Chapter 43 Harper #2
He scoffs, amused. “I like to think I’m one of the funniest people I know.”
“Really. Hard to imagine you as the life of the party.”
He leans forward slightly, gaze dipping into mine as if he means to press straight through me. “I can have plenty of fun, Harper. You just have to know me well enough to see it.”
My stomach flutters, an unsteady, traitorous thing. But before I can form a response, another thought crashes into my mind, unwelcome and unstoppable.
“Why did we never speak in the manor?” I ask. “When I got older? Why… nothing?”
His mug hits the table with a quiet thud.
Ares goes still, so still I can see the pulse at his jaw. His hands tighten around the ceramic, knuckles whitening. The air between us shifts, thickens, shifts again. He doesn’t answer. Not immediately. Not at all, at first.
Then he stands.
No warning. No transition. Just abrupt movement as he reaches for his coat, shrugs it back over his shoulders, hides all that skin again beneath dark fabric. His gaze stays anchored anywhere but me.
“We did speak,” he says finally, quiet, almost pained. “It doesn’t matter now.”
He slips his hands back into his pockets, his posture closing off like a slammed door.
“I’ll meet you outside when you’re ready,” he adds, already turning toward the exit. “I need some air.”
He pushes the heavy oak door open without a single glance back, letting the bell above it chime mournfully as he disappears into the fading light.
And just like that, I’m alone at the table, staring at cooling icing and two empty chairs, wondering what the hell I just touched inside him.
I sling my bag over my shoulder, murmuring a rushed thank-you to Maggie as I push out the door after Ares.
The bell above me chimes, faint compared to the pulse thrumming in my ears.
The street outside is crowded, but he isn’t hard to spot, his dark coat cuts through the warm glow of the shopfronts like a blade.
He turns sharply into an alleyway. I move faster.
By the time I reach the alley’s mouth, he’s leaning against a brick wall, one boot braced behind him, a lighter flicking open and shut in his hand. A tiny flame blinks into life, then snaps out again. His thumb repeats the motion like it’s trying to bleed tension out of him.
“Ares.” His name leaves me harsher than intended, scraping along the tightness in my throat.
He lifts his gaze. The lighter clicks shut. “Harper,” he exhales, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “Just… give me a second to think.”
“No,” I snap, stepping closer. “You drop some half-truth in my lap, then walk out like being near me physically burns you. What was that about?”
A breathy, humorless laugh escapes him. “Maybe I can’t stand you.”
“Say it to me while you’re looking at me.”
His head jerks slightly, startled. “What?”
“Look at me,” I repeat, lifting my chin. “And say you can’t stand me.”
He does turn, slowly, those blue eyes locking onto me with a force that kicks my pulse into overdrive. His mouth opens, ready to lie, ready to hurt, ready to push me away. But something falters. Something deep. His pupils flare.
“What are you doing?” he mutters, voice strained. “Why do you keep… pushing? Why do you have to make everything so much more-” He breaks off, fingers threading through his hair with raw frustration.
“More what?” My voice rises despite my best efforts. “Complicated?”
“Yes,” he snaps. “Complicated. You keep pressing, and it makes me think, for one second-” His breath shudders out. He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“That for one second what?” I demand. “You’re the one who keeps finding me. You’re the one who looks at me like you already know me. How is that my fault?”
Some kind of heat overtakes him, something he fails to hide. He steps toward me. One step. Two. Until my back presses against the cold brick wall and he’s close enough that his breath skims my cheek. His hands brace on either side of my head, caging me in shadow and tension.
His voice drops low. Rough. “I don’t know you. And you don’t know me.”
My heartbeat thunders against the stone behind me. Anger rises, sharp and sudden, and I shove him. Hard. He stumbles a step back, shock flashing across his face before it shutters away.
“You found me,” I say, chest tight. “You keep showing up and tearing apart every belief I’ve ever had.
When I thought my father was going to punish you for something I caused, I couldn’t breathe.
And now you’re standing here acting like I’m the one tormenting you.
” My voice cracks. “You’ve been in my head for days, Ares. Days. How is that fair?”
His expression fractures, just briefly. Pain flickers there, something raw enough to scare us both.
“You have no idea what torment is,” he murmurs, voice hollowing out as he looks past me, somewhere far beyond the alley. “Imagine years of seeing the pers-”
His throat locks. He cuts himself short, inhaling sharply as if the next word might slice him open. The hand he lifts to his neck trembles before he replaces the mask over his face.
“What just happened?” I ask quietly, pointing at my own throat where his voice had faltered.
“We’re losing daylight,” he says without answering, already turning toward the alley’s mouth. “We need to train.”
“No,” I press, moving after him. “Ares, how did you know my favorite color?”
His entire body stiffens, a rigid, violent halt. He doesn’t turn. Doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t blink.
“What are you talking about?” His voice is flat. Too flat.
I kneel, ripping open my bag until my fingers find the smooth edge of leather. The sketchbook. I stand and shove it into his chest. He catches it automatically, flipping through the pages with growing alarm.
“Where did you get this?” His voice is sharper now, cutting through the space between us.
He stops on the drawing of me, the flower behind my ear, the softness in my eyes I don’t recognize. The inscription inked beneath it. His shoulders tense like the words themselves wound him.
My heart hammers. His breath stutters.
And for the first time since meeting him, Ares looks shaken.
“It doesn’t matter, how do you know-” The words barely pass my lips before Ares cuts the space between us.
He drops the notebook, closes the distance in two strides, and grips my chin in a hold that’s firm but not cruel.
His fingers press lightly along my jaw, tilting my face up until his eyes lock onto mine with startling precision.
“Where did you find this?” he asks, voice low and stern enough to freeze my breath.
My throat dries on instinct, everything in me tightening. “Under Sebastian’s bed.”
The reaction is immediate. Something sharp and gutted flashes across his features before he rips himself away from me.
He paces, short jagged strides that scrape tension into the air.
Then without warning he slams his fist into the brick wall.
The crack echoes through the alley. Dust showers down.
He stares at the cratered bricks like they offended him personally, pulling back a bloodied hand that trembles before he forces it still.
He drags in a breath, shoving his hair out of his eyes, the movement frantic and unsteady, nothing like the controlled, composed boy he performs in front of everyone else.
“You can’t go back to Vireldan tonight,” he says, voice strained.
“What? Ares...no. You don’t get to throw that at me without explaining. I need answers.” My voice shakes despite my effort to hold it steady.
He stares at his bleeding knuckles before speaking. “The last place I saw this sketchbook was in my room. In your father’s new manor.”
The words land like a blow. Cold.
“Why would Sebastian have it?” I whisper.
“I don’t know.” He shakes his head, jaw locked. “But it doesn’t matter. Nothing your father does is by accident. This-” he gestures to the notebook lying at our feet “-is a message.”
My skin prickles. “What message?”
His answer comes slowly, reluctantly. “That your father no longer has faith in me.”
He crouches, grabs the sketchbook, and flips to one of the pages. His expression hardens as he reads the scrawled threat, then he presses the notebook into my hands without looking at me.
“We’re playing by his rules now,” he murmurs. “No more promises.”
He leans back against the wall, letting his injured hand drag down the side of his throat, pain flickering across his eyes as he stares down the alley like he expects someone to step out of the shadows.
I lower my gaze to the page, breath stuttering as the words come into focus:
Times up, Parker.
I told you there would be a price for sticking your nose where it shouldn’t have been.
Stupid games call for stupid prizes. Guess that lynching didn’t teach you your lesson.
I’m coming for her next.
– A.S.
The alley tilts. My fingers shake so violently the sketchbook rustles like wings.
I lift my head and meet Ares’s eyes. There’s melancholy there, dark and bottomless, as if he already knows how all of this ends.
“What am I to you?” My voice breaks, but I don’t back away from the question.
His head shakes. “I don’t know,” he says, voice unraveling. “He won’t let me tell you. It’s all part of his game.”
“What game? We only met days ago-”
A laugh slips out of him, sharp and wounded. “Do you really believe that?”
Something inside me caves. I want to ask more, but the words refuse to shape themselves. My mind feels blank, scrubbed clean of logic by the force of everything he isn’t saying.
A shadow shifts over us, slicing the dim alley light, pulling both our gazes upward. A figure approaches, slow steps echoing off the stone. For a heartbeat my chest lightens.
“Liam?” I call, stepping forward instinctively.
His pace stops dead.
The way he stands, too still, too rigid, tugs at something primal in me. I take another step, clutching the sketchbook against my chest. Before I reach him, Ares’s hand clamps onto my shoulder.
His body shifts, shielding mine with his own, breath sharp as he reaches toward the knife hidden at his waistband. His stance is lethal, bracing for violence.
“What-”
“Don’t,” he growls, eyes never leaving Liam’s silhouette. “Not one step.”
“Ares, what is happening?”
His chest rises and falls in harsh, disciplined breaths. “We need to run.”
“Why?” My voice trembles. “Ares, why?”
He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t soften.
“Because that’s not your brother.”
Every drop of warmth drains from my bones.
And the alley suddenly feels too small for the thing standing in front of us.