AURORA
After Ares disappeared with the boy’s body, I ached to chase after him to ensure that he wouldn’t do anything stupid. The god of war was a reckless mess, driven by his rage for war and his sorrow for his people. And I had never seen him so sullen.
“This is all my fault,” Charolette sobbed before I could go after him. She shook uncontrollably with fat tears streaming down her cheeks and rolling down her neck. “My fault.”
The warriors around us stared at me and waited for my orders, but I didn’t know what to do. Mom had never once given me this much responsibility, nothing even close to this. While I was an alpha, I never had the blood of my pack members on my hands like this. Maybe during the second hound attack on my old pack, but I had desperately tried to warn everyone.
This time, I hadn’t because I didn’t think Fenris could wander onto our property, kill two guards, help Liam and his rogue girlfriend and child escape, and flee as if he had never even been here. Whatever magic he was using was more than just hound powers or necromancy sorcery.
Nobody here should’ve died. Nobody should’ve been taken. Nobody should’ve been on our property last night. After glancing around the gloomy and foggy forest to see if Ares was coming back, I gulped and rubbed Charolette’s back.
“Bury them,” I ordered a group of warriors.
“But he betrayed us,” one said, hiking his thumb back at Liam.
“He betrayed us and paid with his life. Let the dead rest.”
“Don’t make your luna tell you again,” Marcel said with a scowl, staring at the warriors carrying Liam’s body. By the look on his face, I could tell he didn’t want to bury Liam either, but he wasn’t going to disagree with me, not when Ares would be on his ass about it later. “Bury them.”
With the carcasses and heads, the warriors disappeared into the forest and headed west to the cemetery. I would’ve gone with them, but Ares had brought me there once to talk about his mother, and the thought of going back now that I knew the hounds were undead freaked me out.
“Someone, clean this up, please,” I said, crouching by Charolette.
Doubled over onto her hands and knees, she let out a harrowing howl. Chest heaving up and down, nails lengthening into claws, she transformed into a small wolf and took off through the forest, sprinting faster than I had ever seen her.
Not wanting her to be alone, I ran after her in my human form and tried to maintain her increasing speed. With her condition, she’d slow down in a while, and I’d be able to catch up with her. But I hoped she stopped way before she darted off the property and onto Hound Territory.
If the hounds killed her, Ares would lose it. And I probably would too.
“Charolette!” I shouted, breathing hitched. While I came close in my human form, I could never keep up with a wolf’s speed. Their bodies were prime for sprinting far distances and for an extended period of time. “Charolette, please, slow down.”
When we approached a stream, she stopped and lifted her snout to the air to howl, the sound so heartbreakingly that I nearly cried out with her. She shifted and curled into a ball, head bare without her wig, the stream water coasting through her toes.
“We always used to come here. Liam would take me here every Friday. I … this was our spot.” Her body trembled. “He wasn’t my mate. I was using him the entire time. I … I didn’t want to be with Marcel. I thought I’d die before Liam did. I didn’t think … I didn’t think I’d ever see him like that.”
My chest tightened, and a lump formed in my throat. But I couldn’t cry now. I had to hold myself together for my pack and for my family. So, I pulled her into my lap and stroked her head, hoping to calm her down.
“I hated Liam for what he had done, but I didn’t want him to die because of it.” She grasped on to me for dear life, her lips parted, as if she wanted to say more but couldn’t physically get the words out.
“That doesn’t make it your fault,” I whispered to her.
She clutched onto my shoulders. “Yes, it does because he did this.”
“Who did?”
“My dad,” she whispered.
“Mr. Barrett?” I asked, furrowing my brows. “What does—”
“My real dad,” she cried.
My eyes widened in realization. She was talking about Fenris.
“He told me that nobody hurts his daughter. I didn’t believe him. This is all my fault.”
She spoke about Fenris as if it were normal, and I sat there stunned.
Was she in contact with Fenris? Why was she in contact with Fenris? When the fuck was she talking to him?
She thought that it was all her fault that Fenris had killed Liam, and part of me thought it was too; I just didn’t say it aloud.
Needing her to tell me everything, I held her tighter. No way in hell that she’d admit this to Ares, but once I told him, he’d flip the fuck out. Not only was Fenris the man he wanted to rip to pieces, but Charolette speaking with him also threatened our pack’s security.
I loved Charolette to pieces, but she had made a grave mistake.
“What do you mean, he told you?” I asked quietly.
“A few weeks ago …” She hiccuped. “During the hound attack at your mother’s pack. I stayed back with Liam, and then went out for a walk by myself, needing some fresh air.” She pulled away from me and threw her hands over her face. “I saw him out in the woods. He told me that he loved me, that he wanted me back, that he was trying to get Mom back for us to be a family …”
“Charolette,” I snapped, unable to hold back my anger. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
She whimpered, “I just … I want him to love me. And I want Mom back too.”
Her words came from the heart, and I saw myself in her—wanting and needing to be loved by a father. I couldn’t explain the feeling, but when I felt alone, I did stupid things to feel good again too.
After another few moments, she stood and wiped off dirt from her skin. “I should go back home.”
I followed after her through the woods. “Was that the only time he contacted you?”
“Yes,” she said.
Yet my stomach tightened. Something was terribly off and didn’t feel right.
Stopping in the middle of the woods, she grabbed my hands. “Please, don’t tell Ares.”
I shook my head in refusal. “I have to tell him. He’s the alpha, and he needs to protect this pack, Charolette. I know Fenris is your father, but he’s causing all this trouble and killing your friends. Who will he take next? Ares and Mars?”
Marcel jogged up from behind Charolette with her blonde wig in his hands. “Where’d you go? You should’ve fuckin’ stayed where we could watch you. If anything hap—”
“Shut up, Marcel.” Charolette snatched her wig and stormed past him toward town.
“What happened?” Marcel asked, staring back at her. “What’d you say to her?”
“She’s been in contact with Fenris,” I whispered.
Marcel growled, “Are you fuckin’ serious?”
Before he could hurry after her, I grasped his arm. “Don’t be hard on her and don’t tell anyone about this. We don’t know who to trust. Either someone helped Fenris get onto our property or he has some kind of magical powers to be able to go unnoticed. And as for Charolette, it seems like it was once—not that it makes up for anything—and from what I could gather, he didn’t hurt her.”
After extending his canines, he snarled in her direction. “Ares is back at the pack house. I saw him walk by when we were digging the graves. He had left with the boy but didn’t return with him.”
I nodded. “Thank you. And, Marcel, don’t let me down. I convinced Ares to make you beta. I need you to step up and be the best warrior and leader that you can be. Love Charolette with all your heart, but remember that Ares isn’t stable. This is going to destroy him. I need you to be ready to make hard decisions.”
Looking back at me, Marcel nodded. “I’ll do anything to help this pack survive.”
Not thrive. Not succeed. Survive.
“Good,” I said, watching the wind blow strands of white hair behind his shoulders. “Prepare to leave for the mountain within the next two days. Now that Fenris has attacked, we need to act quickly.”
Once I departed for the pack house, I laid a hand on my stomach to try to suppress the knots inside of it. No matter what happened, Ares would spiral out of control and kill Fenris. But I feared that once he did, Charolette would rebel. Though she didn’t even know him, Charolette seemed to be fond of her father for some ungodly reason.
I didn’t know what he had been trying to accomplish by speaking with her. Maybe he was trying to prove his love to her in some stupid way or get her to trust him. Maybe he had known that Ares wanted the stone for Charolette and he thought that he could steal it from her.
But he didn’t know that the stone was mine.
When I reached the pack house, I grasped the door handle with a shaky hand. I needed to tell Ares about Fenris, but I was terrified of the consequences. What if Ares lost complete control and killed his sister?
No, that wouldn’t happen.
Ares and Mars both adored Charolette, but this could cause strain.
I followed Ares’s hazelnut scent up to our bedroom and opened the doors. Freshly showered, wearing only a towel, he stood tensely with his scarred back turned to me. Beads of water dripped from his hair and onto his shoulders. And Ares was a frightening kind of quiet.
“Ares,” I whispered, stepping into the silent room.
“It’s my fault,” he said, gripping the bedsheets in his fists. “It’s my fucking fault.”
My wolf howled inside of me, feeling more pain than the night Ares had confessed to me that his mother had killed herself.
I moved closer and brushed my fingers against his back. “Ares, it’s not your fault. You couldn’t have stopped this from happening. Fenris is a monster who will stop at nothing to torture you.”
While Ares was always so strong and so wrathful, I hated to see him so broken like this. It clawed me apart on the inside. After witnessing Fenris rape his mother and finding her dead in her bed, Ares had held in his hurt for so long, so damn long.
“How am I supposed to just let it go?” He pulled himself away and glared with his canines drawn, eyes glowing red and body visibly shaking. After a couple moments, he shook his head and looked between us with guilt. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”
I stepped closer to grasp his hands. “Don’t apologize.”
“That boy …” he whispered. “He didn’t do anything. He was just a pup, and now, he’s dead. I couldn’t help him. I let this happen. I didn’t have enough security. I didn’t have anyone protecting him. It’s my fault that he’s gone, and he will probably be brought back as a hound.”
Not knowing what to say, I pulled him up onto the bed with me and cradled his head to my chest. I didn’t care how long it took to calm him down. I laid with him until he relaxed and slowly stroked his hair until he snored softly in my lap. When he woke up, I’d tell him everything about Charolette. But for now, he needed peace.