ARES
I lay in bed next to Aurora and stared up at the dark ceiling, dragging my fingers across the wounds I’d received from the battle with the hounds earlier. All the wounds had completely healed, only leaving small scars, which would be gone by morning. But all those scars, all those wounds, would weigh heavily on my mind.
Not in a bad way, but in one that I would always remember.
“You’re returning to Ares,” Aurora said, snuggling closer to me and grabbing my hand.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, after Mars died, there was a time when you became like him. You were gentler and more loving and didn’t snap in a moment’s notice. It was almost as if you thought I needed him more than I needed you.”
My jaw tightened slightly because she was right. I had held myself back from flipping out recently, had tried hard not to be my true self because Aurora did need the soft love that Mars had always given her.
But now, we had learned that Mars was still alive, that he was in the underworld somewhere, and the only way we would find him would be to fight Hella and all the monsters she threw at us. The only way we would succeed was if the real me came back and thrived.
It wasn’t only that. I felt stronger down here than I ever had in the Sanguine Wilds.
“I want to tell you that being down here is fucking with my head, but I feel like I’m growing into myself again, into the man I used to be, the god who used to rule down in these parts. I’m making decisions and fighting in a way that feels so natural.”
Aurora lightly pressed her lips on my shoulder, her scent filling my nostrils and calming me. I wrapped my arm around her slim waist and pulled her closer to me, the feel of her body against mine making me the happiest damn alpha alive.
“Which is why we have to leave Hades’s kingdom,” I announced.
Though I didn’t know exactly how Aurora or my pack would take this news, I knew that it had to be done. I didn’t like Aurora being around Hades because he had a certain charm to him that seemed to smooth over everyone.
And Aurora was mine.
I didn’t care how over-the-top jealous that made me seem. I could’ve been worse.
“We’re leaving. Tomorrow morning when we awake.”
“Where are we going?” Aurora asked, staring up at me with those big, sexy fucking eyes.
“Home.”
“Home?” she asked, brows furrowed. “Our home isn’t in the underworld.”
“Our first home,” I said, grabbing her hand and standing strong. “To the one we made before Hella killed us both. I’ve had visions and dreams of it these past few weeks, and something is calling me to go back.”
I didn’t know what it was, but I needed to head back to the place where it’d all started, where this war had begun, where Hella had raided my home and tried to take Aurora from me during our first life together. I planned to reclaim the land, to show Hella that we wouldn’t back down.
No matter what.