Page 45 of Caged Heart
"I'm coming," I told Ares.
After a moment, I pushed down the sadness I felt when I thought about Ares and walked out.
Once I returned to his room from his ensuite bathroom, Ares was sitting on the floor looking through a textbook.
"Why are you looking through your textbook?"
"I have an exam in a couple of days."
His response had put me off but not because I thought he was weird or odd. My mind didn't comprehend how he was subjected to something, yet he reacted like it didn't faze him. I didn't think about it as I walked over to him and fell to my knees in front of him.
"What?" He asked, giving me a perplexed expression. "What's wrong?"
"Can I touch your face?" I asked, remembering that he didn't want this all the time.
"If you want." He shrugged his shoulders, giving me a nonchalant response, but his balled-up fists told me otherwise.
I was getting better at reading him, and it made me happy. Tentatively, I reached out and traced over his brows with one finger. Ares shut his eyes as I continued down to his nose, then his cheekbones, where his dimples are when he smiles, his jaw, chin, and finally back to his lips.
Ares gave me a small smile but didn't open his eyes. I cupped his face in my hands, and my heart broke into a million little pieces as he flinched, but he didn't push me away. The evidence of my reaction is evident as my tears fall down my face, but I don't let him go to wipe them out. I leaned in and kissed his forehead, pausing there for a moment.
The realization that I didn't regret what I did to save him made me kiss his forehead again, then his shut eyelids, cheeks, nose, and lips. It wasn't for long, just a peck. Something serene and beautiful.
"I'll always hear your SOS, my god of war." The words tumbled out of my mouth softly.
Ares didn't respond or open his eyes, but he circled his arms around my waist as he took a deep breath and exhaled.
"My pretty girl. You're all mine."
His words caused a burst of giggles that stirred in my belly and mingled with a thousand butterflies that felt like they were finally freed throughout my body, in every single direction.
Chapter32
Ares
There was no other reaction but a smirk from me when Carmen went into her room and came back into mine with her backpack.
"What are you doing?" I asked her as I looked up at her.
"Studying with you." She answered as she sat on the floor and placed everything, including her laptop, beside her textbook.
I watched in silence as she lay on her stomach and began to open everything up with a pen in her mouth. She lifted her legs up, and she swung them back and forth.
My eyes took her in as her curls were messy, bun-like. Even in this relaxed state, she was beautiful. Looking at her brought a peace I've never searched for yet yearned for it now.
Someone like me never thought I could be around someone so serenely quiet.
"Babe?" Carmen called out to me, and I looked away, shocked that I was pretending that I wasn't opening gawking for the first time in my life.
When I looked away, I felt Artemis's touch again. It was taking over at a time like this that she didn't need to be here for.
"Why her?" Artemis asked. "What's so special about her!"
My mind was going to a place it didn't need to go. The touches and the whispers that I never wanted. The look of love she gave me and anger when I refused to look at her the same way.
Even as young as we were, I knew she was much more twisted than Mars and I. None of us would come out unscathed, but she was worse than us. We chose ourselves, and she chose me.
It never occurred to me that she did until Mars confessed to what he did, what he did for me. He must've felt the anger and let it transform into rage long enough to kill her and take her life.
