All that softness in his brown eyes disappeared and was replaced with a hard, intense stare. “No.” He pulled me toward his dad’s house. “I won’t let you.”
I yanked my hand out of his. “I’m not asking for your permission.”
Mars let out a menacing growl and glared down at me. “You’re not going to give your life for hers. I appreciate your offer, but Charolette nor I will accept you doing that.”
“If it’s life or death, Mars?” I shook my head. “I am going to do it.”
Wind shook the trees above us, and a strand of Mars’s hair blew into his face. “I’m not going to fight with you about this. You will not risk your life. You’re the luna of this pack. You need to be strong and to stay strong for me, for when shit hits the fucking fan and I spiral out of fucking control …” He swallowed hard, eyes filling with terror that I hadn’t seen before. “You will need to lead this pack.”
“Well, you need to understand that—”
“Aurora!” Mr. Barrett smiled from the front door and held it open for us. “Mars! You’re here! Come on in.”
Mars grabbed my hand and pulled me to the house, staying deathly quiet. When we walked in, Charolette was already sitting at the table with Liam, kicking her legs back and forth with a giant smile on her face.
“Hi, A!” She smiled widely at me with a twinkle in her eye that had disappeared this morning. Mars nodded at her, and she scrunched up her nose. “I was talking to Aurora, not you.”
Mars pulled out a chair for me. He sat next to me, his sharp jaw clenched hard, staring from me to his sister and back. I smiled at her and pressed my lips together, not wanting to say anything that would cause Mars to lose control. If we were back home, I would. I would fight him on this. But we were eating with his family for the first time, and I wanted to make a good impression.
While Mr. Barrett disappeared into the kitchen to finish cooking, I gazed around at the cozy interior. A fireplace in the living room, moonflowers in a flowerpot on the table, and family pictures hanging on the walls. Gaze drifting from picture to picture, I stopped and stared at one of their entire family.
It looked as if it had been taken years ago—when Mars appeared to be in his early teens. Mrs. Barrett stood behind him, her arms around his shoulders, her chin resting on top of his head. Mars had this huge boyish grin on his face, his eyes closed in utter delight. I had never seen him look so happy.
After following my gaze, Mars frowned at the picture, placed a tense hand on my inner thigh, and squeezed lightly. I could feel all of his hurt. The pain in his veins. The ache in his bones. The spears jutting right through his heart. I wasn’t sure he’d even tell me what had happened to her if I asked.
Mr. Barrett placed a heaping bowl of mashed potatoes in the center of the table and sat across from Mars. And before I knew it, they fell into an easy conversation with each other.
Though Mars and Ares were nearly a spitting image of their father, Ares didn’t act anything like him. Always stone-faced, tense, guarded even. Mars acted almost exactly like him. But still I frowned and wondered what had hurt Ares so bad to have him change from that smiling boy to the distant and domineering man he was today.
All I wanted was to see him happy like that again, all the time.
“Has Mars cooked for you yet, Aurora?” Mr. Barrett asked.
I raised a brow at Mars. “He knows how to cook?”
Mr. Barrett gave him a pointed stare. “You haven’t made your mate dinner?”
“He’s made me pretzels and cheese,” I said, playfully elbowing Mars.
Mr. Barrett’s stare softened, and he chuckled. “Mars and his mother always used to make those together. That was their go-to midnight snack, wasn’t it?”
Though I could tell that he was still a bit annoyed, he smiled tenderly and nodded. I placed my hand on his thigh and grasped lightly. My heart warmed at the thought of him being so comfortable with me that he’d let me in on the nightly tradition he used to have with his mother.
All those rumors about Alpha Ares slowly started to fade into an abyss. Ares wasn’t heartless; he was heartbroken.
When dinner was over, Mars took my hand and led me down a hallway decorated with pictures of his mother and him. He pushed open a door and walked into a room that looked to be the remnants of a playroom. Football posters and crayon drawings hung from the brightly colored walls, blocks were stacked almost a foot in the air near the teal leather couch, and a wooden toy box, which had a pink teddy bear and a family picture on it, sat in the corner of the room.
“When the pack house got too hectic, my family came here.” Mars closed the door behind us and pulled back the curtains to stare out into the woods. “My mom used to bring Charolette and me here to play.”
I walked to the picture and smiled, grasping it in my hands. Something about it was so terribly sad, yet I didn’t know what it was. I gazed down at the picture, feeling Mars’s fingers glide across my waist from behind me. He rested his head on my shoulder, pulled me closer to him, and smiled.
“I wish that you could’ve met her. She would’ve loved you,” he whispered in my ear.
After a few moments of debating on whether or not I should ask him, I placed the frame down and parted my lips. “Mars, wh—”
He gently placed
