by Emilia Rose
After a few moments, he tensed and pulled his teeth out. “Sorry you had to see that.”
Shoulders slumping forward, he licked my wound and covered the gash with a thick layer of saliva. Almost immediately, my skin sealed the lesion shut and healed the wound. Yet I still felt the swell of his mark, the epicenter of his love, the part of him rushing through me.
I ached when Mars pulled himself away but relished in the pain.
Wrapping my arms around his shoulders, I moved closer to him and kissed him. “Take me out for breakfast. Let me show everyone your mark. I want them to know that I’m totally and completely yours.”
Mars tucked some hair behind my ear, drawing his fingers across my cheekbone. “You’ve always been mine, Kitten, since the moment I met you at the lake and you let me love you.” He sucked my bottom lip between his teeth and tugged gently. “You own my soul, Aurora, every damn part of me, of us. Ares and I would do anything for you.”
After pulling his lips into one more kiss, my heart fluttering at the thought of spending my life with Mars, I stood up and handed him a towel. I swiped my hand across the steamy bathroom mirror, wiped the beads of water off my chest, and smiled at the reflection of my swollen love bite. Surrounded by an onslaught of purple bruises, four large canine marks decorated my neck on each side.
With a towel wrapped around his waist, Mars stood behind me and admired his mark, drawing a finger down the side of my throat and stopping right before he touched the scars. Though I could still faintly see those nasty thoughts of Fenris inside his mind, he actually smiled and pulled me into a hug.
“You’re mine,” he murmured into my ear, staring at my reflection in the mirror.
“Meow.” Ruffles appeared at the door, looking directly at Mars and swatting her tail.
Mars cracked a smile and strummed his fingers against my stomach. “You’re mine too, Ruffles.”
Ruffles purred, her tail slowing to a sway. She disappeared, and then a moment later, she reappeared with her blue hat between her teeth. She dropped it in front of our feet and stared up at Mars. “Meow.”
“Sorry, Ruffles, you’re not invited to our date.”
Licking the chip dust off her whiskers, Ruffles ignored me and mewed at Mars again.
“You’re always welcome to come with us, Ruffles. Don’t listen to Aurora. She’s just jealous.” He leaned down, fastened the hat on her head, and sneezed, scaring Ruffles in the process.
I tugged him into our bedroom and tossed him some clothes. “We should get you more allergy medication when we’re out. We’re running low.” I pulled on some shorts and a sweatshirt, knowing that though fall had just started, the strong breeze and fog would block any warmth from the sun.
Ruffles padded to the front doors, her booty swaying back and forth. Something told me that she didn’t want to come with us to go out on our date. She was on the prowl for her new man, Pringle.
Mars wrapped his arm around my waist and held me against him as we walked out the front doors and down the driveway, heading straight for town. I wanted to say that he held me close because of his mark, but I knew deep down that it soothed him and Ares to know I was close to him in case a hound attacked.
As we ambled downtown, I brushed my fingers against my newest mark, savoring the feeling of it. Don’t get me wrong; I loved Ares’s mark, but Mars needed the extra love, more than Ares ever did. Being the shield and the spear, Ares knew Mars needed that protection too.
When we rounded the corner into town, Pringle walked right past us with a gray mouse in his mouth. He saw Ruffles and immediately changed his direction, stopping in front of her and placing the mouse at her feet, as if he were making a sacrifice to a goddess. After giving me a sassy smirk, Ruffles sniffed it and glanced toward the alley behind Moon’s Cafe.
Looked like Ruffles was going to have her first official date.
“Don’t get any diseases,” I shouted, crossing my arms over my chest.
Mars leaned over my shoulder. “And she’s not talking about eating the mouse.”
I playfully pushed his chest and told Ruffles not to go far. She had our scent all over her tiny cat body. If Fenris found her out in the wild, there was no telling what he’d do to her to get at me. Mars had said Fenris wanted me and my stone, and I wouldn’t let Fenris win this little game he wanted to play.
Ruffles nudged Pringle, and Pringle picked up the mouse, following her into the back alleyway behind Moon’s. After ensuring that Ruffles wouldn’t leave the alley, I walked toward the café with Mars in tow.
Beautiful white-painted silhouettes of the Moon Goddess decorated Moon’s black walls. Star- and moon-shaped lights dangled from the high ceiling. Mars grabbed my hand and found a seat at one of the white couches and wooden tables that lined the outskirts of the small room. To the average human, this was just another café, but to wolves, this was a café dedicated to our goddess, the woman who had breathed life into us and chosen our fated mates.
“The pups are coming over tomorrow night,” Mars said, trailing his nose up the side of my neck near his mark as we waited for our Chai moon tea.
I shivered at his touch and eyed the torch-like candle flickering in the center of the table. “Are you going to show me how well you act around them?”
He wrapped his arms around my waist, sprawling one hand over my stomach. “Of course I am, Kitten.” He curled his fingers into my flesh. “I want your belly swollen with my pups soon. I want little Auroras running around our pack house.”
“Being tormented by a little Ares?”
“No, we’re having girls, and they’re going to be the strongest female alphas the world has ever seen.” He chuckled into my ear and placed his lips on his mark. “Besides their mother, of course.”
Talking about having children with my mate made my stomach tighten. While I wanted pups, now wasn’t the right time, especially with everything going on in this uncertain world. But I also knew that Ares and Mars felt differently about it all. They both wanted to give me pups.
Mars leaned in closer. “So you’ll have a piece of me when I’m gone,” he whispered in my ear.
Tensing, I pulled away and suddenly felt defeated. I didn’t want Mars to think that way because we were going to survive these attacks and this war. Maybe Mars was letting his nightmare frighten him too much, or maybe his father had said something to him last night about Fenris because it wasn’t like him to … to act so conquered by fear.
“Don’t be sad, Kitten,” he whispered, taking my hands. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
I nodded and wiped away some tears. “I know.”
Unable to take my eyes off him, I frowned at his goddamn perfect face. He had always been more than I’d ever asked for, and I wanted to be with him forever. He wasn’t going to sacrifice himself for me. I wouldn’t let him. I’d use the other half of the damn stone on him if I had to.
Chapter 15
Aurora
“Tomorrow, I will talk to Elijah about the stone,” I said after breakfast.
“About putting it inside of you,” Mars clarified.
“Maybe …”
Did I want to use it? Maybe. Would I rather have Charolette use it? Definitely.
Charolette didn’t want it though. She didn’t want to be a burden on anyone, thought she didn’t deserve this life, and she believed her mom had committed suicide because of her. Just like Ares and Mars, Charolette had grown up living in a harsh reality. She deserved the stone more than I did, but nobody could force her to take it.
“Soon,” Mars suddenly demanded. A darkness flashed through his eyes, and he thrust his shoulders back and ripped open the pack house’s front doors and stormed in. Ares was back in control, about to tear me to shreds for not agreeing. “You’ll get it done soon because I’m not letting Fenris fucking touch you.”
I blew a breath through my nose and gently placed my fingers on his abdomen. “Soon,” I reiterated, hoping it’d calm him down enough for him to think str
aight.
Alpha Vulcan was here to talk with Ares about his information on the necromancer.
Marcel walked out from Ares’s office, arms crossed over his chest and white hair in his face. “About damn time you showed up. Vulcan has been waiting for fifteen minutes.” He glanced down at my neck and smirked. “Like the new scar, Princess.”
My ruthless god of war growled low and stormed past Marcel and into his office. I patted Marcel on the chest, thanking him, and followed Ares into the grand room.
With one ankle kicked up on his knee, gelled dark red hair, and sleeves rolled up his forearms, Alpha Vulcan sat in one of the plush red velvet chairs. “Two marks?” Vulcan asked, eyeing my neck.
With his lips parted slightly, I saw his canines in his mouth and noticed how much smaller they were compared to Ares’s.
Ares had the largest teeth I had ever seen on a wolf—good for ripping an enemy to shreds and warning other suitors away from his mate. For another wolf to try to claim me, those teeth promised them death.
“Don’t you think two marks is a bit much?” Vulcan asked.
To Vulcan, two marks from Ares probably looked greedy because not many people knew about his second personality that seemed to shine around me. It was the best-kept secret and one that I wished more people knew about. Ares and Mars weren’t bad guys, like the world thought Ares to be.
“No, they’re not too much,” Ares said, keeping his gaze surprisingly steady on me.
He was controlling himself—at least, trying to control himself. But these marks were driving him crazy. I could see it in his eyes. Something had changed him last night. Maybe it was the talk with his dad or the nightmare or having Mars mark me, but he couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off me.
After swiping his tongue across his saliva-covered canines, Ares growled under his breath and sat, turning his attention to Vulcan. “What’d you find out about the necromancer?”
Vulcan rubbed his forehead with his thumb and pointer finger, and sighed through his mouth. “She’s from the Gargan family, the only magic family who survived the War of the Lycans.”
My eyes widened slightly.
Fought between werewolves and hounds, the War of the Lycans was far more deadly and savage than anyone alive could ever even imagine. Some records stated that gods and goddesses had taken a role in the war and that it was divine by nature. But not many people believed that or even cared, as our Moon Goddess hadn’t taken any part in it.
My history teacher had described the war in three words: magic, ruin, and slaughter. It’d proven to be more fatal and dangerous than a nuclear war or the end of the world. Yet nobody knew how it’d ended or how it had begun.
Some speculated the end had resulted from an entire pack mysteriously turning to stone. Rumor had it that each and every warrior in that pack had been preserved by the gods, each in their fighting stance—some lying on the ground, others about to be attacked by the unseen beasts.
Nobody knew how or why or if someone had just sculpted replicas of their bodies for their pack to mourn. Some packs believed the former, others the latter. Dad, whose ancestors had won arduous battles against the hounds, had always told me that those people had been real and turned to stone. But packs like Vulcan’s didn’t believe that. Hell, it was hard for me to believe it too.
Maybe I could ask Dad about it later. It’d be a chance to visit him to patch our relationship up or to just tell him to leave if he didn’t want to stay here anymore.
“She lives in the south, near Syncome Mountains,” Vulcan continued.
“Near Syncome Mountains?” I asked. “That place is a breeding ground for hounds. They kill anything that lives on the land—the rodents, the birds, the trees. It’s the underworld on earth. How does she live there?”
Vulcan grimaced and shrugged. “Not sure. That’s all the information I could get.”
After pondering for a few moments, I nodded in response. It didn’t matter. I had to be okay with running into hounds. I had to protect my mate, my pack, and myself. If we didn’t end this now, the hounds would eventually come to us.
“We have to go,” I said.
We needed to squeeze as much information out of this necromancer as we could before things around here became worse. My stomach tightened at the thought of being on the brink of another war that could last lifetimes. It might not be as bad as the War of the Lycans, but it could be damn close to it.
I glanced at Ares and frowned. I didn’t want our pup or others’ pups to grow up in war. I wanted them to prosper, to be free of fear, to live their lives to the fullest because being a werewolf in Sanguine Wilds was the best feeling in the world.
“Will you come with us?” I asked Vulcan.
Ares seethed through the mind link. “No. He’s not coming.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “We need packs to trust us. We need to make friends, Ares, not more enemies. Maybe if he comes with us—and you don’t kill him—it’ll show all the other packs that we can be trusted.”
Ares let out a boisterous growl but didn’t push it. If another great war was coming, we needed to be prepared and to join forces with other packs who had different strengths, like medicine and science.
“We’re not going until you have that stone in your back,” Ares said out loud. He didn’t hide the fact that he wanted to put the stone inside of me. He wanted Vulcan to know, even gazed over at Vulcan to challenge him about using it.
Vulcan shrugged. “As long as she doesn’t become you, I don’t have a problem with her using the stone. All I care about is that it doesn’t end up in a hound’s hands. They would have unimaginable power.” He paused. “If Aurora does use it, you have to be prepared not only to kill for her to protect it, but also to kill her for it.”
My heart tightened. Vulcan hadn’t said the words lightly because they needed to be said harshly. He needed to get the point across that the hounds could never have the stone, just as Jeremy had warned me. Ares needed to be prepared to kill me. Not only kill for me, but kill me. To protect it.
And while I would beg him to kill me if it ever came to that, like it had with Jeremy, I knew that he would never lay a hand on me.
Ares slammed his fist down on the table and split it in two pieces, a loud crack echoing throughout the room. I pressed my lips together, knowing that he couldn’t even begin to process the kind of responsibility he would have once the full and complete stone was inside of me.
He couldn’t kill me now without the complete stone, and he wouldn’t be able to kill me when I had both pieces.
To lighten the mood, Vulcan cleared his throat and winked at me. “If Ares isn’t strong enough to do it, I will do it.”
“Get out,” Ares said through his teeth, glaring him down.
Vulcan raised his hands in defense. “Hey, all I’m—”
Ares stood over the broken desk with fiery and wrathful eyes. The god of war, vengeance, and wrath didn’t mix well together, but damn, did it look good on Ares.
“I said get out—before I kill you,” he roared again.
After piercing Ares with a pointed look, I stood and opened the doors for Vulcan. “We’ll be in touch with a final decision on when we’re going. It will be soon, whether or not I have the complete stone inside of me. Get your warriors ready.”
I shut the doors behind Vulcan and Marcel, and turned on my heel to meet Ares, who suddenly stood closer than I’d expected. “Don’t get angry with him. He was pushing you. It’s what all alphas do.” Apparently.
“I’m not losing you again.”
“Again?” I asked, brows furrowed together. When has he lost me before?
An unreadable expression crossed his face, and then he shook his head, as if what he’d thought didn’t make sense. “It doesn’t matter.” Ares stepped closer to me, snaked a hand around my neck, and brushed his fingers against both of my marks. “You wear both of our marks now. You’re ours to look at, ours to handle, ours to ogle whenever we want. Nobody else gets to
do to you what we can. And nobody gets to decide your fate.”
Chapter 16
Aurora
“You have one last chance, Charolette. Take the fucking stone,” Marcel said to Charolette before practice later that day.
They stood off to the side, the striking fall wind whipping their long hair into their faces.
Charolette scowled at Marcel and bared her blunt canines. “I’ve already made up my mind. Stop trying to force me to do something that I don’t want to do.” She moved closer to him and poked a finger into his chest. “You’re supposed to be my mate and support me.”
Marcel crossed his arms. “I’m supposed to keep you alive.”
Snapping my eyes from side to side, I continued to watch until Ares walked over to me with a sweat-soaked shirt. After our chat with Vulcan, he had taken a run to clear his mind. Though, by the looks of it, he just looked angrier.
“Why are they always fucking fighting?” he asked me.
Not wanting him to find out about Marcel and Charolette being mates, I shrugged my shoulders and ushered him to the group of warriors stretching in the middle of the field. “Probably about Marcel being a dick or something. You know how he is …”
Ares stopped mid-field and looked me up and down. “You’re not ready for practice.”
I gnawed on the inside of my cheek and scrunched the dry grass between my toes. “I’m going to see my dad. I need to talk to him.” I zipped my jacket up a bit further, the trees blowing another harsh wind in our direction. “When I’m finished, I’ll be back to train. I promise.”
“You better be,” Ares said.
After kissing him good-bye and shoving on some sandals, I swallowed my pride, my hurt, my anger, and my fear, and walked to the prison. My stomach tightened to the point that I thought I’d puke. I didn’t know what to say to Dad or how to get him to talk to me about the War of the Lycans. He barely wanted to talk to me about the damn weather now or how the food was here.