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“Oomph,” I cry as a band of iron snaps around my waist, yanking me from the hall into a shadowy darkness that is most definitelynotowed to the glittering blanket of night.

My back connects a little too hard with the solid wall and my grip on the statue slips. It connects with the floor hard, the sound a vicious bite in the silence otherwise cut by the terror of the girl’s screams.

I feel my own scream rise to the surface, but a hard hand slaps over my mouth to contain it. My eyes snap up to see rings of gold otherwise blasted with blood red. Dark curls fall into the man’s forehead, threatening to sweep into those eerie eyes that threaten bloodlust, if not contained by those thin threads of shimmering gold.

“Ares,” I gasp his name. Inside my chest that heaves with deep, fear-infused breaths, my heart thunders.

A low sound climbs from the deep of his chest. It’s terribly harrowing, like a tiger in the night.

“What are you doing out of your room?” He slides his hand from my lips to wrap precariously around the column of my throat. There’s anger in his eyes.

I gasp in gulps of air. “I’m—I’m?—”

“You’rewhat?” He presses when I fail to push a lie between us.

I can’t possibly tell him the truth.

“I’m going for a walk.”

“Funny,” he deadpans. “Looked like you were running to me.” Ares dips his head, those red eyes drilling mercilessly into my own. “Looked like you were runningtowarddanger.”

Well, crap. There’s obviously no fooling him.

“I can’t leave her like that.” My voice shakes, but I steel myself against the mocking incredulity that has blades of gold spearing from the rings into the pools of red.

He wets his lips, the scent of bloodstained earth submitting to fresh citrus. He laughs, low and mocking. “Tell me, little princess, how you plan to save her.”

I bare my teeth and he laughs again. When my fingers curl into my fists, his tighten around my throat. Just enough to quicken the thunderous beating of my heart.

My eyes flick desperately to the statue I’d dropped. Ares’ eyes follow and his lips hitch up again, but this time no sound escapes. That mocking lilt to his lips squeezes the air from my lungs.

“Oh, you think a little marble would stop him?” His brows hitch with incredulity, but he spits, “Foolish human.”

The girl screams again. I think I see Ares flinch at the sound, but I can’t be certain because my own flinch had been so vicious.

“Stop this,” I beg desperately. “Save her.”

“There is no saving her from this fate.”

“This is cruel.” My entire body trembles against the wall. My nerves are shot, frayed.

My hearthurts.

Ares’ voice is a low and dangerous cadence that wraps around one of the souls the powers of the Moirai conceal with their magic. “The true cruelty would be to prolong the inevitable.”

“How can you say that?” I loathe the way one of my daughters warms inside me at the sound of his voice. At his nearness. The other, I think, recoils.

For a moment, I’m certain he isn’t going to answer me. His frightening eyes drift over my face, missing nothing. He sighs an impossibly weighted sigh. “I’ve tried.”

Wait, what? He’s tried?

My body sags against the stone he’s pinned me to. Around my throat, his hand loosens. The tears I’ve somehow kept inside break from their restraints to flee shamefully down my face.

Ares looses another sigh. I flinch as he lifts his hand from my throat to wipe away the grief that spills from my eyes. It’s a tender gesture that seems to surprise even him, because he shakes his head and drops his hand. But he doesn’t step away from me.

“He never releases them.” Goodness, his voice is so deep and rough. As though he harbours deep inside him the wrath of all pain and suffering. “When a human soul dies here, they are trapped. Forever.”

“Who won’t release them?”