He studied her.
Not the way men usually did—hungry, obvious, careless.
Ares watched her like she was encrypted code.
Sometimes his gaze burned—sharp, assessing, almost territorial. Other times it went distant, shadowed by something she couldn't quite name.
And then there was Scarlet.
Lara hated that her mind even formed the name.
Ares had looked at Scarlet with history in his eyes, not curiosity or temptation, but with something that wasn't entirely dead.
History.
The kind that came with late-night confessions, shared secrets, private jokes no one else would understand. The kind that didn't disappear just because time passed.
Unfinished sentences lingered between them. Unspoken apologies. Something unresolved.
The ghost of his past.
People said first love never dies. Lara believed that. Because Alaric had been hers.
Not just her first love...but her only love.
