EPILOGUE
-Ares-
Brynn’s body arches with pleasure beneath my hands.
My gold throne cradles us both as I drive deeper into her, claiming what’s mine, her fingers digging into my shoulders, drawing blood that heals as quickly as it wells.
The pain is meaningless, a fleeting sensation that only enhances the pleasure, but there’s no greater pleasure than watching her face contort in ecstasy, her eyes flashing with the same fire that drove me to her from the first moment.
My little curse. My greatest conquest.
I grip her hips tighter, angling her on top of me to take me deeper, and her moans echo against each artifact in this room, the sound much more precious than the gathered wealth surrounding us. I’ve conquered nations with far less satisfaction, than I feel watching her break in my arms.
“You’re only mine,” I growl against her throat, my teeth scraping the tender skin there, exactly where her pulse races.
Her response is to tighten around me, her body clenching with so much pressure that I nearly lose my control. Every second, she challenges me, matches me. And that’s exactly why she’s the only one worthy to share my throne.
Her head falls back, exposing the vulnerable line of her throat. The kind of surrender that costs nothing and gives me everything. Because the fragility of mortals has never been so arousing or so precious.
I move, driving upward, my fingers sliding along her ribs until I feel them. The final two scars that mark her skin. The last two remnants of her former torturer, the man who now exists as little more than a specimen in my laboratory—a place where he learns what hell really feels like.
His marks have no place on her body. Not anymore. Not ever again.
I slow my thrusts, my palm sliding over the scars on her back, right where the ribs end.
She notices the change in rhythm immediately, and I can see the questions in her eyes as they meet mine.
I don’t need to tell her what I’m about to do. She already knows, we’ve been here before. I can feel her body tensing with anticipation.
My muscles tighten beneath her, all parts of me becoming larger, and she lets out a moan as my cock pushes stronger against her walls. I focus on turning one of my fingernails longer, similar to a short claw. And then I take what’s mine.
Two more cuts. Not enough to hurt her, just enough to erase what was there. Her pain. Her past. Just enough to give her everything I have to offer. Because she won’t bear just my mark. She will bear my crown. Be my equal, and one day she will even bear my children.
I feel her body respond, a shiver running through her and getting her to clamp all around me.
“Feel that. You are being remade,” I whisper, without stopping my thrusts. “Into something completely mine.”
My free hand slides to cup her breast, my thumb circling the small piercing there.
And then the other moves to the second scar.
“Now you wear only my marks.” The last word is punctuated by the taste of her lips as I kiss her with everything I have.
Not just madness, and lust, but the most precious thing I have—love.
She kisses me back, and at the same time, cries out. Her back is arching, her body clamping down around my length with so much force that my vision blurs momentarily.
I don’t stop moving. On the contrary, I drive into her harder, as her response matches mine in perfect sync, rising and falling in counterpoint to my thrusts.
One of her hands is wrapped around my neck while the other grabs the ornate backrest of the throne, as she leverages herself against me.
“Ares,” she gasps, and my name on her lips is the only pledge I’ll ever need.
My hand slides between us, my thumb finding the sensitive bundle of nerves, as she curls.
She’s already over the edge. This will just send her spiraling into the abyss.
I move my finger just a couple of times before her thighs tense and her internal muscles are fluttering around me as she approaches another orgasm.
“My perfect little curse,” my free hand is tangling in her hair, pulling just hard enough to tilt her face to mine. “Let me see how badly you need your god.”
Her eyes lock with mine, and there’s still defiance, mixing with the surrender. That’s what I love about her.
And then she lets out a sound so broken, so raw, so amazing that some mornings I wake up just to hear it.
I follow her over the edge, gripping her hips as I slam her against me for one last time and empty myself inside her, marking her in the most intimate way possible. My vision flashes dark, power, and something, not quite from this earth, surging from me as my pleasure reaches a new peak.
We remain joined, her body slumped against mine, her short gasps betraying her mortality. My fingers move again over the new wounds. The last time I’ll hurt her. The last time she’ll suffer because of me.
Long minutes pass before she moves, and when she does, her fingers trail along my jawline, then move to my hair, tracing a few loose strands.
A few of my warrior braids have come loose, and I didn’t give Brynn time to braid them back together.
I used to have someone do them for me. But ever since we’ve returned from McAllister’s estate, Brynn’s been braiding them.
I have to admit, sometimes I ruin a few of them just to feel her fix them again.
And judging from the shift in her position, that’s what she’s preparing to do.
“At my feet,” she orders, much more serious than she really is. But I play along, and lift her into my arms, then set her back on the throne as I take a seat next to it right at her feet. Right where she wants me.
But she doesn’t remain there. She jumps to her feet in front of me, unashamed, without the slightest intent to hide her nudity. Then she runs to grab her pants, or more likely, something from a pocket.
“I have something for you,” she says, almost clumsily.
“A gift?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. “Should I be concerned?”
She smiles, then closes her hand and makes three quick steps over scattered artifacts until she’s right back on the throne. “Yes, you should.” She chuckles, and it’s not often she does that, and sometimes I’d do anything just to hear it.
I turn to look at her, but she pushes my face away so that my back is to her.
Then, she grabs a few strands of my hair and starts playing with them, braiding them together.
“I went to this place downtown,” she says, her fingers still weaving through my hair.
“Some kind of potion, crystals, stones, and all kinds of weird things shop. Like a witch shop. Which I don’t believe in.
” She makes sure she adds as her voice gains some kind of defensive tone.
“Of course, you don’t,” I laugh because there’s so much she needs to learn about this world. Not witches in particular, more like powers and energies she doesn’t understand yet.
“It’s not the magic that I care about… more like the symbolism,” she extends her hand in front of me, opening her fingers to reveal what she’s been hiding.
A metal cuff meant for braids, and at its center, a black onyx stone frames a blood red garnet.
“The one who sold it to me said the garnet stone is used to tie another person, a warrior in my case,” she explains.
Her voice becoming uncharacteristically unsteady.
“While the onyx seals the bond.” She makes a small pause.
“It seemed fitting for you, but if you don’t want it... ”
This time, I do turn to look at her.
“I mean, I was thinking you could wear it. Like you could have something of … mine. Like I’m wearing your marks.
” She stops to look at me, and since my poker face doesn’t betray anything, she panics.
“Okay, but it’s not a mark,” she says, much more rushed, almost apologetic.
“Fuck. Forget it. This was a bad idea. Just forget this ever happened,” she mutters, trying to stand up.
But I wrap an arm around her legs, making her sit down on the throne.
I don’t say anything for a few short seconds because I just can’t help myself from feeding my ego with the desperation in her eyes, but then I let a smile rise to my lips.
“I fucking love it.” I grab one of her hands and put it to my lips to kiss it.
“And I couldn’t be more proud to wear your mark.
” I look at her, serious this time, and I can spot the moisture that’s gathering in the corner of her eyes.
“Okay, turn around so I can do this,” she turns my head, more by force than willingly, but I let her.
She doesn’t handle her emotions well, maybe she never will. I understand, because I’m not all that different. But people like us don’t really need words. We express what we feel, what’s inside, differently. Through acts, through touches, through gestures that say more than a thousand words.
She starts braiding again, telling me I should stay still so I won't ruin her work— like that could distract me from the real meaning of this.
But suddenly, she breaks the silence, picking up right where she left off.
“The woman said the stone carries what she called the curse of love,” she says, trying to keep her voice even, but I can’t help myself from turning my head and look at her at the word curse.
“You’re the one who called me your little curse.
I thought it was... appropriate.” This time, she says much more relaxed.
But I don’t turn my head back. I watch her as she finishes the braid, one that falls right behind my ear and down on my shoulder, then she slides the cuff onto the braid, carefully working to fix it there so it will never fall off. Because I’ll never take it off.
The small jewelry weighs almost nothing, but I feel its weight, grounding, and tying me to the only woman I’d give even immortality for. I marked her, now she’s marked me in return.
The sensation of being tied to one single soul is so strange, so foreign to me before, yet so addictive.
I keep my head tilted back against the throne, resting on her thighs as she works on my other braids. My eyes are half-lidded, but I can still spot the satisfaction in her gaze. She knows she owns me now, but in fact, she’s owned me since the day I first saw her.
She’s not done, but I’m not exactly the most patient man, and I reach up, my fingers exploring the cuff that decorates my braid. The silver feels strange, and I feel the smooth stone beneath my fingers.
In reality, I don’t need a stone to tie me to her. I’m tied to her in ways no mortal can explain. Because supreme beings form supreme bonds.
“Do you really like it?” she asks, and beneath the casualness of her tone, I sense uncertainty again.
“In my whole existence, I’ve never accepted a binding. I never accepted being tied to someone. Besides, all bindings are dangerous.” I look at her and trace the line of her jaw with my thumb. “Especially those given freely.”
She flinches her nose, but I draw her to me and kiss those lips that just pouted. I kiss her hard, giving the answer my lips are too busy to say out loud. When I pull back, her lips are swollen, and her eyes burn again with desire.
“But now… I don’t think I’ve accepted a curse more willingly,” I say, keeping her face inches away from mine. And I know she understands the significance of what she’s done, of what I’ve allowed her to do.
Gods don’t wear the marks of mortals with ease.
She dismisses the moment again, like when things get too heated, she pulls back before she says things that will haunt her introverted nature for the rest of her life.
She continues to braid my hair. There are a couple left, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so light, so free.
Still, no matter what I do, no matter what happiness she brings me, there’s something dark looming over all of us.
The danger isn’t over. Even though we got rid of Whitlock, Ashford, and McAllister, along with his hunter friends, I still have a bad feeling it’s only begun.
There are more like McAllister, more who know about us.
We already knew about their existence from when, one of my brothers was shot a few months ago.
We just hoped they were just a few fanatics, playing with powers they didn’t understand.
But this is larger, more powerful than we were expecting.
They’ve got weapons that they can use against us.
And I can already hear the sounds of war.
These are rare moments of peace, and I’m not gonna let them be disturbed by an invisible threat.
I am the God of War. Threats have always loomed above me, since the beginning of time.
But now... now I have beside me my warrior princess…
who I think just finished my braids because I feel her changing positions and slipping from the throne to come into my lap.
Before I know it, she straddles me again, moving her fingers up and down my chest and searching for my gaze like she’s expecting me to say something. Like a conclusion to what she’s done. She’s waiting to see if this is truly real.
And I could say a lot of things, all true.
That one day I’ll make her my immortal bride, even though we never discussed such possibilities, and she doesn’t even yet dare to dream of them.
She doesn’t even know that immortality is possible for her, doesn’t know that gods can share their lives with a chosen half.
But the idea of watching her age and die while I remain unchanged is unbearable.
I pull her closer until her breasts are pressing against my chest, and I feel myself harden for her again. But she doesn’t need just this. Just the coupling of our bodies isn’t enough. She deserves everything. I won’t let her live with the uncertainty. And nothing beats a promise made by a god.
“One day, I’m gonna make you my eternal warrior queen.”