ARES
After that beast woman swept down and grabbed the wolf from Aurora’s arms, I took Aurora’s hand and lifted her to her feet, glancing around the strange forest to see if anyone else was watching us. Something felt off.
My gaze focused on a flock of those half-woman, half-bird creatures, who stared at us from the highest trees in the forest, their beady red eyes narrowed at us and their feathers covering their mouths, as if they were gossiping.
Hands balling into fists, I let out a ferocious growl so loud that the trees and branches shook. Adrenaline pumped through my system, and I refused to cower back. Creatures in the underworld might’ve been terrifying, but I had a mate and pack to protect.
The flock took flight and followed the woman through the air and away from here.
“Come,” Minerva said to us, pulling me out of my trance and nodding to the woods a bit farther ahead. “It’s getting dark, and there looks to be a cave we can sleep in for tonight. We’ll need to have some people keep watch and take turns sleeping and patrolling.”
I tightened my hand around Aurora’s and walked to the head of the pack with Minerva, scanning the woods to ensure nobody else would rush out and attack us. It might’ve been fucking insane, but that bitch Nyx seemed like she had eyes everywhere.
When we reached the cave, some warriors swept around it, so we weren’t inhabiting another monster’s home for the night and wake up, wrapped up in silk from a giant spider or as bear food. Who the fuck knew what went on down here?
“You can take the first shift to sleep,” Minerva said to me and Aurora. She glanced down at Aurora’s empty stomach and frowned. “You need rest. I’ll keep watch with my warriors and wake you both up if someone attacks.”
Once I thanked her, I sat against the cave wall and laid Aurora in my arms. This was a shit place to lie down for the night, the rock behind me hard as fuck against my back, but I wasn’t going to let Aurora lie down on something like this.
She curled up in my lap and gave me her best smile, but it didn’t reach her watery eyes. She had been trying to hold back tears all day, and I hated seeing her like this. I just fucking prayed to the Moon Goddess that we’d be back to Earth soon enough.
“I love you,” she whispered, lifting her head slightly to kiss me on the mouth. “So much.”
“I love you too,” I said, gently caressing her cheek. “Now, get some sleep. You need it.”
After settling into my arms, she closed her eyes and, to my surprise, easily fell asleep a couple moments later. Snores drifted through the air, and her body twisted and turned. She rested her hands on her stomach, as if our daughter were still in her belly.
Ruffles and the kittens curled up beside me in a bundle of fur, purring and licking each other. I laid a hand over Aurora’s hands on her stomach and tried to still her trembling body, closing my eyes myself to get some sleep.
“I can’t never see her again,” Aurora mumbled, tears sliding down her cheeks.
I opened my eyes briefly and wiped her tears away, one by one, and held her closer to me, so she wouldn’t shake in these unknown lands. Not only did I not want anyone, especially Nyx, to see her this sensitive, but I also didn’t want her to hurt anymore.
We were going to fix this.
Still, I couldn’t help but feel helpless because I couldn’t do anything to soothe her.
Maybe that was what came along with being the god of war.
I wasn’t always strong. I just acted that way because I didn’t want anyone to feel the way I did every night. I wanted people to be secure and safe and without these fucking nightmares plaguing their minds daily.
One day, I would be strong enough.
An almost-angelic laugh echoed through the pack house.
Our daughter sat on my lap, her small body fixed on my knee and her face nothing but a blank, pale slate. No eyes, no nose, no lips, no features. Nothing but a cruel, horrid sight. And while I thought that this was my own nightmare, I knew that it wasn’t.
I had seen our daughter’s face. I knew what she looked like.
But Aurora hadn’t.
She hadn’t seen our girl, and part of me thought that I didn’t remember her the way she really was. But unlike the last time I had seen her, her body was a bit bigger, almost as if she were a toddler. And my lap wasn’t mine at all; it was Vulcan’s.
He smiled down at my daughter like she was his own while holding another baby on his lap, who seemed to be around the same age. He ruffled his hair and grinned. “You’re going to take care of our pack and your sister one day, aren’t you, Kairo?”
The boy grinned and reached for my daughter. He gently patted her head and giggled. Vulcan placed Kairo and our daughter on the ground, letting them crawl and stumble to the blocks and figures of wolves and monsters.
“It’s been years,” Venus whispered to him, shaking her head and grimacing at the kids. “I fear that Ares and Aurora aren’t coming back, that they’ll never get to see their daughter again. I fear they’re trapped there, like I told Medusa they would be.”
“You worry too much,” Vulcan said to her, curling his arm around her waist and smiling.
“No,” she said. “You don’t understand how it is down there.”
“Please, just relax for a moment, love. They’ll be back.”
Venus pulled herself away from him and shook her head, tears filling her eyes. “No, they won’t. They’ll never see their daughter again. I’ve heard a rumor that Medusa didn’t even let Aurora see her baby. How could she?”
“No!” someone screamed from beside me, but neither Venus nor Vulcan heard.
I glanced over to see Aurora beside me, banging on an invisible wall to run into the nightmare and take her child back for herself. She banged violently, but never broke the barrier into the dream.
Suddenly, she turned toward me.
“I can’t never see her again, Ares,” she cried. “I can’t never see my baby.”