War God is Back for his Mother

Selena Sterling's wedding dress hit the floor of the honeymoon suite. The silk lingerie underneath barely covered anything. Candlelight turned her skin golden, and Alex Crown couldn't take his eyes off her.

She climbed onto the bed and straddled him. Her fingers worked the buttons of his shirt, pulling it open.

"Finally," she whispered. She kissed his jaw, then his neck. "No guests… No more speeches….. No cake…. And Just us."

"Just us," he repeated. His hands gripped her waist.

She kissed him deep. It was hungry and warm and real. She had waited for this. All through the ceremony, through the toasts, through the hours of smiling at strangers, she had been thinking about this exact moment. About being alone with the man she chose.

His mouth moved down her throat. Her breath caught. His fingers traced the edge of her lingerie, teasing along the lace. She pressed herself against him and felt him respond.

"You're so beautiful," he said against her skin.

"Then stop talking." She pulled his shirt off completely. Her palms slid across his chest, feeling muscle and heat. She kissed his collarbone. He groaned low in his throat.

His hand slid between her thighs. She gasped and gripped his shoulders. Her whole body tightened.

"More," she breathed.

He rolled her onto her back. The sheets were cool against her bare skin. He positioned himself above her and kissed her slow. Their bodies pressed together. The heat between them was building into something unstoppable.

Her phone rang.

She didn't move. Her lips stayed on his.

It rang again. And again.

Alex pulled back slightly. "Leave it."

"I am." She pulled him back down. They kissed harder.

It rang a fourth time. A fifth. A sixth.

Selena broke the kiss. Her breathing was heavy. "That's six times. Something might be wrong."

"It can wait."

"Let me just look. Two seconds."

She reached over and grabbed the phone. The screen said Dennis Doom.

Something shifted in her face. It was small. Almost invisible. A tightness around her eyes that she probably didn't even feel herself. She hesitated for half a second too long before answering.

Alex saw it. He always saw it.

"Hello?" Selena said. Then her expression changed completely. "What? Who is this? A nurse? Dennis is bleeding? Which hospital?"

She sat up. The sheet slipped off her shoulder but she didn't notice.

"Holloway Hospital? Okay. Okay, I understand. I'm coming."

She hung up and turned to Alex. Her eyes were wide with worry.

"Dennis has collapsed after drinking; he is having internal bleeding. They need someone there."

"And that someone has to be you."

"Alex, please don't start."

"Start what? Asking why my wife is leaving our honeymoon bed for another man?"

Selena flinched. "He's not another man. He's my employee. My friend."

"Right. Your friend who calls every single time we're alone together. Your friend who has interrupted us at least a dozen times in six months. Every single moment we have, he takes it."

"He didn't call. A nurse called from his phone."

"How convenient."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Alex sat up and looked at her. She was still flushed from what they had been doing thirty seconds ago. Her lips were still swollen from kissing him. And she was already halfway out of bed.

"It means I'm tired of coming second," he said.

"You're not second. You're my husband. I married you today. I chose you."

"Then act like it."

Selena pressed her lips together. She stood up and grabbed the coat hanging on the chair.

"Dennis has been running himself into the ground on the expansion project," she said as she dressed. "He barely eats. He barely sleeps. At the reception today, he drank way too much just because he was happy for us. He stood up and gave that toast about how I deserved love. You heard him. If he's in the hospital right now because he pushed himself too hard for my company, and I sit here doing nothing, I will never forgive myself."

"And what about me? Do I just sit here like a dog waiting for its owner to come home?"

She stopped moving. She turned and looked at him. There was guilt in her eyes. Real guilt. She walked back to the bed and touched his face.

"I love you," she said softly. "This is not about choosing someone over you. This is about doing the right thing."

He pushed her hand away.

"You know what the right thing is? Staying with your husband on your wedding night. That's the right thing. Dennis has doctors. Dennis has family. Dennis has a whole hospital full of people whose actual job it is to take care of him."

"I know. I know all of that. But I can't just sit here knowing he might be dying."

"He's not dying."

"You don't know that."

"I know that every time he needs you, you run. And every time I need you, you leave."

Selena's eyes wavered. For a moment she stood completely still, caught between the bed and the door. Between her husband and something she couldn't name. Something she didn't even recognize pulling at her.

Then she picked up her bag.

"I'll be back as soon as I know he's okay," she said quietly. "Please don't be angry. Please just sleep. I'll make it up to you."

"Don't bother."

She paused at the door. Her hand rested on the handle. She wanted to say something else. He could see it in the way her mouth opened and closed. But nothing came out.

The door clicked shut behind her.

Alex sat in the silence. The candles were still burning. The bed was still warm from her body. Her perfume still hung in the air like a ghost.

His phone rang twenty minutes later.

"Alex." Dennis's voice was thick and broken. "I'm so sorry. I didn't want this. The nurse went through my phone and called her. I tried to stop it. I told them not to bother anyone. I told them you two were on your honeymoon. This is all my fault. I'm so sorry. I ruin everything. I always ruin everything."

Alex listened to him cry. He listened to the sobbing and the stammering and the endless apologies that somehow always painted Dennis as the victim.

Six months. For six months, Dennis Doom had played this exact role. The fragile one. The one who never meant any harm. The one who was always sorry. And every single time, Alex ended up being the one who looked cruel for being upset. Alex ended up apologizing. Alex ended up swallowing his anger because Selena would look at him with those disappointed eyes and say he was being unfair.

Sitting alone in a honeymoon suite that still smelled like his wife, listening to a man sob on the phone about how sorry he was, Alex Crown felt something shift inside his chest.

Not anger. Not sadness.

Something colder than both.

He realized that his years of devotion had never truly been valued. Not when she could leave this bed so easily. Not when another man's tears mattered more than her husband's silence.

He hung up the phone without saying a word.