Kaden watched Ares walk away, his lip trembling despite how hard he pressed his mouth together, trying not to cry. I’m sorry the words pressed against his chest. He wanted to scream them even though he knew Ares was right, that it was too late. Too late to say sorry to the baby, who was never going to remember how hard Kaden tried, never going to know what Ronan had sacrificed for a chance at his freedom - a failed chance, a doomed chance. Too late to say sorry to Ronan, too late to say sorry to Marcie for not listening to her and turning back when she begged him, sobbing, to give it up and come home. She’d known he’d end up here, and he prayed that, somehow, she wouldn’t find out how right she’d been.
He was crying openly as Ares hit the crest of the hill, one hand pressed over his mouth and tears streaking down his face. He didn’t want it to be too late, didn’t want to have failed in saving the little kid from everything that was coming for him. He wanted to be back with Marcie, laughing over some stupid joke on the TV. He wanted to be back with Ronan, driving away from the Hole together, windows down and hollering into the wind.
He wanted to go to University. He wanted to sit in a lecture theatre surrounded by people who had never believed in ancient gods.
He just wanted to go home.
The sharp whistle sliced through the air, and Sparta was the first to sink his teeth deep into Kaden’s arm. A scream tore out of his throat as his flesh ripped, as the dogs dragged him to his knees on the ground. His hands raised in a futile attempt to hold them back, and teeth crushed his other arm for its efforts.
He knew he was going to die here, alone, in the woods of a foreign country. And maybe Ares was right and he was doomed to walk the banks of the Styx forever, but maybe that meant Ronan would be there too.
It was the only thought that Kaden could hold onto, and he held onto it, in blind desperation. Even through the terror and the pain. Even as Nikkos, the young dog that Ronan had spent so many hours training, closed his jaw on Kaden’s throat.