AURORA
Medusa stood outside the cave and tugged her veil back when she realized I had come alone. “I must be quick, Aurora. I have business with other gods, but I know you want to talk. So, please, go on.”
I sat on a rock inside the cave, breathing in the foul scent of the abandoned hound hideout underneath the dirt ground and remembering when this spot hadn’t brought back such horrific memories.
This used to be Jeremy’s and my spot.
One day, I would make sure that it was again.
But first, I needed answers about the hounds and the underworld, my powers, and these gods who seemed to plague my dreams and nightmares. Who really was Dawn, and why was I seeing her memories if she was dead?
“Aurora?” Medusa asked, sitting beside me and patting my knee. A soft wind was carried into the cave, her veil blowing gently against my shoulder. “I know that what you’ve learned these past few weeks is a lot to take in, but I need you to be quick.”
Knowing I didn’t have much time, I let out a breath. “Can you explain to me how I could heal Elijah but not Charolette again?” I asked, hoping that I could get some ounce of information about why Hella had chosen to take Charolette’s life and not Elijah’s. “I’m confused about how it all works, and I want answers.”
How could I save one but not the other?
Medusa intertwined her fingers and placed her hands on her lap. “You were able to heal Elijah because it was a wound created during a war. All fatal wounds during war are”—she made air quotes—“‘overseen’ by Morrigan, goddess of war and of death.
“For the most part, she chooses who lives and dies during a battle. Usually, if gods intervene during a war to save a human, she’s fairly lenient about giving that human a second chance. Your friend Charolette wasn’t wounded during a war, so, long story short, her death is overseen by Hella, who loves torturing lost souls for as long as she can.”
“And Marcel could trade his life for Charolette’s safety?”
“I said it was a possibility, not a certainty. Nothing is certain with Hella. She’s bipolar.”
“But I … I need her to survive,” I whispered. “For Ares.”
“Ares,” she repeated, giving me a small smile, as if she knew something I didn’t. After another moment, she patted my knee again, her fingers grazing against my skin. “I will ask around for you, put it out in the world that someone might be interested in striking a deal with Hella.”
Again, I couldn’t stop myself from wrapping my arms around her and pulling her close. Medusa might be a woman that I barely knew, but she felt more like a mother than Mom had. At least she believed in me and was willing to help me out in any way that she could.
“Now, why were you looking for me at my home, snooping through my journals the other day?” Medusa asked me, shaking her head in disapproval. “You should know not to go into private property. That woman should’ve taught you better.”
That woman? Did she mean Mom?
“I need to find a way to get to the underworld. We are going to bring the fight to the hounds and gods. We can’t wait here any longer, or this world will turn into the War of the Lycans, part two. That can’t happen, not when I have a baby on the way.”
Medusa’s eyes widened, and she shook her head. “Don’t be stupid, Aurora. The gods in the underworld are stronger than anyone thinks they are. You cannot make the same mistake your brother did. It is what almost killed him.”
“My brother is dead because I killed him,” I said, my canines aching at the thought.
Sure, the hounds had played a major part in it, but Jeremy had never gone to fight the gods in the underworld. If he had, he would’ve told me about it or at least mentioned it during our last moments together. Yet all he’d said was that the hounds wanted me for divine revenge.
“No,” Medusa said, the snakes restless on her head. “Your brother, Helios.”
“Helios is my … my brother?” I whispered, the entire world slowing down. “How?”
Mom had only given birth twice—once to Jeremy and once to me. And Helios was thousands of years old and a god, for crying out loud. I couldn’t be related to him, and I definitely couldn’t be his sister.
“Don’t play stupid, Aurora. I know that you’ve figured out that you have divine blood,” she said. “But what you don’t know is that your soul has been reborn. You’ve become his sister through divinity—just like Selene, the Moon Goddess, is his sibling.”
My eyes widened. “If Selene is my sister and Helios is my brother, then who am I?”
“You, my child, are the goddess of Dawn’s soul reborn.”
“No way,” I whispered.
It was true.
All these memories and dreams that I had been having weren’t someone else’s, but my own. Ares had been right this entire time; I was a goddess reborn. Yet, still, even as Medusa told me the truth, I couldn’t believe it.
I had always been put down, told I wasn’t good enough, and shoved to the side.
Now, I was a goddess who reigned over the morning sky.
It was absurd.
“And Ares?” I asked. “What about him?”
“You know who he really is, Aurora.”
My heart pounded inside my chest, the quick thump making my wolf go wild. Medusa was right. From the moment that I’d met Ares, I had known who he was. All the stories of him slaughtering packs and ruling wars didn’t do him justice.
“Ares is the god of war.”
“He is.” Medusa nodded. “During the War of the Lycans, he died days after he found your dead body. Overcome with so much rage and violence, he stormed into the underworld, knowing that he would never come back alive. I didn’t know it at the time, but he loved you more than anyone could fathom.”
A warmth spread through my entire body. Ares had been my lover, even back then.
Even in our past lives, we’d found each other.
“There are no other people in this world who belong together more than you two do.”
Grinning from ear to ear, I brushed my fingers against Ares’s and then Mars’s marks. We belonged together forever, and nobody would ever pull me away from him. Curse Mom and Dad and Tony for trying to rip us apart.
Ares and I were fated in every lifetime.
“You probably have hundreds of questions, so I’ll start by answering the question on everyone’s mind—how do gods die?” Medusa started. “To be frank, a god’s physical body used to be eternal, thousands of years ago when people were worshipping them constantly. Now, nobody does anymore, and your bodies slowly deteriorate until they are mortal-like. But the souls of divines live on, even when the body can’t.”
“Is that how this war all started? From Dawn’s death?”
“Yes,” she continued. “Hella had always fawned over Ares. She wanted him for herself, but he would never give her the time of day. He’d been obsessed with you since the start of time. The only way Hella thought she could have him was by killing you. Not wanting to get her hands dirty, Hella made Nyx murder you.”
“Nyx had her own dirty reasons for wanting me dead too,” I said. “She wanted Helios to live in the underworld with her.”
“You’ve been seeing visions of it?” Medusa asked.
My cheeks flushed. “Yes, but I might’ve also read his letter to you in your journal.”
Medusa smacked me on the shoulder. “No manners at all. If I’d raised you, you’d know better than that.”
“If you’d raised me, I would’ve had a much better life than what I have now,” I said, thinking back to the torture Mom had put me through every single day of my life. Every night, I’d prayed that, one day, I’d wake up, and Mom would be different, but it never happened.
Never.
“Anyway, how do we get to the underworld?” I asked. “If we don’t go, this world will turn to chaos, and I refuse to let my daughter grow up in a world where war is the norm. I don’t want her to wake up every day, thinking about how she’s going to survive. I want her to be at peace.”
But now that I’d learned the truth, it was more than just that.
I wouldn’t leave Helios down there to fight and die on his own. Any day now, the hounds could reemerge from the underworld and unleash sin and corruption and death over the Sanguine Wilds.
“You cannot go to the underworld. Hella cannot know that you’re pregnant.”
“We must eliminate the threat before it becomes worse,” I said, but deep down, I knew that Medusa was right. I needed to keep my baby a secret from Hella or else she’d try to harm the pup. But she’d still be in harm’s way if we didn’t try to defeat Hella.
How could I keep my daughter a secret for the rest of her life?
It was a lose-lose situation.
“There’s only one way to keep your child safe,” Medusa said, as if reading my mind.
“How?” I whispered, drawing a hand over my bump, overcome with so many emotions. My daughter was about to come into this world, and I had no idea how to use my powers to protect her.
Medusa paused and refused to look me in the eye.
“How?” I repeated.
“Give her away,” she muttered under her breath.
My heart dropped, and I stood. “No.”
Medusa stood beside me, finally looking into my eyes with her green ones. “You must.”
With my canines lengthening, I shook my head. “You can’t be serious. How can you even suggest something like this? Ares and I need our baby. We can’t deal with any more loss. We are not giving her away to anyone.”
“Stop thinking about yourself, Aurora,” Medusa snapped, nostrils flaring. “You want a good life for your daughter. You are in this war whether you want to be or not. You need to think about her in all of this.”
“How could you suggest this?” I asked again, my voice barely above a whisper.
There was no way I’d ever give up my baby girl. I had grown her in my belly for so long. Ares and I … couldn’t lose someone else. Mars’s wish was for us to be a family together, and I couldn’t fulfill that if she wasn’t with me.
And besides, I refused to let someone else raise my daughter. My parents were shit, and I wanted to make sure that our little girl had a good upbringing, one that I only wished that I’d had.
For years, I had wished that Mom and Dad really loved and cared about me. There wasn’t a way I could leave my daughter here to grow up with someone who acted as her parents when Ares and I were perfectly capable.
My chest tightened. But how was I going to keep her safe in the underworld? If I didn’t give birth before then, Hella would aim to slaughter my baby before she could ever take her first breath.
Fuck being a goddess.
This shit was too hard already.
Medusa cleared her throat, clasped her hands together, and gazed emptily at her feet. “You know, when I was younger, I gave up my daughter, so she could grow up in a safe environment. At least, safer than being with me.”
And suddenly, I retracted all thoughts that I’d had earlier of Medusa being a motherly figure. I looked at her, furrowing my eyebrows and wondering how she could have done that. If someone had been trying to get pregnant for so long with the person that they loved and they had a stable home for them, how could they give their child up?
“How do you give up someone you’re supposed to love with your entire heart?” I asked. “Don’t you live every day, wondering how she’s doing or if she’s safe? Do you ever wonder if she’d ever look at you and just know who you really were to her?”
“I think about it every day and remind myself that, even if I never see her again or if she has no idea who I am, I still love her.” Medusa shuffled her feet against the dirt. “I didn’t even allow myself to have an hour with her before I gave her away. I didn’t get to see the first time she smiled or hear her first laugh or … I didn’t even let her tiny hands touch my face.”
“Then, why?” I whispered, tears quickly running down my cheeks. “Why give her up?”
“Because the choice I made for her was the best one at the time. It was damn hard, not seeing her grow up, but I knew that she was safe and that she had a strong family protecting her every day of her life.”
Turning away from her, I rested my hands on my belly, and stared into the Sanguine Wilds. “I will not give my child away.”
Our pup would already be growing up without Mars. I refused to let her grow up without Ares and me too. We were her fucking parents, and nobody—not even the woman who had given up her baby for the greater good—was going to sway my decision.
“Think about it,” Medusa said, walking next to me. “It will be the hardest decision of your life, but you will thank me for it. You will know that your pup is safe. In the meantime, I will try to find you an undercover way to the underworld.”