“I’ll handle Marcel,” I said through clenched teeth. “What else?”
“Two, I believe the hounds are tracking Aurora down. The rogue woman said that there was a bounty on Aurora’s head and that the hounds want her dead. Nobody knows why.”
My wolf growled again, this time aching for blood. “Then, we’ll kill them. One by one.” I wouldn’t let anyone even think about hurting my mate. I’d rip them limb by limb before they had the chance to touch her.
“Three”—Liam smiled—“I can’t wait for her to get on your nerves.” He walked to the door and pulled it open. “Finally, someone able to test you, Ares. I don’t think you’re ready for it.”
Oh, I was ready.
I was ready for anything she could throw at me, for any lie she could tell, for any fight she tried to start with me. Mars and I wanted it all from our alpha mate. We already loved when she back-talked, when she got all up in our face, thinking that she was the toughest wolf we’d ever come across. Our mate was the one thing we could agree upon, the one thing we didn’t fight about … but I knew this calmness between us wouldn’t last for long. Mars probably thought that if she spent enough time with me, she’d start to hate me too.
It wasn’t always this way with Mars and me. We hadn’t always been two different people trapped in the same body, but after what had happened with Mom, I needed to protect him. The world might’ve been fucked up back then—hell, it still was now—but if it hadn’t happened, I never would have met Aurora, only Mars would’ve.
No matter who we were to her, neither of us could wait to see her wolf, to run with her up to Caraco Mountain and decide which group of rogues we would hunt that day. I’d bet her fur was soft, just like her hair, her scent even more tantalizing than her human, her strength nearly matching mine.
I had waited for this moment for twenty-four years, and I’d almost screwed it up already.
Chapter 12
Aurora
I snapped my eyes open when I heard Ruffles meow. Sunlight flooded in through the dark curtains, giving—I was assuming—Ares’s room a slight morning glow. I still didn’t know what to call him. Was he that godlike alpha or that man I’d met at the lake a couple nights ago? Maybe he was both.
Monstrously dark and sleek, the room had an oddly homely feel to it with a couple pictures on the walls and—wait a damn second. I squinted my eyes at a picture of him and a young woman across from me. Frizzy blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, lips the color of cherries, she was beautiful.
They stared happily ahead, his head on her shoulder, giving the camera the biggest grin I had ever seen. Nothing like Alpha Ares, the notoriously powerful alpha from the Sanguine Wilds.
My wolf growled, jealousy creeping into my veins. Who was she, and why did she have her arms around my mate like that? Why’d they look so happy and youthful, like they were ready to take on the world together?
Ruffles meowed again. I gazed around the room and sat up almost immediately. I’d find out who she was later. Now, I had to find Ruffles before he found her and threw her out into the hound-infested forest.
Ares lay in the bed next to me, one arm draped around my waist, pulling me closer. “Kitten, lie back down with me. You smell so good.”
“No,” I said. “I need to go—”
He easily curled me to him, making me fall back onto the bed “That was an order.” He pressed himself closer to me, lips brushing against my ear, making me shiver. “Things are going to be different here than they were at your old pack.”
“You mean, my home,” I said, wanting to keep him talking so he didn’t hear Ruffles meow. Moon Goddess, what was she getting into?
He growled lowly in my ear, canines brushing against my neck. “This is your home, Aurora, and you’ll soon find out that this pack is run differently than your mother’s.” His hand slipped under the hem of my shirt, fingers rubbing soothing circles on my stomach. “For instance, you’re not going to disobey me when I give you an order.”
I snorted and sat back up. “Yeah, okay,” I said sarcastically. “I’ll obey your every command, sit at your feet, worship you to—”
He snaked a hand around my neck, yanking me back down next to him. “Another rule … you don’t leave my bed in the morning until I’ve eaten.”
“Moon Goddess, Ares, you expect me to wait until you’re finish—”
“Yes.” He placed lingering kisses down my neck, disappeared under the blankets, and yanked down my underwear, staring up at me from between my legs. “Every morning, you wait until I’m satisfied.”
My eyes widened. Oh … he meant … “But you just did it last n—”
He pulled my folds apart with his fingers and placed his lips on my clit. “I did, and I’m going to do it again.” Ares spread my legs and flicked my clit with his tongue. Holding my trembling legs as far apart as they would go, he gazed up at me and said, “Fuck, Kitten … I can’t wait to be inside of you tonight.”
Tonight? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not tonight. We couldn’t do it tonight.
I wasn’t ready for him like that. We had to keep as much space between us as possible. I was not falling in love with an asshole after some good sex and then getting my heart ripped out of my damn dead body.
Yes, we are, my wolf purred in the back of my mind.
I tensed and let him touch me because it felt damn good, but I didn’t want to be another one of his whores.
