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I don’t have to wait long.
“Yes,” he says simply.
It’s something. It’s more than I thought I’d ever get. Hope flutters inside my heart, and I have to breathe through it to keep the words from bursting out of me in a rush of gibberish.
“The only reason Aphrodite was able to trap you here was because the Lord of the Fifth Garden, Arawn, vanished. He wasn’t deposed, he was gone before the Fallen invaded. The realm latched onto you because it was withering and it needed a ruler.”
Ares stares over my shoulder into the dark room beyond, but I can tell by the little wrinkle between his brows that he’s listening.
“None of that is news,” he says, voice low.
I take a breath and forge ahead. “But the thing is, Arawn didn’t leave willingly. He took his duties very seriously, and he would never have abandoned them.”
“What are you saying?”
“There’s a chance he’s still here somewhere,” I answer as I pull up and my hair falls around my shoulders and breasts. He reaches out and pushes it away from my nipples, drawing lazy circles around the one closest to him. Heat starts to grow in my belly again but I ignore it. “If we can find Arawn, and return him to power, then the Fifth Gate won’t need you anymore, Ares. It will let you go.”
He looks thoughtful, his attention still on my nipples. “So where would he be?”
“That’s the part I’m stuck on.” I reach out and smooth my fingers over the skin of his ribs, and higher, to the broad swells of his pecs. His body is nothing short of incredible. “You’re the Lord of the Fifth Gate, you’re connected to this place in ways no one else is. Is there anything you can sense, any hint of where the Death God might have gone?”
Ares frowns, and shakes his head. “No. But,” he adds before the despair has a chance to settle in. “I never properly merged with the realm. I was too furious, too resentful. It was my prison, and I wasn’t about to join myself with it.”
“Maybe that’s the problem—maybe it’s why you never felt Arawn or knew he was still here… somewhere.”
He looks up at me then. “If merging with this realm will allow it to release me, I’m willing to try.”
It’s more than I ever could have asked for, that he’s willing to try. I can’t help myself from smiling as I then lean down and throw my arms around him, hugging him tight. Ares is still for a moment, and just when I worry that I’ve overstepped, and start to pull back, his arms tighten around me and he hugs me against his chest.
When he finally lets me pull away, I give him a hopeful look. “Any chance you can bring me my pants before any realm merging happens?”
He glances down the length of my body, his gaze lingering in ways that brings heat, never quite extinguished, sparking to life in my skin again. “Seems a shame. But very well.”
THIRTEEN
PEN
Once Ares brings my armor and equipment to the room, I get dressed in a hurry.
I’m so sure this will work, I’m eager to get started. But once I’m away from the warmth of Ares’s body, doubt starts to creep in along with the chilly air.
I go to strap my useless sword back onto my hip, but I end up just staring down at the weapon in my hand without seeing it. In my head, all I can see is Adonis trying to teach me how to wield it, to keep myself alive long enough to reach my sister. He even taught me the move that allowed me to dump Ares on his head in the hallway.
Adonis has been with me every step of the way, helping me, protecting me. Yet the second he’s not beside me, I fall into bed with the man who wants to kill me up until an hour ago?
It feels like getting hit with a bucket of ice water.
What is wrong with me? And what have I done?
Ares runs a surprisingly gentle hand up my arm, and I jump at the feeling.
He gives me a steady look, glancing down at the sword in my hands. He looks almost understanding, which is probably the biggest shock of the last few minutes. I don’t know what I expected from the God of War, but it isn’t emotional intelligence.
“It’s been a long time since I walked the mortal world,” he says quietly. “But in my day, women were free to choose more than one lover. That went doubly so for a goddess.”
I stare at him in shock, my mind almost blank with it. I’m almost as shocked by the fact that he knows what I’m thinking as I am by what he’s saying. And then I have to ask myself: is he saying what I think he’s saying? He’s referring to Adonis and himself as my lovers? And he’s okay with that?
It sparks a little kernel of thought, but I shake it off. My disaster of a personal life can wait until I finish getting my sister home.
