ARES
With a thick layer of sweat covering my bare chest, I stood before my pack warriors, hands on my hips, and listened to Marcel’s daily spiel about becoming stronger to protect this pack. He had been the pack trainer for years now, but only recently had the warriors in this pack started really stepping up their game.
Over the past couple weeks, everyone had seemed to be training more resiliently.
We always had, but now, we finally understood the danger we faced.
“Five-mile run,” Marcel said, nodding to the woods around my pack. “Don’t slow down. Don’t stop. Keep running like your life depends on it because it fucking does. If we want to kill these fuckers and protect our families, we need to be fast, mentally and physically.”
After the warriors shifted into their wolves midair and sprinted through the forest, Marcel glanced at Charolette with his lips pressed in a tight line. She stood off to the side, shifting from foot to foot and gnawing on the inside of her cheek.
She hadn’t been able to run five miles in weeks now.
This week, her energy had seemed sapped, even from the smallest of tasks. And the thought of losing my sister tore me up on the inside. First Mom, then Mars … I couldn’t fucking lose her too. Besides Dad, she was the only family I had left.
“One mile,” Marcel said to her, leaving no room for argument.
After nodding her head—her eyes much duller than they usually were—she pulled off her wig and her clothes and then shifted into a thinning, sickly wolf. Her usually thick fur had been growing thinner and thinner by the day, and there were patches that looked to have fallen out so much that I could see the thin white skin underneath.
I tore my gaze away from her and clenched my jaw.
Dwindling away.
She was fucking fading.
Aurora lingered by my side and glanced at Charolette. “Do you think I should—”
“You need to be strong, Aurora,” Marcel said, tension in his voice. I couldn’t tell if it was his usual anger or an incredible amount of hurt because of his mate. “Charolette will do what she can, but you need to hone your wolf’s powers.” He gestured to the forest. “Run.”
With a frown, Aurora easily shifted into her wolf and glanced over at me, nodding to the forest. “We need to find another way to contact Medusa,” Aurora said through the mind link as we ran farther into the woods, the wind whipping through her brown fur. “Her journal didn’t leave a good taste in my mouth … I feel like the hounds are going to come back soon.”
I growled at the thought of being attacked by another pack of hounds, my canines aching to rip into their flesh. Our luck, they’d attack when Aurora was giving birth to our pup. She’d be stressed out the entire time about both protecting our girl and hoping that I was staying safe while I slaughtered as many as I could outside.
And if Hella returned to our world without Helios—whoever that man was—we’d be in a shitload of trouble. While I was almost certain Aurora was a goddess, if she was giving birth, I couldn’t let her focus on the hounds at all. They’d be my burden, and the last time I’d fought them, I’d lost Mars.
When we approached the five-mile mark, we walked back to the training field to start sparring. I tugged on some shorts and gazed into the forest, through the trees, to see Charolette and Marcel not having even moved a mile from their original starting position.
Palms posted on the ground and heaving over, Charolette shifted mid-run to catch her breath, shook her head, and slammed her fist into the ground, so hard that her knuckles bled and didn’t heal. “I hate this,” she whispered.
Pain shot through my body. I stared at her from across the forest and felt so incredibly hopeless, like my world was caving in on me. Charolette’s ribs jutted out of her already-petite frame. More bruises lined her legs and arms. Dark circles lay under those bright eyes of hers.
My sister couldn’t even make it through a mile run anymore.
This past week, Marcel had lowered her from a five-mile run to a mile run in hopes of keeping her wolf and her happy and healthy. She’d always loved running when she was a kid, and now, she couldn’t even run half a mile without gasping for air.
“Ares,” Aurora said, placing one hand on my bicep and glancing over at my sister. “Ares, what’s wrong?”
The warriors, who were gathered in the center of the training field, started sparring with each other, throwing, biting, clawing to become stronger and faster and better fighters. But all I could do was stand there and look at my sister.
Charolette walked out from the woods and sat at the edge of the field, pulling on some clothes. She downed a bottle of water and watched the warriors with so much shame, shaking her head and allowing the tears to pour down her cheeks.
“My sister is dwindling away, Aurora,” I said.
A couple of warriors glanced in our direction, and Aurora grabbed my hand, tugging me into the woods, where nobody could hear us.
“Ares,” she whispered, grasping my face. “Not where she can hear you. I’m sure she knows it already.”
My lips trembled, and I promised myself that I wouldn’t cry.
I never cried.
Mars did. Not me.
“She’s dying.” I balled my hands into fists and hit the nearest tree with all my might, letting the tree crack and fall beside us, the thunderous bang echoing through the quiet woods. “She’s fucking dying, and I can’t do anything about it. I tried … I tried fucking hard to keep her alive.”
Aurora glanced through the woods, toward the direction of our pack, and frowned. When she turned back to me, she had tears in her eyes—the same kind of tears that I wanted to shed but wouldn’t allow myself.
“It’s not your fault,” Aurora said, rubbing my shoulder. “It has never been your fault.”
I ripped myself away from her. “Yes, it is.”
I couldn’t protect her from death, just like I couldn’t protect Mars from it or Mom from it or any of my damn packmates who’d died from the hound attacks from it. I was a fucking useless alpha if I couldn’t do the one fucking thing I had been born to do—keep people safe.
“Calm down, Ares,” Aurora said, reaching out for me and resting her hands on my chest.
When her fingers brushed against my glowing sanguine scar, all I could see was war. Moments flashed through my mind that I was sure I hadn’t experienced before. I didn’t know if it was the future or the past, but Aurora was with me, lying in my arms, her hands grasping my shoulders, her head buried into my taut chest.
Amid fire and flames, warriors were dying all around us. My body felt so weak, but I continued to push through people. Why was I bringing Aurora to safety? I didn’t know. All I knew was that I wanted to be out in that war, killing the enemy, but I needed to make sure she wasn’t in danger.
A pain shot through my chest, and a spear—my own spear, the same spear that could make any god fall to his knees in pain—ripped through my flesh, almost hitting Aurora. I stumbled to the ground, Aurora slipping from my arms.
I crawled to her, wanting to protect her with everything that I’d ever had, even though blood was gushing out of the wound and from my mouth, pouring down onto her stomach. Her gaze shifted from me to someone behind me, her eyes wide.
When I gazed back, my heart dropped. We were screwed.
“Run,” I whispered to her. “Don’t ever stop. Not even for me.”
“Let me talk to her,” Aurora said, pulling me out of the nightmares I was now having while awake. “Why don’t you go train with Marcel? Blow off some steam. I’ll chat with Charolette as soon as I can.”
I pressed my lips together, holding all the hurt and pain inside of me.
I refused to let Aurora see her strong, warmonger alpha break down in tears. Again.
Aurora paused, intertwined our fingers, and kissed me right on the lips. “Are you going to be okay?” she mumbled. When I nodded, she pushed away some sweat-covered hair sticking against my forehead and said, “I need to hear it from you. Tell me that you’re going to be okay.”
She was pregnant with our daughter, the daughter who would see right through the fatherly facade I put up, the daughter we’d tell stories about Mars and wonder where he was, the daughter who’d stare up at me with Aurora’s big eyes and ask if I was strong enough to protect her too.
And I didn’t want Aurora to stress even more about my nightmares, about me worrying about Charolette, or even about me. I needed to be strong for her. I needed to grasp control of something in my shitty life.
“I’ll be okay,” I lied.