by Emilia Rose
I grasped his stone face in my hands and could almost feel the fur graze against my palms, but it wasn’t really there. It was all my imagination. It was what I wanted to believe.
Dad was the only fucking family I had left, and now, he was really gone for eternity too.
Had he come here to spend the rest of his life with his family? Was that why he’d refused to stay with Ares and me and why he’d wanted to be a lone wolf? I had so many questions that would be left unanswered.
I rubbed my hands over his snout and pulled myself toward him, wrapping my arms around his wolf for the very last time. If he had chosen to live in Sanguine Wilds, I might have seen him again … but this way, I wouldn’t.
“It’s not fucking here,” Ares barked hours later, storming through the bodies of stone and toward the center of the valley, where I sat with my head in my hands, still trying to come to terms with Dad being gone for good.
We had been here for three hours, and everyone had searched every inch of this place themselves. Some had started digging around the statues, which I’d strongly advised against because this seemed like sacred land. Destroying anything here would have consequences, but they hadn’t seemed to care.
“Medusa said it would be hard to find,” I snapped.
“What’s your problem today, Aurora?” Ares asked me, brows furrowed together in a ruthless glare.
With his big, muscular arms crossed over his chest and that divine aura radiating off him again, I would’ve let him intimidate me if I hadn’t known better.
I stood to my feet. “One, we’ve been here for hours. Two, the stones shouldn’t be tampered with because nobody knows how to use them. Three, we’re close to the underworld’s entrance. And four, we are surrounded by thousands of people who turned to stone in this very field! My problem is that I want to survive, Ares. I want to have a family with you. I want to live my life until I can’t anymore. I don’t want to be here.”
He cursed under his breath and gazed off into the dark sky. “We have to leave to get you back to our pack for the Luna Ceremony and so Elijah can put the other half of the stone inside of you, but I’m coming back here with more warriors right after that.”
Overcome with emotion, I shook my head and held back my tears. “And what if you never come back to me?” I whispered, voice cracking. “You’re going to travel back here after seeing all of this.” I gestured back toward the hundreds upon hundreds of stone people. “You’re going to leave me and one day turn to stone too?”
“If all these people turned to stone here, why haven’t we?” he asked.
“I don’t fucking know, Ares! But there are people here who were in the middle of battle. My dad is here!”
“Your dad?” he asked.
“Yes, Ares. He’s stuck in stone forever now. Not only him, but warriors and gods are here. If we survive today, it doesn’t mean you’ll survive the next time you come.”
Ares growled and turned away from me, canines emerging from under his lips.
I grasped his wrist and stared at his profile. “Do you really never want to see me again? Do you not want a family with me?”
It was a selfish question to ask because he was doing this for Charolette. But we didn’t even know if it would work, and Charolette didn’t want the stone. No matter how hard Ares tried to convince her, she wouldn’t even consider putting half of it inside of her.
“Aurora, you know that’s not true,” he said through clenched teeth. “I love you.”
“Well then, think about the consequences of your actions,” I said, pulling away from him as my chest tightened. “I know it’s hard for you because all you feel is pain and heartbreak, but think about what you really want. If you want that stone for Charolette—even though you know she won’t accept it—over me, then come back here.”
I turned away from him, acting as if I didn’t give a shit anymore. But I did.
I loved Ares and Mars too fucking much.
If he came back here, I’d stupidly accompany him to protect my mate.
“Kitten …” Ares grasped my hand and pulled me back toward him. “I’m sorry. I just …” For a moment, Mars flashed in his eyes, but then he was gone. “I need it for her, for Charolette.” He paused and wiped a tear off my cheek. “But I need you more. I can’t—”
Lightning flashed through the fog, accompanied with a thunderous roar, northwest of the mountaintop. Suddenly, the dark sky cracked open, a whirling fiery-orange portal with black flames expanding above it.
Heart hammering, I curled my hand around Ares’s bicep in fear. What the hell was that?
The portal stayed ajar for a few moments, and then a wolf with two diagonal scars running across his face jumped out of it. Fenris stood atop the mountain beside us and raised his snout to the gateway, howling.
And then hundreds of hounds flooded out of the portal, circling around Fenris and baring their teeth, as if ready for war. I stared wide-eyed at the scene, nails lengthening into claws and puncturing Ares’s bicep.
My Goddess, my fucking Goddess. We’re screwed.
When Ares saw Fenris, he lunged forward, about to shift into his wolf and destroy him with everything he had, but as the hounds continued to pour from the portal, I grasped his wrist tightly and pulled him back.
“No,” I said sternly.
Even being three mighty packs strong, we didn’t stand a chance.
We couldn’t run to death. We needed to return home for the stone.
“We have to go,” I pleaded with Ares.
While Ares nodded in agreement, Vulcan shifted and growled at Fenris, catching his attention. I didn’t know what had possessed him to do such a thing, but I fucking cursed him out for it inside my head. This could kill us for good, for fucking good.
When Fenris looked over at me, I sucked in a deep breath. We needed to get out of here now. No more looking for the stone. No more fucking waiting. This was life or death, and some fucking wolves didn’t understand that.
Instead of running after us, like I’d thought Fenris would, he stood atop the mountain like a god, mouth moving yet no words being spoken. Then, suddenly, he lifted his nose to the air again and howled.
A blanket of wind swept across Syncome Mountains. Bones that some warriors had dug up and even broken statue pieces formed back together, just as the hounds had done in the cave. We were surrounded from all sides with hundreds of more hounds coming to life.
“We have to go. We can’t kill them all. Not with the others on top of that mountain,” I said, pleading to Ares. I shifted into my wolf quickly and easily, and nudged his thigh. “Please, I don’t want to die before we have a family.”
“This is how hounds are made?” Minerva asked, brows furrowed. She surveyed the area and nodded toward the man with sunflowers around his thigh. “To the east, there are less of them. If we hurry, we can lose them in the forest.”
So, we fled off the field. Sprinting for our lives. Slaughtering as many hounds as we could. Trying to escape Fenris’s wrath. And as soon as everyone ran off the field, I looked over my shoulder at the man, made of white stone and sunflowers, wanting to see him one last time.
I swore he’d turned his head toward me and whispered, “Go, Aurora. Live.”
Chapter 28
Aurora
We sprinted through the forest for hours, on a mission to lose those monstrosities before they killed us. Like earlier, Hound Territory was unusually quiet, but this time, we knew why—because the hounds were gathered on the mountain and preparing for the deadliest war yet.
I didn’t know how much time we had before they attacked—maybe a day, if that.
All I knew was that we had to get home, quickly race through the Luna Ceremony, and complete the stone surgery, so we would have a chance at survival.
As we reached our property, I glanced back one more time and sniffed, trying to catch a whiff of the hounds’ musty stench. Yet it didn’t seem like they had followed us, which made me think that those beasts were waiting for
something more, something worse to arrive before they attacked.
Pack members raced back and forth on the lawn, carrying sturdy white folding chairs and silver decorations, preparing for tonight’s ceremony. The celebration had approached so quickly that I hadn’t done anything I wanted to do. I wasn’t ready to officially become the luna and for the biggest war of the century.
Slowing to a stop, I bit my tongue and shifted into my human with so much pain. Ares rubbed against me, his thick brown fur brushing against mine until I lay at his paws on my hands and knees. Part of me wished that this was over, that this pain would disappear like it had at the mountain, and I hoped that it would after Elijah’s doctor performed surgery tonight.
Ares shifted into his human and retrieved some clothes for me from the pack house. Children playfully ran around us, and older wolves cleared out the woods where the ceremony would be held, everyone cheery and chatting with each other.
My heart ached for our pack because they didn’t know the agony that lay ahead.
But at least, they’d be safe. We had underground shelters now, thanks to Adrian.
After Ares handed me clothes and left to talk to Vulcan, Minerva commanded her warriors to return home. “Have a good Luna Ceremony tonight, Aurora. I hope that you won’t require my help soon, but I’m afraid that you might.”
“You’re not staying?” I asked, stupidly thinking that she and Vulcan would stay and rest for a bit before Sanguine Wilds turned into a sea of blood and fear.
“No, I need to secure my pack for when the hounds attack. I believe they’ll come soon. I thought Ares would be the one to set them off today, but it was Vulcan.” She rolled her eyes. “Men and their bruised egos.”
“Will you contact other packs in the area? Tell the alphas what you saw. They don’t trust Ares, but they’ll trust you. Please, try to get them on board with aiding us in this war. I’m afraid that we won’t be able to protect everyone without as much help as we can get.”
Minerva nodded. “Of course.” Then, she shifted back into her wolf, howled to her warriors, and disappeared into the forest with her pack.
I hoped we wouldn’t have a need to see her again soon, but we would.
“Are you staying, Vulcan?” I asked after walking over to Vulcan, Ares, and Marcel.
“Yes …” He looked at the ground and then back at me. “Sorry for the drama I caused there with the other hounds. I just …” He took a deep breath, chest rising and falling. “Someone special to me was there. Caught in the stone. I’d always thought we were mates, but she disappeared right before my eighteenth birthday. I dreamed of having a Luna Ceremony with her, but now, I know that’ll never happen.”
“What was her name?” I asked, brows furrowed.
“Her name was Venus.” He gave me a half-smile that didn’t reach his eyes. After staring off into space for a moment, his jaw twitching, he forced out a laugh. “Well, I hope to live vicariously through you two tonight.” He slapped his hand against Ares’s back, congratulated him, and disappeared through the crowd.
“Should I prepare the warriors to leave for Syncome Mountains after the ceremony?” Marcel asked Ares, walking toward the pack house.
I grasped Ares’s hand, hoping that he’d listened to my pleas earlier but I doubted it. Ares did what he wanted, no matter the consequences. He made decisions based on emotion and emotion alone and never once thought things through before he acted.
“No,” Ares said. “We’re not going back there unless we have to.”
Marcel growled, “We have to go back. There are stones there for Charolette. She could—”
Ares snarled and snatched Marcel by the collar. “Charolette doesn’t want it,” he said, voice almost cracking.
My heart broke for him. He had tried everything, every-fucking-thing that he could to help her. Yet still, he knew that she would never accept it either.
“We can’t give up on her. We have to do something, Ares,” Marcel said. When he realized that Ares wouldn’t budge on this, he stepped closer to him and blew out a desperate breath. “We have to do something. Anything. We can’t let her die.”
“Why do you care so much about her, Marcel?” Ares asked.
“Because she’s my mate,” Marcel said, defeated. “I can’t give up on my own mate.”
Ares pressed his lips together. “She’s your mate, but you go out with girls every night.”
Marcel shook his head, chin trembling ever so slightly. “I don’t want to. They were all just to forget her. She didn’t want me for the longest time. Told me to find someone else because she was accepting her death. She was with Liam, and he made her happy. But I want her, Ares. I want her so fucking bad, and I don’t want anything to happen to her.”
Ares swallowed and pushed him away. “You hurt her, and I’ll fucking kill you.”
Bowing his head, Marcel thanked Ares, as if his alpha’s approval to date his sister meant everything to him. “I’ll come up with a way to save her, one that doesn’t require us to travel back to the mountains. I can’t let her die.” Marcel ran off to find Charolette in the swarm of people.
After ushering me into the house, Ares shut the door behind us and stood with his back turned toward me, tense. “You’re right,” he said suddenly.
“Right about what?” I asked, brows furrowed.
He turned around to face me and clenched his jaw. “I make decisions based on emotion alone. I don’t think things through. I want to see Fenris dead and his hounds hurting … and it’s all because I can’t fucking deal with my sister’s decision …” He scowled. “But how the fuck am I supposed to be okay with my sister dying, Aurora? How am I supposed to fucking accept that she doesn’t want to be here anymore without trying to persuade her or trying to help her live?”
Not knowing how to respond, I moved closer to him and rubbed his back. I hadn’t had to prepare for Jeremy’s death; I’d just had to accept it. But if I could’ve gone back—knowing what I knew now—I would’ve fought like hell to make sure he wasn’t taken by the hounds. I wanted to tell Ares that I knew how it felt, but I didn’t.
“I know how she’s fucking feeling. I’ve been there. I’ve been hurt. I’ve wanted to end my life, hoping that wherever I ended up would be better than this shithole,” Ares admitted, upper lip twitching.
Tears welled up in my eyes. I didn’t want to hear Ares say something like that ever. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him or Mars. I loved them more than myself.
I shook my head. “Stop, Ares,” I whispered.
But when he looked over at me, he was back to being Mars.
Mars thought this. Mars hated his life. Mars wanted to end it.
“Mars,” I whispered, hugging my arms around his waist and resting my head on his chest. “I can’t even begin to imagine your pain. I’ll never fully understand it, and I hate that I can’t take it away from you.”
He wrapped me up in his arms. “I didn’t think I’d ever have to choose between you and Charolette,” he whispered. “I wanted to hate you earlier when you gave Ares the ultimatum … but I can’t. I want to have a family with you. I want to have pups. We love you more than anyone ever will, and we’ll do anything to keep you alive.”
Chapter 29
Mars
Laying Aurora down on the bed, I crawled up beside her and peeled off her clothes. It had been a long day, and all I wanted to do was relax with her during the little time we had before the ceremony. We surely wouldn’t be able to relax afterward during her surgery tonight.
“We don’t have much time until the ceremony. We should get ready,” she said, tilting her head and moaning softly as I nipped at my mark on her neck and drew my tongue against each of the large puncture holes.
I wrapped her in my arms and rolled us over, settling her on me. “How could I get ready without pleasing my mate first? I can smell you, Kitten. You need this just as badly as I do.” I ground my hips up against her bare ones. “You know you do.”
She bit her bottom lip and slipped a hand between us, stroking my bulge against my gray sweats. “You’re right,” she said, crawling down my torso and bending at the hip to capture the head of my cock between her lips. She moved her tongue across the gray material, wetting it with her saliva.
Leaning up on a forearm, I trailed my other hand down her back to her ass, grabbed a handful of it, and then slapped it hard. “Lift your ass higher for me,” I said. When she lifted her hips into the air, I smacked it again and growled, feeling my wolf ache for control.
Aurora pulled my cock out of my pants and sucked it into her mouth. I slowly lifted my hips and thrust my cock deep into her throat, her spit and drool rolling down my shaft. She wrapped her small hands around the base and squeezed. “Please, Mars …”
I moved her hips closer to me, laced one hand into her hair, and thrust my other fingers into her wet little hole. At first, she tightened around me and tensed, but then she moved her hips back and forth, desperately begging me for more.
“Do you like that, Kitten?” I asked, pulling some hair out of her face to see her mouth stuffed full with my cock.
She sucked on me harder, bobbing her head up and down. Her pussy tightened around my fingers, and she gagged.
Before she could start to willingly choke on my cock, I pulled her up, made her straddle my waist, and shoved myself into her sopping pussy. All I wanted was to please this woman. She stayed by my side through everything, even when Ares made life-threatening decisions for himself.
“Are you going to be a good girl during the Luna Ceremony?” I asked, grasping her hips and pounding up into her. “Because if you’re not, I might have to take you like this right then and there.”
Aurora clenched down hard on me, bounced on my dick, and moaned to the Moon Goddess. I curled my fingers around her ass and met her with my own ruthless thrusts. As her breasts bounced against my chest, I pulled her toward me, captured one of her nipples between my teeth, and tugged.
She stopped moving, her body tensing up, and whimpered for me.