033 | VENGEANCE

When I woke, Ares was gone.

I stretched out in the bed. I felt better when he wasn’t around – more myself, less controlled by the damned mate bond. It was less no vocal, and it still pushed me to slide out of the warm bed and find him, but it was easier to ignore.

We’d ended up cracking open a bottle of wine late into the night, and talking by candlelight until our voices had turned hoarse. We’d spoken of duty, of hope, and of loss. In the calm quiet of the night, my traitorous heart had fallen some more.

And then we’d discussed the wolf I’d found that morning. It had stayed with me, lurking in the back of my mind as the first Warrior Wolf we’d found had. There was something so coarse about seeing a body not upon a battlefield. Although, I supposed, it was a different kind of battle. A darker one that played out with no honour. 

I picked up the copy of ‘Born Beneath the Wrong Star’ I’d discarded last night. I tried to focus on it, but my mind kep