ARES
I could barely move.
Every single time I tried to escape this dog cage that Hella’s servant had placed me into, every time I touched the silver bars that bound me here, my skin would sizzle. This silver metal was stronger than anything in the Sanguine Wilds.
The door opened, and I held my breath at the thought of seeing Hella. I wanted to rip her to shreds for what she had done to me. I only hoped that she hadn’t laid a finger on my Aurora because if she did…
My chest tightened, my throat closing up. If she touched Aurora, I would lose it.
Instead of Hella—or Nyx—Marcel walked into the room. I sucked in a deep breath, watching his every single move, yet still, he didn’t look over at me. Not one fucking time. He was either ignoring me or they had done something to him.
Something that I wasn’t sure I wanted to know about.
“Marcel,” I whispered, glancing over at the door to make sure that Hella wasn’t following him into the room. I stopped struggling to conserve my energy, let one wolfish ear listen for when Hella was nearby, and then focused all my attention on Marcel. “Marcel!”
He didn’t even acknowledge me.
“Please, look at me,” I pleaded, wanting to get us both out of here as soon as possible.
He didn’t look healthy or alive down here with Hella. If Charolette saw him …
“What have they done to you? I know you’re in there. I know you can hear me.”
Still, he didn’t say a word. Instead, he walked over to Hella’s bedside and pulled down her comforter, and then he drew her curtains closed, so her room was darker. He walked around the room, fixing up other smaller things, almost as if he was preparing for her to arrive.
“We don’t have much time. She’s coming,” I said, glancing over at the door and hearing footsteps. Deep down, I knew that Marcel wasn’t listening to me, maybe he wasn’t even hearing me either. I needed to get his attention now, so I used my alpha tone. “Get me out of here now.”
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
I stared at him in both horror and disgust. Hella and Nyx must’ve done horrid things to him—things that they would do to me and the rest of my pack if they found them. I couldn’t let that happen. I needed to do something. Anything.
“You saved my sister,” I said in a last-ditch effort. “You saved Charolette.”
Marcel paused, his body going rigid. For the first time tonight, he was really listening to me because this involved his mate. He was down here for her, not for getting me out of these chains that I’d found myself trapped in.
“Charolette,” I repeated. “I’ve seen her in my dreams. She’s alive and healthy.”
He stood up taller, his body still tense but his gaze now focused hard on the floor, as if he was trying to ignore me but physically couldn’t. Thank the Moon Goddess for a mate bond. I wouldn’t have been able to get to him in any other way.
“Say her name.” I moved to the edge of the dog cage and grasped the silver bars, ignoring the searing pain shooting through my hands. “Say her name, Marcel. I know that you remember her. She’s your mate. Say it once.”
More footsteps moved down the hallway toward this room. I pleaded with him. I, Ares, the fucking monster, pleaded with Marcel to remember the woman he would do anything for, the woman he’d died for to protect.
When he still didn’t say anything, I decided to turn it up a notch.
“If Charolette saw you now, she would be disgusted.”
A feral growl escaped his lips, and he turned around to bare his canines at me. It’d worked. He had awoken a suppressed beast, an animal locked in a cage for far too long. Marcel had become a ghostlike entity like everyone had said Mars had become, which probably meant that time was flying by so much quicker for Marcel.
He could’ve been down here for what felt like hundreds of years, too, without his mate.
But one single word, one name, had changed it all.
Marcel still remembered her. There was hope.
Suddenly, Hella walked into the room, shut the door behind her, and locked us inside with her. I growled at her, my nails lengthening into sharp claws that ached to slash her throat and end this all.
“What did you say to get him all riled up?” she asked Marcel, unbuttoning her shirt.
Marcel didn’t say anything.
Has he lost his voice? Has it been taken from him?
“Let me the fuck out of here, Hella,” I growled at her, rattling the cage. Skin melted and dripped off the palms of my hands, and I pulled my hands away and bit back a whimper. I couldn’t fucking let her see me weak.
I needed to find a way out of here, and this wasn’t it. I would never break these chains, never mind the chains and the bars of the dog cage.
Hella continued to pull off her clothes until she stood naked in front of Marcel and me. I forced myself to look away, but she was using her magic to drive my gaze to be on her and nobody else. And this silver had already weakened me.
She crawled up onto the bed and lay back flat, spreading her legs and curling her finger at Marcel. “Come up here, Marcel,” she said. “Teach Ares what he’s going to be doing very soon. Teach him how to please me.”
Marcel tore his guilty gaze away from me, his entire body still tense and his jaw still twitching. If he hadn’t been in my pack, I wouldn’t have been able to tell how he was feeling. But we were still so close despite not seeing each other for what felt like a long fucking time.
He was hurting.
He didn’t want to do this.
Yet he crawled up onto the bed and dipped his head between Hella’s legs to eat her out. I wanted to look away so badly. I didn’t want to watch this or feel his pain. He still loved my sister but—like I couldn’t look away because of Hella’s magic—he couldn’t stop himself from doing exactly what she asked.
“Good boy,” Hella cooed, grasping his silver hair and holding his head down against her cunt.
I was torn. Completely and utterly torn. My brotherly instincts wanted to tear Marcel apart, too, but my alpha instincts told me that he didn’t want to do this. He’d really rather never live another day in this world than do this with Hella.
But he was a slave.
Hella would do what she wanted with us. We were both her slaves now.