He drags a hand through his hair. The gesture isn’t graceful, it’s restless, agitated, threaded with the kind of stress he’d never admit to feeling. I recognize it instantly. It’s the movement of someone trying not to break something with his fists.
“Itmatters,Harper,” he says, stepping closer still, and this time the shift is softer, but somehow even more unnerving. “Because if you think I’m capable of that, then you’re building this deal on a lie.”
He crowds the space between us, not touching, but close enough that my breath catches and stumbles. The forest feels smaller, the shadows tighter around the edges, as if even the trees lean in to listen.
“Harper,” he murmurs, my name slipping from his mouth like a coaxed truth, “you didn’t believe it. I could see it the moment you said it. So say it.”
The pressure builds beneath my ribs, hot and unsteady. His presence is too much, warm breath brushing mine, the faint trace of pine and steel clinging to him. My pulse hammers against the inside of my throat, begging for a release I don’t dare give.
“I don’t owe you a confession,” I whisper, hating how fragile the words sound.
A quiet laugh slips out of him, low and rough, nothing like amusement. “You owe yourself one.”
His gaze stays fixed on mine, steady and unblinking, as if he’s peeling back every shield I’ve ever built. It sparks anger in me, anger at him, at myself, at the entire spiral of this day.
“Stop trying to pick apart my mind,” I snap, breath shaking. “You don’t know me.”
He tilts his head, and for a moment something almost like curiosity softens the lines of his face. “I’m not picking,” he says. “I’m watching. And what I saw today? You weren’t afraid of me.” He leans in slightly, the movement so subtle I feel it before I recognize it. “You were afraid of being wrong about me.”
My breath comes uneven. I can’t look away from him, no matter how desperately I want to.
His eyes drop, not to my mouth, but to the makeshift wrap around my palm, still stained with red. His jaw tightensat the sight. Something quiet but fierce flickers through him before he drags his attention back to me.
“And you’re scared,” he continues softly, “because if I didn’t do it… you know someone else with my branding did.”
The truth lands like a blow to the chest.
Ares lifts one hand, slow enough to give me the choice to move. I don’t. His palm meets the tree beside my head, his body angled just enough to trap me in a cage of heat and shadow without laying a finger on me. His presence wraps around me like smoke, dense and impossible to ignore.
“Tell me,” he murmurs, breath warm against my cheek. “Tell me you didn’t believe I did it.”
He isn’t trying to pull trust from me. He’s pulling the truth… and somehow that feels infinitely more dangerous.
He wants an answer.
And the worst part is, I’m afraid of the one forming on my tongue.
His question hangs between us like a suspended blade, gleaming, waiting to fall. I try to swallow around the tightness in my throat, but the breath stutters halfway down. The forest is too quiet. Even the wind holds its breath.
Ares doesn’t move, not a shift of muscle, not a tilt of his head, but the air around him changes. It becomes charged, humming faintly, as if recognizing a predator it has learned to fear and respect in equal measure. He’s close enough that his shadow blends with mine on the ground, one shape swallowing the other.
“Harper,” he murmurs, voice almost gentle, though it vibrates with something sharp beneath. “Say it.”
Something inside me buckles.
The admission drags itself out of me, raw and trembling, before I can stop it.
“I didn’t believe you did it.”
The forest reacts before he does.
A shiver of magic breaks loose under my skin, violet light threading through the air like veins waking beneath frost. It rolls off me in slow, widening circles, bending leaves, stirring the dirt, carrying the scent of something metallic and dangerous. My breath quickens, magic unfurling as if it’s been waiting, aching, for an excuse to break free.
Ares doesn’t recoil.
He watches the flare behind my ribs as though witnessing a truth he’s been expecting. A breath passes, one long, suspended moment, and then his own magic slips its mask. His pupils tighten, and his irises flash a molten gold. It happens fast, too fast, like lightning caught in the surface of water.
A blink, a crackle of power, and it’s gone.
