“What did you mean?” The question leaves me low, cautious.
Ares tilts his head, expression muted. “In regard to what?”
“You know what,” I press, searching his face. “When yousaid, ‘They wouldn’t have let you speak to me if I hadn’t.’ What did you mean by that?”
He tightens his grip on the canister, the small movement almost imperceptible. Tension gathers at the hinge of his jaw, just enough to confirm he regrets saying anything at all.
“You really are so naïve.” The remark isn’t cruel. It’s bewildered. Like he can’t fathom the gap between what I think I know and what he’s lived.
A quiet beat stretches. Then another.
“I’m going ahead,” he announces abruptly, slipping back into that impassive shell of his. “Checking for poacher traps. I’ll return in a few minutes.”
He turns away before I can respond, stepping back onto the trail. His shoulders stay rigid for several paces, as though my question lodged itself beneath his skin. The forest seems to swallow him one shadow at a time until he becomes part of the landscape.
Poppy clears her throat softly beside me, but my gaze remains pinned to the direction he disappeared.
Because no matter how hard I try to pretend otherwise, a part of me already knows, whatever Ares meant by that warning?
It was not meant for my ears alone.
He leaves us for several minutes, long enough that the forest feels emptier, quieter, as though the trees themselves wait for his return. Poppy distracts herself by gathering the tiny wildflowers that grow in the mossy roots around us, arranging them in a careful nest in her palms. When she sits beside me, those flowers end up woven into my hair with gentle, deliberate movements. Her fingers tremble. Whether it’s nerves or excitement, I can’t quite tell.
“Did you seriously just meet him?” she asks at last, her voice pitched low, as if Ares might materialize behind a tree at the mere sound of his name. She tucks a little purple budabove my ear, then another. My body leans into her touch before I realize it.
“Me, yes,” I say softly, watching her hands work. “But Liam… I have a feeling he’s known Ares longer than he lets on.”
Poppy circles around me, combing gently through a tangle with her fingers. Her breath warms the back of my neck. “Sebastian looked furious earlier when his name came up. I thought for sure he’d drag you in the opposite direction. I’m surprised he let you come out here.”
That word,let, hits wrong. It lodges under my ribs, sharp and unwelcome.
“He didn’t ‘let’ me do anything,” I say, too quickly. “I chose to come.”
She pauses, her hand going still in my hair. The concern in her eyes softens into something like apology. She lays her palm lightly on my knee, grounding, gentle.
“I wasn’t trying to upset you,” she says quietly.
“You didn’t,” I murmur, though my voice betrays me. “I’m just… tired of feeling like I belong to someone.”
The truth is bitter, so bitter it surprises me. She squeezes my leg, a small, warm gesture of comfort, but before she can reply, a shadow falls over us.
“The more you believe you belong to someone,” Ares says from behind, “the more true it becomes.”
I go rigid. Poppy jerks her hand away, startled. Neither of us heard his approach. He must have doubled back silently, or the forest simply parted for him.
He stands a few paces away, arms crossed loosely, posture relaxed in a way that never quite hides the tension coiled underneath. His eyes drift, not to me at first, but to my hair, where Poppy’s flowers sit woven like fragile declarations. Something unreadable flickers in his stare, brief and burning.
I rise to my feet too quickly. Poppy follows, flustered.
“I found their camp,” Ares says, gaze shifting between us. His tone is steady, flat. “About a hundred yards out. It’s crowded. You two still have time to back out.”
“I’m not backing out,” I answer, the decision solidifying the moment it leaves my mouth. “Not now.”
His lips tilt, not quite a smile, not quite approval, but something that tightens the air between us.
“I know,” he says. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
The smallest shiver moves through me at the implication. It shouldn’t. I hate that it does.
