Page 54

Ares

I'm staring out at Boston, taking in the view one final time. The city sprawls beneath me, all glass and steel bathed in the pink-gold light of dawn—beautiful and utterly indifferent to the way my world is ending. Soft footsteps behind me make my heart race, then plummet. Too soon. I'm not ready.

"Ares?"

Her sleepy voice draws me around, and my breath catches painfully in my chest. Even now, with exhaustion etched in the shadows beneath her eyes and worry lines creasing her forehead, she's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

The morning light catches in her auburn hair, turning it to living flame—a sight I'll carry with me into the darkness ahead.

My chest aches with the desperate need to memorize every detail of this moment, knowing it's our last.

Her eyes land on the large suitcase by the door, and I watch the questions form on her face, watch understanding dawn like a shadow across her features. She doesn't look at me when she asks, "What's going on? Are you and Ethan going somewhere?"

My throat tightens, words sticking like thorns. "I need to go somewhere."

"Where?" Still not meeting my gaze, her voice barely a whisper, fragile as spun glass.

"Los Angeles."

Her eyes snap to mine, and the flash of fear I see there guts me like a blade. "Why? And for how long?"

I curse myself for what I'm about to do. For the pain I'm about to cause. I never should have come back to Boston. Never should have dragged her back into this nightmare.

The silence stretches between us, heavy with everything I don't want to say. Everything I have to say.

"Forever." The word falls like a stone, heavy with finality. The taste of it is bitter on my tongue, like ash and regret. I watch it hit her, watch the color drain from her face, watch her entire body beginning to tremble.

She starts shaking her head. "No."

"Red—"

"No." She moves toward me."You're not going back."

The determination in her voice, even as it shakes, nearly breaks my resolve.

"I have to." The words scrape my throat raw. "It's the only way to protect you. To protect all of you."

"Protect us?" Her laugh is hollow, brittle as ice about to crack. "By running back to them? By letting them win?"

"By giving them what they want." I reach for her, but she steps back, and the rejection feels like a physical blow, a knife between my ribs.

“I’ve talked to my father. He promised that if I go back, if I do what they want, they'll leave you alone.

All of you. They'll stop destroying everything you love. "

"No." Tears spill down her cheeks. "No, you can't. You can't let them control you like this."

"Red—"

"We'll figure something else out." She grabs my shirt, fingers twisting in the fabric with desperate strength. "We always do. Just... please. Please don't leave."

The desperation in her voice shatters what's left of my heart. I cup her face in my hands, feeling her tremble beneath my touch. "I love you." My voice cracks, breaking on the weight of emotion. "God, there are no words to describe how much. That's why I have to do this."

She shakes her head harder, auburn waves whipping around her face. "No. No, I won't let you sacrifice yourself for me."

"It's not just for you." I press my forehead to hers, breathing her in, committing to memory the scent that's become home to me. "It's for Emma, Amanda, and Brian. For everyone they're hurting because of me. Because I was selfish enough to think I could escape my legacy."

A sob tears from her throat, the sound ripping through me like shrapnel. "Please," she whispers against my chest. "Please don't do this."

I hold her closer, memorizing the feel of her in my arms. Because this is it. This is the last time I'll ever hold her like this. The last time I'll breathe in the scent of her hair or feel her heart beating against mine.

"I'm so sorry." The words are inadequate, meaningless in the face of what I'm doing to her. "I never meant for any of this to happen."

She clings to me harder, as if she can keep me here through sheer force of will. And God, how I wish she could. How I wish there was another way.

But there isn't. There never was.

Because this is what it means to be a true Saint. To sacrifice everything you love for the greater good. To protect those you care about by letting them go.

Even if it kills you in the process.

"Ares, please don't—"

My voice cracks. “They won't stop, Red. Not until I go back. Not until their heir returns to the empire where he belongs."

I meet her eyes, watching as understanding begins to dawn. "Every person you care about will pay the price for my rebellion. Their dreams, their livelihoods—all of it gone. And it will be my fault. Our fault."

Her hands fall from my shirt, and I watch the realization wash over her face like a shadow. "He's doing all this... just to control you?"

"That's what I am to them, Red. Not a son. A possession." The truth of it burns in my throat. "A wayward heir who needs to be brought to heel."

"No." She shakes her head again, but there's less conviction now, the first terrible acceptance beginning to take root. "What if we go to the police with the files—"

"And make it worse?" I rake a hand through my hair, frustration and despair clawing at my chest. I swallow hard, tasting the bitterness of defeat.

"We'll open the gates of Saint hell on everyone we care about if we do that. With the files uncracked, without knowing what he’s hiding, it's my father's word against mine.

He's Theodore fucking Saint. He owns half the judges in the country.

"So we just give up?" Her voice cracks on the words. "Let him win?"

"Giving up?" My voice breaks. "Red, look at me.

" I cup her face in my hands, forcing her to meet my eyes.

"Every day I stay here, fighting this losing battle, is another day your friends suffer.

Another day their lives get torn apart because of me.

Because I was selfish enough to think I could have this. "

"It's not selfish to want to be free," she whispers, her hands coming up to cover mine.

"No." I press my forehead to hers, breathing her in. "But it is selfish to let others pay the price for that freedom."

A sob catches in her throat. "I can't lose you again."

The words shatter what's left of my heart. "You never lost me, Red. I lost myself. Lost everything the day I believed them over you."

She surges forward, pressing her lips to mine with desperate intensity. I taste salt on her lips—tears, though I'm not sure whose anymore. My hands tangle in her hair as I pull her closer, trying to memorize every detail of this moment, to burn it into my memory where no one can take it from me.

We stumble backward until she hits the kitchen counter. Without breaking the kiss, I lift her onto it, stepping between her thighs. Her legs wrap around my waist, pulling me closer, eliminating any space between us.

"Please," she whispers against my mouth, the word a prayer and a plea. "Just... please."

I understand without words. This isn't about passion or desire. It's about goodbye. About burning every touch, every taste, every sound into memory before the darkness claims us both.

My hands slide under her shirt, finding the soft skin I've come to know as well as my own heartbeat.

She arches into my touch like a live wire, a broken sound escaping her throat—half sob, half moan.

Her fingers fumble with my buttons, desperate and trembling, and I want to tell her to slow down, to make this last, but I can't. Not when our time is measured in minutes instead of forever.

"I love you," I breathe against the pulse point in her neck, feeling her life beat against my lips. "God, Red, I love you so much it's tearing me apart from the inside out."

Her only response is to pull me closer, her nails digging half-moons into my shoulders, marking me as hers in the most primal way.

We move together with frantic urgency, each touch a language of its own, each kiss a promise neither of us can keep.

The taste of salt mingles between our lips—her tears or mine, impossible to tell where her grief ends and mine begins.

My hands slide down to her waist, finding the hem of her pajama bottoms. She lifts her hips, helping me slide them down her legs along with her panties. The fabric pools at her feet as she kicks them away, never breaking eye contact.

With trembling hands, I shove my pants and boxers down in one fluid motion, my aching cock springing free between us.

I step back between her parted thighs, the heat of her calling to me like a siren.

Her eyes lock with mine as I position myself at her entrance.

When I finally slide into her heat, she responds instantly, wrapping her legs back around my waist and pulling me deeper.

The movement drives me forward in one desperate, claiming thrust that buries me to the hilt and steals the breath from both our lungs.

I drop my forehead to hers, our breath mingling in the space between us. For a heartbeat, we're perfectly still, joined as completely as two people can be. Her eyes lock with mine, a universe of pain and love and loss reflected in those green depths.

"Don't forget me," she whispers, her voice breaking on the last word.

The plea shatters what's left of my control. "Never," I growl, pulling back only to thrust deeper, harder. "You're branded on my soul, Red. There's no forgetting you. Not in this lifetime or the next."

We move together, a frenzied dance of give and take, of claiming and surrendering. Her nails rake down my back, her heels digging into my ass as I pound into her. Each thrust is a desperate attempt to become part of her, to leave something of myself behind that not even time or distance can erase.

"Yes," she cries, her head thrown back in ecstasy, tears still streaming down her face, catching the light like diamonds. "Harder."