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
