by Emilia Rose
“Please, Aurora. If you come with me, they won’t hurt you.” Tony grabbed my hand between his teeth and pulled me through the crowd of wolves, away from this side of the forest.
He’d said the words with too much certainty that I knew something wasn’t right.
I yanked my hand out of his mouth and watched the first hound run from the forest and toward the packs. And then it hit me.
Tony was a fucking traitor. A traitor that I couldn’t fucking kill.
“Stop!” I screamed at everyone around me. “This is a setup! A setup!”
Everyone continued to fight, not listening to a single word I’d said.
I stared at Ares, hoping that he’d hear me. “Ares! Please, stop! Please!”
My heart pounded in my ears when he didn’t turn around. I tried the mind link, but he must’ve been too overcome with bloodlust that he couldn’t hear me.
Tony growled and tugged on my hand again.
I kicked him right in the underbelly. “Leave, you fucking piece of shit.” I seethed at him, and then I kicked him right in his tiny little balls and watched him scurry away and off the property like the fucking coward he was.
Hounds emerged from the forest, their black eyes piercing right through the thick fog.
I grasped on to someone, not caring who it was, and tugged hard on their fur, pointing to the forest. “Hounds! The hounds are coming!”
Mom’s warrior growled harshly at me and turned away. I shook my head, tears filling my eyes. Why wasn’t anyone listening to me? Why couldn’t they see that they were all about to die?
My mind became fuzzy, my arms heavy. I screamed again, but it seemed like I was mute. Nobody could hear me. Maybe I wasn’t even making any noise.
More hounds continued to emerge from the forest until we were surrounded. All I could imagine was Jeremy across the field, the hounds attacking him, killing him, slaughtering him. Ripping him to pieces, his blood splattering onto my face, him reaching out his hand for me, me never seeing him again.
We had been set up that day, just like we had been set up today. Because of that, Jeremy’s death had been especially heart-breaking, and today wouldn’t be any different … I could feel it already. People I loved were going to be slaughtered.
I shook my head at the thought of him. I couldn’t run from this again. I would stay and fight, and if I died, then I would die while protecting the people I cared about. Ares. Mars. Ruffles. Charolette. Dad. And stupid fucking Marcel.
One ran toward Marcel, who had his back turned. I sprinted toward him, shoving him out of the way just in time. The hound fastened his canines into my leg, ripping a chunk of my muscle from my thigh. I cried out in pain, clutching my leg, and scurried away.
Ares turned toward us, dropped a warrior from his teeth, jolted to us, and killed the hound within a moment. The blood from his enemies dripped from his mouth and stained my clothes. I brushed my hand over his fur and let the tears fall.
More hounds ran into the chaos, foam dripping from their lips, beady black eyes on their prey. Ares stood in front of me and lunged at anyone who tried to get close. I put as much pressure on my wound as I could, hoping they’d go away. But they were closing in on him from all directions.
I prayed to the Moon Goddess that Ares wouldn’t die because I fucking loved him more than I loved anyone in the entire world right now.
Totally surrounded by hounds, Ares disappeared from my view.
My heart raced. No. No!
“Ares!” I screamed. Tears … so many tears. “Ares, please come back.”
I placed my hand on the ground behind me, trying to stand up, but someone snatched my hand in their teeth, latching their canines so deeply inside of me that I couldn’t break free.
Thrashing and flailing in his hold, I fought the wolf as hard as I could. Instead of fighting back, he dragged me through the woods—opposite to where the hounds had come from. Twigs dug into my back, leaves gathered in my hair, the fog became thicker and thicker until I couldn’t see my pack anymore.
I screamed and I punched and I kicked, and the more I fought, the harder it was to see straight. I grasped my leg, trying to stop the blood from gushing out of it. My arms felt heavier than they had before, so heavy I could barely hold them up.
“Ares,” I said through the mind link, succumbing to the pain and lying flat in the dirt, letting this wolf drag me wherever he wanted. My body couldn’t physically handle it anymore. Every part of me felt so heavy.
He didn’t respond, and I cried fat, ugly tears. I would never see him again. The hounds would rip him piece by piece, like they’d done to Jeremy. I would be brotherless and mateless, all because of Tony.
I gathered all the strength I had left and tried to connect with him one last time through the mind link. “I love you, mate. All of you, every single bit. I hope you remember that forever and always. You have become my only strength.” My lips quivered. “I wanted to have pups with you, to watch you play with them, to see you as happy as you were in that picture with your mother. You deserve to be happy.”
Chapter 39
Aurora
The sky above faded from a foggy white to black. I didn’t know if this wolf had just been dragging me for so long that it was already nighttime, if I had lost too much blood and was hallucinating, or if I had been drifting in and out of consciousness.
Twigs dug into my backside, cutting right through my clothing. My leg had gone numb some time ago. My bloodied fingers lay lifelessly at my sides. Yet all I could think about was seeing Ares again.
Please, Moon Goddess, give me something. A memory. A flashback. A fucking hallucination for all I care.
I wanted to see his smile in the stars and his twinkling brown eyes. I wanted to run my hands through his hair and tell him I loved him over and over and over, like I had last night. I wanted to mark him … something that I would never get a chance to do.
Because if I didn’t die with this hound, Ares would in that attack.
The hound dragged me up a steep hill, and I gazed down at the trees below, able to see the Pink Moon Tavern sign glowing between them. The forest seemed eerily familiar, yet my mind was so fuzzy that I wasn’t sure if those pink neon letters were actually real or if they were just a figment of my imagination.
When the wolf reached the top of the hill, he pulled me inside a cave. I blinked the blurriness away and opened my eyes wider. This cave was the same one Jeremy and I used to go to, the one where Jeremy had told Elijah he loved him, the one Elijah had said had been taken over by hounds.
Was this all some sick joke? Maybe Tony had told him to take me here to torture me with good memories.
After he leaned me against a rock in the back, I stared around the hideout to see how different it was now that hounds had taken it over. To my right, there was a pile of dirt for wolves to sleep on and a rotting carcass to eat, and to my left, there was a heap of shit and piss that made me gag.
The tears had stopped long ago, and I could finally see who had taken me. A wolf with matted and ratty fur, dead eyes, and dulled canines. Though he had scars lining his brown-furred torso, some of his body parts weren’t brown at all and didn’t seem as if they belonged. He had a white hind leg that looked to be sewn onto him, a black tail, and an ear that was half-bitten off and sewn back together with a fox hide.
A monster made of innocent animals.
He gazed at the puncture wounds in my wrist and then at my leg, inching closer to me.
I pulled my knees to my chest, my eyes widening in realization. He was the same wolf that had saved me the other day from Jeremy’s killer.
What was going on? Was he saving me?
After whimpering softly, he nudged my leg. I swallowed hard, having just an ounce of trust in him, and slowly let my leg down to the ground. Blood gushed out of the wound, all the raw muscle exposed. The wolf dipped his head and licked my wound.
Almost instinctively, I jerked my leg back into the air, and a stinging sensation sh
ot through my entire body. He growled at me, and I hesitantly placed my leg back onto the ground, watching a thin layer of skin heal over my gash. My eyes widened in amazement, and I held out my wrist for him to do the same.
“Why are you helping me?” I asked, rubbing my healing wrist. I didn’t know if he could understand me.
He lowered his head, almost in submission, and that was when I saw it. Under his fur, just where his C7 and T1 vertebrae met, something glowed the faintest color white. My eyes widened, and I drew my fingers across the back of my neck, feeling the stone underneath my fingers.
“You … you have the stone …” I breathed. “That’s why you’re helping me?” I drew my brows together. “Wh-what are … who are you?”
Without giving me an answer, he walked to the front of the cave, gazed down the hill, and waited. I pushed myself to a seated position and swallowed hard. If he had the stone … that meant we didn’t need Tony anymore.
But who the hell was this guy? Did the stone connect us somehow? Could I trust him not to hurt me more?
“What do you use it for?” I asked, hoping that he’d give me some indication that he could understand me, but instead, he continued to ignore me. I sighed through my nose and rested my head against the cave wall.
Cries from my old and new pack echoed through the forest. Everyone I loved was being slaughtered by his kind. I had to do something about it. I couldn’t just wait here until the end of my days.
After grasping on to any part of the rock wall that I could, I stood and hobbled toward the exit. The wolf turned around, baring his teeth at me, foam dripping from his mouth. I swallowed hard but continued forward, needing to help my mate and my pack.
The hound growled again and stood in front of the cave in a menacing manner. While he didn’t make eye contact with me, he lowered his head and stared right at my hips, watching my every move.
“I need to go help my friends,” I said, stepping forward. My mind became fuzzy, little stars appearing in my vision. I must’ve lost too much blood.
He stepped toward me, and I stumbled back and fell right onto my ass. I hit the ground with a thud and grasped my wounds, a searing pain shooting up my limbs. I felt helpless. Absolutely helpless … just like Mom had thought I’d be. I couldn’t even make it past a stupid hound, who was locking me in this damn cave. How could I ever lead? Who would even follow me?
Chapter 40
Ares
Hounds.
Hounds everywhere.
Saliva dripping from their teeth. Black eyes as dark as a new moon. Claws ready to rip into our fur.
There were so fucking many of them that I didn’t know which to kill first. They had emerged from the forest, surrounded us, trapped us in.
A growl ripped from my throat as I killed hound after hound. Aurora’s pack had to have set us up. How else would the hounds have known to attack while we were here? But how had they known we were coming? Who had fucking told them?
Pools of blood covered the forest floor. My fur was matted. Bodies of wolves from both our packs lay lifelessly on the ground around me … but the deadly hounds kept coming. They didn’t stop. Ever.
All I needed was to protect Aurora behind me. I trusted my pack to kill and to get back home.
A wolf swiped their claws across my chest, and I growled. Instead of another hound, it was Aurora’s mother. When she leaped at me, I dug my claws into her underbelly and ripped her into two. She fell at my feet, her eyes glazing over and her body shifting back into her human form.
Turning back to Aurora, I froze.
Where was she? Where the fuck did she go? Why wasn’t she here?
“Aurora,” I said through the mind link. I ran through the entire pack, desperately trying to find her among the wolves, trying to pick up her scent, anything. “Aurora, answer me.”
But I couldn’t pick up any scent of lemon in the midst of all this chaos and bloodshed. My chest tightened.
No. No. No. No. No. This couldn’t be fucking happening. I didn’t fucking believe it. My mate couldn’t be gone.
Suddenly, her voice drifted through my head like a haunting memory. A memory that I couldn’t remember. But it was her soft, scared voice reaching out to me in bits and pieces.
“I love you …”
“… pups …”
“… be happy.”
Had my mate tried to reach me through the fucking mind link, but I was too damn desperate to kill the hounds for her that … I couldn’t hear her?
I let out a guttural growl and sprinted through the forest to try to catch her scent.
Mate.
My mate couldn’t be gone.
Those couldn’t be the last words I heard from her.
Running back to her mother’s backyard, shuffling through every single body, I tried to find her. I wanted my mate.
Where was she? Was she gone? Had someone taken her?
I shook my head, my heart pounding faster than it had when I found Mom dead. No. No, this couldn’t … this couldn’t be happening. First, Mom. Now, Aurora. She was the only good thing in my life besides Charolette. I couldn’t lose her. I could not fucking lose her.
After shifting into my human form, I ripped bodies off each other, so I could make sure Aurora wasn’t one of them, so I could make sure a hound hadn’t killed her like one had killed her brother.
“Ares,” Marcel said, grabbing my wrist.
I yanked my hand out of his grasp and growled. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
He nodded to a group of men and women from Aurora’s mother’s pack. “We have prisoners from Aurora’s pack,” he said.
But I couldn’t think straight. All I could imagine was Aurora out there in the woods, trying to shift to protect herself but not being fast enough to do it before hounds ripped her to pieces.
One of the prisoners was Aurora’s father.
Before my warriors could drag him away, I grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. “Where the fuck is she?” I asked through clenched teeth. “Where would she have gone?”
Her father struggled in my grasp. “Get your hands off of me.”
I growled, sank my claws into the back of his neck, dragged him all the way to the car, and threw him into the backseat. “You’re lucky you’re alive. If Aurora hadn’t told me not to kill you, you would be dead.” Before he had the chance to speak, I slammed the door in his face and looked at Marcel. “Drive him back to the property. Get him there safely.”
Marcel stood by the driver’s seat and looked down at all the open wounds covering my body. Blood spewed from each one, drenching me. “Come with us to heal your wounds before looking for Aurora.”
“No.”
I wouldn’t allow myself to spend a second getting healed when she was out there alone. I needed to find her before something happened, if nothing had happened already.
“Now, leave.” I seethed. I stormed back to the battlefield and searched for her in the sea of bodies for another hour.
She wasn’t gone.
She couldn’t be fucking gone.
Dropping down onto all fours, I doubled over in pain. What would Mars say when he found out? How could I tell him that I hadn’t protected our own mate? All we’d wanted to do was keep her safe, and I’d failed.
I’d failed, and she was gone. The next time we saw her, she’d be dead.
Just like Mom.
My chest tightened. She never got to mark me. I never got to feel those little canines break my skin and claim me. Mars never got to connect with her, mark her, or be with her the way he always wanted.
We wouldn’t have pups.
We wouldn’t have a life together.
I’d be alone.
That was all that I was and would ever be. Alone.
I lifted my nose to the moon shining above and let out a broken howl.
When I gathered enough strength to move again, I sprinted home. I’d find Aurora and bring her home with me, dead or alive. I wouldn’t let this haunt me for the
rest of my life, like Mom’s death did.
Blood gushed from my wounds. My vision blurred. Pain shot through every one of my limbs. But I kept running faster and faster until I made it to my property, where everything was in utter chaos.
Pack doctors scrambled to find hospital beds for wounded warriors. Already-healed wolves gathered for battle in our training field. Mothers and fathers ushered children into their homes to hide them from this madness. I transformed back into my human form, threw on a pair of shorts, and hurried through the disarray, putting together a team of trackers who would be able to pick up Aurora’s scent.
Alpha Elijah stood near the pack house with some of his warriors and doctors.
I grabbed him by his collar, ready to fuck up his nerdy fucking face again. “Aurora is gone because of the fucking advice that you gave her last night.”
He pushed me back. “This isn’t my fault. I didn’t know you’d get attacked.”
My heart pounded against my rib cage. He might’ve not known about it, but someone in this pack had to have been working with Tony. Nobody in the Sanguine Wilds knew this pack’s secrets, especially not secrets about Mom. Who would betray me? Who would take their luna and try to kill their own people?
I pushed him away.
I would find out later. Right now, I needed to find the only thing that mattered to me—my Aurora.
“Oh my fucking Goddess,” Charolette screamed, grasping my wrist from behind. “Ares! What the hell are you doing? You need to let a doctor heal you! Even with your alpha abilities, those wounds won’t close on their own.”
Placing one of her small hands on the wound in the center of my chest, she tried to stop the blood from gushing out and yelled for a couple healers, but I ripped myself out of her grip and turned toward the pack.
“I’m not in the fucking mood for this right now.”
“You need to wrap these wounds in bandages.” She followed me. “You need to heal.”
“I need to find Aurora!” I growled at her. My canines emerged from under my lips. My vision grew dark. My nails lengthened into claws. I couldn’t stop myself. “Don’t tell me what I have to do. I’m not losing someone else.”
