Page 3 of Pisces Rising

"Don't get comfortable," he growled, looming over her prone form. "We aren’t staying here long."

Pisces fought to push herself upright, shivering from the chill that permeated the stone chamber. “We’ve been traveling all night. I’m too tired to keep going.” Her entire body ached from being cramped up in Aries’ arms while he ran. He might have been some asshole from the stars with endless energy, but she was as human as she could get. “Did you hear me?” she repeated, her voice shaking. “I need to rest. At least for a while.”

“Fine,” he said irritably as he piled rocks in a circle. “We’ll wait out the day. It will be easier to travel at night, anyway.” He lifted his gaze and shook his head, then he pulled off his shirt and flung the garment at her. It carried the scorching imprint of his body heat, and she instinctively clutched it closer for warmth.

"Cover yourself. You're shaking like a newborn," he sneered. "I didn't rescue you just for you to waste away."

Pisces scowled at him, stunned by the venom lacing his words. What had she done to earn such contempt? She opened her mouth to object, but Aries had already turned his back, busying himself with constructing a fire pit. She wanted to push him, to catch him off guard and knock him off his feet, face first into the stone. Instead, she wrestled to her feet and boldly hurled the shirt back at him.

His head lifted, and she clenched her fists as her teeth nearly chattered from the cold. She wouldn’t let him think he could unnerve her so easily. At first, he didn’t turn; he didn’t react. His formidable silhouette was taut as a bowstring while the shadows seemed to make him burn hotter. Pisces shrank back, suddenly wishing she’d chosen a different moment to assert her dominance.

Without seeing his face, she could feel the blistering resentment rolling off him in crashing swells. Then, he turned, and his obsidian gaze flickered over her again. A menacing sneer curled his lip as he raked her form in one scorching sweep. "I can see right through that thing you call a dress.”

Pisces stiffened, suddenly acutely aware of how the thin, damp fabric clung translucently to her curves. She clutched her hands over her breasts, heat blooming in her cheeks.

Aries' eyes glinted with dark derision as he watched her flustered reaction. But for a suspended moment, something changed. His stare became hooded, lingering with an intensity that had nothing to do with anger. The room suddenly filled with warmth despite there being no fire. A muscle ticked in his clenched jaw as he drank in the lines and valleys of her body like a parched man at an oasis.

Then, just as abruptly, his expression contorted with what looked like self-loathing. But there was a flicker of something else behind his eyes—a glimpse of internal conflict, of warring impulses he couldn't quite contain. His jaw clenched tightly as he studied her form, brow furrowing as if pained by his own reaction. A primal growl rumbled from deep within his broad chest. He wrenched his gaze away, picked up the discarded shirt, and threw it back at her.

The heady tension splintered as quickly as it had materialized, and Aries once more became a mysterious, angry force seemingly at war with himself and everything in his wake.

Pisces could only regard him with a confounding blend of wariness, shame, and the compelling spark of some other indescribable yearning taking root.

With a flick of Aries’ hand, flames erupted to life in the ring of stones. The aggressive flicker of orange light cast the hard planes of Aries' bare muscles into stark relief as he crouched, unmoving before the fire. Pisces couldn't tear her gaze away from the intimidating vision he struck—both terrifying and mesmerizing in his intensity.

Long moments stretched in tense silence before Aries finally spoke again, his deep voice reverberating against the cave walls. "I don't know how it's possible you've forgotten everything," he bit out without turning around. "Your cosmic powers, your purpose, your whole damned existence." His hands clenched into white-knuckled fists against his thighs. "But I need you to listen very carefully."

Pisces felt pinned by the ferocious undercurrent in his tone, equal parts enthralled and utterly cowed by this supposed guardian's smoldering dominance.

Aries slowly rose and turned to face her, his expression twisted into a resentful sneer. "You were the Mistress of the Zodiac. Granted immense power and authority by the universe itself."

A heavy sadness fell on Pisces as she wondered how she ended up this way and in this place. If she’d had such power, why was she without it now?

Aries stared at her, his eyes searching, and then suddenly, he closed the distance between them, hauling Pisces up by her shoulders until she was forced to meet the blast of his molten glare head-on.

“Don't think for a moment your mortal facade fools me now, starfish." His delivery dripped with venom, but Pisces thought she detected a trace of something more complicated beneath the surface—perhaps an older wound still unhealed. "You may claim to have lost your memory, but I will never forget the all-consuming force you truly are."

He abruptly released her, letting Pisces shrink back to the ground as he wheeled away. The fire itself seemed to recoil from the scorching vortex of his rage.

“Why are you so cruel to me,” she shouted, fighting the tears stinging her eyes. “What have I done to earn this? What unforgivable crime have I committed to earn such contempt?” Now, the tears sprang free, and she couldn’t stop them. Exhaustion had taken hold of her, and her internal armor had finally cracked under the weight of his disdain.

Aries settled across the fire, staring into the flames, his eyes reflecting the orange glow. “I think you know,” he finally said, his voice low, his intense energy cooling just a little.

“But I don’t know,” she cried, unable to understand his motivations.

He scoffed and shook his head.

Pisces could only gape at him, at once awed and terrified by the ferocious loathing radiating from him in turbulent waves. Then he ran a hand through his dark hair, and she saw him let out a breath like a dragon tired of the fight. When he lifted his eyes to her, something had shifted. “You gave it up. You gave it all up.” A shadow crossed his face, and again, she sensed something painful beneath the blazing façade.

She recalled the whisper at the ravine and wondered what he was to her before she fell from the stars. With his energy dampening slightly, she decided to poke the proverbial dragon for answers. "Were we friends?" She inwardly cringed at how absurd the question sounded given his treatment of her so far.

When he didn’t answer, an even more unsettling thought crept in..."We were enemies?" She hesitated, realizing she may be overstepping. But some more profound intuition compelled her to keep probing despite the risks. "What...were we to each other before?"

The spark of a smile threatened to curl his lip. He stopped, looked back at the fire, and simply said, "Not exactly enemies."

Given the way he’d been treating her, this didn’t surprise her, but her need to know—to understand her history with this fiery stranger—outweighed her fear of the answer.

Aries stared at the fire, his gaze distant and haunted. Then he shook himself out of it and locked eyes with her again, a fierce intensity burning in his dark irises. "We were not friends. We were not enemies."