by Emilia Rose
“I-I—” She hiccuped and slumped her shoulders even more, as if she were sinking in on herself. “If I wasn’t born, Mom would still be alive. She-she-she wouldn’t have taken her life. I am a constant reminder of—”
“Stop it,” I demanded in my alpha tone. I pulled away, grabbed her chin, and forced her to look up at me. My heart pounded against my rib cage, hurting so bad that my friend thought this way. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence.”
She covered her face with her small hands. “B-but it’s true.”
“No. It’s not true. Don’t blame yourself for how your mother felt or what she did. You didn’t cause her to do that.” I shook my head and took her face in my hands. “It wasn’t your fault, and it will never be your fault, so don’t think like that.”
After she pulled herself away from me, she grabbed an orange pillow shaped like the moon, held it to her chest, and curled into a ball on the bed, staring off into space. “Ares and my dad—my adopted dad—would be so happy if she were still here.”
Sitting on the edge of her bed, I gently rubbed her arm. “They’re happy that you’re here. They love you so much. Ares has gone to hell and back to find you the stone, so you could survive. Don’t think for a minute that they’d be better off without you.”
Charolette opened her mouth, and then snapped it closed. I frowned and glanced down at her cream star-covered blankets, wondering what life would’ve been like if their mother hadn’t committed suicide. Would Mars just be Mars? Would Ares have emerged? Would I have even met him yet?
As a silence fell upon us, I heard growling downstairs from Ares.
Charolette pulled the blanket over her head and sniffled. “Do you think my dad thinks about me?”
“Your father always thinks about you. He does so much for you.”
“No, I mean, my real father, Fenris.”
I parted my lips and pressed them back together, completely taken aback. While I didn’t want to talk about Fenris because of how shitty of a person he was, I couldn’t deny the fact that Fenris was her biological father. She had been the product of rape and abandonment from him, yet she still wanted to know more about the hound leader.
“Do you think that he’ll raise my mother from the dead? I heard that he has her bones and was trying to bring her back.”
My whole body tensed. “Where did you hear that?”
“Marcel.”
Marcel. I would have to beat some sense into that boy later. I didn’t want him telling anyone about this. If the average wolf found out the true nature of the hounds, everything would end in chaos.
Charolette curled up next to me and stared up at me with bright eyes, like I had all her answers—how I imagined many people would look up to me once Ares and Mars officially announced me as their luna. “Do you think he thinks about her still? Loves her?”
“I don’t know, Charolette.”
Because, well, I didn’t. When we had seen him trying to bring back those bodies, he’d looked so determined to bring Charolette’s mother back. And I wasn’t sure if it was to hurt Ares or for his own selfish reasons. Whatever it was for, I couldn’t get hers hopes up. We had to kill Fenris to end this; he had taken so much from us.
Chapter 11
Ares
As soon as Charolette and Aurora disappeared upstairs, Dad cleared his throat. “There’s something else too.” He paused for a moment until he heard Charolette shut her door. “I didn’t tell you when you became alpha because I thought that it’d ended with your mother.”
Knowing that there was more bullshit that I needed to listen to, I sat in the chair. “What?”
Dad peeled a piece of fallen pizza from his lap and wiped a napkin over the sauce. “During the War of the Lycans, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, a divinity prophesied the future of our pack.”
I growled under my breath and clenched my hands into fists on the table. Marcel looked at me, and then back at my dad, tensing. Dad raised his brow at me and gave me that stern look he had used when he wanted Mars to calm down when he was younger. But I didn’t know how to calm down without Aurora.
“What’s the curse?” I asked him outright, voice teetering.
Dad never beat around the bush. He said what he needed to say, like true alphas did.
“The prophecy was that a luna from this pack would be taken by the leader of the hounds.”
“What do you mean, she’d be fucking taken?”
“Some people believe she would be taken as a mate. Others think that version of the prophecy has been bastardized and that the true prophecy means that the luna would become leader of the hounds.”
“No,” I growled, unable to displace all my rage. “She will not.”
“What’s the entire prophecy?” Marcel asked with the same bewildered expression.
Dad threw a dirty napkin into the center of the messy table. “The prophecy is that we’d lose our luna to the hound leader and that being with the hounds would kill her, but when she dies, this war with the hounds would end for good.” He gulped and stared emptily at the table. “I thought this woman who’d end the hounds for good was your mother, but they’re back.”
I shook in rage. Nobody would take Aurora from me. Not physically. Not sexually. Not emotionally. Aurora was mine and only mine. Nobody would lay a hand on her body. She wouldn’t leave. Mars and I wouldn’t let her.
Marcel cleared his throat and stared down at the table. “It’s just a prophecy,” he said, trying to play it off lightly. But it didn’t feel like just a prophecy. It felt fucking real. “We can stop it from happening. You can always stop prophecies from happening. It is the first thing that we learned in warrior training.”
“The divinity who spoke the prophecy provided a way to end it, but you’re not going to like it.” He blew out a deep breath. “If Aurora is the one the hounds will take, you can find that man’s weakness and kill him with it or offer an alpha in place of Aurora.” He paused. “Because Aurora is an alpha, you can replace her life with someone else’s to protect her. I believe you must speak with someone in the underworld named Hella, though I’m sure if an alpha is actually willing to sacrifice himself while fighting Fenris, it could work and stop him, especially because he takes direct part in the prophecy.”
“I’ll do it.”
It wasn’t even a question. I would do anything for that woman. She was my entire world.
Dad’s eyes hardened. “I’d prefer the first option.”
“Me too, but if sacrificing myself is what it takes to keep Aurora safe, then I will.” I thought about all the nights I had spent with Aurora, all the early mornings, watching her shift in her sleep, the way she smiled up at me when I whispered her name. I wouldn’t ever let her die.
Marcel cleared his throat. “Let’s focus on finding his weakness.”
“My mother was his weakness, but she’s gone.” I glanced over at Dad. “If you thought this prophecy was about Mom, if you knew that they’d try to take her away from us, why didn’t you surrender yourself for her?”
Dad glanced down at the table in guilt. I wanted to hate him for not doing it himself, but I wouldn’t be half the man I was today if he hadn’t grown up to teach me the way to lead. No matter how hard he was on me, he always made me stronger.
“I had to choose between my children and this entire pack, and your mother.” Tears welled up in his eyes. “If I had known for sure that your mother would be able to raise you and wouldn’t end up taking her life in the end, I would’ve. But your mother was unstable after he raped her. I didn’t want you and Charolette to grow up without parents.” He wiped a tear off his cheek. “I should’ve done things differently, but I have to live with my decision for the rest of my life.”
Letting it all sink in, I paced the room and ran a hand through my hair.
“What do you plan to do with the other half of the stone? Charolette isn’t going to take it. She hasn’t budged once, and I don’t think she will.” Dad glanced over at Marcel,
who clenched his jaw, as if he was genuinely angry at Charolette’s decision. It wasn’t an expression I saw often from him. He and Charolette fought all the damn time.
“You think Fenris wants Aurora for the stone, don’t you?” I asked, worry plaguing me.
After a curt nod, he said, “Yes, but I think giving her the other half of it would do her more good than harm. I was watching her fight you in practice earlier. She’s extremely talented and already so strong. With the other half of the stone, she’d be able to do more than just shift easily.”
“I think the same,” Marcel said. “Charolette really doesn’t fucking want it.”
“Maybe with the stone, you will be able to defeat the hounds without her being taken,” Dad said. “I don’t know though. There wasn’t any mention of the stone in the prophecy. I’m not even sure that they knew about it at the time. It could be another loophole. Just be careful. There has only been one person to ever wield the entire stone in their body. She—”
Upstairs, the door opened. Aurora’s and Charolette’s scents drifted down the stairs.
I furrowed my brows at him, waiting for him to continue. “What?”
“I’ll tell you later. I just wanted you to know that I couldn’t protect your mother, but you must protect Aurora at all costs, especially because she has the stone. But most importantly, because if she has the other half of the stone, she will be the strongest werewolf to ever grace these lands.”
Chapter 12
Aurora
On our short walk home, Ares clutched my hand tightly and repeatedly scanned the forest, as if he was on guard for someone or something to attack. Moonlight flooded the cracked street pavement while tiny lightning bugs floated by, dodging falling leaves.
“You know I love you, right?” Ares asked suddenly. “That I’d do anything for you?”
I stopped, chest tightening, and stared up into his golden eyes. Ares didn’t get affected by many things very easily. The conversation with his father must’ve been worse than I’d thought.
I grasped his hand to let him know that I did. “I’d do anything for you too. I love you and Mars.”
Though a strained expression flashed on his face, he forced a half-smile. “I can’t wait to make you our luna, but you must do a few things before. I can’t lose you.” He ushered me closer to the pack house, glancing around the forest again. “I can’t fucking lose you, Aurora.”
Ruffles sat in the window, swaying her tail and watching us—or maybe she was staring at Pringle, who sat in front of some hedges and chased his tail. Ares grimaced at him and opened the front doors.
“What’s going on, Ares? What’d your father say?”
After pushing me inside, he shut and locked the doors behind us. “That you should have the stone,” he said, the look on his face telling me that he wanted to say so much more. But instead, he cupped my face and drew his thumb across my cheek. “And I agree.”
“You agree?” I asked in disbelief, laying my hand over his. “I thought you wanted me to give the stone to your sister? I want to give the stone to your sister.”
I couldn’t bear to see her die. I had already lost my brother twice. I couldn’t lose Charolette too. Within the past few weeks, we had grown so much closer to each other.
“You need the stone, Kitten.” He rested his forehead against mine. “It will help you shift and make you stronger than anyone in this pack, including me.”
When he blew an angry breath from his nose, I knew that there was more. He wasn’t telling me everything.
“What is it? Why the sudden change?”
“The hounds,” he said quietly, eyes glazing over for a moment as he mind linked with pack warriors, telling them to increase border security and guards around the pack house. When he turned back to me, he grabbed my hand and walked me up the stairs. “They’re going to try to take you away from me. Fenris, my mother’s mate”—the word came out of his mouth with so much distaste, as if he didn’t think the hound deserved such a title—“he plans to make you his.”
While I had the urge to laugh because I would never in a million years leave with that hound—I’d kill him before he touched me—I instead pressed my lips together because I had only seen Ares this terrified once: after the hound attack at Mom’s pack.
“I have lost everything. My mom. Maybe Charolette. I can’t let them have you. You’re my life, Mars’s life, too.”
Butterflies swarmed inside my stomach, all those feelings I’d had on the night we met making me smile. Every single day, Ares surprised me with another side of himself, and my love for him grew stronger.
Though I didn’t want to take the stone from Charolette, she didn’t want it. The reason she’d refused broke my heart, but she seemed way too adamant to change her mind. I had tried desperately. Mars and Ares had tried desperately. Hell, Marcel had even tried desperately. Yet she still refused it.
And I couldn’t let a power like that go to waste.
A war was barreling toward us at lightning speed, and using it might be the only way to stop it.
Or at least, it’d give Ares and Mars peace of mind.
“Okay,” I whispered. “I’ll do it. I need to ask Eli—”
“I already talked to him at the tavern.”
My eyes widened. “You’re serious about this.”
“Dead fucking serious, Kitten,” he said, eyes flickering a hundred shades of gold. He took my hand and led me to our bedroom. “Come. You’re going to wear something of my mother’s for the Luna Ceremony. I want to show it to you.”
Unlike Mars, he wasn’t going to ask me to wear it. Ares demanded.
After rummaging through his dresser, he pulled out a black box with a sparkling emerald-green gemstone on a necklace encrusted with silver. Although hesitant at first, I didn’t think the silver would be in direct contact with any of my skin.
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered.
“My family has passed this down for centuries,” he said, handing me the necklace.
Under the moonlight, the emerald flickered. I brushed my thumb across the gem and smiled.
He swept his fingers against the chain. “Let me help you try it—”
Suddenly, he paused, gold eyes glazing over as he talked through the mind link. A moment later, someone knocked on our front doors. He pushed the necklace into my hand and wrapped my fingers around it.
“Go take care of whoever is at the door. And when you come back, I’ll have it on,” I said.
When he slipped out of the room, I walked into our bathroom and shut the door behind me. I clasped the necklace around my neck and slipped out of my clothes, lips curling into a smirk, standing completely naked on the marble floor.
Payback’s a bitch, Ares.
Ares wiggled the bathroom doorknob a few moments later. “Everything is taken care of. Come out. I’ve been waiting to see this on you for so damn long.”
My lips curled into a smile. “Sit and be patient, Ares. You’re going to love it on me.”
“Kitten, you know I don’t have patience.”
“Well, if you want to see it on me, you’ll sit, Alpha,” I said, hand wrapped around the knob. “Be a good boy for once.”
Hearing the bed dip, I peeked my head out and smiled at Ares as he lounged against the mattress, his shirt in the hamper and his taut abdomen braced hard.
“Are you ready to see your luna?” I asked.
“Don’t make me wait.”
Heat gathered in my core, and I pushed the door open and sauntered over to him, loving the way he tensed suddenly at my nakedness. I spun slowly for him and brushed my fingers over the necklace.
“Do I look like a luna?” I asked, my wolf purring loudly so her alpha could hear it.
“Kitten …” he said through clenched teeth, as if he was trying desperately to control his beast.
“Still a kitten to you?” I crawled onto the bed, laid back against the headboard, and spread my bare legs for him. Then, I slipped my fingers betw
een my legs and teased my clit. “How about now, Alpha? Am I good enough to be your luna? Hmm?”
The most ferocious, menacing growl rumbled from his throat, his canines extending under his lips and eyes glowing gold. “You don’t know who you’re teasing.”
Rubbing my clit in sweet, torturous circles, I moaned softly and stared at him, taunting him to come take me. I had been begging for him to thrust himself inside of me for days now. I didn’t care how ruthlessly he took me.
“I know exactly who I’m teasing,” I said. “The big, bad wolf.”
Ares let out another monstrous snarl, tilting his head down and staring at me through hooded eyes. On edge and impatient, he had been wrapped around my finger since I stepped out of the bathroom.
So, I pushed him even more.
I spit on my fingers and rubbed my pink clit, making it glisten. “I know you want it.”
His sharp canines lengthened even more under his lips, and I wondered what it would feel like if Mars marked me tonight. How much closer would I feel to him? How much pleasure would pump through my body as he pounded into me from behind? Would he be ruthless with me like Ares had been, or would he take it slow?
“Kitten,” Ares said, standing at the end of the bed with his hands on the mattress and his shoulders flexed. “You know I can’t control myself around you.”
“What? My hungry alpha can’t control himself around me?” I trailed my toes down his abdomen to the front of his pants and then against his hardness.
He snatched my ankle and yanked me to the edge of the bed, spreading my legs and staring down at my pussy.
Oh, Ares is going to break for me.
He drew his fingers down my inner thighs so softly, making me shiver. I purred and arched my back, waiting for him to touch me. He inhaled deeply and placed his lips on my knee, brushing them down my thigh and right to my pussy.
And just as he was about to lay his hot mouth on my wetness, I set my foot on his chest and pushed him away. “The only way you’re getting my pussy tonight is if you finally give me what I want. No eating. No touching. No tasting unless you give it to me.”