“I’ll do it,” I said, intertwining my fingers with his. “Thank you for everything, Dr. …”
She gave me a warm smile. “Dr. Anand.”
After I thanked her again, we walked out of the hospital and toward our pack house. The entire way, Ares held my hand tighter than usual to his chest and stayed quiet while I battled with all the dark thoughts running through my mind. All I could feel was hurt at the thought of my mate not caring about himself.
Why hadn’t I taken this more seriously earlier? Why couldn’t I see that the man who dealt pain also felt pain? Why hadn’t I tried to talk about this with him? Charolette had told me about his self-harm. She’d told me, and I hadn’t done a thing about it.
When we got home, I drew him a warm bath. “Get in.”
He stared at the tub and then at me. “Only if you get in with me.”
“No,” I said, voice coming out more stern than I’d intended. “Get in the tub.” He parted his lips to protest, but I didn’t want to fight with him about this. “Now, Ares. Don’t make me say it again.”
After a few moments, he pulled his shirt over his head, pushed down his shorts, and stepped into the water. “Can I take a shower?”
“Sit.”
When he finally submerged himself in the water, I knelt outside the tub, grabbed a soapy washcloth, and started to wash the blood off him. And when the water turned a musty red shade, I opened the drain and let more fresh water fill the tub. Dipping my feet into the bath with him, I sat on the edge and grabbed his arm, running the cloth against his forearm and seeing all those tiny little scars that I hadn’t noticed before.
They weren’t scars from a physical battle but a mental one.
I pressed my lips together, an overwhelming sadness washing over me, and tried not to burst out into tears. Ares was broken, more broken than I’d originally thought. He’d hurt himself willingly.
He followed my gaze and then pulled his arm away from me. “I’ll do it.”
“No,” I said. I pulled his arm back to me, brushed the rag against it more gently, and washed away the blood from the battle yesterday morning. And then I pressed my lips to his scars. “I love you.”
I knew that it wouldn’t make everything better. I knew I alone couldn’t heal him. But I could let him know that I would always be there for him, through the thick and the thin and through everything that might happen. I would always try to make him happy and make him smile, wash the hurt off of him when I could, and love him with everything that I had.
Suddenly, his eyes widened and filled with tears. He grabbed my arm, his fingertips digging into my wrist until they turned white. “I-I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you, Aurora.” Almost as if he was too weak, his fingers slipped from my arm, and his body started to tremble in the water. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
“Oh, Ares,” I whispered, stroking his hair to try to calm him down.
But he didn’t stop shaking. Beads of sweat formed on the back of his neck, and I could hear just how quickly his heart was racing.
I stripped my clothes and sat behind him in the tub, pulling him into my lap, holding his head to my chest, running my hands through his hair. “Ares, it’s okay. I’m here.”
“I couldn’t protect you,” he repeated shakily.
“I’m here with you, Ares.”
“I couldn’t protect Mom either.”
After ten heartbreaking minutes of listening to Ares’s broken cries, he slowly stopped shaking. I held him tighter to my chest and let him play with my fingers.
“I could have protected her,” he finally said, tensing. “I could have, but I didn’t.”
I didn’t speak a word. I didn’t know what to say, and I wanted him to continue.
“She … she was raped. Nineteen years ago, she was raped by a hound,” he said, voice cracking. “Our pack was raided by a herd of them. She told me to hide in the closet and not to come out, no matter what I heard or what I saw. I didn’t know what was happening. I heard her screaming and crying and …” His chest heaved up and down, the water rippling violently around us. “I watched it happen through the closet door.” He parted his lips to speak, but no words came out. “I …” His voice was quiet. “I was five.”
My chest tightened. Ares’s mother had been raped by a hound, and Ares had watched.
“She had Charolette nine months later, but she wasn’t happy. Not truly happy, like she had always been. She tried to be happy with us.” He forced a small smile, teary eyes gazing off into the distance. “That picture at my dad’s house was taken four days before she killed herself.”
“Ares …”
“I found her … she was clutching the picture and the teddy bear that we keep in the toy room. I—” He let out a loud cry. “I hadn’t known she wanted to kill herself. I … I should’ve stopped it. I should’ve stopped it, but I didn’t. I didn’t. It’s all my fault.”
He shook uncontrollably again. Tears streamed down his face. Water sloshed over the side of the tub. I just held him tighter.
My heart ached for him. Ares wasn’t the man behind the spear and the shield. He was the spear and the shield, protecting Mars from whatever anguish and hurt he could possibly face. But no matter how strong his armor was … even Ares felt pain.
“Some days, I can’t handle it. I think about hurting myself again. I can’t help it,” he said, lips trembling. “Dealing with both sides of me … is really hard. I don’t want to lose anyone
