MARS
We needed a place to lock up Fenris, and the only place I could think of was Hades’s kingdom. That was where we were headed anyway, and hopefully, we would be able to get there before Aurora left. I wanted to see her so badly that it hurt me, physically and emotionally.
If we got there and she wasn’t there, I didn’t know what I would do.
I grabbed on to Fenris by the scruff of the neck, my claws digging into his flesh and a rage burning inside of me—rage that only Ares felt. I knew that he was down here; I could feel his presence. Only he would leave behind such a strong aura of hatred.
The forest was littered with monsters, both dead and gravely wounded. I could faintly smell the scent of my pack, of Ares, and of my Aurora. They were close. So close.
“His kingdom is right up here,” Helios said, glancing around the eerily quiet forest. We had been here a hundred thousand times, it seemed, yet something felt off today. It almost seemed harder to find. “It has to be, but this fog … it’s almost too much.”
I squinted my eyes and stared into the foggy forest. When we were in the Sanguine Wilds, the fog only came when the hounds were around. If the hounds were here, then that meant that my pack was probably out here, fighting them, killing them, and hopefully not dying in their sharp, bloody teeth.
“Let’s keep moving,” I said, tightening my hold on Fenris. “I’m not going to stop until we get there. We need to lock him in a cage and then torture the fuck out of him.” Rage burned within me. I knew that this really wasn’t me talking, but Ares. Or … maybe it was me. Maybe this place and seeing Hella day in and day out had made me hate everything.
The farther we walked into Hades’s kingdom, the more guards patrolled the area, walking back and forth, as if they were on the lookout for something. Everyone seemed a lot tenser this morning than the last time I had seen Hades.
And then the grand castle came into view, the tips of it scraping the clouds. I stopped in awe, the way I always did, and stared at the palace. Something deep inside me stirred—a feeling that this was something I’d always desired. I wanted to be able to have a castle, a community, and a pack again with Aurora. It was what I’d wanted for hundreds of years, maybe even before I died the first time.
After a few moments of taking it all in, I picked up Fenris in one of my hands and stormed toward the castle steps. A couple of guards blocked me from hurrying up, as Hades didn’t enjoy many unwanted visitors, but then he walked out the double doors and descended the steps.
He looked at me in confusion at first, brows furrowed and eyes wide, and then his gaze dropped to Fenris’s body dangling from my hand, his blood dripping onto the carefully crafted stone underneath my feet.
“You … you captured him,” Hades said, nodding to three guards, who tried to take Fenris from me, but I refused to let this man go. Not after everything he had done to me, not after he’d brought Mom back to life.
I would deal with him now—and forever—until I killed him for good.
“Where is your prison?” I asked.
Once Hades nodded toward a door in his castle that led underground, I stormed toward it, with Helios close behind me and Hades on his heels.
“Nobody has ever been able to capture Fenris. How did you do it, especially with Hella and Nyx fighting alongside him?”
“Hella and Nyx?” I asked, yanking open a cell door and locking chains around Fenris’s throat, wrists, and ankles. I didn’t know if these chains would be strong enough, so I took another set of them and wrapped them around his entire body, ensuring he couldn’t move even an inch. “Hella and Nyx weren’t with Fenris when we fought him.”
“No?” Hades said, turning away and pacing the prison floor. “But … there’s been nothing but howling outside my borders for the past hour.”
“That wasn’t us,” Helios said to Hades.
Hades’s face paled. “Then, it must’ve been Ares and Aurora.”
My entire body froze and then tensed. “Ares and Aurora? They’re not here?”
“No, they left an hour ago to head toward Hella and Nyx’s kingdom. I thought for sure you would’ve seen them. Their entire pack and even some of my guards left with them. Ares was dead set on leaving this morning.”
I had known that I smelled something. I had known that I smelled them.
My heart shattered into a million fucking pieces. I had been so close, so fucking close to finding them finally. I’d been down here for ages, a century almost, looking for my mate and my other half. And I had missed them by one hour.
One. Fucking. Hour.
I balled my hands into fists and wanted to do nothing but hurl them at Fenris over and over. This was his fault. This was Hella’s fault. This was Nyx’s fault. If they hadn’t wanted to kill Aurora, we would not even be down here. If Hella wasn’t a crazy fucking bitch and wanted me more than anything, then we would be with our baby.
I needed to find them. I needed to find them now. They couldn’t have gone far.
“I didn’t hear any howling,” I said. “Do you think that they … got attacked by Hella on the way over to her kingdom? Do you think Ares and Aurora killed them? I know Hella would never kill Ares, not down here, where deaths are final.”
If it were the other way around and they touched Aurora, then Ares wouldn’t stop howling and fighting and killing man after man, woman after woman for revenge, for hatred, for her.
“I don’t know,” Hades said, ascending the stairs toward the main staircase that led back outside into the foggy forest.
It had cleared up only a smidgen since we had been out here a few moments ago, which meant that the hounds were leaving this place.
My stomach turned. Was that a good thing? I didn’t know.
Hades leaned over a railing, lifted his arm toward the northwest, and pointed. “They went that way only an hour ago,” he said. “Once I started hearing the sounds of war, I sent guards to find them, but nobody has come back. I knew that they should’ve stayed here a bit longer. I knew that Hella and Nyx would be out today, but Ares was so stubborn.”
“I have to go,” I said.
There wasn’t any way that I would let Ares and Aurora face Hella alone.
“Wait for me,” Hades said. “I’m tired of sitting around and protecting this castle for nothing. Everyone who passes through here either doesn’t come back or comes back gravely wounded. I refuse to sit back anymore. I need to make a call to some other gods, and then I will accompany y—”
Suddenly, he stopped and lifted his gaze to the western border of his kingdom. I followed his glance and sniffed the air rolling in from that direction twice. It smelled like … just like …
A young woman walked out from the forest with a pack behind her, and in her arms was my mate, my Aurora. In that moment, time—which happened so much quicker for a ghostlike entity like me—seemed to stop completely.
My mate was here.