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 between 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.”
“Aurora,” he growled low, warning me not to test him.
But I wanted to test him all day because I could handle everything he gave me. He just wouldn’t be able to handle himself—before becoming a wreck in his pants.
I stared up at him and pushed a finger into my wet pussy, moaning softly. “All you have to do is shove your big cock into me …” I drove in another finger and clenched. “Thrust me hard against the headboard.” I thrust my free hand into his hair and forced him to watch my fingers as I pleasured myself. “Pump all your cum into me until I’m full with your pups.”
When all he could do was tense, I smirked and pulled my fingers out of my pussy, shoving them into his mouth. “Here’s a taste.”
After I pulled out my fingers, I pressed my legs together and rolled away from him and off the bed. “But if you don’t want it, I can go play with myself in the other room, let you listen to my moans all night long, let you stroke your cock to me, wondering how good you’d feel in—”
Before I could continue, he seized my hips, tossed me onto the bed so I landed on my stomach, and climbed on top of me from behind. A rush of heat warmed my core. Alpha Ares was exactly how I wanted him—on the verge of losing complete control.
He thrust my legs apart and ground his hard cock against me from through his pants. “Is this what you want, Kitten?” he asked into my ear, grabbing my hand and forcing me to grope him.
My pussy clenched, and I nodded my head. “Don’t you want to please your luna?”
After swiftly pushing down his pants, he rested the head of his cock against my entrance and pressed me hard against the mattress, leaning over me and curling a hand around the front of my neck, his lips by my ear. “You want me to lose all fucking control? Is that what you fucking want?”
Instead of giving me time to answer, he shoved himself into me until his hips met mine. I clenched around him and whimpered, my pussy full with his huge, veiny cock.
He growled into my ear, “Fucking answer me.”
“Yes,” I breathed out. “I want to see you lose control.”
He slowly pulled himself out, and then pushed himself back into me in one long stroke. After curling his hand around my thigh, he rolled us over, so my back rested against his chest. He held my legs open wide and slammed himself deep inside of me, my pussy clenching.
“Harder, please,” I moaned out, pleasure pumping through me.
When he brushed his callous fingers against my swollen clit, I moaned. Wave after wave of pleasure pumped out of me, yet he continued to tease my clit, holding my legs far apart and peering over my shoulder to watch my pussy quiver.
“Mine,” he said into my ear.
“Yes,” I breathed. “Yours.”
He picked up his pace, thrusting faster inside of me, and snaked a hand around my throat. “You’ve been waiting for this, haven’t you?”
He slapped my clit, and I released on him again and nodded my head.
“Yes,” I cried out. “Yes, I love it. Fuck me harder. I want to feel your cum. All of it.”
He groaned against me and pounded harder inside of me. He growled into my ear and sucked harshly on the bare side of my neck, right where Mars would put his mark soon. “I promised Mars that I wouldn’t mark you, that I’d leave this side of your neck bare.”
I leaned my neck away, his canines pricking my skin. He let out a guttural growl.
“I won’t sink my canines into it and claim it as my own”—Ares strummed his fingers against his mark on my neck—“like I did here.” He sucked harsher on the skin, definitely leaving love marks. “But tomorrow, Mars will see that every part of you belongs to me; even his mark will lay atop the skin that I had in my mouth, skin that you want me to mark.” He lifted his nose and parted his lips right by my ear, stilling inside of me. “Fuck, Kitten.”
Shifting his hips so he pushed more of himself up into me, he rolled us onto our sides.
“You can take it out,” I said, wiggling in his hold. “You came, didn’t you?”
He wrapped his arm around me, cupping my pussy in his large hand. “This is my pussy, Kitten. You told me if I fucked you, I could do what I wanted with it,” he said, smirking against my neck. “So, I’m going to keep it inside of you, making sure all my cum stays inside of your tight cunt for as long as I want.”
My entire body tingled, and I clenched on him again, trying to stop my racing thoughts. I rested my head on the pillow and closed my eyes, breath hitched, wolf pleased, and thoroughly fucked.
He was right. He could do whatever he wanted with me tonight, and I’d let him.