The Devil CEO's Contract Wife

Chapter 267: Voiced

[Trigger Warning: Mention of child abuse and grooming. Reader discretion is advised.]

I cupped his face. “For better, for worse… Did you think when I put this ring on my finger, it was just me simply being a King?”

He tried to lean away, but I kept him close.

“I’m your wife, Ares. Your wife. Nothing should be between us. Nothing. Your fears are mine, my fears yours, too. We can be better, remember?”

I brushed his hair backwards so that they don’t fall on his forehead. I set my hands on my lap, patiently waiting for him to open up. It’s hard, but that step was the only way.

The more this dragged out, the more I could feel that maybe I don’t know Ares as much as I thought I did. I wanted to bring down that wall because I want all of him, just as he has all of me.

“After my mom died…” Ares voiced, heavy and uncertain, like he was still thinking through, so I placed my hand on his, gripping the counter until his veins protruded.

Oh God, he’s shaking. I could tell, no matter how subtle it was.

“I think we should—”

“Elias remarried,” he interjected. “That’s how I met Agatha.”

“W-Was she cruel?”

A ghostly smile crossed his lips, as quick as it came, it vanished.

“A-Ares…?”

“She told me she loves me… That I was her soulmate. The only person that can bring her happiness…”

My body tightened, shivers prickling my skin. Wait…!

I tried to speak, but I couldn’t, my head connecting random dots, thinking back to what Agatha told me years ago, but in reverse.

Oh my god. There was truth in Agatha’s words, but not in that way, but the opposite.

I felt uncomfortable, my nerves kept me out of place, and speaking became difficult because of how heavy my mouth was.

“H-How old were you?”

“…”

His silence spoke volumes.

Ares’ mother died when he was four years old. Some of my college friends talked about it, and we just had a normal conversation that just led up to the Kings. The family that lived like royalty.

Elias married six years later. Ares was ten.

“I believed her words… that she loved me. The only thing that ever mattered to me. Her words and touch were a light in the dark. It was right, it was good.”

The more he spoke, the more it felt like knives were being driven into my heart. It wasn’t just the recount but how he spoke about it, like he once believed that was everything he could ever want.

Agatha groomed him. That demon groomed him. That snake tainted his mind and made him believe it was good.

“Until Athena.”

A-Athena?

“It happened with the headmaster, the same way it happened to me. She believed it was good, too.”

I swallowed a lump in my throat as everything spun momentarily, a sharp ringing in my ears. Ares’ mouth moved, but I couldn’t hear a sound.

“I got angry… so… angry.”

His words came back to me.

“I… I hated it…” he spoke like he could recall that moment, and he felt like it was a turning point for him, a point where he broke from Agatha’s strings.

I tried to blink away tears, but I couldn’t. I was already sobbing, tears gushing as I shook my head.

I needed to be strong right now for him, but I couldn’t stop myself from shattering.

My glasses hoisted up as I rubbed my eyes. I sobbed, placing my hands on his bare chest, my bottom lip trembled.

This was the reason for the no-touching rule. I thought it was all about pride or because he was indifferent to it, but I thought wrong. I have been wrong all this time. I should have known earlier, but my mind never wandered to something like this.

Ares was like a god in my eyes, that things can never touch him, could never affect him. I was wrong. So wrong.

I slid my hand upwards, pulling him close for a hug. Ares didn’t hug me back, but I don’t care. I held him tightly for both of us, for I knew even though he wasn’t responding, he needed this.

He’s stuck, and my warmth would pull him back, no matter how insignificant it was. It was worth everything.

We stayed there for a while before I finally broke apart from him, but I still held him on to keep him grounded.

I wasn’t crying anymore. My eyes were dry, my throat too, but the cold chilling my insides was enough to freeze through me.

Rage? Pain? Bitterness? I can’t put it into words. I was just numb.

“Will this change your love for me?” Ares finally asked after an hour of silence and standing so still.

My eyebrows furrowed, the eagerness in his orbs as he waited for me to say something. Anything.

“Why would it change?”

Did he think this way the entire time? Of course, it would make sense. That vulnerability doused his blues.

“Is that why you never found the courage to tell me?”

“Yes,” he conceded, and it felt like my heart was gonna explode.

“It won’t.” I cupped his face so that he could see my face.

When I saw his eyes more closely, there was buried pain swirling in them. All this pain, loathing… he carried it all this time. That was where the repulsion came from. It was never about me.

“Love was poison for me…” he murmured. “I despise it because I realized what I shared with Agatha wasn’t anything good.”

“It wasn’t… and I’m proud of you for realizing it sooner. Ares, she groomed you to think what both of you shared was right. But because you protected Athena from it, that showed you the truth. You were strong enough to pull away.”

“I can’t heal from this, Catherine. Not completely… I’m broken.”

“You’re not broken.” I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him close so I could rest my forehead on his.