ARES
Marcel slammed my body against the ground, giving it his fucking all and driving me into the dirt. Sweat soaked his silver hair, clumping it together. A thunderous growl escaped his mouth. Rage burned within his dark eyes.
He hadn’t said a word to me since Charolette had left.
Neither had I.
When he shuffled off me, he tied the locks back with an elastic and hummed angrily to himself. “Practice is over. We’ll meet back here early tomorrow for another training session, focused on skill and technique. Don’t be late.”
I pushed myself off the ground and lingered back to talk to him.
Don’t get me wrong; I hated fucking talking about my feelings. But today, Marcel looked like he needed it—or at least a long drink at the Pink Moon Tavern. I wiped away the sweat coating my body with my shirt and tossed my hoodie over my shoulder.
“You want to get a drink?” I asked.
Because, fuck, I needed one too.
Marcel cut his gaze to me, rolled his eyes, and nodded, following after me through the forest and toward Pink Moon Tavern. Though it was late afternoon, the sun was already setting upon the Sanguine Wilds, creating a sea of pinks, purples, and blues on the horizon.
We didn’t say a word to each other until the neon lights glimmered in the distance. Wolves of all ages swaggered out of the front door with drinks and milkshakes, and some young kids played catch in the clearing, the ball nearly hitting the windows.
“I need this,” Marcel said, snapping open the door and finding a seat at the bar to sit in. “So fucking badly.”
Sliding onto a stool beside him, I nodded. “Me too.”
The bartender walked over to us. “The usual?”
“Mmhmm,” Marcel and I responded at the same time.
“Is it fucking bad that they know our order?” he asked.
My lips curled into the best smile I could muster. “No.”
After the waitress placed two glasses of rum in front of us, Marcel shot his back almost instantly. “I’m a fucking mess. I don’t know what to do with Charolette. She didn’t want me to be part of her life for so fucking long, and now that I am … it hurts, seeing her like this. Dwindling away into nothingness.”
I pressed my lips together and took a sip, the drink going down smoothly. “I know.”
It wasn’t the same, but I understood what he was going through. Charolette didn’t let many people into her life, and even being close to her all these years … I couldn’t fucking take seeing her like this anymore.
For months, years even, I’d tried to find that stone for her.
Now, that was hopeless. She hadn’t even wanted the damn thing.
“It’s fucking hard.” Marcel stared emptily at the counter. “Whenever I sleep beside her, her body feels more and more fragile every night. I’m afraid that one night, I’m going to accidentally roll over while sleeping and snap her bony body in half.”
He balled his hands into fists and thrust them down through the air, stopping millimeters away from the counter before he broke it. When he unraveled his fists, blood pooled out of his palms from his claw marks.
“I don’t know how much longer she has,” Marcel said, voice breaking. “And I hate it.”
My chest tightened at his words, and I drew my finger around the rim of my cup. “It’s hard, loving a sick person, but it’s harder, being one.”
In my lifetime, I had been on both sides of that broken coin. Loving Aurora without bounds, even when she couldn’t shift and I thought I would tear her apart, was the easiest damn thing I had ever done. Like Charolette meant everything to Marcel, Aurora was my world.
But being sick in the fucking head was an uphill battle every fucking day of my life.
Nothing compared to the hurt, anguish, and torment that I felt.
Not only for myself, but also for the burden I put on so many other people.
“All we can do for the people we love is be there for them,” I said, staring off into space. “Be there for them and support them through all the challenges the Moon Goddess throws at us. We must be prepared for the worst but hope for a better tomorrow.”