Page 65 of Alpha Marked
She didn't know what else to say.
Ares kissed her knuckles and walked to the door. Santiago and Drew followed him out, and Theo shut the door with an expression of something she couldn't fully read. Appreciation?
As soon as Ares left, recognition dawned on River. The other smell; the metallic one on Ares.
Blood. It was blood.
* * *
Ares gingerly tookoff his suit coat and walked into the bathroom with Santiago, who carried a first aid kit.
He pulled his dress shirt from where it clung to his stab wound. He turned sideways. It had been significantly deeper when it had occurred an hour earlier but now was little more than a gash.
"I told you I'm fine," Ares said to Santiago. "You're such a mother hen sometimes."
"Better a mother hen than a Lycan without a king."
Ares and Santiago looked at each other momentarily, and Ares nodded.
"What about you? How is your wound?"
Santiago shrugged off his coat and pulled down the collar of his dress shirt. "Already healed."
Ares nodded. He hadn't expected the trouble with the pack of rogues living on the city's fringes. He'd not known they'd been residing near New York, and he wondered if one had bitten his River.
He walked to the sink, found a washcloth, and dabbed his wound.
He'd spent over a year looking for the one responsible for trying to organize the rogues. He'd heard the wolf had traveled to the States, but as of yet, he'd been unable to find him. It was only a matter of time, though. Ares would find the wolf responsible and kill him. More than ever, he had to squash the rogue uprising. Now that he had River, everything had changed. He would be crowned king, but more than that, he now had something to lose. His Omega.
Santiago laid his hand on Ares's shoulder. "We'll find him and end him."
Ares nodded and bandaged his wound before grabbing a new shirt and pulling it on. All thoughts of the traitor gone, his mind moved on to far better things. Things like seeing River waiting for him. He'd barely registered the voice talking in his ear as he spotted her. Hair up, make-up on– though she didn't need any– she'd been gorgeous in the silvery-colored dress he'd picked to match her hair. She'd been more than stunning; she'd been breathtaking. It'd taken everything he had not to rush to her and take her straight to the bedroom. But he'd remembered her eyes when he'd kissed her before. He'd never seen them like that. Open, vulnerable, inviting. It'd been that image he'd clung to. That memory which had kept his wolf in check and had forced him against all instinct to pull her softly to him. Merely seeing her face and catching her perfume had soothed him in a way he'd never experienced.
He snapped on his cufflinks, and his phone rang. The name "Pompous Asshole" appeared on the screen. He snarled and rejected the call. He was done with assholes for the day. For the next eight hours, he planned to focus on one person and one person only– His Omega.
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
River and Ares sat at a small candle-lit table in the Guggenheim Museum, surrounded by Van Gogh. She took a bite of her steak and stared at theMontagnes à Saint-Rémy.
"I'm sorry they don't have any Davinci," Ares said.
River tore her eyes from the beautiful painting of the Alpilles mountains to see if he was joking. He swirled a glass of darkCabernet Sauvignon,as the label read, and took a sip.
"You're serious."
"You said he was your favorite."
She snorted and nodded. "Yes, I think he's a genius, but you realize we are sitting at a table in the Guggenheim Museum, drinking what I can only assume is expensive wine and enjoying artwork by Vincent Van Gogh, right? The Vincent Van Gogh. That's not anything I thought I would do in my life."
"So, you like Van Gogh?"
How did she answer that question? "You see that painting?"
"The mountain one?"
She nodded. "Van Gogh painted for ten years before he sold one piece of artwork. He painted that in a mental institution. A mental institution! And then killed himself later that year."
"Wow, you're doing much better than he did. You sold out your first show."