by Emilia Rose
They weren’t scars from a physical battle but a mental one.
I pressed my lips together, an overwhelming sadness washing over me, and tried not to burst out into tears. Ares was broken, more broken than I’d originally thought. He’d hurt himself willingly.
He followed my gaze and then pulled his arm away from me. “I’ll do it.”
“No,” I said. I pulled his arm back to me, brushed the rag against it more gently, and washed away the blood from the battle yesterday morning. And then I pressed my lips to his scars. “I love you.”
I knew that it wouldn’t make everything better. I knew I alone couldn’t heal him. But I could let him know that I would always be there for him, through the thick and the thin and through everything that might happen. I would always try to make him happy and make him smile, wash the hurt off of him when I could, and love him with everything that I had.
Suddenly, his eyes widened and filled with tears. He grabbed my arm, his fingertips digging into my wrist until they turned white. “I-I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you, Aurora.” Almost as if he was too weak, his fingers slipped from my arm, and his body started to tremble in the water. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
“Oh, Ares,” I whispered, stroking his hair to try to calm him down.
But he didn’t stop shaking. Beads of sweat formed on the back of his neck, and I could hear just how quickly his heart was racing.
I stripped my clothes and sat behind him in the tub, pulling him into my lap, holding his head to my chest, running my hands through his hair. “Ares, it’s okay. I’m here.”
“I couldn’t protect you,” he repeated shakily.
“I’m here with you, Ares.”
“I couldn’t protect Mom either.”
After ten heartbreaking minutes of listening to Ares’s broken cries, he slowly stopped shaking. I held him tighter to my chest and let him play with my fingers.
“I could have protected her,” he finally said, tensing. “I could have, but I didn’t.”
I didn’t speak a word. I didn’t know what to say, and I wanted him to continue.
“She … she was raped. Nineteen years ago, she was raped by a hound,” he said, voice cracking. “Our pack was raided by a herd of them. She told me to hide in the closet and not to come out, no matter what I heard or what I saw. I didn’t know what was happening. I heard her screaming and crying and …” His chest heaved up and down, the water rippling violently around us. “I watched it happen through the closet door.” He parted his lips to speak, but no words came out. “I …” His voice was quiet. “I was five.”
My chest tightened. Ares’s mother had been raped by a hound, and Ares had watched.
“She had Charolette nine months later, but she wasn’t happy. Not truly happy, like she had always been. She tried to be happy with us.” He forced a small smile, teary eyes gazing off into the distance. “That picture at my dad’s house was taken four days before she killed herself.”
“Ares …”
“I found her … she was clutching the picture and the teddy bear that we keep in the toy room. I—” He let out a loud cry. “I hadn’t known she wanted to kill herself. I … I should’ve stopped it. I should’ve stopped it, but I didn’t. I didn’t. It’s all my fault.”
He shook uncontrollably again. Tears streamed down his face. Water sloshed over the side of the tub. I just held him tighter.
My heart ached for him. Ares wasn’t the man behind the spear and the shield. He was the spear and the shield, protecting Mars from whatever anguish and hurt he could possibly face. But no matter how strong his armor was … even Ares felt pain.
“Some days, I can’t handle it. I think about hurting myself again. I can’t help it,” he said, lips trembling. “Dealing with both sides of me … is really hard. I don’t want to lose anyone that close to me again.” He clutched my hand tighter. “I don’t want to lose you. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“You’re not going to lose me,” I said into his ear.
“You keep me strong.” He interlocked our fingers and said those three little words that made my heart tingle all over, “Mark me, Aurora.” He tilted his head and closed his eyes. “Please,” he said so softly that I could barely hear him. “Please be mine forever.”
My breath caught in my throat, and my canines lengthened under my lips. I gently grazed my teeth against his neck. “Ares,” I said through the mind link, “you’re mine. And I’d do anything to protect you.”
And then I sank my teeth into his neck and claimed him.
Chapter 43
Aurora
Ares shuddered in delight against me, his body relaxing into mine. I sank my teeth deeper and deeper into his neck until I couldn’t anymore. Every single insecurity, every single harrowing memory, every single ounce of fear from him exploded through my body.
My poor Ares had been holding the entire world on his shoulders all this time.
When I was about to pull my teeth out of him and lick his wound, he gently grasped my head and held me against him. “Please, just a little bit longer,” he whispered. “I just want to feel you.”
I plunged my teeth back into him, inhaled his hazelnut aroma, and closed my eyes. I’d meant everything I had said to him. I would protect him from his enemies even if his fiercest foe was himself. And if I couldn’t protect him, then I would stand by his side during his darkest battles. I would pull out every sword, spear, and arrow from his armor. I would give him love because even a god like him needed it.
When he released his grip on my head, I pulled my teeth out of his neck and swiped my tongue across his large puncture wounds. With a big smile on his face, he turned in the water, making it splash everywhere, wrapped his arms around my waist, and picked me up. Stuffing his face into the crook of my neck, he pulled me closer to him and walked into our bedroom.
“Ares, we’re both wet,” I whispered, tugging on the ends of his damp hair.
He pressed his lips against my neck, moving them up the column, under my ear, against my jaw, leaving sloppy kisses all over my body. “I don’t care.”
I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him closer. Cradling my head, he laid me down onto the bed and rested his forehead against mine. He trailed his lips back down my body and then up my thighs, kissing like he had been starved for so long.
He lay between my legs, rested my thighs on his shoulders, interlocked my fingers with his, and pressed his hot mouth against my core. My back arched, and I grasped his fingers tighter. Pleasure rolled through my body, my legs slowly starting to shake. He sucked my clit between his lips, tugging on it gently, and then flicked it with his tongue.
I moaned out and felt Ares groan in response against my pussy. His thumbs brushed against my knuckles, and he continued to eat me, his face dropping even lower to my entrance, his tongue lapping up my juices.
“Ares, please, I need you,” I said in a breathy whisper, my pussy tightening. I needed him inside of me more than I needed anything in my entire life. “Please.”
He continued to massage my clit with his tongue. Closing his eyes, he inhaled the scent of my arousal and groaned again. “I’m not going to make love to you until you come for me, Kitten.”
I swallowed hard, my pussy tightening even more. For the mere week I had been here, I had never heard those words come out of Ares’s mouth. Ares didn’t make love. He fucked, and he fucked hard. But something about the big, bad alpha, the god of war, the strongest and most terrifying wolf in the entire world being soft for me … that was an unexplainable feeling.
He grasped my jaw and made me gaze down at him. “Watch me, Kitten. I want to see your eyes when you come.” He trailed his fingertips across my breast, took my nipple between his fingers, and tugged on it.
I dug my heels into the bed. A surge of ecstasy coursed through me, and I curled my fingers into his hair, staring down at his warm golden eyes. He continued to eat my pussy, his free hand splayed o
pen across my stomach to hold me against the mattress.
“Come for me,” he murmured.
Almost as if on cue, I grasped the bedsheets in my fists and tugged harshly on them, my whole body quivering. Wave after wave of pleasure pumped through my entire body, making it tingle. I squeezed my eyes closed, the intensity almost too much.
“Open your eyes for me, Kitten.”
“Ares,” I moaned, staring back down at him. “I need you. Please.”
He crawled between my legs, the head of his cock brushing against my aching pussy, and pressed his lips to mine in one lingering kiss.
Please, I mouthed when he pulled away.
Resting his forehead against mine, he steadily pushed himself inside of me, stroked his thumb against my cheekbone, and stared down into my eyes. Unable to hold back, I wrapped my hand around the back of his neck and pulled his lips onto mine.
As our lips collided, he began to thrust into me. Pumping in and out slowly. His tongue slipping into my mouth. His lips devouring mine. With every moment that passed, he thrust harder and faster.
After he broke our kiss, he pulled me to his chest and rolled us over, so I straddled his waist. I placed my hands on his abdomen and moved my hips back and forth to ride him.
Taming an alpha might’ve been hard, but it had all been worth it.
This moment was more than I could ever ask for.
He continued to stare up at me, his eyes glazed over with lust, his swollen lips parted slightly. “Aurora,” he whispered, snaking a hand around my throat and pulling me down to him. He wrapped his arms around my body and locked his hands behind my back. He grazed his nose against his mark. “I love you.”
And then he started to fuck me hard. His hips bucking against mine, his cock pounding deep inside of me, my walls clenching hard around him. The pressure built in my core, higher and higher and higher.
“I love feeling your body tremble right before you’re about to come,” he whispered in my ear. “I love listening to your little whimpers while you’re sleeping.” He pushed some hair behind my ear, so I could gaze at him. “I love that fire in your eyes.”
I furrowed my brows and clenched harder. “Please, come inside of me.”
“Will that make you feel good?” he asked. “Feeling my cum filling your tight little pussy?”
I whimpered in his ear and nodded. “Yes, Ares. Please.”
Stuffing his face back into the crook of my neck, he sucked on his mark. His body tensed, and I could feel his cock pulsing inside of me and filling me with his cum. I moaned, my body shuddering against his.
A rush of pleasure washed over me. Everything was so much more intense than the last time we’d had sex, all our emotions bare and unguarded this time.
He sat up on the bed, keeping his arms around my body, his cock still buried inside of me. “Goddess, I love you,” he said.
My lips quivered as I stared at Ares, eyes filling with tears from the pure intensity of everything that had just happened. I clung on to him, terrified that I would lose him if I let go. Earlier today, I’d thought I’d lost him for good, and I didn’t ever want to feel like that again. He pulled me closer to his chest, and we embraced each other in silence for a good fifteen minutes.
Moonlight streamed into the room through the window and bounced off all the muscles in his back. Under the light, I could see every single one of his scars. Some were small and nearly invisible; others were large, swollen, and jagged. I brushed my fingers against them, feeling the rugged texture.
Every one of them made up the man I called my mate.
He touched his fingers to my mark on his neck and looked me right in the eye. “My body is covered in scars from wars that I’ve won and from battles that I’ve lost.” He glanced down at his forearms and then back at me. “So many memories etched into my skin forever, but yours, Kitten, is my favorite.”
Chapter 44
Aurora
“Let me take you out on a real date,” Mars said with a smile. He had shifted from Ares to Mars a few moments ago as we sat together on our bed, still completely naked and soaked in bath water and sweat. “You haven’t really met this pack yet. And I want to take you out.”
“And?” I asked, poking his cheek.
“And”—his cheeks flushed—“I want to show everyone my mark.”
A grin broke out onto my lips, and I pulled him into a tight hug. I’d never thought that when he took me, he’d be so … loving. I’d thought I was going to have to endure a life of war and pain and violence. But he was just a boy trapped in this big, brooding body. All Ares and Mars needed was some love.
“Go get ready,” he said, smacking my ass. “I have some business to take care of before we go.”
I crawled off him and rummaged through the closet for my clothes. Ruffles waltzed into the room a few moments after Mars disappeared into the hallway. With a bag of chips between her teeth and suds on her nose, she hopped onto the bed and swayed her tail back and forth.
“Did you get into the bath?” I asked, opening the chips for her.
She purred in response and watched me choose my outfit for tonight, meowing when she didn’t like a skirt or shirt or dress. I threw on my last outfit—a simple little black dress with silver earrings—and arched a brow at Ruffles for approval. She squinted her eyes at me and purred loudly.
I placed a kiss on her head, told her not to leave her fur all over Mars’s clothes when we were gone, and walked out of the room to meet Mars, who was dressed in a short-sleeved maroon button-up, which hugged his biceps.
He brought me to The Flaming Chariot, located in the heart of the Ironmane Pack. Bustling with people, the restaurant had a stone statue of a chariot led by horses with flames shooting out like wings from their sides. Mars said it had been created over two hundred years ago during the War of the Lycans.
For a restaurant run by werewolves, the place was surprisingly chic with a white-accented wraparound bar. We sat at a table, ordered a bottle of Bacchus white wine, and started in on our dinner.
Some people glanced over at us, and for once, they smiled at me. Before, everyone had seemed so cold and distant, but now that we both had marks on our necks, people were a bit friendlier.
I stared across the table at him and leaned forward. “Did you happen to see my father before you left the pack?” I asked.
While I had saved all those pups, I still wanted to know if the hounds had killed my dad. I couldn’t recognize him among the people who were torn up in the raid.
“Your father is in my prison,” Mars said. “I would let him out, but he’d end up going back to your pack and getting himself killed.”
“He’s here?” I asked with wide eyes. “You brought him back with you?”
The light of a candle flickered against his brown eyes, giving them a golden hue. “Yes, he has been treated for his injuries. All the warriors from your pack that survived have been. Some are in the prison as captives; others have been released and are adjusting to life as members in our pack.”
Our pack.
The words made me smile even wider.
Though I hadn’t seen Dad for so long—besides our little chat in the woods—I missed him. I just hoped that he would forgive me for bringing Ares to Mom’s pack and for Mom’s death. All I had ever wanted was for my mate and my family to get along, but now that Mom was dead, I didn’t know if that’d ever happen.
Dad probably blamed my mate for the hound attack.
Maybe, after dinner, we could go see him and talk.
“Elijah?” I asked, remembering I had seen him here earlier when I was bringing Ares home. I scolded myself for not telling him about the wolf who had saved me in the woods, but at that time, I had been too focused on getting Ares help.
“He’s back at his pack. Safe.”
I sent a quick text to Elijah to meet me at the prison in an hour, and I leaned toward Mars again. “What about the pups that I brought home? Most, if not all, of their parents are dead. We
need to find them homes here. Would families in your pack … consider taking them in?” I parted my lips and awkwardly waited for him to answer. “I mean, we could do it. I just don’t think that we’re the best-suited people at the moment. We have so much going on and—”
“I love you.” Mars grabbed my hands from across the table. “You’re going to make a great luna. I can’t wait to have our Luna Ceremony.” He smiled and nodded at me. “And, yes, there are plenty of people who’d take them in. And if there’s nobody, my dad would probably take them all. He loves pups.”
My heart warmed, and I felt so loved for once in my life. “Can we send a group of warriors back to my mom’s pack? Just to make sure that there isn’t anyone else that I missed.”
“Already done. I sent them when you were getting ready.”
I interlocked my fingers with his and squeezed them tightly. It felt like nothing could ruin these little moments I had with him and that nothing could ruin us. We were good. So damn good. As a team. As partners. As mates.
My gaze drifted from Mars to Marcel, who sat at the bar, alone. Well, he had been here the entire time we had, glancing every now and then at Liam and Charolette, who were out on a date too.
A woman approached him, dragging her nails across his back, and said something into his ear, to which he replied with, “Leave me the fuck alone,” before downing a shot of tequila.
The Marcel I knew loved women. He loved fucking them. He loved thinking about them. He loved using them. He wouldn’t turn down a good time just to sit around in a bar and drink until his cold, dark heart was numb.
I glanced from Marcel to Mars and then back. “I’ll be right back.” I squeezed Mars’s forearm, placed my napkin on the table, and slid onto a stool next to Marcel.