Only Yours, Alpha

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

ARES“Don’t provoke him,” I commanded the wolves behind me.

Cerberus towered over all of us, standing nearly three times taller than I did in my wolf form and foaming at all three mouths. We stared up at him, none of us saying a single word. Honestly, I didn’t know what to say myself.

Venus had told us not to fear him, that he wouldn’t hurt us.

And I knew that we could easily defeat him—because it was hundreds of wolves against one three-headed guard dog. It’d be easy to take him down, but then we would alert the rest of the gods as well as Hades himself.

Aurora sucked in a deep breath and stepped forward, staring the dog right in the face. He lunged at her quickly, but Aurora didn’t even move a muscle. She stood rigidly before him and held the strongest eye contact I had ever seen from her.

Cerberus breathed at her neck with all three heads, his saliva dripping onto her shoulder. Hesitantly, Aurora lifted her hand, and I desperately wanted to pull her back and away from the beast. But from the way she stood, I could tell that she didn’t want me to do that.

Instead of swatting Cerberus, Aurora placed her hand on one of his snouts and gently stroked his fur. “We would like entrance into the underworld. We have some business here with gods and goddesses. Will you please let us enter?”

To my surprise, Cerberus tilted his head to the side, so Aurora scratched the side of his neck. Dropping his facade, he sat down in front of the gate and stared up at Aurora, wanting her to pet him more and more.

Aurora let out a heavy breath, shoulders slumping forward, as if she were relieved. “We’re here to see Hades too. Can you point us in the direction of his kingdom? We’ve been informed that it’s close.”

Cerberus smiled—f*****g smiled—at Aurora. After a couple moments, he nodded all three heads, stood back up, and pushed his paw against the gate, forcing it to open for him. The stone parted down the center, revealing a world of fog and woods and monsters.

“Thank you,” Aurora said, giving him one last pet. She nodded for us to go through the gate to the other side. “I’ll be back to see you again. I promise, Cerberus. I’ve missed you, boy. I have to make up for lost time.”

Once we made it through the gate, Cerberus howled and closed it behind us.

Aurora smiled at me and nodded to the west. “Hades’s kingdom is that way.”

“You understood him?” I asked her, amazed.

“Yes,” she said. “And I remember him too. It seems like I can remember almost all of the wolves and creatures that I’ve come in contact with in my past life. Cerberus helped us in the past. He saved us from trouble over a thousand years ago.”

“Let’s go before it starts to get dark,” Minerva said, heading toward Hades’s kingdom. “We should cover as much area as possible and try to find shelter for the night.”

I led us through the forest and toward the kingdom that Cerberus must’ve pointed out to Aurora. But fifty meters into the underworld, I paused and grabbed Aurora’s hand to stop her too. The wolves halted behind me, glancing around the densely foggy forest, almost as if they noticed or sensed someone watching us too.

“Stay behind me,” I said to Aurora.

The innate need to prove myself to Aurora made my body swell with power. I’d vowed to protect her in every life. She wouldn’t die like she had in my nightmares. This time, I would protect her and find Mars. We were so close to seeing him again.

I couldn’t let him down, either.

Instead of following orders, Aurora stepped by my side and stood tall near me with her head held high and the colors of dawn in her eyes. Like I’d expected. My mate wasn’t one to back down from a fight, not even when she had been pregnant.

“We’re doing this together,” Aurora said. “We’re mates.”

A growl rumbled through the eerie wooden area, then another, and then even another. Shadows ran from tree to tree, red eyes piercing through the thick fog. From every angle, they stared at us and lowered into their fighting positions, the way hounds always did on Earth.

“We’re going to fight,” I announced to my warriors. “To see our families again. To protect the wolves weaker than us. To survive down here. To end this madness once and for f*****g all. No enemy hounds survive. We kill them all.”

“Unless they’re not aggressive,” Aurora said. “Some of these hounds are rogues, forced down here during the War of the Lycans. They could be our ancestors. If they’re not aggressive, don’t kill them. But if they are, end their reign.”

Together, the hounds roared around us, growing more and more restless. I lowered onto all fours and shifted into my wolf beside Aurora, who shifted right after me and brushed her snout against my side, as if to say that she was ready to fight for us and for our pup.

Then, in an uproar of paws pounding against the forest floor, the hounds raced toward us.