AURORA
Grasping onto Ares’s hand, I pulled myself to a standing position and kept myself steady. Blood rolled down my thighs and pooled under me. I pushed a hand between my legs and used my power to heal myself the best that I could with the little strength I had left.
I wanted Ares to go get our daughter—just to hold her one time, for both our sakes—but I wanted to go with him, too, and I knew that he wouldn’t leave my side even if I begged him to go see her. He should, but he wouldn’t.
Ares wrapped his arm around my waist and gently stroked his thumb against the dress plastered on my hip from the blood. “Kitten,” he whispered to me, his nose against my ear. Every bit of him was tense, even his voice.
Ruffles rushed into the room, looking from me to the door. “Meow.” All her babies, except Frito, were standing next to her and rubbing against me. She moved Dorito away from me and nudged the back of my leg. “Meow.”
She wanted me to see something, but I couldn’t think straight.
All I could focus on was finding Medusa and killing her for this.
Suddenly, a thunderous boom echoed throughout the room, making the house quake. The only time I had heard that sound before was when we were trapped in those underground tunnels, waiting impatiently for those from the underworld to leave.
Medusa must’ve turned everyone to stone here. Now.
That must mean that she was within a few miles.
We had to find her.
Ares helped me hobble to the front door as quickly as I could. I didn’t know what to say to him. We were both mourning the loss of our baby and the betrayal of the woman who was supposed to be my mother.
All I had wanted to do was see our baby, give her a name, and grasp her tiny fingers.
That was all.
For fuck’s sake, I was giving up my own daughter. Medusa had convinced me to do it. The least she could have done was let me see her face. I deserved that much, right? Who was I going to know who to fight for? Who was I going to know who to come back to?
After I ripped the front door open, my knees buckled from the sheer amount of blood I had lost from a baby ripping its way out of my vagina to the shock of seeing everyone—even the alphas who were here to say good-bye and supposed to stay behind—as stone in our front yard.
From the alphas who were supposed to stay to Elijah and Adrian, even Frito.
Stone.
All fucking stone.
Ruffles ran over to Frito and licked his tiny face, her body and the small bodies of her kittens curling around Frito, as if it would bring him back to life. But there weren’t many people who came back to life after traveling to the underworld. I didn’t even know if it was possible for anyone without the help of Medusa, except divine beings.
Charolette hurried out of the house after us and doubled over Marcel’s stone wolf, screaming and crying to the Moon Goddess. “No! Marcel! I’m sorry for telling you that I hated you. I’m sorry for being a bitch to you. I just …” She brushed her fingers against his stone snout. “Please, come back to me. Please.”
“Stand up, Charolette,” Ares snarled, grabbing her by the waist, pulling her to her feet, and steadying her. “You need to lead this pack now. Make sure you all survive while we’re trying to save the fucking world.”
Charolette widened her eyes. “B-but I’m going to die in—”
Ares growled again, the sound echoing through the now eerily silent forest. “Lead!”
That was his last word to her. After grabbing my hand, he pulled me toward the forest to Vulcan’s pack house, where Medusa had to have gone to give the baby to them. Ruffles meowed, and then twenty little footsteps—including Funyun’s, Cheeto’s, Dorito’s, Frito’s and Pringles’s—followed behind us, jogging to keep up.
Tears blurred my vision. Tree branches scraped my arms. I continued to run, no matter what, picking up my pace, the closer we approached Vulcan’s property. While I couldn’t shift at the moment, I knew Ares ached to transform into his wolf and tear up the world to find his daughter.
“Right over here,” Ares said, nodding ahead. “Come on.”
To my surprise, we reached the edge of Vulcan’s property before anyone caught sight of us. And just as we crossed over into his property and approached the pack house, I saw Venus holding our daughter closer to her chest and grinning up at Vulcan.
As I howled to the gray sky, Medusa opened the pack house’s front door, unveiled her face, and looked me and Ares dead in the eye. I lunged toward her, desperate to rip her to shreds for what she had done. She murmured in ancient Latin, and suddenly, my body and Ares’s body was stopping mid-stride. My muscles were solidifying, my body turning to stone.
“Medusa,” I said through a mouth that I couldn’t seem to move anymore, “I will kill you for this. I will kill you!”