AURORA
Collapsing to my knees, I stared up into the sky as harpies collided with the concrete palace at the east wing. Mars drifted through the sky, in the claws of another powerful female harpy, directing her toward Nyx’s figure.
I wanted to run after them. I wanted to kill her.
But I had a bigger part in all this.
Hounds tore their teeth into wolves. Blood splattered everywhere. I latched on to one, holding him as hard as I could from behind so he couldn’t struggle that intensely, and silently whispered some foreign words off my tongue.
Like I had done with the other unfriendly hounds, I tried to get him on my side. I tried to pull him out of Nyx’s strong hold, but I couldn’t. I fucking couldn’t. With her being distracted, she should’ve had her attention elsewhere. Her energy had to have a limit, right?
The hound escaped my arms and turned on me, baring its bloody fangs and growling lowly. I focused on him and only him, grabbing at his face once more. He clawed me across the chest, across the stomach, the thigh and calf.
Yet I persisted.
I needed to get through to him. I needed something. Just from one of the hounds. If I could take control of one of them, then we might be able to do this thing. It was just getting harder and harder. I didn’t have as much energy as I had the first time. I had just depleted my energy completely, summoning the harpies and the freed wolves.
“Don’t push yourself, Kitten,” Ares—yes, Ares—said through the mind link. “I’m coming.”
My wolf purred. Warmth spread throughout my chest. I didn’t know where he was or if he could see me—maybe I was just imagining it all—but he had given me what I needed to push through the pain of this hound’s claws cutting through my flesh.
After scanning the forest and not finding anyone, I turned back to the wolf and closed my eyes. All I could feel was the blood pouring out of my wounds and even more claws sinking into my flesh from all angles. At this rate and with exhaustion nearing, I didn’t know if my wounds would heal anytime soon.
It could be years.
Still, I knew deep down that my mates would still love me.
So, I continued and held the hound tighter. “Please,” I whispered, surprisingly staying calm. “Please, see the light, see the dawn. I need you to get out of Nyx’s hold. You are not who she tells you that you are. You’re good.”
Nothing.
“Aurora!” someone shouted out loud.
But I couldn’t tear myself away from the hound. I needed to get to him, needed to make sure that he knew that he had been different from this in a past life, that this person and wolf that he was today wasn’t the real him.
When I reopened my eyes, all I saw was blood pouring out of the wounds in my body. I forced myself to stare into the hound’s eyes and look deep into him.
“You are so powerful,” I whispered.
Another slash across my face.
“You are so much stronger than she is.”
Another slash across my abdomen, where my baby had once been.
“You can escape from her.”
Another slash across my neck.
Then … he stopped moving completely. His eyes faded to a lighter color, a less hazy color. I beamed at him, not caring that he had almost killed me. This was progress. Slow progress, but progress.
“You’re doing great,” I whispered, grabbing his snout. “Take control back.”
He shook his head, as if he didn’t want to hear what I was saying, but when I brushed my thumb across his snout, he howled. And not in the way that hounds did when they were about to kill someone.
In the way that … he realized who he really was.