Chapter 33 Harper
HARPER
The forest swallows sound the deeper we go, a damp quiet that clings to our ankles and wrists like cold hands.
Shadows hang thick between the trees, a living curtain that narrows our visibility to only a few feet in any direction.
Every exhale comes out white in the chilled air, and the leaf mulch beneath our boots squelches from the constant drizzle the canopy can no longer hold back.
Ares walks ahead with the map held loosely between two fingers, its ink smudged beyond recognition in places, the parchment so damp it curls inward as if trying to protect whatever markings remain.
He studies it anyway, eyes flicking to it and then back to the vague path carved through the forest floor.
His wet shirt clings to his shoulders, outlining muscle and movement with every stride.
More tattoos wind up his arms, half-washed vines of ink blending with scars that glint faintly when he shifts.
I hadn't realized the extent of either until the robes came off. Poppy had showered him in so many compliments he eventually rolled his eyes and stripped the drenched garment off with a muttered curse, though the faint lift at the corner of his mouth betrayed the fact he didn’t hate the attention.
Moisture beads along the tattoo on my own collarbone. Ares noticed when I pushed my hair back earlier. His stare lingered for a fraction of a second, just long enough to feel like a thumb grazing skin, before he looked away, expression sealed shut again.
The silence stretches until I finally break it.
“How did you hear about these poachers?”
Poppy launches into her explanation, words bubbling out in little bursts of concern and poorly contained excitement. “Tavern talk in Anavris. Some drunk warlocks bragging about scoring big while holding up Narclux feathers. Everyone knew they had to be Shadeborne men…”
Ares snorts, a low exhale of disdain. “Which really means they’re Andrew’s men.”
The statement hits deeper than it should. It sinks somewhere low in my stomach, where old memories still rot. My father’s reach is spreading again. More towns. More people terrified into silence.
Poppy hesitates, then glances back at me with soft curiosity. “I don’t mean to pry, but… why didn’t you bring Sebastian? Or even Liam?”
Branches snap under my boots as I keep walking.
“They were preoccupied,” I answer at first, but even Poppy’s naive optimism can’t swallow that half-truth.
Ares doesn’t bother to cushion the blow. “She’s being modest,” he says, voice dropping into a silken mockery. “They accused her of lying. She didn’t like it. That’s what happens when you surround yourself with little boys who haven’t grown into their own damn shadows.”
My reaction is instant. “They’re more of a man than you’ll ever be.”
He stops walking.
The forest goes silent.
Even the leaves stop rustling.
Ares turns slowly, the map folding into his fist as he looks at me fully, none of the usual smirk, none of the detached amusement. Something darker moves behind his eyes. Something that feels like the moment before lightning splits a tree in half.
“Say that again,” he murmurs, voice stripped of its usual taunting edge. Just quiet, lethal focus. “Say it while I’m looking at you.”
Confusion flickers through me. “What?”
He takes one step forward. Then another. His tone cuts through the shrinking space between us.
“Don’t throw little barbs over your shoulder and walk away. You have something to say about me, Whitlock?” His gaze drags down my expression like he’s memorizing every twitch. “Say it to my face. Or don’t say it at all.”
Air thickens around us, damp and heated at the same time. My heartbeat thrums against my ribs hard enough that I swear he hears it. I meet his stare, but whatever boldness sparked earlier burns down to something unsteady now. Not fear. Not entirely. Just… too much of everything layered together.
“You’re-”
The words catch.
I falter.
My throat tightens.
“I’m not doing this with you,” I manage, hating the way my voice betrays its heat.
A slow, sharp smile curves his mouth, not playful, not cruel. Just knowing.
I push past him, snatching the map from his fingers. His body doesn’t move, but I feel his stare track me like he’s marking every step I take away from him.
He mutters something under his breath, something about “needing a break anyway” but his gaze lingers long enough for heat to crawl up my spine.
Poppy clears her throat, desperate to defuse the tension. “How long have you two known each other?”
I let out a dry laugh. “I met him a few days ago, right after he threatened to kill me in Anavris.”
Her smile freezes.
She waits for the punchline.
Realizes too late there isn’t one.
Ares doesn’t correct me.
Doesn’t offer excuses.
Doesn’t soften a thing.
He just watches me walk ahead with the map, his expression unreadable, his steps falling back in line a moment later, closer than before, close enough that I feel the drag of his presence like a warm, unspoken challenge just behind my shoulder.
Poppy lingers several steps behind us, her breath coming out in tiny excited huffs as Ares drags the hem of his shirt up to wipe the condensation from his face.
The fabric rises just high enough to expose the hard line of muscle along his abdomen, the faint crescent of another tattoo curling over a rib, and the moment I catch even a glimpse of it, my gaze jerks away so sharply it almost aches in my neck.
It’s humiliating how instinctive the reaction is, how quickly I force myself to stare at the trees instead, as if bark and shadows can scrub away whatever heat that single glance sparked.
Behind me, Poppy makes a soft, breathy sound, the kind someone tries to disguise as clearing their throat but fails miserably at.
Any fear she had earlier, any lingering hesitation about murder or Shadeborne men, seems to have dissolved instantly at the sight of Ares’s stomach.
I can practically feel the swoon radiating from her like warmth off a fire.
It makes me want to roll my eyes, but I don’t trust myself to look back at him long enough to do it.
The deeper we walk into the forest, the heavier the air becomes.
Moisture clings to my skin, making every breath feel like I’m inhaling syrup.
Ares walks ahead with that maddeningly calm stride of his, map in hand, as if this place belongs to him and not to the creatures and spells hidden in its underbrush.
Poppy scrambles to keep up. I force my steps into something steady, though my pulse refuses to follow the same command.
“I was never going to hurt you,” Ares says, his voice drifting back to me like a slice through the quiet.
The tone is stripped of anything soft. No apology.
No remorse. No attempt at comfort. Just a fact he tosses out carelessly, as if expecting me to accept it simply because he said it.
I feel the irritation coil tightly in my chest, and a scoff cracks through my composure before I can swallow it back.
“Then why threaten me?” The words leave me sharper than intended, but there’s no taking them back.
For a while he says nothing. His boots keep moving, crunching through wet leaves, but there’s a shift in the air around him.
..a pause, a weight, a moment where I can tell he’s deciding whether or not I deserve an answer.
When it finally comes, it’s in a voice so level it makes the explanation sound like simple arithmetic.
“They wouldn’t have let you speak to me if I hadn’t.”
It hits harder than I expect, and yet it only complicates everything.
We walk again without speaking. The forest thickens, swallowing sound and light.
Branches knit together overhead, turning the narrow trail into something that feels carved from dusk.
Mist curls around our ankles. The smell of moss deepens, earthy and cold.
Even Poppy quiets, glancing between us as if afraid to interrupt something she can’t quite name.
Ares’s presence feels larger in the dark, an anchor point in the shifting shadows.
Every time he shifts his weight, I feel the movement like a pull.
Every time he lifts the map, the faint scrape of parchment seems too loud.
And though I refuse to look at him again, my senses map out the space he occupies with painful clarity.
The steady roll of his shoulders.
The slight hitch in his breath from the cold.
The residual heat radiating from him in the damp air.
We continue forward in a silence that doesn’t feel empty. It feels weighted, dense with unfinished arguments and unspoken confessions neither of us is willing to give voice to.
Poppy eventually drifts ahead, humming under her breath in an effort to break the tension, but Ares remains impossibly aware of everything behind him.
His stride slows just enough that I keep pace without effort.
His head turns slightly as though he can feel my attention darting between his back and the uneven path.
No one speaks again.
Ares never glances back.
He doesn’t need to.
He already knows I’m watching him, even when I try not to.
“It’s not much farther. We should all take a break for a moment,” Poppy murmurs, already sagging against a stump tucked into the brush just off the trail.
She downs her water parcel in a series of desperate gulps, then bends forward, plucking small forest flowers with shaky fingers as though the simple act steadies her nerves.
I follow her, lowering myself to the grass at her feet.
The cool blades press against my palms, grounding me while I tilt my head back and study the tops of the pines.
Their needles hang in a strange transition, no longer vibrant green, but not yet fully dead, a slow sickening pale creeping over them as the forest folds deeper into itself.
The air here feels thick, like it’s settling over us instead of moving through.