AURORA
At some point while I’d run after Hella’s retreating figure, my body had collapsed. I could barely move. I’d pushed my wolf and my power far beyond its limits, more than I should’ve. More than Ares would’ve wanted me to.
Acesca carried me in her arms, instructing the others to follow her. I didn’t know how many of my packmates had died during that little battle with the hounds and Hella, but it had been quite a few because I hadn’t been thinking straight. All I could think about was saving Ares.
And I couldn’t even do that.
Suddenly, the wolf inside me, who couldn’t move and had been cursing me out for the last half hour because our body wasn’t strong enough for our power, stirred restlessly inside me. I shifted in Acesca’s arms, and she stopped.
Everyone around us stopped too.
“Oh my gosh,” she whispered, and the pack erupted into a sea of murmurs.
“What is it?” I asked, blinking my eyes open.
After scanning the woods, I glanced up at Hades’s castle standing before us. She must’ve led us all back here, so we could regroup and stay safe. But still, I didn’t think that she would stop just because of—
Mate.
Mars stood at the foot of the stairs and drifted toward me quickly, his feet barely touching the ground and his body almost ghostlike. Almost. My wolf forced me to scramble out of Acesca’s arms and stand on our own two feet.
Mate! Mate! Mate!
The first few steps that I took toward him, I stumbled. My knees gave out for a brief moment. But I pushed myself up and continued, slowly regaining my strength.
Mars ran toward me, and I sprinted forward. Wanting to touch him. Needing to hold him. Desperate for him again. I had been starving without him for the past few weeks. It had to have been worse for him—I could only imagine not being with anyone.
When he reached me, he scooped me up into his arms and held me tightly to his chest. I wrapped my legs around his torso and my arms around his shoulders, and then I buried my face into his neck and cried. Hard.
“I missed you,” I whimpered. “I missed you so much. So fucking much, Mars.”
Mars held me like he hadn’t seen me for centuries, like he hadn’t been touched in so long, so fucking long. So many emotions were rushing through my head, but I couldn’t stop touching his ghostlike body as much as I could.
His body wasn’t the same Mars that I had loved, but I didn’t love him any less for what he had become down here in the underworld. He had lived and died for me, for Ares, and for our little girl. He had sacrificed himself for us.
“I’m sorry that I’m not the same,” he said, his first words to me. “I’m sorry that I’m not the old me. I know it’s different. Some parts of my body can float right through objects. My body isn’t solid the way it was. I think it’s because Ares is still out here, the other half of me. I’m sor—”
Before he could continue, I pulled his face closer to mine and kissed him hard on the mouth. It didn’t matter to me at all. All that I cared about was that I could finally see him again, that I now had hope we could all be one happy family again one day.
“Don’t explain yourself,” I whispered, curling my fingers into his hair. “You’re perfect. You’ve always been perfect to me.” My words drifted off, the pain I held in my heart from being away from him slowly fading away.
“Where’s Ares?”
My entire body froze, the tension spreading throughout my body again. This was bound to come up, yet I didn’t know how to tell him that he had missed Ares by mere moments, less than a fucking hour.
“Aurora?” he asked, pushing some hair from my face. “Where is he?”
“Hella captured him.” My chest tightened, and tears pricked the corners of my eyes. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t protect him. I tried to get him back, but Hella and Nyx’s powers together are too much for me alone. Nyx put him in a trance that he couldn’t escape.”
Something crossed Mars’s face, wondering, awe, maybe sorrow.
“He is so strong,” I said, lips quivering. “I’m not sure what he saw in that vision, but it must have been something serious if he couldn’t snap out of it. It was as if it was more important than the war we were fighting. I don’t know what—”
“Our daughter,” Mars suddenly said.
“What?” I whispered.
“He saw our daughter,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve been seeing visions of her growing up,” he said. “We’re still connected.”
My heart broke even more. “Growing up?” She was growing up without her mother and father, without a family that loved her, with a pack that was probably still trying to survive in the Sanguine Wilds.
“But if he’s with Hella now …” Mars said, trailing off. “We need to get him back.”