showing her that I wouldn’t hurt her and that I wouldn’t let anyone try to fucking hurt her again because part of me knew how she felt. Growing up with these polar opposite personalities, I found it so fucking hard to get people to accept it.

  Sure, I’d had friends and girlfriends and lovers, but most of those fucking assholes hadn’t loved me. They all loved the alpha; they didn’t see the man behind the title. They didn’t know how to deal with both of us. They’d left. They’d fucking left when I needed them the most.

  Holding Aurora tighter, I shook my head. It was only when I had taken over for Dad that people started respecting Ares. Mars had hidden away. Mars—my chest tightened—was terrified of them.

  “I love you too, Aurora,” I whispered into her ear. “For letting me be myself around you.”

  And for so much fucking more.

  Chapter 37

  Aurora

  “It’s time to go,” I said to Ares, trying to wriggle out of his strong hold.

  Light flooded into the room through our sheer black curtains. Ares wrapped his arm around my waist tighter and snuggled closer to me.

  Accepting that I wasn’t going to be able to push him off that easily, I turned to face him and poked his stomach. “Don’t you want the stone?”