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027 | SNOW AND SIN
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2024-10-29 19:42:56I felt strangely nervous about showing Ares my bedroom. I had no real reason to – after all, it was far nicer than the cold grey stone and the views of endless snow that made up his chambers in the mountain, but it was another piece of me that I was offering up to him.
He already had too large a part of my soul held in his heart. Every time I revealed something new about myself, he took it and claimed it as his own. Damn mate bond.
I bit back a sigh and pushed the door open.
I half expected him to make a sarcastic remark or, at the very least, smirk at me. Instead, he stepped inside quietly – even taking small, timid steps – across the floorboards, and said nothing as his gaze roved over my belongings. My space. My home.
It was tidy in a way that spoke of my absence: the blanket folded over the end of my bed just-so; the chair tucked in under the wide wooden desk; the books stacked neatly on their shelves, rather tha
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Alpha Ares 028 | UP IN SMOKE
I stared at him and he stared back at me. Our noses brushed; we were so close I could hear every shaky inhale of breath he took and every thump of his heartbeat. He eyed me ravenously, as if I were another meal he could never get his fill of. I remained unguarded, the walls I had so meticulously built to keep him out catching fire in the heat of his burning blue gaze.He swallowed noisily. I watched as his throat bobbed. Stars, he was handsome. He made me dizzy in all the best ways – although that might have been the concussion. If I even had one. It was a convenient excuse, so I decided I most definitely did.My morals went up in smoke as his lips brushed mine.“I’m not pretending,” he murmured, his breath warm and his lips soft. A shiver ran through me. “You have claimed me, heart and soul. I did not think it possible, Haile, but despite all odds I find myself consumed by you. That is why…”“Why what?&rdq
Alpha Ares 029 | AN ALLIANCE OF FOES
For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel safe in my own home.I held Ares’s hand as we walked down to the meeting room. The back of my neck bristled with tension at the simple touch; I felt as though every Blue Moon wolf that passed us was judging me for it. Thoughts of Tarar and Stede clouded my usually logical mind, turning friends into foes everywhere I looked.But I ignored the hateful whispers, imagined and real, as clusters of Omegas slunk past us. Because Ares and I had agreed to pretend and, judgement aside, it was far too easy for me to do so. It didn’t feel like we were pretending – and that terrified me.Ares squeezed my hand. I glanced up at him through my lashes, my cheeks warming as I met his intense blue gaze.“Are you ready for this?” he murmured, his gravel-and-honey voice catching in his throat.I lifted my chin. Ready to listen to his lies? Yes. Ready to ignore everything that came ou
Alpha Ares 030 | A SOUL AT WAR
“You know,” Ares said, his deep voice unusually soft, “I would do anything for you, beautiful.”My heart swelled and my stomach churned – the same nauseating duo that I had become all too accustomed to as of late. It had followed me back from the Blue Moon Pack, all the way up into the mountains of Winterpaw Warrior. My body and mind were at war, my heart and soul lost to conflict, and I was left to pick up the pieces. A muscle in my jaw ticked. Stupid mate bond.I couldn’t be honest to him – couldn’t say that I knew he was lying. So I forced my lips into a smirk and put a hand on my hip, and leaned back to survey him as I said, “I do know. You called a retreat when your pack had the upper hand in battle. I’d say that counts as a pretty big anything, Ares.”He reclined further on the bed and patted the empty space beside him. Joy and irritation sparked at his invitation; I shoved down the
Alpha Ares 031 | DUSK AT DAWN
“What happened, Haile?” Ares's voice sounded gentle – too gentle. I levelled my gaze at him across the table. We’d gathered in the council room, and I could feel Nazte and Cendres sending burning stares directly at my flushed face. My throat worked on a swallow. The fire behind me suddenly felt too hot – much too hot. I ran a hand beneath my collar. This was the first time I’d felt warm in Winterpaw, let alone boiling. The one saving grace for me was that this meeting intercepted neatly with morning training – meaning that Hans and Hanna, the Senior Warrior Wolves with seriously big sticks rammed up their backsides, weren’t able to come. Someone had to keep the pack running, after all. And cancelling morning training because of a murder would cause mass hysteria. It was such a terrible shame that they couldn’t come, I thought, struggling to keep my lips from twitching into a smirk. “I was running.” My voice sounded ca
Alpha Ares 032 | MY CRUEL ALPHA
Ares was nowhere to be found.I was on the cusp of giving up looking for him when I heard his raised voice bellowing from the Omega’s floor. My eyebrows pinched. What was he doing down there?I crept closer, coiling back down the staircase until I was hovering on the short landing by the guest room that I’d once called my own – if only for a matter of hours upon my arrival. I wrinkled my nose at the memory of the cold, damp, windowless room, but quickly shoved it aside. Ares’s voice was getting louder.My mood dampened further when I recognised the voice speaking to him. Her tongue clucked against the roof of her mouth. Luezza.“I stand by my actions, Alpha.”A smack of skin against skin rung out through the hallway, clear as a bell. I gasped - and clapped a hand over my idiotic mouth. Had he hit her?“Insolence will not be tolerated,” he growled, low and rumbling. &ldqu
Alpha Ares 033 | VENGEANCE
When I woke, Ares was gone. I stretched out in the bed. I felt better when he wasn’t around – more myself, less controlled by the damned mate bond. It was less no vocal, and it still pushed me to slide out of the warm bed and find him, but it was easier to ignore. We’d ended up cracking open a bottle of wine late into the night, and talking by candlelight until our voices had turned hoarse. We’d spoken of duty, of hope, and of loss. In the calm quiet of the night, my traitorous heart had fallen some more. And then we’d discussed the wolf I’d found that morning. It had stayed with me, lurking in the back of my mind as the first Warrior Wolf we’d found had. There was something so coarse about seeing a body not upon a battlefield. Although, I supposed, it was a different kind of battle. A darker one that played out with no honour. I picked up the copy of ‘Born Beneath the Wrong Star’ I’d discarded last night. I tried to focus on it, but my mind kep
Alpha Ares 034 | THE TRUTH OF THE LIE
My good sense slammed back into me, all at once. “Ares!” I cried, leaping up onto the platform behind him. I grabbed his forearm just before he grasped the man’s prone neck and yanked it back, making him stumble slightly.He glanced at me with a frown. “What is it? Do you want to kill this one?”I shook my head. I had to be honest. I couldn’t let innocent men die because of my lie. “I don’t recognise him, actually,” I hedged, gradually towing Ares back towards the edge of the wooden platform.Ares’s frown deepened, lines cutting into his brow and crinkling the corners of his too-damn-pretty blue eyes. “Well – have a closer look. Walk between them, Haile. Your attackers are here. I am quite certain of it.”“How do you know for sure? There must be hundreds of men that match that description…”He grabbed me by my wrists and hauled me back towards the men.
Alpha Ares 035 | FOR YOU
I couldn’t un-see it.Even now, as Ares towered over me, his broad shoulders and muscular arms caging me in, making me bow down beneath his rage, I could think of nothing but the bloodbath we’d left behind.The screams. I –I would never be able to un-hear those screams. Muffled, wet. Somehow, the fact that they hadn’t even been able to scream properly as they’d died had made it worse. That last piece of defiance had been stolen from them.Ares had yanked me inside, all the way up to his bedroom. My arm still ached and throbbed. I held onto that pain; I would take anything, a thousand times over, if only those men had not had to suffer.“Why did you lie to me?” Ares’s voice was more gravel than honey, now. I could feel the low vibrations rolling in his chest. “What purpose did that serve?”I lifted my chin. He would not steal me defiance from me as well. “I was wor
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Alpha Ares 141 | EPILOGUE
One year later I smoothed my hands down over my thick cloak. Nerves swarmed in my belly: not the dizzying kind that made me feel faint, but the sort that cast a hazy glow over everything as I walked along the winding woodland pathway. Torches flickered every few feet; orange roses of light bloomed across the mossy, dew-damp earth beneath my boots. “Nervous?” asked Dad. “A little.” I worried my bottom lip between my teeth. “It’s silly, I know. There’s nothing to be nervous about. I’ve been his Luna for the last year – longer, really – but this feels…” I trailed off, unsure how to word exactly how it felt. Official? Real? “It’s been such a long time coming, sweetheart.” “Yeah. Part of me wishes we’d done this straight after the battle, but it made sense to wait until the pack was remade.” Unable to help myself, a grin pushed hard at my cheeks. Everything looked beautiful today, I thought, the pine trees bottle-green beneath the golden setting sun. Everything was glazed with the
Alpha Ares 140 | COME TOGETHER
As everyone took their seats, Ares and I remained standing. I clutched at his hand: it was a physical reminder to everyone there that we were joined, that Winterpaw Warrior and Blue Moon were enemies no longer.I glanced at Ares, letting him take the lead. He swallowed, straightened his shoulders, and then smiled hesitantly around at everyone. The expression looked strange, uncertain, and it took me a moment to realise why. Ares never smiled at people when he addressed them. He led through fear and control. Not anymore, it seemed. My heart swelled.“Thank you all for coming,” he said, projecting his voice clearly and confidently across the room. “Luna Sienna and Alpha Rodriguez, of the Firepaw Pack.” He inclined his head at the dark-skinned woman my dad had been talking to before, and the bald-headed, well-muscled man sat beside her. They were both older than us by about fifteen years.The Alpha and Luna of the Storm Guardian Pack were older still, well into their fifties, their face
Alpha Ares 139 | KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE
Ares had given Dad the nicest of the Warrior Wolves’ cabins to stay in. When we arrived, Ares’s arm still latched securely around my waist as it had been every single step of the way, I saw two other familiar faces peering out at us through the window, their creased faces crinkling with smiles so wide I half feared their tissue paper skin might tear.The wind whipped between the cabins, making my eyes and cheeks sting. Dawn had long since settled across the horizon, pale pink fading into the usual white-grey cloud cover. Everything looked strange out here, unreal in a way I couldn’t quite process. I clutched at Ares, suddenly apprehensive as dad moved to let us in.My nerves dissolved as soon as set foot inside. We were both pulled into an embrace on all sides, many arms winding around us and holding us close.“You did it,” Nana Baspy whispered.I scoffed and, after another long moment, I pulled away. “I don’t think I can take any of the credit, Nana. I wasn’t even conscious for half
Alpha Ares 138 | SURRENDER AND SACRIFICE
The world shattered. For a time, it was nothing more than a series of fragmented images and distant, distorted sounds. I heard screaming, felt the tell-tale burning in my throat, but I couldn’t connect the noise to me. I was weightless, without a body, and then there was nothing but silent darkness.Words I couldn’t understand split apart the quiet. “It’s the other packs,” someone said excitedly. I recognised the voice, familiar enough but not someone I was close to. A hazy, half-formed image of a missing hand and foot beneath determined eyes and wispy blonde hair floated just out of reach, and I gave up trying to identify the mystery voice as they spoke. “Firepaw and Storm Guardian. They made it just in time. We did it! We survived.”No, we didn’t, I thought bitterly. Not all of us.“It’s not over yet.” That growl, gravel and honey – that was Ares. Something in me settled. But why had he shifted into his human body? That thought, along with all my others, drifted away, becoming nothi
Alpha Ares 137 | BATTLE OF THE MOUNTAIN
We were all so focused on Aliana that none of us heard the quiet tap-tap-tap of claws pacing the stone hallways of the Pack House behind us.And then Scillian smiled. Behind him, the Sable Stalker Alpha and Luna smirked, too, a cruel hook of their lips that made my blood boil; off to the side slightly, Bloodpelt Prowler’s Alpha grinned toothily. They were all so smug, so sure of themselves. So sure that they’d won.“What is this?” Dad asked flatly.“Oh, this?” Scillian brightened impossibly further as he gestured to Aliana. “A game.”“You wouldn’t hurt your own daughter.” Dad sounded less convinced about that than he had a minute ago. “Let her go, and let the battle recommence.”“My daughter is a traitor. And, worse than that: she was running from a fight.” Scillian scoffed. I watched his face closely as he walked, every stride slow and purposeful, towards Aliana. He caressed her cheek, but I looked beyond that. I searched out his eyes through the snowfall, and I found only adoration
Alpha Ares 136 | THE END OF US
I knew, deep down, that this was my last hurrah. I knew, deep down, that if it were not, I would’ve let the pain and the shock hold me back from fighting one last time. My body was weak, but I would not succumb to its needs. This was no ordinary battle, and I had never been one to give up.I felt the pain and let it make me stronger. Adrenaline surged through my veins. I would fight by my mate’s side, and I would try to make it mean something. That was all I could do, now.We neared the Pack House. The tension surrounding it was thick with foreboding; the stillness of the battlefield was somehow worse than when the air had been metallic with spilled blood and the snow melting from the heat of the felled bodies upon it. Now, fresh snow dusted the blood soaked fur of the dead, masking the worst of the atrocities that had been marked upon the land in stark pools of red.Everything was calm. Everything was quiet. Some dark premonition made the back of my neck crawl with the sense that, at
Alpha Ares 135 | BE AMONGST THE STARS
I was numb, inside and out, as I watched. My mind struggled to break free of the overwhelming melancholy, the agony so strong that the only way I could deal with it was to feel nothing at all.The cold helped. A bitter wind whipped between the boulders, sending snowflakes into a flurry. They turned my vision blurry: everything was black and white and grey again, as it had been in the time before Ares. Everything, that was, except for the blood.And there was so much blood.It was start against the pale backdrop of the mist and snow. A physical mark of violence, marring the purity of the white beneath. And, atop its own puddle of red, sat my ear. I shuddered every time my gaze drifted over it; it was the sort of thing I didn’t want to look at but also couldn’t look away from. It was grotesque, torn at a ragged angle, the flesh pink within – My lip curled. It looked so alien to me now, that missing piece of me. I couldn’t imagine how I looked, bloodied and battered, one ear gone. A sn
Alpha Ares 134 | HAUNTED
Claws ripped into me on both sides. I flung Elena off easily enough; she was so small that, even exhausted as I was from hours of adrenaline-fuelled fighting, it didn’t take much effort on my part to dislodge her. Distantly, I heard her pull herself to her paws again. But in this fight, both physically and in the heart of it, she didn’t matter. This was between Etta and I.I winced as Etta’s claws ripped free of my fur and flesh. Blood spat from the wound, hitting the snow and melting the ice surrounding it. I wrenched myself backwards, darting behind the nearest boulder and peering out around it. ‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked – no, I begged.‘I promised myself.’ Her mental voice was nothing like the one I remembered. Etta was often sarcastic and teasing, but there had been a warmth beneath even her cruellest of jokes that had dissipated after Damon’s death. ‘After you left, and after the attacks began. I had to do something for him.’‘Damon and I were friends.’ I edged backwards
Alpha Ares 133 | ON THE WINGS OF FATE
I’d made my choice when Ares mindlinked me. He sounded weak and weary, but very much alive. My heart leapt at the familiar sound of his voice, of gravel and honey, loosening the knot that had been pulling my chest taut ever since the battle had begun.‘I had to run, beautiful. There were too many of them, but I managed to get away.’That was all I needed to hear. I turned and shifted into my wolf form, preparing to race across the empty stretch of battlefield that had been left behind the attacking armies as they approached.‘Are you okay?’ I asked. There was one other thing I needed to hear, it turned out.‘I’m fine.’ I was pretty sure he was lying, but if he was well enough to lie then I didn’t have to worry about my mate too much. ‘Are you? What happened with Nazte?’‘Nothing. It was weird.’ I fell forwards, landing on paws and snapping my jaws. ‘He wanted to know how Cendres was. We just… Talked.’The cabin’s front door banged open behind me. I twisted around, catching sight of Na
