AURORA
For the first night in over a month, Ares slept soundly beside me without tossing and turning in bed, those foul nightmares hopefully gone—or at least easing. I curled up into the crook of his arm as Frito, Funyun, Cheeto, and Dorito lay down in a line on his bare chest. Ruffles lay on me, twisting up around my swollen belly with one paw on my stomach.
Our alarm rang through the darkness, and I whimpered at my lack of sleep. While Ares might’ve had a quiet night, mine had been plagued with doubts and worries. I slammed my hand down on the side table and reached for my phone.
It tumbled to the ground with a thud, the alarm still ringing out into the darkness. Ruffles opened one eye, annoyed, and jumped off the bed to swat the alarm off with her paw. I turned onto my side and kissed Ares’s neck.
“Ares,” I whispered, fingers coiling around his abdomen, “I’m … I’m not ready for today.”
Ares intertwined our fingers and stroked his thumb against mine, his voice gruff. “Well, you’re not going down to the underworld until our baby is born, so you might not even be going today, Kitten.”
“But you will be,” I whispered, tears welling up in my eyes. “I’m so scared.”
When Ares turned onto his side, all the kittens slid down his abs and onto the mattress between us. Ruffles tugged them onto me and lay them around my belly, and then she took a seat on my hips, just below my bump.
A streak of light flooded into the room from the break between the curtains, sitting diagonally across Ares’s face. His brown eyes transformed in the sudden light, becoming a mess of golds, browns, and hazel.
“Don’t be scared, Kitten,” Ares said, brushing some hair from my face. “We might have to leave everyone behind, but we will be back, no matter what. We’re going down into the underworld to save the wolf species and end this war once and for all. And maybe, along the way, we’ll find Mars too.”
“Mars,” I whispered. “We have to come back. Mars needs to meet our baby.”
After lying in bed for a few more moments, Ares turned his back to me, leaned over the side of the bed, and pulled open the drawer under the bed. “I almost forgot that I have something to give the kittens before we leave.”
Once he turned back to me, he laid out four small, colorful hats.
Green. Yellow. Red. Purple.
Giggles escaped my lips, bubbling from my belly. “Where did you get all these hats?”
Ares smirked and glanced down at me. “That’s my little secret.”
Ruffles brushed against him and purred as a thank-you, and then she grabbed the hats in her mouth and matched the hats to each of her babies. Frito, green. Funyun, yellow. Cheeto, red. Dorito, purple.
I grinned and shook my head at Ares. I didn’t know how he did it all the time, but he could make me happy when I felt the absolute worst. He might’ve thought that he couldn’t become the man I needed after Mars left, but damn, he had become more than that.
He had become everything to me.
“You’re a dork,” I said to him, helping Ruffles fasten the hats on her kittens.
“I’d be anything for you,” Ares said. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet, and then he wrapped an arm around my waist and pressed his lips on mine. His lips tasted like hazelnut, moving softly against mine, his sweet scent coasting around my body and entangling me.
This wasn’t like a kiss Ares had ever given me.
This was filled with fiery passion and undeniable love.
He swept his hands up my body and gently cupped my face, the soft strokes of his thumbs sending shivers through me. I breathed into the kiss, wanting and aching for more of him because I didn’t know when I’d give birth and follow him to the underworld.
When I finally pulled away for a breath, my lips lingered on his.
“All I want you to be for me is yourself,” I whispered, warmth exploding throughout my chest. “You’re everything that I could ever hope for in a man, in a mate, and in a father, Ares. Don’t let anyone, even that mind of yours, tell you otherwise.”
“Kitten,” he whispered, his gruff voice turning soft, “I’m going to miss this.” He wrapped his fingers around the back of my neck and stared around the room. “These quiet and early mornings, curled up in our bed, where I get to hold you without a worry in the world, seeing you carry my pup.”
I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t cry today, so I pushed my tears away. Instead, I grabbed his hand and intertwined our fingers together, holding them close to my chest. “We’ll come back to this, Ares.” I kissed our hands. “I’m only and forever yours.”
“Forever yours,” he repeated. “Forever yours, Kitten.”
“Meow,” Ruffles added, as if she wanted to be forever ours too.
Again, I giggled and glanced back at her lying in the center of her kittens. She closed her eyes in utter bliss and purred loudly, setting off her other kittens to purr, too, the sound conquering that of the other packs gathering outside.
“We should go,” I said, glancing toward the window. “It sounds like the alphas are already outside to leave for the underworld soon. We have to say our good-byes to everyone.”
Once we dressed and picked up the kittens, we walked with Ruffles outside the pack house. Hundreds of people stood around, hugging and kissing each other good-bye, tears pouring down their cheeks.
I teetered on my feet, my stomach twisting with nerves, and placed down the kittens.
Today was really the day.
“Aurora!” Elijah shouted, jogging up toward me with Adrian and then pulling me into a tight hug. “Be careful down there.” He rocked us back and forth, not letting go. “I promised Jeremy that I’d protect you, but … you’re stronger than all of us. You’ll be the one protecting us. I just need you to come back.”
“I promise that when I come back, we can go to the cave and remember everything that Jeremy was. He won’t be forgotten by me, no matter how long we’re down there.” I pulled away and stared up into his glossy brown eyes. Ruffles brushed against me. “And please take care of Ruffles while we’re gone.”
“Of course.”
Ruffles glared at me, picked her babies up by the back of their necks, and forced them all to stand next to her. Stand tall. Usually, kittens couldn’t even open their eyes until eight days after they were born, and Ruffles had made them all stand.
It shouldn’t be possible.
I arched my brow. “Are you going to be good for Elijah?”
“Meow.”
“Ruffles, you can’t come with us.”
“Meow.”
“Ruffles, you have babies to take care of.”
“Meow.”
“They can’t come with you.”
After meowing one last time, Ruffles turned away and licked her children. I massaged the creases on my forehead from the stress of today and glanced over at Ares, who crouched down and petted Funyun.
He looked up at me. “What?”
“We can’t let her bring her litter down to the underworld.”
“Ruffles is just as stubborn as you. She’s going to do what she wants.”
“Ruffles,” I started, “please, just stay here.”
“Meow,” she said in that sassy attitude of hers, turning her butt toward me to show me that she was done with this conversation. Her tail swayed side to side as Pringle hurried over to her and dropped a bunch of cat treats at her feet, as if she were some kind of goddess to him.
What a little ho.
“No!” Charolette shouted to my left.
Ares and I glanced over our shoulders in her direction. Streaks of black mascara stained her flushed cheeks, accompanied by dark circles under her eyes. She shook her head from side to side and hit Marcel in the chest.
“You can’t go!” she shouted, tears pouring down her cheeks. “You can’t!”
My chest tightened at the thought of this being Marcel’s last moment with Charolette. Charolette was crying and begging him to stay with her until the day she died. Her fragile and bruised body clinging on to him, her sickness taking her by storm.
“Please, Marcel, at least mark me.”
Marcel rubbed her shoulders and bit back tears. “I can’t,” he whispered.
“I’m begging you,” she pleaded.
“I can’t, Charolette.”
Again, she balled her hand into a small fist and punched his chest, her knuckles bruising. “Why are you leaving?” Charolette asked through her sobs. She shook her head, as if she didn’t believe he was really leaving, and stepped away from him, pointing a finger at him. “You can’t go, Marcel. You can’t leave me here alone! It’s not fair.”
“Charolette,” Marcel whispered, tucking some hair behind her ear.
She hit his hand away. “No! Don’t Charolette me! You’re my mate, and you’re leaving me. I only have a few more weeks left to live, and you … you don’t want to spend them with me?!” She took another step away from him, further rejecting his attempts to calm her down. “Why?” she whispered, voice cracking. “Why won’t you stay a bit longer?”
A strained expression crossed his wavering face. “I can’t stay with you.”
She smacked him across the face. “You’re selfish. You don’t want to see me dwindle away. You don’t want to be here to support your mate during the hardest of fucking times. I should’ve never fallen in love with you. I should’ve left you before this started!”
Before he could pull her toward him, she stormed toward the pack house. “You are a terrible mate. You don’t deserve any of the time we’ve spent together. I hate you, Marcel. I will always hate you for this!”
When she slammed the pack house door, I hurried over to Marcel. With pain etched on every inch of his sculpted face, he slumped his shoulders forward and clutched his chest, lips trembling.
“Marcel, she doesn’t mean that. If she knew what you were doing for her, she’d know how selfless you are. Don’t let her—”
Marcel tore himself away from me, shifted into his silver wolf, and sprinted through the woods, howling out harrowingly to the dawn sky. I wanted to run after him, but he disappeared into the sea of trees.
From the outskirts of the crowded clearing, I stared into the forest with tears in my eyes. Suddenly, a pain split through my stomach, so intensely that I doubled over onto my knees.
Ares quickly wrapped his arms around me to hold me up and furrowed his brows. “Aurora, what’s—”
I grasped his bicep tightly, my claws ripping through his light fall jacket. “Holy fuck.”
“Aurora,” Medusa called, hurrying through the crowd. When she reached me, she pulled the veil back and stared me in the eyes, pushing some hair from my now-sweating face. “Aurora, what’s wrong?”
“The baby,” I whispered, gathering enough strength to stand, turn, and fall into Ares’s arms again. Why hadn’t I felt this before? Where were the contractions? Why had it started so suddenly? Another pain split through my stomach. “The baby, I think she’s coming.”
Ares scooped me up into his arms and headed toward the hospital, but I grabbed on to him and shook my head. “Just take me inside the pack house. We—we don’t have time. The baby is about to—”
I howled to the sky, my pelvis feeling like it was being ripped open.
“Take her inside,” Medusa instructed Ares.
Despite wanting to bring me to the hospital, Ares rushed into the house with me and laid me on our bed. Ruffles and her kittens hurried into the room with us, gathering by the door and stopping Elijah and the others from entering.
Medusa pushed up the bottom of my flowy dress. “Sweetie, you have to push right now.”
Tears flowed down my cheeks from the agonizing pressure. I gripped onto the thin bedsheets and threw my head back, the intense feeling worse than I’d expected. Was birthing a goddess harder than birthing a human?
None of the books I’d read said it’d hurt this badly.
I thought that with my powers, I’d be able to birth with ease, not like this.
Ares knelt by the bedside and pushed some hair off my sweaty forehead. “Shh, shh, shh, Kitten. You can do this,” he mumbled into my ear, holding one of my hands tightly and placing his other on my stomach to rub soothing circles around it. “Come on. Push for us and for our baby.”
Medusa stood between my legs, holding out her hands and staring at me with tears in her eyes. “Aurora, I never really told you this, but I know how hard it is to do what you’re about to do. When I gave you up, I had so much pain inside my heart for years.”
I screamed out to the gods and pushed hard, my vagina throbbing and cramping.
“When your mother sent me pictures of you, I would cry for days,” Medusa continued, spreading my legs slightly. “I missed every single one of your holidays, birthdays … every day. I wanted to see you so badly. I thought about you every morning, afternoon, and night.”
After clutching onto Ares’s hand and squeezing, I pushed hard and screamed out loud again. Ruffles jumped onto the bed and brushed herself against me, her gray fur rubbing against my bare belly. Medusa spread my legs even wider and shouted for someone to get a nurse or doctor.
“Not being able to see you or touch you ruined me,” Medusa said. “Push.”
“Harder,” Ares said, glancing between my legs with glossy eyes. “One more push.”
Gasping for air, I stared down at Medusa with tears in my eyes and pushed. “Why are you telling me this now?”
Medusa pressed her thin lips together. “Because you were right. I do regret leaving you.”
My vagina split open, tears poured down my cheeks, and a baby cried. I crushed Ares’s hand and gave one final push, letting my baby come to life. My chest heaved up and down uncontrollably, the pressure still intense between my legs.
“Kitten,” Ares whispered to me, still rubbing my stomach but now staring at our baby in Medusa’s arms. A tear rolled down the god of war’s cheek, and a breathtaking smile graced my mate’s face. “She’s beautiful.”
I lifted my arms for her, eager to hold my daughter. “Let me see her.”
All I wanted was to hold her one time before I had to give her away.
“I know that you will never forgive me for this,” Medusa said, cradling my baby in her arms. She glanced down at her with tears in her eyes and then looked back up at me. “But this is what needs to be done.”
When I reached out to touch my baby’s small, delicate hand before I had to leave her forever, Medusa snatched her away from me. A mist fabricated around Medusa, her body thinning, almost as if she had never even been here.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered right before she vanished into thin air.
Stumbling out of the bed, I shook my head and desperately grasped the air where she had once inhabited. It was empty, completely and utterly empty. She’d just disappeared with my child in her arms.
“No!” I screamed. “No! No! No! No! No! No!”
Wailing at the top of my lungs, I tried frantically to scramble to my feet, but birthing a god had made me weak. And Medusa had known that when she stole my baby before I even had a chance to hold her. She’d fucking known it.
I collapsed over the red-stained bed, my stomach tight and blood gushing between my legs.
“Medusa!” I screamed, the sound echoing throughout the entire pack house. Tears streamed down my face. “Medusa! Give me my baby back.”
A nurse hurried into the room with wide eyes and worry etched on her face. “She needs to calm down now. Help her calm down, Alpha. If she keeps this up, she might start hyperventilating.”
“Give me my daughter back!” I screamed out to nothingness, voice trembling.
Ares wrapped his arms around me and pulled my head to his chest. “Kitten, calm down,” he said, though he was choked up too. “Your heart rate is rising quickly. You have to calm down and breathe.”
I grabbed onto him like he was the only thing I had left and let out a howl. “All I wanted to do was hold her.” My body trembled back and forth. “I just wanted to hold my baby girl and promise her that I’d be back. I didn’t get to do either! Medusa will pay for this. She will fucking pay!”