A DISGUISED ELDER

Ares trekked through the forest, his clothing stained with his wife's blood and a hint of the vampire's blood – the man he had once believed was his father. He tightened his grip on Eleanor, who lay unconscious, safely wrapped in both his cloak and hers, shielded from the cold.

For a reason he couldn't quite explain, Ares felt numb. He had been suppressing his emotions since the moment he killed Leocade, and now, as the hours passed, he found himself wandering deeper into the woods, far from the castle.

He didn't want to feel... He didn't want to acknowledge the emotion that had been simmering beneath the surface.

Fear. Extreme, paralyzing fear. When Eleanor vanished from Vylonia, he had masked his fear with anger. And when Galen stabbed her, he had done the same. But now, as the silence of the forest enveloped him, he couldn't escape the crushing weight of his fear.