Leaving Atlantis had been like turning the key to Pandora’s box. Once the young stallion glimpsed how big the world was beyond the Ridge, there was no putting things back the way they’d been. Not that Hades was looking to change the course of his destiny; he was happy enough with his home in the jungle. Happy to stretch himself out across a patch of the damp, cool soil and drift away to the soothing lullaby of Finch’s breaths. But now there would always be that ache for something more, too. He wanted to see more, to explore the other islands that he’d only seen in the pictures painted by Faolain’s words. He wanted to learn more, including how to defend the things that he quietly cherished. Like his mother and her mate. Like Siobhan, even now that she was gone. Like the children who still flowed unchecked up and down the mountainside.

And, above all, Finch.

Hades? That single, soft word captured the dark boy’s attention in a way that nothing else could. He’d been known to sleep through the incessant chattering of birds and even the rumbling booms of thunder, but at the first gentle note Hades lifted his head, peering blearily into the shadows with his tiger-bright eyes. I’m going to get a drink. Though he wasn’t specifically included in that statement, Finch also hadn’t not invited him. Lifting himself from the ground with a soft groan, the liver chestnut shook the jungle’s detritus from his coat and stepped out of his little hollow, stretching his limbs in supple motions that were almost feline in nature.

Exhaling his breath in a gentle huff of greeting, Hades pushed his muzzle into the hollow of the silver bay’s throat. A fair amount of dirt still clung to one side of his face, and the other— the other was warped and twisted by the pucker of an old wound that had narrowly missed his eye. This scar gave the adolescent stallion a fierce aspect that was both intimidating and awe-inspiring, but Finch had never treated him any differently for it. She was also the only creature who could reliably translate his silence, the only one who could command him. The only one who softened him into something more like clay and less like stone. They completed one another, fitting together as neatly as light and shadow.

Finch was his, and Hades— Hades belonged to her, too.