Come Here, Kitten (God of War Book 1), стр. 28
I pulled myself away and glared back. My mind was reeling. Anger. Violence. Pure adrenaline. But I wasn’t about to leave Ruffles without her proper necessities. I didn’t care what anyone said. She would always come first. She had found me when Jeremy died and stayed with me ever since.
“I came here for things, and I don’t plan on leaving without them.”
He growled under his breath, jaw twitching violently. “You just got attacked by a fucking hound. These things can wait.”
I flared my nostrils. “No, they can’t. Now, you’re going to wait while I get them.”
“Get what you need to get, but you’re not leaving my sight,” he said through clenched teeth.
After a few moments, I decided that he wasn’t kidding. “Fine.”
I frowned at my backpack that Charolette was clutching to her chest. Ruffles deserved more than to have no place to poop or pee. If I didn’t buy some litter soon for her, she’d start peeing all over Ares’s clothes, and then he’d have an allergy attack.
I swallowed hard. “Just … give me a second.”
I walked toward Charolette, holding my arm to stop the blood, but Ares followed. “And stay here, or you won’t be getting any breakfast tomorrow,” I said.
That’d teach him.
When I reached Charolette, she handed me my backpack. “Are you okay? I can take care of my brother for you, if you need me to. All he needs is a good kick in the ass when he gets too protective.”
“No,” I said, glancing back at him.
Ares raised a brow at me, a scowl set deeply on his face, and I pulled Charolette even closer.
“Ares doesn’t know about Ruffles. I thought he was just being an asshole when he told me not to bring her. Now, I have to hide her. I was going to hide her in one of his spare rooms and buy her litter, but he won’t let me out of his sight. Could you get some for me? I know this is a huge favor to ask of you.”
She smiled widely at me. “Ooh, I like you already.” She grabbed my hand, her manicured pink fingernails lightly digging into my palm. “He doesn’t usually go into the spare room, three doors down from his bedroom, the one with the yellow curtains. I’ll bring some litter and a litter box over and leave it in there tonight.” She grabbed my bag back from me. “I’ll bring Ruffles too. Spare room. Yellow curtains. She’ll be in there.”
I pulled her into a hug, squeezing her tight. “Thank you so much. I owe you my life.”
Chapter 15
Mars
When I’d found Aurora in her human form with a deep gash down the side of her arm, straddling the rogue and stabbing him relentlessly in his neck, all I could feel was an intense fear. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t want her to become like Ares.
From the doorway, I crossed my arms over my chest and watched the doctor clean her arm with alcohol. Two times. We had been attacked by hounds two times since I had been with her, and she hadn’t shifted once. If I’d lost her today—before I even had a chance to get to know her—because she didn’t shift, I would’ve lost it.
Ares would’ve taken full control, slaughtered every single hound in that goddamn forest, slaughtered innocent people, slaughtered our own people. We couldn’t lose Aurora to hounds, especially not after we had lost Mom.
After the doctor wrapped some gauze around Aurora’s arm to stop the bleeding, I grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the grocery store. Stars danced against the dark night sky, and all I wanted was to enjoy this night with her. Take her out to the lake, show her the waterfall, pull her under the water with me, and admire her smile. Run free with her wolf.
I was even going to let her mark me tonight.
When I’d mentioned it earlier and her small little body got all tense, I could barely contain myself. I wanted her to accept me and Ares, accept that we were two crazy pieces of one man who’d do anything for her. I wanted to show her that I was more than that ghoulish monster all the rumors had made me out to be.
But that couldn’t happen. These hounds had been out of control these past few days … maybe even after her, like Liam had said. It was hard to believe that my mate had so much history with the hounds that they wanted her dead.
On our walk back to the pack house, she snatched her arm away from me, but I grabbed her hand back and held it close to me, as if I’d lose her if I didn’t.
“Why are the hounds after you?”
Aurora tensed and glanced at her feet. “They’re not after me,” she said a bit too quickly. “They were never this violent before I met you.”
“Well, they never attacked my pack before I met you.” I opened the pack house door for her and followed her up the stairs, watching her ass sway back and forth.
Mad Moon Grocery was on the edge of our property; they had to have had a good reason to kill two guards at the borders to get Aurora.
Ever since I had taken over as alpha, hounds hadn’t dared to step on my property. They knew to stay away.
She pushed our bedroom door open. “That’s not my fault, Ares.”
I growled at the name, feeling him slowly awaken inside of me. I thought I had suppressed Ares earlier, but he had just been waiting to take control, to scream at her for not shifting, for not protecting herself the way she should have.
“Tomorrow, you start training,” I said. “With Marcel.”
She turned on her heel, blue eyes wide. “What! Are you serious?”
“Yes, Marcel will train you to react with your wolf in that kind of situation.”
“But you hate him. I hate him!”
It was true. I hated his