MARS
Our daughter was just like Ares.
I stared at her in amazement while my heart thumped against my rib cage. So powerful, so strong, so hardheaded and short-tempered, but filled with so much emotion. And who could forget that smile and those eyes that mirrored Aurora’s?
“I can be an alpha too!” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Legend says that the first female alpha happened only a few years ago. But it still happened. If you can be an alpha because you’re a boy, then I can be an alpha because I’m a girl.” She tossed some hair over her shoulder. “And besides, I am stronger than you.”
My lips curled into a smile, and I faintly heard someone call my name in the distance. I didn’t know if our daughter even had any of my traits. All I had seen so far, in every vision, was a young girl who was becoming just like Ares and Aurora.
Nothing like me. Nothing yet.
After our daughter bickered back and forth with the boy for a couple more moments, the boy leaned forward and kissed her. She stared at him with wide eyes, in complete shock, and then kissed him back.
I watched them curiously, knowing that I couldn’t stop what was happening and knowing that if Ares saw what I was seeing, he would surely flip his lid. He was a protective bastard, but he was my other half. Someone I thought I would never be able to live without.
Our daughter grabbed the boy’s hands in her smaller ones and squeezed them hard, a tiny giggle escaping her lips. After a second, he pulled away, and they stared at each other as if they didn’t know what they had just done.
“Kairo, what … what was that?” she whispered.
The boy widened his eyes and then shook his head. “I don’t know. I just … I wanted to kiss you.”
“But kissing is only for adults, even your dad said it.”
“Yeah, but …” The boy looked down, his face reddening. “I don’t know. But if kissing is just for grown-ups, then why did you kiss me back?”
Our daughter looked down at the ground, too, and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know either, but we can’t tell the adults. You know how they are about you becoming an alpha. The elders… will punish us.”
I tightened my jaw. Punish them? Nobody will punish my daughter.
“The elders said that they will find a mate for me, but I don’t want anyone else,” Kairo said, grabbing her hands. “I like you a lot, like a lot, a lot. I don’t want to be apart from you. I want to be best friends forever.”
Someone slashed their claws through my abdomen, yanking me out of my daydream. All I wanted was more information. Why is my daughter going to be punished? Who is Kairo to her? Why do I keep having these visions?
But hounds surrounded me from all directions. I growled back at them, the saliva dripping from my canines. Hella’s hounds sprinted at Helios and me from all over the forest. We had made it about seventy-five percent of the way to Hades’s kingdom to find Aurora before the hounds attacked us. As far as I could see, Hella wasn’t among them this time.
But Fenris was.
He stood behind the rest of his warmongering beasts and commanded them. It was like he couldn’t fight anymore, and if he could, he wouldn’t win a battle against me. In the Sanguine Wilds, he might have killed me, but I wanted to kill him now. I wanted to end his reign. I refused to let him hurt anyone anymore.
I wanted him dead for good.
So, I barreled toward him.
The closer I seemed to get to him, the more hounds I fought and killed, the stronger I smelled Mom’s scent. I didn’t know where she was, but she had to be here. He had tried to raise her from the dead at some point in the Sanguine Wilds. If he had been successful, she would be here. Fighting among the hounds.
More hounds piled on top of me, trying to stop me from reaching Fenris, who moved slower today, but I continued to push forward because I needed to get to him. I wouldn’t let him escape this time. At least, not alive.
After roaring and thrusting back all the hounds, I sprinted at Fenris and latched my teeth into his neck, pushing him down. Easily, he collapsed to the ground. For a brief moment, he struggled underneath me. But his struggle wasn’t enough. I held him down as hounds clawed into my back. Blood pooled from my body, but I didn’t stop.
I was doing this for Aurora. I was doing this for revenge. I was becoming just like Ares.
Heart racing against my chest, I pinned him to the ground and refused to move. Helios captured the attention from some hounds on top of me, so they turned around and sprinted at him instead.
Fenris said something in ancient Latin—something I couldn’t quite understand completely. And almost as if the hounds understood him, instead of sprinting at Helios, they ran away. They disappeared through the thick brush and fog.
Fenris stopped struggling underneath me.
And while we might not have defeated the hounds, I didn’t want to kill them all. If there was a chance that Aurora could heal them and bring them on to our side, then we wouldn’t slaughter them all ruthlessly.
And besides, now, we had Fenris–the hound made of bones–as our prisoner.