"If you love me... if you even..." She hiccuped. "... respected me at all, please don't tear me to pieces." She cowered under me, shielding her face from me, hiding her mark, showing me the back of her neck and nothing else.

Mate is upset.

My mate was hurt. Aurora was hurt. I hurt her.

I could feel every ounce of her pain, could feel how much it hurt her to think that I--her own mate--would be the one to kill her. She was terrified of me, of Ares and Mars. We had become one to her, and that hurt us too.

Ares stared down at our mate, put our canines back into his mouth, laid on his stomach, and just watched her body heave up and down. He wanted to soothe her, but knew that we had broken her trust. She would run away from us; she had already tried to run away from us because she thought we would rip her to pieces.

We would lose her, like we would lose Charolette soon.

Her breathing was sharp and uneven. Her heart was racing. She gazed up at me through teary eyes without raising her head. I waved my tail back and forth, hoping that it'd calm her down enough to look at me, to show me her face, her beautiful face.

But she didn't look back up at me for a while. Instead, she sat there, holding herself as if she'd fall apart if she didn't. A light breeze blew in the wind, making her hair blow into her face. The moonlight bounced off of her skin.

Mate is hurting. Mate is hurting because of us.

I closed my eyes, trying to calm my wolves down. Ares wanted to run to her so fucking bad, almost as bad as he wanted that stone. Mars scolded him for making her hate us... because after this, she would hate us.

Wolves howled deeper in the forest. Hounds. We were close to Hound Territory, and the night was when they hunted. We needed to leave. Soon.

I stood on all four legs and took a step closer to her. She pulled her legs closer to her body, tensing harsher than she had been. My heart shattered to a million pieces, watching my mate--the strong alpha woman I brought home--look so broken because of me. It was never our intention... but the stone.

My heart raced. Why did she have the stone? She wasn't using it for power; she was strong enough. She wasn't using it for wealth; all she needed was Ruffles to keep her happy. She wasn't using it for health... she seemed perfectly healthy.

"Aurora," I said through the mindlink, hoping that she'd answer.

Complete silence.

I stepped toward her again. "Aurora... Kitten."

She tensed at the nickname, and I frowned. She didn't want to be called Kitten anymore? Or maybe she just didn't like the way that I had said it.

Mate doesn't want us. Mate doesn't like our nickname anymore. Mate wants to reject us, leave us. Leave us alone. We don't want her to leave. We love her.

I stopped walking toward her, resting my snout on her feet. She raised her head to gaze at me and frowned. Tears still slid down her cheeks, and all I wanted to do was brush them away and hold her to my chest. But... she wouldn't want that.

All of the cries she tried to suppress finally slipped out of her mouth, and she started sobbing loudly. Her cries echoed through the quiet forest. Pain. So much pain. Her body shook back and forth, and she tried so hard to quiet herself but she couldn't.

"I'm not going to hurt you," I said. But it only made her cry more.

Mate is crying. Help her. We need to help her.

"I..." Her voice was quiet. "I'm so weak, Ares. Just take the stone out of me. Elijah's doctors can do it for you. You don't want someone like me. An alpha who can't even..." She whimpered. "Who can't even..."

My heart clenched. Just hearing those words made me shift into my human. I grasped her hand. "Aurora, I would never leave you. Don't think that for even a second."

She gazed up at me. "Mars might not, but... Ares will."

Every single part of my body hurt. "I would not do that. Ares would never think about leaving you, whether you have the stone or not. We love you so fucking much." I paused for a moment. "But... Why do you have the stone? What do you need it for?"

"I can't shift," she said the words so softly that I almost couldn't hear them. She tried to pull her hand away, to shield her tears from me, but I held it tighter. "Without it... I wouldn't be able to move."

I parted my lips to say something, but nothing except "Wh-what do you mean?" would come out. I didn't understand it. My mate couldn't shift? She couldn't shift into her wolf? We wouldn't be able to run together through the woods. I would never get to see her wolf in all of her glory, couldn't play with her, couldn't run with her, couldn't be with her? Ever?

"It takes fifteen minutes for me, sometimes, to shift to minimize the pain. It hurts, so bad every single time." She shook her head, brushing some tears away. "You should reject me. You deserve a strong luna to lead with you. You need someone who can run in the forest with you and someone you can be happy with and someone--"

I grasped her face in my hands and kissed her hard on the lips. Nothing she said or could say would ever make me want to reject her. She was strong, despite all of this. My mate couldn't shift, but she had killed two rogues in her human form. My mate couldn't shift, but she stopped me from shamelessly killing and torturing another alpha. My mate couldn't shift, but she had survived the harsh words of countless people who put her down for this... this disability.

It was me who was weak. The alpha who terrorized every other pack just to find the stone so he could save his sister. The alpha who couldn't control Ares. The alpha who hid behind the horrendous rumors so he wouldn't be seen as the soft alpha who cared.

All I wanted to do was lay her on the ground and worship every inch of her body, but she finally pushed me away. Staring at the ground with tears still in her eyes, she released my hand.

I pushed the tears from her cheeks with my thumbs. "Aurora, I don't want the stone for power. I never wanted that stone for power."

She hiccuped against my chest, her body jerking in my arms. "Yes, you do." She stood up and stepped away from me. "All it seems you want is power. You nearly killed Elijah for it. You nearly killed him, Ares." She shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. "If you did, I would've never forgiven you."

"Don't leave me, Aurora." I stood up next to her, pleading with my eyes. I couldn't lose her. I loved her. "Please, stay."

She looked at me, then at the forest in front of us. After one long moment of silence, she walked away from me and back toward the packhouse. I stood there and stared at her with a frown on my face.

Ares... Mars... We both had so much shit to make up for, so many truths to tell her. We didn't know where to start or if she'd believe us.