Chapter 33 Harper #2
Ahead of us, Ares lifts his own parcel to his lips.
His throat works hard around the swallow, the tense bob of his Adam’s apple making it seem like he hasn’t had water in hours, or like he never learned to drink without bracing for something worse.
The sight pulls at me unexpectedly. I reach for the strap at my side, fingers brushing the fabric of my tunic.
Nothing.
“Fuck.” The word slips out before I can rein it in. My hand drags over my forehead, pushing damp hair back as I try to calculate where along the trek the parcel must have fallen. The exhaustion already crawling through my limbs makes my heart sink further.
Before I can push myself to stand, a hand appears in my periphery, Ares’s hand, holding out his own water, arm extended without flourish, without impatience, without expression.
Just an offering. He stands quietly, the line of his body steady in a way that contradicts the sharp edges of his reputation. He simply waits.
I hesitate only a breath before taking the parcel from him.
The water floods my mouth in cool, slow waves, a relief so instant it feels like a spell.
I force myself not to drain it entirely.
When I’ve had enough, I twist the cap back on and extend it back up toward him, my fingers brushing his for the briefest moment.
“Thank you.” The words leave me soft, sincere. Too sincere.
His gaze meets mine, cool and unreadable, but not dismissive. Something passes between us, an unspoken question, a quiet pull. My own curiosity rises before I can swallow it back.
“What did you mean?” The question leaves me low, cautious.
Ares tilts his head, expression muted. “In regard to what?”
“You know what,” I press, searching his face. “When you said, ‘They wouldn’t have let you speak to me if I hadn’t.’ What did you mean by that?”
He tightens his grip on the canister, the small movement almost imperceptible. Tension gathers at the hinge of his jaw, just enough to confirm he regrets saying anything at all.
“You really are so na?ve.” The remark isn’t cruel. It’s bewildered. Like he can’t fathom the gap between what I think I know and what he’s lived.
A quiet beat stretches. Then another.
“I’m going ahead,” he announces abruptly, slipping back into that impassive shell of his. “Checking for poacher traps. I’ll return in a few minutes.”
He turns away before I can respond, stepping back onto the trail. His shoulders stay rigid for several paces, as though my question lodged itself beneath his skin. The forest seems to swallow him one shadow at a time until he becomes part of the landscape.
Poppy clears her throat softly beside me, but my gaze remains pinned to the direction he disappeared.
Because no matter how hard I try to pretend otherwise, a part of me already knows, whatever Ares meant by that warning?
It was not meant for my ears alone.
He leaves us for several minutes, long enough that the forest feels emptier, quieter, as though the trees themselves wait for his return.
Poppy distracts herself by gathering the tiny wildflowers that grow in the mossy roots around us, arranging them in a careful nest in her palms. When she sits beside me, those flowers end up woven into my hair with gentle, deliberate movements.
Her fingers tremble. Whether it’s nerves or excitement, I can’t quite tell.
“Did you seriously just meet him?” she asks at last, her voice pitched low, as if Ares might materialize behind a tree at the mere sound of his name. She tucks a little purple bud above my ear, then another. My body leans into her touch before I realize it.
“Me, yes,” I say softly, watching her hands work. “But Liam… I have a feeling he’s known Ares longer than he lets on.”
Poppy circles around me, combing gently through a tangle with her fingers. Her breath warms the back of my neck. “Sebastian looked furious earlier when his name came up. I thought for sure he’d drag you in the opposite direction. I’m surprised he let you come out here.”
That word, let, hits wrong. It lodges under my ribs, sharp and unwelcome.
“He didn’t ‘let’ me do anything,” I say, too quickly. “I chose to come.”
She pauses, her hand going still in my hair. The concern in her eyes softens into something like apology. She lays her palm lightly on my knee, grounding, gentle.
“I wasn’t trying to upset you,” she says quietly.
“You didn’t,” I murmur, though my voice betrays me. “I’m just… tired of feeling like I belong to someone.”
The truth is bitter, so bitter it surprises me. She squeezes my leg, a small, warm gesture of comfort, but before she can reply, a shadow falls over us.
“The more you believe you belong to someone,” Ares says from behind, “the more true it becomes.”
I go rigid. Poppy jerks her hand away, startled. Neither of us heard his approach. He must have doubled back silently, or the forest simply parted for him.
He stands a few paces away, arms crossed loosely, posture relaxed in a way that never quite hides the tension coiled underneath.
His eyes drift, not to me at first, but to my hair, where Poppy’s flowers sit woven like fragile declarations.
Something unreadable flickers in his stare, brief and burning.
I rise to my feet too quickly. Poppy follows, flustered.
“I found their camp,” Ares says, gaze shifting between us. His tone is steady, flat. “About a hundred yards out. It’s crowded. You two still have time to back out.”
“I’m not backing out,” I answer, the decision solidifying the moment it leaves my mouth. “Not now.”
His lips tilt, not quite a smile, not quite approval, but something that tightens the air between us.
“I know,” he says. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
The smallest shiver moves through me at the implication. It shouldn’t. I hate that it does.
Poppy, cheeks flushed, squares her shoulders like someone trying to be braver than she feels. She steps forward, hand brushing the grip of her wand.
“Lead the way,” she says.
Ares nods once, pushes aside a dense curtain of brush, and holds it open for her. She slips through, her braid snagging on a branch before she frees it gently. I move next, stepping toward the tight opening as he waits.
He doesn’t step back.
When I pass him, his body moves with mine, close enough that the brush drags across both our arms, catching fabric and skin alike. Thorns nip at my forearm; the heat of him radiates at my back. Neither of us makes a sound. It feels like stepping through a doorway built from tension.
When we emerge on the trail again, most of the flowers Poppy wove have fallen, forming a scattered trail behind us. One blooms stubbornly near my temple.
Ares notices it instantly.
He plucks a crushed blossom from the front of his shirt, one that must have landed there when we squeezed through the bramble. Then he steps toward me, slow and unhurried.
His fingers lift the remaining flower from the fragile hold of my hair. For a second I think he means to toss it aside, but instead he tucks it back, this time with meticulous care. His knuckles skim my cheek. More intimate than a touch that brief has any right to be.
His fingers hover a moment longer than necessary. His eyes flicker, a flash of molten gold, pulse-bright, so quick I almost doubt I saw it.
Then the mask settles back over him. The unreadable calm. The neutrality that makes everything more dangerous.
He steps away.
“We move now,” he says, voice steady again. “Before they shift positions.”
But the ghost of his touch remains.
And despite the cold shadow of what waits ahead, despite everything I should fear, something low in me thrums to life, heat threading through my veins like a warning, or something far worse.