AURORA
The belligerent and notorious Alpha Ares wanted to mark me … an alpha who could barely shift, an alpha who was weaker than he thought, an alpha he’d rip piece by piece when he discovered my secret.
Though my heart raced in excitement at the thought, I couldn’t let him do it.
I placed my hands on his chest, gathered all my strength, and pushed him away. “No.”
He tensed, his brown eyes fighting to stay their natural human color but eventually surrendering to their wolfish golden suns. “No? You don’t want me to mark you?” There was the usual mix of shock and fury in his voice, as if after everything, he’d thought I’d submit to him.
It should’ve been an easy decision. I should’ve pushed him back further, thrown his savage smirk right back at him, and told him he’d never mark me. At least, that way wouldn’t end in my heartbreak. But instead of doing any of that, all I said was, “No, not yet.”
After the words left my mouth, Ares slumped his shoulders forward slightly and frowned, golden eyes still intense but filled with anguish, almost as if he were a whole new person.
“Do you want to mark me?” he asked softly, taking my hands in his larger ones.
“Ares—”
“Mars,” he said. “I’m Mars now.”
“Mars,” I whispered, correcting myself. It was going to be difficult, separating the man from the monster, but they were both my mate, and part of me wanted to tame each of them.
“I want you to mark me. I want to be yours,” Mars said.
Mine.
The god of war wanted to be mine without knowing that I was the woman who had the one thing he’d killed hundreds of werewolves to find.
“Not yet.” I brushed my fingers against his stubble. Lips curled down in a frown, he looked ashamed that I’d refused to mark him. A wave of guilt washed over me, and I grasped his hands. “I want to get to know you, and I need you to know me.”
It wasn’t a lie, but it was an excuse to stall. Stall because I wasn’t strong enough to tell him the truth. And I hated myself for it. But I didn’t know how to control that more demonic, hellish side of him yet. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to control Ares. All I knew was that he’d kill for the stone.
After giving me his best half-smile, he grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my body. Although we were still soaking wet and dressed only in our towels, he led me to the kitchen and sat me on the counter.
“I wanted to run with you tonight. Your wolf and mine in our forest, but after the hound attacks, I don’t want to risk it. So”—he opened the pantry, which must’ve had ten bags of Ruffles chips inside of it, all different kinds—“I’m going to make you dinner.”
My eyes widened. “Why are there so many bags of chips in your pantry?”
He gave me a prideful grin. “I saw that you had them in your backpack, and I wanted to have a snack that you enjoyed here.”
I pressed my lips together to try to suppress a grin, but I couldn’t help the warmth I felt in my heart because of his thoughtfulness. If he only knew that it wasn’t me who enjoyed those chips, but Ruffles. That cat would find all those bags and eat them within the next week if he didn’t hide them well. She had a nose stronger than a werewolf’s sometimes. She’d catch a whiff of them, find a way out of her room, and chew right through the plastic.
“So,” I said, kicking my legs back and forth, “what’re you going to cook for me?”
He shut the pantry door and opened the freezer, which was packed with so much food that I swore it could feed about twenty growing pups. “What’re you feeling?” He pulled out a sirloin steak and a box of frozen pretzels. “Steak or pretzels with cheese?”
“You’re going to cook me pretzels with cheese for our first meal together?” I asked, arching a brow and smiling.
His cheeks flushed the lightest shade of pink, and my heart warmed.
I never thought I’d see the god of war blush.
“Let’s have the pretzels,” I said.
“We can have the steak if you want. I’m just—”
“No.” I hopped off of the counter, tightened my towel around my body, and grabbed the black box from him. “I want the pretzels, but on one condition.” I poked a finger into his bare chest and stared up into his soft, inviting eyes. “You promise not to lick the cheese off of me when we’re finished.”
“Oh, Kitten, you’ve got some pretty weird kinks there.” He smirked. “But I can’t keep that promise to you. I’d lick anything off your body, sprinkle some salt on you.” He grabbed the box and gazed at the directions to cook the pretzels. “Bake you at four hundred twenty-five degrees until you’re golden brown.”
I playfully shoved my shoulder into his, letting tingles rush through my body. Why hadn’t anyone told me about this side of him? The gentler side, playful side, the side that might or might not have a pretzel kink.
Maybe I had just been too blinded by hateful rumors to notice.
“I’ll be waiting in your bedroom for our five-star meal.”
Before I could leave the kitchen, he said, “Aurora, don’t leave this house.”
“You sound like my mom.” I hurried down the hall, wanting to set up Ruffles’s bedroom before she got home and before Mars could ask what I was up to. I wanted her to be comfortable, which meant making the bed smell like me and bringing her favorite pillow so she could lie on it.
“If you leave, I’ll hunt your cute little ass down and—”
“I’m not going anywhere, Mars.”
Not yet.
I grabbed the pillow from my suitcase, dressed myself in one of Mars’s shirts, and walked into Ruffles’s new room. Perched on a heap of Mars’s clothes, which were lying on the bed, Ruffles sat and smiled at me like she was a queen.
I shut the door behind me, eyes wide. “Ruffles! Charolette brought you home already?”
Oh Goddess, Charolette probably heard us in his bedroom.
Ruffles’s litter box was set in the corner of the room, and there were three different toys on the ground. A ball with a bell inside of it, a stuffed wolf that Ruffles had nearly torn through already with her teeth, and a laser pointer. A food bowl was filled on the ground near the door.
Ruffles stood up and arched her back to stretch, her little booty in the air. “Meow.” She walked over to me and brushed her small, fluffy body against my leg.
I knelt down and frowned at her, petting her head just where she liked it. She rubbed her face against mine and purred some more.
“I’m glad you’re okay too, girl. That hound was scary, but you did so good.”
When I stopped petting her, she bit my finger and sashayed back over to Mars’s clothes to lie on them.
I placed her pillow on the center of the bed and plopped her right onto it, but almost immediately, she stood back up and walked to his clothes.
“Ruffles, I know that he smells good, but he’s allergic to you.”
I put her on the pillow again, and she did the exact same thing—but this time, she bit the pillow, took it in her mouth, and dragged it to Mars’s clothes, laying it right on top, hopping onto it, and plopping right down.
“Kitten,” Mars called.
I gazed at the door and crouched down to Ruffles’s level. “This isn’t over. I’m taking his clothes away from you tomorrow,” I said.
She closed her eyes with her fuck you attitude and turned her head toward the dark glass window.
“Coming!” I shouted.
I shut her door behind me and hurried to his bedroom.
Lying on the bed in a pair of gray sweatpants with a plate of warm pretzels and hot cheese on his lap, Mars stared at me with a soft smile. I crawled onto the bed with him and grabbed a pretzel.
“Five-star worthy?” he asked, brow furrowed in an attempt to look smooth … but I could see the worry and anticipation in his eyes.
“Hmm …” I dipped the pretzel into the cheese and stuffed it into my mouth. “I give it a four-point-five.”
“Four-point-five?” He sat up and grabbed another one. “What if I feed it to you?”
I almost snorted. “Are you going to say choo-choo when you feed it to me too—”
He stuffed it into my mouth and pressed my lips together. “Choo-choo, Kitten.”
I chewed and playfully slapped his chest. “What’s wrong with you?”
“A lot of things.” He cracked a smile, placed the pretzels between us, and turned onto his side to face me. Unlike earlier, when he had torn through the entire pack of hounds in the woods with the vicious look in his eyes, he looked so boyish and innocent. And all I wanted to do was protect him with everything I had. “Which do you want to hear about first?”
My wolf purred for him, wanting him, needing him.
“Tell me about all of it, Mars.” I rested my head on his pillow, pushed a strand of hair from his face, and smiled at him. Moonlight flooded in through the windows, hitting his face, sculpted perfectly by our Goddess. “What goes on in that head of yours?”
“Bad things, Aurora. Bad … bad things.”
“Am I one of them?” I asked teasingly.
He brushed a finger under my chin, lifted my face to meet his, and cracked a smirk. “You’re all of them.”