Page 11

I burst out of the building, slamming the heavy door shut behind me, leaving Ophelia in the cold, sterile darkness with Harry.

This fear—this unrelenting panic—feels worse than anything I’ve ever experienced.

Ophelia told Ares to kill himself. I can’t think of any other vampires Ares knows except for Sysco, Harry, and James. Does Clementine count as a Bitten? Fuck. My fingers lace into my hair as I look up and down the street. How many vampires are left before Ares tries to hurt himself?

“Damn you, O,” I curse as panic stings the backs of my eyes.

I sprint through the city like a woman possessed.

My body, still unfamiliar with its newfound power, moves faster than I ever have before, but it’s not fast enough.

The streets blur around me, pedestrians dodging out of my way, honking cars skidding to halts as I cut through traffic like a reckless specter.

All the while, my sharpened eyes scan faces, searching for the one and only one that matters to me.

I shove through a crowd at an intersection, ignoring the shouted curses that follow.

My mind is a chaotic mess of terror and rage.

He’s out there, somewhere, alone and hunting, teetering on the edge of something I can’t let happen.

The image of him—his beautiful, unbreakable body mangled and lifeless—flashes through my mind, and a strangled sound escapes my throat.

No. Fuck no , I will not let that happen.

My stomach twists violently. The air feels too thick to breathe.

How could she do this? How could she play with his mind like this, with his life?

How do relationships break so wholly that she could do this to me?

Once upon a time, Ophelia loved me, and I loved her.

But now she can take no thought to tell the man I love to end his own life.

What it would do to me if Ares were dead…

The Ares I know, the man I love, is still in there. But he’s drowning, lost in a compulsion that isn’t his own. And if I don’t reach him in time, he will finish what she told him to do.

I push harder, my feet barely touching the pavement as I scan faces. Where would he go? If his phone is dead, I can’t track him that way. He hasn’t gone home. He isn’t at the office. He’s been hunting vampires, but there’s no pattern—no clear logic to where he’ll be next.

Think, Lana. Think!

This racing around is pointless.

I realize it and slow in an instant. If Ares is hunting vampires, he’s not wandering around in the daylight on the streets. Ares is smart. He’s purposeful. I’m never going to just spot him on the sidewalk.

In desperation, I circle back around to the simplest solution.

I grab my phone and open our text thread, my fingers shaking as I send another message:

Where are you? Please, Ares, answer me.

I hit send and wait, but I don’t expect anything. For two days now, my messages have gone undelivered, as if he’s been in some kind of black hole, unreachable. I don’t expect that to change now, but when I glance back at the screen, my heart leaps into my throat.

Delivered.

Holy shit. The message went through. My hands fly across the screen as I immediately open our location sharing. It loads for half a second—then his location pings.

Harlem. He’s moving.

Ice crashes through my veins. Sysco owns a massive portion of Harlem. Ares is hunting vampires.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Ares is going after Sysco.

My fingers tremble as I click on Ares’s contact and hit call.

It rings once. Twice.

Then, unbelievably, Ares picks up. “Vengeance.” His voice is low, rough.

“Ares,” I breathe, my voice barely above a whisper, my grip tightening around the phone.

I nearly collapse in relief at the sound of him, but something is wrong. He doesn’t sound like himself. There’s a strange emptiness in his voice, like he’s locked onto something, fixated. Hunting.

I swallow hard and force myself to sound steady. “Ares, where are you?”

He doesn’t answer immediately. I hear the faint sounds of the city in the background, but his breathing is steady, measured, too calm. That’s what terrifies me the most.

He doesn’t answer me, like he’s hardly paying attention. “Ares!”

He makes a little hmm sound, acknowledging me, but not actually answering.

And an idea strikes me. I have to change my approach. I have to reach a deeper part of Ares.

I let desperation bleed into my voice, every ounce of it genuine. “Ares, I need your help.” My voice shakes, I let emotion saturate my words. “There’s this man following me. Where are you?”

The other line goes quiet, the whisp of air halting, as if he’s stopped in his tracks.

“Where?” His voice is sharper now.

There he is. The Ares I know.

“Third and ninety-ninth,” I say, breathing hard, like I’m walking. I pick the address knowing it’s roughly the halfway point between us. “Ares, hurry!”

“I’m on my way, Vengeance,” his promise comes through. “Stay somewhere public, don’t stop?—”

The line goes dead.

I look at my phone, confirming the call has dropped. “Fuck.”

I don’t know what to think about that, but I get moving. I have nine blocks to go, and Ares is faster than I am.

I pull my phone out again and press it to my ear.

Sysco answers on the second ring.

“Ares is hunting you. Get somewhere safe, now.”

A curse, then rustling as if he’s already moving. “I’ll handle it.”

“No.” My voice is firm. I dart around a crowd of people on the sidewalk, stepping out onto the road even though there isn’t a crossing sign. A car honks at me. “I think I have him distracted. Let me handle it. Just stay the hell out of his way.”

“Tell me what’s going on,” Sysco says, his tone frustrated and angry at the same time.

“Ares finally charged his phone,” I explain. “I tracked him. He’s in Harlem. He know any other vampires in Harlem besides you?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Sysco admits with a sigh.

“He was definitely hunting you,” I say with a nod as I cross another street. “I got to him first, he’s coming to meet me now. I just thought I should warn you.”

A pause. “You sure you can handle him?”

No. Not if he’s fully gone. Not if he’s already too lost in Ophelia’s command.

But I have to believe that I can reach him. That, for me, he really will show up.

“Yeah,” I say, speaking it aloud so it can become true.

“Fuck, Lana, be careful,” Sysco says.

“I will,” I say as I cross the last street. “I’ll call you back when it’s over.”

I hang up as I round the final corner, approaching the alley. It’s quieter here, the sounds of the city fading just a little. My pulse is too fast, my mind spinning.

I don’t know what condition Ares is in. I’ve seen him with blood on his hands, with his shirt torn and bloodied, even shirtless because he had to dispose of it. And if Ophelia told him to end himself when he was done taking out as many vampires as he could…

I don’t know if he’s still capable of seeing me, even. And what if… what if I’m still enough of a vampire that it triggers his instinct, and he tries to hurt me?

No. Fuck, no. I believe it with every bone in me: Ares would never hurt me.

Ares would come for me. I know that. Even like this, with his mind twisted, his body driven by the unnatural force of Ophelia’s command—he would always come for me.

That’s why I played dirty.

This is the only thing I can think of that might break through the haze of his killing instinct. If Ares still has any piece of himself left, if there is still even a shred of the man I love inside him, he will fight through anything to get to me.

Just as I reach the middle of the alley, the most private spot, I hear footsteps. Slow, deliberate. A shadow moves at the edge of the alley.

Then Ares steps into the dim light.

My heart about erupts with relief. It’s only been two days since I last laid eyes on him, but so damn much has happened in that time that it feels like an eternity.

And the last few hours have been some of the most panic filled of my life once Ophelia revealed the fullness of what she told Ares to do.

He’s not covered in blood, but he looks…

wrecked. His clothes are torn in places, dirt and grime staining his shirt.

His knuckles are raw, scraped. His face is drawn.

He’s wearing sunshades, yet even through them, I can see there are dark circles beneath his eyes like he hasn’t slept in months.

Something about his posture sends a deep chill down my spine.

I want to say he looks like he’s been in a fight. But he hasn’t. The tells aren’t there.

This is the result of his own mind.

A wave of nausea rolls through me.

Ophelia’s command is working.

For a terrifying second, I don’t know if he recognizes me. His stance is tense, his chest rising and falling with slow, controlled breaths. A hunter measuring the moment before the kill.

I fight to stay still, to not show an ounce of fear. “Ares.”

His fingers twitch at his sides. His head tilts slightly, as if listening.

The wind shifts, and I see the second it happens—when my scent reaches him. His entire body locks up. His expression flickers, for just an instant, from cold emptiness to something uncertain.

“Lana,” he says hoarsely.

“Yes,” I whisper, stepping toward him carefully, like I’m approaching a wounded animal. “I’m here.”

His brow furrows slightly. He sways where he stands. “You…called me.”

“I did,” I say as I take a step toward him. He’s studying me with such confusion. He knows me, I can see it in his body, he knows me. But his mind… Fuck. He’s so far gone. He looks ragged. He’s been running himself into the ground.

What if he hadn’t charged his phone? What if I couldn’t find him today? What would have happened tomorrow?

Would it have been too late?

I can’t think about that right now. It doesn’t matter. He’s here.

I take another step toward him. His nostrils flare as he scents me. There’s something that shifts in his eyes. Maybe he can sense my change. His eyes roam over me, searching for an answer.

But he doesn’t strike. He doesn’t turn and run.

I stop right in front of him, and I reach out, taking his hand in mine.

“I need to take you home,” I say as those hazel eyes burn into mine. He stares at me with such intensity, as if wracking his brain for who I am and what I mean to him. I lean forward, pressing my forehead into his, willing it to all come back to him.

“You’re still in there,” I murmur, barely above a whisper. “I know you are.”

His breathing is wrong. Too measured. Too much like a man on the edge of something final.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, right before I jam the dart into the side of his neck.

Ares’ entire body stiffens. His eyes instantly flare brilliant red, and black veins fan out from them, spreading over his face.

His mouth parts in shock, his hands twitching as if reaching for me, and then, in the span of a heartbeat, his knees buckle.

He spasms in pain, a muffled cry escaping his lips.

Shit. Shit. No. I didn’t know this would be painful.

After everything he’s already been through, the last thing Ares deserves is pain.

But it’s too late. His body spasms once more, and finally, he drops. I catch him before he can hit the ground, sinking down with him, cradling him against me as his body goes slack. His breathing evens out, his face smoothing into an unnatural stillness.

A breath shudders out of me, half relief, half fear. I have him. I finally have him.

Fuck. I honestly wasn’t sure I’d ever get him back. And for a minute there, I couldn’t stop playing out the worst possible ending to this in my brain.

But he’s here, in my arms.

Finally.

I pull my phone from my pocket with shaking hands and dial Billings. He picks up on the first ring.

"I need you to pick us up. Now."

"On my way to your location." He doesn’t ask questions.

I send a quick text to Sysco and Harry.

I have Ares. Meet me at the vault.

Then I sit there, kneeling on the dirty ground of the alley, holding Ares against me, feeling the slow, steady rise and fall of his chest. I push the damp strands of hair out of his face, my fingers ghosting over the bruises and cuts marring his skin. He looks… broken. Fractured.

I finally have him back.

But can I fix him?