Chapter 40 Ares
ARES
Andrew studies me with the kind of loathing that rots a man from the inside out.
He devours the room with his stare before settling it back on me, as if the mere sight of me slouched in one of his pretentious, gilded chairs is enough to sour his blood.
The irony is almost pleasant. For all his grandeur, his estate reeks of desperation, layers upon layers of spells woven into the walls, charms stacked so densely the air itself vibrates with them.
He hides himself in a tomb made of magic, terrified of ghosts of his own making.
Up close, I can see Harper in his eyes. Not in the warmth, he possesses none of that, but in the shape, the sharpness, the intent to dissect whoever stands in front of him. The resemblance dies there. Harper’s gaze holds storms she tries to cage. Andrew’s gaze is simply cruel.
“How,” he begins, voice low enough to masquerade as calm, “do you lose my daughter again, boy?” Each word sharpens as he advances.
“I send you to retrieve her and that foolish brother of hers, and instead I hear you used my blood magic to kill one of our own and drag my son back from the dead. You have no idea how much that drained me.”
He points at me with shaking fury. I roll my eyes just to watch the vein in his temple twitch.
“One of your idiots killed her brother,” I say lazily. “Nearly killed her. You wanted me to earn their trust. If I didn’t have it, I wouldn’t be standing here in one piece.”
His eyes thin to razors, sifting through the half-truth.
He senses the lie at the heart of it, that any trust I’ve earned from Harper and Liam wasn’t his to orchestrate.
It happened in spite of him. Because I wanted it.
Because I chose it. Because somewhere along the way, I stopped caring what he wanted at all.
“You’re cocky, Ares,” he says, stepping closer. “Arrogant. You’re as pathetic as that boy she can’t seem to stop sleeping with-”
The words hit like a fist to the gut, not from jealousy, no, just the sudden, visceral urge to carve the smugness off his face. My jaw tightens. He notices. Of course he does.
At my sides, the two men who escorted me into this charade shift their weight. Loyal dogs waiting for a command.
“Your daughter’s personal life is her own,” I say, rising slowly from the chair. Power coils beneath my skin, not enough to be reckless, but enough that both men beside me take a discreet half-step away.
Andrew grins. It’s an ugly thing, thin and satisfied. “I’d think you’d be more invested, given what you know about the Harwoods. Your task is simple, bring my daughter to me alive. Not corrupted. Not manipulated. Not learning to trust the wrong men.”
I tilt my head, letting the words settle. He’s hiding something. Harper’s fear of him runs deeper than scars. Whatever he wants of her, whatever he believes she’ll become, is something he’s refused to say aloud. I can taste it in the air between us.
“Are we going to stand here all night while you gossip about your children like some deranged housewife,” I say, voice dropping to a quiet hiss, “or are you planning to put on a show for these two idiots who dragged me in here?”
A laugh rumbles out of him, low and monstrous. The kind of laugh that precedes violence.
And I stand there, hands in my pockets, shoulders loose, staring back at the devil who thinks he still owns me.
Because the truth is simple.
He doesn’t.
Not anymore.
They seize me before I can brace for it.
Two sets of hands clamp onto my shoulders, fingers digging deep as though they intend to pry muscle from bone.
My shirt is torn open without ceremony, fabric ripped away until cold air scrapes down my spine.
My arms are wrenched to either side, heavy chains of magic pinning them where Andrew wants them.
I can feel the spell humming, eager to tighten if I so much as breathe too close to rebellion.
“It’s so unfortunate, Ares,” he says, strolling leisurely around me as if giving a speech to guests at a dinner party. “You continue to be so arrogant in light of all that you know.”
The men force my shoulders down another inch. A gesture meant to humble. They should know by now it never works.
“If I do this,” I say, steadying my breath, “you’ll leave them alone? All of your children’s companions?” The word companions tastes absurd given what Harper means to him and what he intends, but I use it anyway. Anything else reveals too much.
Andrew smiles, a sliver of pleasure glinting through cracked porcelain. “Maybe.”
His hand lifts. Skin ripples. Flesh rearranges. Fingers sharpen into hooked talons that gleam with a metallic sheen, each one curved with surgical precision. No matter how many times I watch that transformation, it still drags a chill through me, an echo from years lodged in his shadow.
The first slash comes without warning.
Pain cleaves through my back in a hot, immediate line, the talon carving deep enough to draw air from my lungs. I grit my teeth, refusing him the satisfaction of a sound. Blood runs quickly, warm against the cold air, slipping down my side before gravity claims it.
He leans close, breath brushing the raw skin he just opened. “I’m starting to think I’ve discovered another way to bring her here,” he murmurs. “Willingly.”
His talon cuts again, deeper. My muscles spasm. The chains rattle as my arms strain involuntarily against them. I stare at the floor, focusing on the grain of the polished marble, anything to steady myself against the familiar tide of pain.
His smile flickers in the corner of my vision. He enjoys this far more than he should.
“Let him go,” Andrew says abruptly.
The magic restraining me dissolves, leaving my knees buckling. I catch myself on the floor, palms braced against the tile, blood dripping between my fingers as the air stings the shredded flesh of my back.
A rag lands beside me. I don’t reach for it.
“Clean yourself up,” he says as if discussing dirt on my boots. “If you continue to fail me, you’ll never get back what you were promised.”
The words hit harder than the talons. They always do. Because he knows precisely what string to pull, what leverage to twist. And he knows I cannot walk away from it, not yet.
He saunters toward his table, plucks up a glass of whiskey, and tosses back a swallow with a sigh of appreciation. Then he walks behind me again, shadow swallowing light as he tilts the glass over my back and pours.
Liquid fire cascades down the open wounds. I hiss, fists clenching against the floor, forehead dropping forward until it nearly touches the tile. The burn is violent, merciless, crawling like a hundred needles beneath my skin.
“You don’t want an infection,” he says, tone almost tender, though the laugh that follows from his men tells the truth.
I remain still. Not because of obedience, never that, but because movement might betray the rising storm under my ribs. The storm that imagines wrapping talons of my own around his throat.
Andrew steps past me, brushing off his gloves as though the matter is finished. “I have a guest, if you’ll excuse me.”
He disappears down one of the many labyrinthine halls, swallowed by the house he built from secrecy and terror.
His men linger long enough to sneer down at me before trailing after him.
Silence settles. A blanket over a smothered flame.
I stay where I am, blood soaking the floor beneath me, shoulders trembling from the violence he pretends is discipline.
All I can see behind my eyes is Harper, her breath warm, her gaze steady, her palms blood-marked in mine.
And I imagine Andrew’s heart crushed between my fingers, dripping down my wrist like the whiskey he wasted on me.
HARPER
Sleep rips away from me in a violent jolt.
My breath stutters, caught somewhere between a scream and a swallow, and whatever nightmare I was drowning in dissolves before I can grasp even a corner of it.
Sweat clings to my spine, cooling too fast against the draft in the room.
Sebastian lies wrapped around me, half sprawled, half cocooned, his face buried in the pillow in that unguarded way he sleeps when he finally lets the world stop gnawing at him.
His hair is a dark tangle, his mouth parted, his lashes still dotted with dried tears from earlier.
Carefully, I slip out from beneath Sebastian’s arm.
His fingers twitch, as if reaching for me even in sleep, but he doesn’t wake.
The chilly stone floor steals the warmth from my feet as I crouch, searching for my shoes.
My hands move automatically, push aside a shirt, pull back a blanket edge, sweep my fingers under the bed frame.
There. A glimpse of worn leather.
I tug my boots free, but something else slides out with them, a corner of black. A notebook. Thin, well-handled, tucked far enough back to be hidden from anyone who didn’t know where to look. I freeze, glancing up at Sebastian’s peacefully slack face. Whatever it is, he kept it quiet.
Curiosity prickles through the exhaustion. Slowly, silently, I take the notebook in my hands and lift the cover.
The breath leaves me.
My face lives on the first page, drawn carefully, lovingly, as if he feared any harsh line might fracture me.
He sketched the curve of my mouth with painstaking precision, capturing the softness I hardly recognize anymore.
The dimples, the faint glow at the corner of my eyes.
He drew me as though I’m someone worth looking at. Someone who smiles.
The second page turns itself; my fingers are barely conscious of it.
More of me. Tiny stills, me tucking my hair behind my ear, me scrolling through a book, me glancing sideways as if I’d heard someone speak my name. Each one brighter than I ever remember feeling.
Then, Liam.