Marcel’s phone buzzed on the table, and he sat up tall, his pupils dilating. “I have to go.” He tossed me the keys to his car. “Bring it back.”
“You’re going to run home?” I asked, brows furrowing.
“It’s not like you can,” he said. The words came out lighthearted and shouldn’t have hurt as much as they did.
I’d told Ares and Charolette to keep this a secret because I wasn’t ready for the entire pack to know just yet. I still felt like I needed to prove myself.
Marcel furrowed his brows, as if he didn’t know why I was frowning at him. “Ares would have my ass if I let you run out in Hound Territory.”
I plastered a smile on my face and nodded in agreement. Okay, good, nobody had told him yet. Marcel was just terrified of Ares, as he should be.
Marcel left the tavern and disappeared into the woods in wolf form, carrying his clothes and phone in his mouth.
I turned back to Elijah and grabbed his hand. “What will you do?”
“What my pack does best,” he said. “Find information. Study Tony. Figure out who has the stone.” He grasped my hand tighter in his, smiling over at me. “Ares is taking good care of you?”
I nodded my head, thinking about earlier at his father’s house when I’d told him that I loved him. The words had come out so quickly yet so naturally. I barely knew the man, but I already knew that I couldn’t wait to spend my entire life with him.
“You have that spark in your eye,” he said, lips curling into a smirk. “The same one that Jeremy always used to have with me.” He paused for a moment, staring deeper at me. “You love him, don’t you?”
My cheeks flushed. I had never felt this way before about anyone, except Jeremy and maybe Dad. Everyone in my previous pack loved me, and I loved them, but they always treated me differently. They didn’t love who I really was; they didn’t see me for me; they didn’t feel the pain I went through during each shift. They saw the fake me.
Ares had seen the real Aurora, and he had loved every moment with her.
I just hoped that it would stay that way.
After another sip of his drink, Elijah gazed out the window in the direction of the cave. “When Jeremy told me that he loved me for the first time, he brought me to that cave in the north. It was in the middle of a snowstorm, twelve degrees Fahrenheit. We slept there that night in the freezing fucking cold, had frozen beer, and, Goddess, it was the best night of my life.”
“Have you been back?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not since he died. Heard it was taken over by hounds.”
I brushed my thumb against his, hoping that the motion would lighten the mood. “I have a question to ask you.”
Glancing back at me through his new black-framed glasses, he nodded. “What is it?”
“When we find that stone, I need your doctor to implant it into Ares’s sister,” I said.
Taken aback, he pulled his hand out of mine and shook his head.
“Please, she has cancer and is going to die soon. He has tried everything to find it.”
“Aurora …” he said. “I want to find that stone for you, so you can shift and be whole again.”
“Then … you really won’t like this request,” I started, grasping his hand again and squeezing it tightly. “If one half of the stone doesn’t cure her, I need you to remove mine.”
“No,” he said with finality. “I’m not doing that. I’m not going to risk your life for hers. I don’t even know her, and I promised Jeremy that I’d always keep you safe, no matter what happened to him or to him and I.”
“Please,” I begged. “She means everything to him.”
“Did Ares put you up to this?”
“No, he’s against it too. He doesn’t want me to sacrifice my quality of life for her, but … she’s everything to him. And I want to see her healthy and happy. Promise me that you’ll do it. Please. He’s just trying to help his sister survive. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same for Jeremy.”
He paused for a long moment, a grim expression crossing his face. “I don’t like this.”
“But you’ll do it,” I said, hopeful.
He tilted his head downward a few inches, and my heart leaped in my chest.
I held out my pinkie. “Promise me that you won’t tell Ares. He would hate me for it.”
He wrapped his pinkie around mine. “I promise.”
Chapter 34
Mars
Aurora loved me.
I washed off the last of my plate in the sink and grinned to myself.
She loved me, and maybe she loved Ares too.
Liam walked into the kitchen and placed his plate on the counter.
Charolette followed him with her hands on her hips. “So, you’re not going to stay?” she asked him.
He pushed some hair out of her face and smiled down at her. “I have an early morning tomorrow, sweetheart,” he said.
I glanced at him and felt myself smile a bit wider. Everything seemed to be as Mom had always wanted it to be.
We were happy.
Charolette had a good man who loved her, someone who had been there with her since she was diagnosed with cancer. They weren’t mates, but from what I had seen, he treated her well.
And I had Aurora.
Liam nudged my shoulder. “Later.”
After he disappeared into the living room with Charolette, Dad squeezed my shoulder from behind and stared at me through the reflection against the window. “I haven’t seen you this happy in years, Mars,” he said. “Hell, I haven’t seen you in a while, only Ares. I can see Aurora’s doing something to you, son.”
My smile widened even more, and all I could feel was happiness for once in my life. The pain
