MARS
“Seventeen,” I said, lying back in the grass next to the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. With brown locks that lay so perfectly down her back to the way the moonlight bounced off her pale skin, my mate was beautiful. “Not bad.”
She lay next to me, her chest rising and falling with each heavy breath she took. The water from the lake just barely wet my heels. I watched her close her big blue eyes in utter bliss. She smelled so much like freshly picked lemons—my favorite—and it reminded me of Mom.
My fingers brushed against her bare hip bone in small, soothing circles. All I wanted was to bring her home with me, let her sleep in my bed, get her away from this Tony and his pungent scent, which was all over her.
“Alpha,” my beta, Liam, said through our mind link. “We have a problem.”
“Can’t you handle it?” I asked, pressing my lips together. “I’m busy.”
There was a pause on the other side of the mind link, and then Liam said, “It’s urgent.”
Though I wanted to bring her home, I couldn’t. My pack warriors had run to this part of Sanguine Wilds Forest for one reason and one reason only. The Malavite Stone. And we couldn’t leave without it. We needed it more than we needed anything.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” I said, staring down at the rippling water.
My mate shifted next to me, curling her head into the crook of my neck, her breaths warming the spot on my skin where she’d mark one day.
“What’s your name?” I asked, desperate to hear her speak again before I left her here alone for twenty minutes, at the most.
She opened her eyes and smiled up at me. “Aurora.”
“Aurora,” I whispered to myself so softly, like her name was meant to linger on my tongue for eternity—because it was.
I had heard Aurora’s name spoken by some of my warriors before. Smart, sassy, and so damn sexy, she was the soon-to-be alpha of the Darkmoon Pack—the pack last known to have the Malavite Stone.
But what was the alpha-in-training doing outside her borders, unprotected and alone, meeting this man named Tony, who would definitely need to be taken care of? I might’ve known her name and title, but I didn’t know the first thing about who she really was, and I definitely didn’t know if she would like me when she found out who I was … but I wouldn’t let her go.
After everything Ares and I had been through, after all the shit we had done, the Moon Goddess still had blessed us with a strong mate. And I wouldn’t take her for granted. She would be ours and ours only. For eternity.
Deep inside of me, I could feel a dark, sinister rage, my beast awakening. Clawing at our insides to see our mate for the first time, ripping me apart to touch her, growling at me not to leave her.
And I didn’t want her to be afraid of him.
“What’s yours?” she asked, her voice softer this time, her eyes closing.
“Mars,” I said, brushing my fingers against hers.
I needed to get out of here sooner than I’d planned. I didn’t want her to see that vicious side of me yet, but something told me that she’d find out who I was sooner rather than later.
Aurora’s breathing evened out, and she curled into a ball next to me. I pushed a strand of her dark hair behind her ear and savored this moment with her. I didn’t know when I’d get my next one.
“They call me Mars.”
“Mars, like the planet?” she mumbled.
Something inside of me snapped, and I couldn’t hold back the beast any longer. I possessively brushed my thumb across her jaw. Oh, my Kitten had a lot to learn, but she’d learn quickly.
“Like the god.”