Chapter 204

Chapter 204
Anna’s POV
The quiet after war is never truly quiet.
It hums beneath your skin. It waits in the corners of rooms. It breathes in the pauses between heartbeats. Even now, days after the smoke cleared and the guns finally fell silent, I still woke expecting alarms. Expecting blood. Expecting to reach for Ares and find cold sheets instead of his solid warmth.
But he was here.
Alive.
That fact alone felt like a miracle I was afraid to touch too hard in case it shattered.
I stood in the kitchen just after sunrise, fingers wrapped around a mug I had forgotten to drink from. The estate was different now. Scarred. Repaired in places, broken in others. Guards moved with quieter steps. Everyone spoke softer around Angela and the children. There was an unspoken understanding that we were all balancing on something fragile.
Ares came in without sound, like he always did. Even wounded, even exhausted, he moved like a shadow trained never to announce itself.
“You didn’t sleep,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
I didn’t turn. “Neither did you.”
I felt him behind me. Close. Not touching yet. Like he was asking permission with his presence alone. That was new. He had always been careful with me, but since the attack, since everything we almost lost, there was a gentleness threaded through him that both comforted and scared me.
“I kept hearing the tunnel doors,” I admitted. “In my head. Over and over.”
His hand settled on my lower back. Warm. Steady. Real.
“I know,” he murmured. “I hear gunfire when it rains.”
We stood like that for a moment. Two people stitched together by shared trauma and stubborn love. Then he shifted so he could see my face.
“You’re shaking,” he said.
“I’m not.”
“You are,” he replied calmly. “You just don’t want to admit it.”
I sighed and leaned into him. There was no point pretending with Ares. He had always seen through me. From the first moment we met, he had looked at me like I was something worth protecting even when I didn’t believe it myself.
“Everyone almost died,” I said quietly. “Angela. The kids. You. Ajax. Nikolai. Burak. I keep thinking about what would have happened if one thing went wrong.”
Ares’s jaw tightened. “It didn’t.”
“But it could have.”
“Yes,” he said. “And that’s exactly why we’re standing here instead of planning funerals.”
I pulled back enough to look at him. There were faint shadows under his eyes. Healing bruises along his ribs. A thin scar at his temple that hadn’t been there before.
“You scared me,” I whispered.
“I know.”
“You didn’t tell me you were going undercover,” I said, the old argument surfacing without warning. “You let me think you were just busy and then you came home bleeding.”
His eyes softened. “I thought if I didn’t say it out loud, it couldn’t hurt you.”
“And how did that work out for us,” I asked.
He let out a breath that sounded like a half laugh. “Poorly.”
Silence settled again, but this time it wasn’t heavy. It was thoughtful.
“I kept replaying something in my head while I was hiding in that damn bunker,” I said. “I kept thinking if I survived, I wasn’t going to waste time anymore.”
Ares tilted his head. “Time doing what.”
“Waiting,” I said simply. “Waiting for the next threat. Waiting for permission. Waiting for life to calm down.”
His hand slid into mine, fingers lacing together like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“I don’t want to wait anymore,” I said. “I don’t want to keep telling myself we’ll do things when it’s safer.”
He studied my face. Really studied it. The way he did before making a decision that mattered.
“Anna,” he said carefully, “are you saying what I think you’re saying.”
I swallowed. My heart pounded like I was walking into a firefight instead of standing in a sunlit kitchen.
“I want to set a date.”
The words hung between us, fragile and powerful all at once.
Ares didn’t speak right away. His thumb brushed over my knuckles, grounding me. When he finally smiled, it wasn’t the sharp, dangerous grin he wore into battle. It was softer. Almost disbelieving.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” he said.
I laughed, a breathless sound that surprised me. “You were.”
“Yes,” he replied. “I almost lost you. I almost lost everything. I don’t want to live in maybes anymore.”
My chest tightened. “Neither do I.”
He leaned his forehead against mine. “Pick the day.”
I blinked. “What.”
“You heard me,” he said. “Pick it. I don’t care if it’s small or loud or chaos. I don’t care if it’s next month or next year. Just tell me when.”
I thought about Angela, pregnant and exhausted but still standing tall for everyone else. About Nomiki holding her twins like the world might steal them away. About Maya and Clio and Jessy and the way love had survived things it shouldn’t have.
“Six weeks,” I said.
Ares raised an eyebrow. “That soon.”
“Yes,” I replied. “Before life finds another way to explode.”
He laughed quietly. “You really are fearless.”
“No,” I said. “I’m terrified. I’m just choosing you anyway.”
Something shifted in his expression. Something unguarded.
“Six weeks it is,” he said. “I’ll make sure nothing gets in the way.”
I snorted. “You say that like the universe listens to you.”
“It does when I threaten it,” he deadpanned.
I shook my head, smiling despite myself. “You’re impossible.”
“And yet,” he said, “you’re still here.”
I rested my hand against his chest, feeling the steady beat beneath my palm. Proof. Promise. Future.
“We’ll keep it simple,” I said. “Family. No politics. No council nonsense.”
He nodded. “Agreed.”
“And if something goes wrong,” I added quietly, “we don’t let it steal the moment.”
Ares kissed my forehead. Slow. Reverent. “Nothing steals this from us.”
Later that day, when the news spread through the estate, there were smiles I hadn’t seen in weeks. Angela cried. Nomiki hugged me so tight I thought my ribs would crack. Ajax clapped Ares on the shoulder and muttered something about finally locking him down.
For the first time since the war began, the future didn’t feel like a threat.
It felt like a promise.
And this time, we weren’t waiting.