“Hey, we want her, too,” Ollie adds, passing off a wide television screen to Milo.
“We’re going up to her room. Come get us when you guys are ready for bed. I need sleep.” Ares doesn’t wait for anyone’s reply. He tows me along behind him and I give Milo and Ollie a quick wave as he hustles us out the door.
On quiet steps, Ares treads up the stairs to the yellow room where I stayed my first night here. He places his finger over his lips and makes a soft shushing noise. Mia’s room is at the other end of the hall, if she were to come out now, there would be no hiding. I kinda wish she would. I don’t get why she’s even still here.
Thoughts of her remind me that I want to ask Ares what they were up to last night, and maybe get an answer out of him about when she’s leaving. If she weren’t here, we’d be free to hang out in the living room. As it is now, they keep making excuses why I’m eating over all the time when she catches us. Then we have the big ordeal of one of them pretending to drive me home. It’s a waste of time and energy.
The door opens with a barely audible click. He ushers me inside and follows quickly behind. The click of the lock engaging is louder than it should be, or maybe I’m overly sensitized since I’m locked in a room alone with Ares. The atmosphere shifts. I can feel the moment he has the same realization I do.
“Come on.” His tone so much softer than the one he used before, even though he’s using the same words. Ares pulls me toward the center of the room, leading me to the bed. “I should have thought this through. You don’t have any clothes up here.”
“It’s okay, I’m fine. I’ll change when we go downstairs.” I’m not sure I’ll be sleeping anyway. My body feels way too keyed up for sleep right now.
Releasing me, he steps back, and the light coming through the curtain is enough to let me see him reaching his hand back behind his head. He pulls his t-shirt off and extends it out to me. I reach for it, gathering the fabric up to my chest.
“There, you can wear that. It will be more comfortable.” Ares's voice has gone thicker, like the words are rumbling out.
I flee to the bathroom, leaving a tiny crack in the door so it doesn’t make a sound. The last thing I want now is Mia coming to investigate the noise. Ares would leave me in here alone while he had to go play knight again.
With my heart beating a heavy rhythm in my chest, I strip out of my jeans, placing them on the counter. Biting my lip, I slip my shirt over my head and slide his on in one movement. It falls to mid-thigh, it’s actually a little longer than the shorts I usually wear to sleep in. Killing time, I wash my hands and stare into the mirror. I can’t really see much with the lights off, but I look anyway.
Gathering my folded clothes, I finally step into the room. It’s darker than it was a few minutes ago. Ares is obviously at work on the shadows, or maybe it’s just something mundane like he closed the shades. Reaching my arm out in front of me, I find the vanity to set my bundle on. Turning toward the bed, I rub the top of my foot with the bottom of my other one. I feel funny, like I should wait for him to say something. But he said he was tired—maybe he’s already asleep?
The seconds tick by, and I’m still stalling. “Are you going to stand there all night?” Ares's gruff voice emanates from the darkness.
“I can’t see in the dark the way you can. What if I trip?” I’m being silly; we both know it’s not the thought of falling that has me hesitating.
“Close your eyes.” Shaking out my shoulders I do as he says. “Now think about the room last time you were here, where was the bed, the chair?” Remembering the first day Ollie brought me up here, I think of the bright cheery bedspread, the soft billowy curtains on the tall windows.
His voice softer now as he commands, “Now listen to my voice, think about where I am, and how you will get to me.” In my mind’s eye I imagine Ares lying back on the pillows. His arms are folded behind his head. The blankets are pulled up to his chest, but his upper torso is bare. His dark hair is a little messy, and the scruff on his jaw is darker—he hasn’t shaved today. I feel the pull to be beside him, to feel the warmth his skin would offer and the weight of his arm over my waist as he holds me.
“Laura!” Ares barks my name, his words frantic. I’m startled from my musings, and my eyes pop open to find Ares standing right in front of me, reaching out to grab both of my upper arms. “What the fuck?” Ares breaths, wrapping his arms around me. He runs his hands up and down my back like I might disappear any second.
“What’s wrong?” I whisper, his reaction is scaring me. He gathers me closer, almost surrounding me with his body. It’s then I notice his shirt is gone, and my face is plastered to his bare chest. Running my fingers around his side and down to his waist, I let the tips of my fingernails tickle along his spine.
I feel this edge of his power pulling me, it’s not the same heat that dares me to take from Ollie, but more of a dark promise of something urging me to take the tendrils of shadow into myself.
“I couldn’t see you,” Ares confesses, pulling his face back to look down at me. My hands trail around to his front. I open my eyes and am surprised how clearly I can see him. I watch my fingers trace over his skin, fascinated with the inky tendrils I see reaching for me. A thick band coils up my finger and around my wrist.
I can actually see his ability, it doesn’t manifest the way Ollie’s does with fire, but in actual shadows. How come I’ve never seen this before? I expect a light show of sparks to begin any second as I begin to feel his power running over my skin.
My heads falls back. His power is deep and vast, there is a darkness to it, but there’s also something else: an awareness—of him, of myself, of everything around me. Oh, goodness! Is this how he feels all the time, full to the brim? As his power flows through me, my mind expands to include more of the house. I can feel Mia down the hall, the edges of her mind open to me, and I know that she’s getting ready for bed, that Ares is on her mind.
Pulling away from her, I find myself searching through the house with a speed that isn’t possible. Three sparks of light call me to the room I left a little while ago. Ollie’s light burns a bright orange, almost as though he’s bathed in a glow from a bonfire. The light surrounding Dante fluctuates, going from a gold to silver, sometimes swirling together. Milo is dimmer, his light pale compared to the others, but he glows a faint green.
I feel the pressure of Ares’s head when it lands on my shoulder, bringing me back to this moment. “Oh, my God. What just happened? Was that real?” I know it was, but I have to ask anyway. Ares grunts in response, his breath hot on my neck. Is he tired? I feel like I could bounce off the walls, I’m so keyed up. “I thought I was the human sparkler… how did that happen?”
“No clue. What’d it feel like to you?” Ares nuzzles behind my ear, and I feel his whiskers tickling the sensitive spot where my shoulder meets my neck.
“It felt…it felt…big. Like anything I could think of would be possible,” I stammer, not knowing how to articulate what it felt like. “I could feel you. I feel like I could have crawled inside your head and known your every thought. Is that what it’s like for you?”