by Hettie Ivers
Alcaeus’s eyes widened. “Bethy?” He looked from me to Avery and back again. “Please tell me this is all a bad joke.”
Avery shrugged and said with a smile, “I’m as delightfully surprised as you are to learn about Raul’s new girlfriend.”
“Why didn’t you tell me Gregg was cheating?” I repeated.
Alcaeus threw his hands up. “Why on earth would I think to tell you? I forgot about it almost as soon as Alex and Milena mentioned it to me. How was I supposed to know you were harboring some weird childhood crush on Beth-y that would result in you losing your damn mind and attacking her like a chew toy?”
“How long?” I pressed him through clenched teeth. “When did Alex and Miles mention to you that Gregg was cheating? And don’t call her Bethy. Only I can call her that.”
His eyes rolled. “Six months ago. Maybe seven? Yeah, more like seven. It was when I went back to Morumbi to visit them.” His shoulders tensed. “Before all the shit went down between us over Sloane.” Alcaeus’s family’s betrayal over Avery and her daughter, Sloane, remained a festering wound. “By the way, I’m pretty sure Alex calls her Bethy.”
“How did they know about it? Bethany just found out about Gregg’s cheating.” Or at least it had seemed that way last night. Bethany had said that she hadn’t even given Gregg a chance to explain himself yet. I really needed to kill that guy.
Alcaeus sighed and rubbed his temple. “Alex went snooping around in the fiancé’s head and found out about it that way.”
“And they didn’t tell her?” They’d known for seven months? Maybe longer? My blood boiled at the knowledge that Miles had known about this and hadn’t even thought to warn Bethany away from Gregg. Suddenly I felt less concerned about the flak I was going to catch from my sister for marking her best friend. “What kind of a best friend doesn’t warn a person that their fiancé is cheating on them?”
“A shitty one,” Avery inserted.
“Exactly,” I agreed.
“Give your sister a break. What was Milena supposed to say? It’s not like she could tell Bethany how Alex discovered Gregg was cheating.”
Alcaeus was often quick to come to my little sister’s defense—despite the fact that he wasn’t on speaking terms with her at present. It was an annoying habit of his. And I wasn’t the only one bothered by it. Avery and I shared a look as Alcaeus proceeded to justify Milena’s actions.
“Bethany doesn’t know about Milena and Alex being werelocks. She knows nothing of our world. And that’s by Bethany’s own choice,” he said, giving me that pointed, know-it-all look of his that always made me want to smash his face in. “Milena was right to stay out of it. It’s Bethany’s business. Alex shouldn’t have been snooping around in Gregg’s head in the first place.”
Squelching the impulse to lash out, I shook my head and argued, “Bethany doesn’t know about Miles or any of us being werelocks because your former pack took the liberty of erasing from her mind all knowledge of what she learned and witnessed firsthand in South America ten years ago.” Along with the memory of our first kiss.
“Right. And I’m telling you that Remy erased Bethany’s memory at her own request,” Alcaeus continued, his revelation prompting an unwelcome ache in my chest. “Bethany chose to have her mind erased. To forget that her best friend had become a powerful werewolf subspecies. She can’t have it both ways. When you ask to be kept in the dark, that’s what you get. Besides, you don’t think Milena felt hurt by Bethany’s choice? Abandoned?”
“You don’t think that just once you could stop playing devil’s fucking advocate for every situation I find myself in?”
“A good Alpha analyzes situations from all sides and remains flexible in his thinking.”
“Boys,” Avery cut in, “what does it matter who erased whose mind at whose request and who’s still acting butthurt over it, hmm? The important thing here is that Raul has chosen a mate, and whether he did it by accident”—she gave me an exaggerated wink—“or to mess with his power-trippin’ sister, the fact remains, this is fucking awesome news.” She raised a hand in the air. “I call dibs on planning the engagement party. I’ll just go send a save-the-date email invite right now to Milena to get the fun started, ’kay?”
“No,” Alcaeus objected, wrapping an arm around Avery and pulling her into his side. “Honey, that’s not the way to handle the Blind Warrior.”
“Oh, c’mon, Raul started it. I’m just jumping in to support our Alpha.”
“What happened last night had nothing to do with Miles,” I insisted once more. “It was about me and Bethy.”
Alcaeus pulled a face. “Can you please stop calling her that? It only makes this entire scenario sound that much more absurd.”
“It does not. It’s what Miles and I always called Bethany growing up.”
“Omigod,” Avery erupted, clasping her hands together in front of her heart as understanding lit her brown eyes. “Bethy’s the hot blonde I caught you stalking on Facebook using your catfish profile, isn’t she? She’s the one Weenie Gabe was talking about—Milena’s med student friend living in San Francisco.”
I nodded.
Alcaeus’s forehead crumpled. “Just how long has this been going on?”
“Long enough,” Mike answered from the doorway.
“Mike,” Alcaeus greeted with a sigh. “How could you let this happen? I specifically told Stephen to tell you to make sure—”
“I know, Chaos,” Mike said, addressing Alcaeus by Avery’s outrageous nickname for him—that had somehow caught on with my entire pack since Alcaeus and Avery had joined us seven months ago. “But you can only deny a true mate connection for so long. It’s a wonder Raul managed to make it a whole decade with his sanity intact.”
Avery let out a little gasp. “This explains so much.”
“More than a decade,” I corrected under my breath. “Not that I’ve been keeping track.”
“Are you shitting me?” Alcaeus’s scowl swung in my direction. “That’s impossible. No one can avoid the mating pull for that long. I don’t believe it.”
“No?” I held my arms open. “Well, believe it, because you’re looking at it.”
“It’s not possible.” Alcaeus’s eyes cut from me to Mike, who nodded soberly. “Jesus, Raul, every time I start to think you can’t possibly be as much of an idiot Alpha as Alex was to mentor, you go and prove me wrong.”
“Stop comparing me to—”
“There is no way,” he insisted. “Bethany can’t be your true mate. You kidnapped her ten years ago. You held her life over Milena’s head—”
“I had to play along with Gabe and Nuriel’s plan,” I defended. “I had no choice back then. It would’ve been more dangerous for Bethany had I revealed my true intentions. But I was never going to let any harm come to her. Damnit, I even told Miles that after it was all over. Do you have any idea how sick I was over that entire situation?”
“No, Raul,” Alcaeus said, his arm falling from around Avery’s shoulder as he turned fully to face me, his volume rising along with his anger. “I honestly don’t. Forgive me if I have a hard time keeping track of what lies you’re spinning as half-truths from one week to the next to justify all the bullshit you’ve—”
“Hey, should we check Bethy’s vitals, maybe?” Avery asked the room, her puzzled gaze fixed on my mate’s unmoving form on the bed. “I mean her heart rate sounds fine from here, and I can hear her breathing, but that poor hickey-ridden girl is seriously zonked to be sleeping through all this.”
Mike coughed behind his fist, and I couldn’t help but crack a smile myself.
Alcaeus shook his head at the ceiling and complained, “You always do this.”
It was true. Avery often managed to insert herself in order to diffuse the escalating tension between her mate and me.
“What?” Avery feigned innocence. “You mean play devil’s advocate? Remain flexible in my thinking? I thought you liked—”
I let out a laugh as Alcaeus
lunged for Avery, lifting her off the ground and into his arms as he growled against the crook of her neck, causing her to squeal and giggle. As much as Alcaeus was a thorn in my side, Avery was the balm. I loved that girl. She joked about it, but in many ways, she had assumed the role of surrogate big sister in my life since joining the pack.
Mike had once jokingly described Avery as a hotter, blacker version of J.Lo—all the poise, booty, and confidence of the megastar, but without the bling and diva-persona baggage. A fair surface-level assessment, I supposed.
In truth, Avery was a warrior. She could throw a punch better than most guys I knew. She’d grown up the hard and fast way—without much, if any, adult guidance, and having to figure out on her own how to survive whatever life had thrown at her. Then, ten years ago at the age of thirty-two, she’d been attacked and impregnated by a rogue werewolf, and she’d had to figure out how to navigate her new life as a lone werewolf on the run with her child—who was being hunted by powerful supernatural predators from around the globe.
Avery had put her trust in me and in my pack to protect her daughter, Sloane. It wasn’t a responsibility I took lightly. Avery was someone I never wanted to let down.
“I’m planning to bring Bethy to Bariloche later today to have Rafe take a look at her,” I assured Avery once Alcaeus stopped smooching on her and had set her back down on her feet.
“Well, in the meantime, you might wanna get inside her head and heal some of those bite marks and handprint bruises a little better before she wakes up, Romeo,” she advised. “Lick them better at the very least. A girl can only do so much with concealer.”
I cringed internally at the reminder of the greater obstacle and impending danger at hand where Bethany was concerned. “So … about that,” I addressed Alcaeus directly, assuming an Alpha tone. “I need you to remove the block your former pack placed on Bethany’s mind a decade ago. It’s some sort of emotional shield, and I can’t—”
“Wait—what?” he interrupted. A look of realization washed over his features, and then he confirmed my greatest fear. “Aw, fuck. That shield was Remy’s work.”
“You’re blocked out?” Avery exclaimed, aghast. “But then Bethy’s initial transformation—”
“Yes,” I confirmed, not eager to hear her spell out aloud the harsh reality we were now facing—a reality that Avery herself was painfully familiar with.
If we couldn’t find a way to get inside Bethany’s mind, then I wouldn’t be able to control her initial shift in seven days’ time. And Avery was the only known human in werewolf history to have survived the initial werewolf transformation completely unassisted by one of our kind.
10
Bethany
I dreamt that Raul was licking the back of my thigh—sucking on a spot that felt tender. The tension was building in my lower abdomen the longer he did it, my sex buzzing and pulsing to life, prompting me to squirm and press my pelvis into the cushiony surface beneath me.
In my dream, he murmured softly in another language as his mouth traveled upward, licking the underside of my ass cheek before latching onto another sensitive expanse of skin on my backside. By the time he moved on to licking and sucking the opposite cheek, I was slowly circling and pressing my pelvis into the mattress.
When his hands began gently kneading my fleshy globes, my breathing grew shallow. His mouth trailed kisses up my spine before licking a path to my shoulder, where another wounded area captured his tongue’s attention.
This time, a muffled whimper escaped me as his mouth latched onto that particularly raw spot. Raul paused to mumble something in English about being sorry and making it better, as the fingers massaging my ass rubbed lower, dipping between the cheeks to stroke and enter me where I was slippery wet and throbbing.
His masculine groan of approval reverberated against my shoulder as he sucked the smarting flesh in time with the movement of his fingers pumping in and out.
The sounds of my mewling and moaning became interspersed with my panted breaths as I was lost to the ever-tightening coiling sensation in my belly. But just as I strained for that precipice, rolling my pelvis faster and pressing my clit harder into the mattress with each successive rotation of my hips, the surface beneath me pulled away, leaving my body floating weightless in the air. Raul’s mouth relinquished my shoulder. His fingers withdrew, reminding me that sex dreams were the cruelest of teases—never living up to the real thing, and hardly ever culminating in a release.
But then I felt hot breath moving beneath me—warm kisses trailing from my belly button to my sex as Raul’s big hands ran up the back of my thighs, pulling them apart, squeezing my ass and drawing my weightless body downward until I felt the insides of my knees straddling his broad shoulders. Warm breath fanned my wet center; the tip of a tongue twirled and lashed at my clit. Fingers entered me and curled against my G-spot as Raul drew my fluttering little bud into his fevered mouth and sucked it like candy.
My upper body remained buoyant—suspended in midair somehow as if floating on water—as Raul’s lips and tongue devoured me without mercy. This was the best damn sex dream I’d ever had.
My hands fell to his head below for balance, and my fingers wound through his hair, unconsciously clutching and pulling on it as sensations overwhelmed me. I’d always been too self-conscious to try this position with anyone I’d been with before. Because it was crazy intimate being eaten out this way—Raul’s fingers making sloppy wet noises as they drove in and out, my juices gushing straight into his mouth and onto his stubble-roughened chin as he nursed my clit, humming against my sex in a way that stole my breath.
The pressure on my G-spot had me scared that I was going to soak his face when I came. Just when I thought I couldn’t possibly feel more exposed and vulnerable and consumed with the need to come, he eased a finger inside my ass.
My whole body was soon shaking, my stomach muscles clenching spastically as the dual penetration and G-spot stimulation combined with his insistent sucking reduced me to frantic gasping and panted shouts of ecstasy. My orgasm hit like a freight train as it rolled over me, and I handled it with all the ladylike dignity that a woman robbed of breath yet still compulsively wailing obscenities could manage.
Raul’s fingers withdrew, but he continued licking and sucking on my sensitive bits, grunting and growling as his shoulder muscles jumped and jerked with rapid, pulsing movements against the insides of my spread knees. I pictured him stroking his huge, beautiful erection, hard and fast, seeking his own relief. I wanted to tell him to put it inside me, despite how spent I was and how tender my insides felt, but he let out an extended groan and his shoulders ceased jerking a moment later, signaling his release.
I was lightheaded and dizzy and whimpering from sensitivity by the time Raul finished lapping every last drop of my orgasm from between my spread folds. I felt my body tumble as gravity reclaimed me, the mattress rising up to meet my back, my head flopping down onto the soft surface of a pillow.
Fingers combed through the hair at my crown, smiling lips pressed to my forehead, and I heard Raul apologize for waking me up, saying that he couldn’t rest without healing me first.
Waking me up?
Then he said something in an amused voice about making up for lost time, before murmuring, “You’re in so much trouble now, Bethy,” as exhaustion pulled me under into a peaceful state of sleep.
I was in the midst of another sex dream.
In this one, Raul’s tongue was thoroughly laving a sore spot on my breast. When his mouth moved on to my nipple, nipping it between his teeth before sucking away the sting, my body came alive with need.
I ached for him to lick and suck lower—like he’d done in the last sex dream he’d starred in. This time, I wanted to feel his hard cock breaching me, stretching me wide and filling the pulsating void between my thighs.
Then my phone went off.
I tried to ignore it and remain in the hot dream, but it was too late because the sucking stopped, and I felt my
covers against my breasts instead. I could see light behind my closed eyelids.
Ugh. I swung my arm out toward the nightstand, blindly reaching for my phone. As my fingers located it, a warm, masculine hand fell atop mine, halting me.
“I got it, Bethy,” Raul’s deep voice floated over me as gently he extracted the phone from my sleepy, uncoordinated fingertips, silencing the irritating noise.
My breath caught and my heart leapt into my throat.
Raul hadn’t left. He’d actually spent the night!
I bolted upright in bed, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as they strained against the morning sunlight streaming in through my windows.
“You’re here. I can’t believe you stayed.” I was so beyond thrilled to discover Raul hadn’t left that I failed to filter myself—or restrain what was no doubt a freakishly dorky grin on my pillow-wrinkled face—as through squinted eyes I took in his gorgeous, tall presence standing beside my bed, dressed casually in jeans and a white T-shirt.
My grin broadened when I realized I could smell coffee. And pancakes. And eggs.
“I think I’m in love with you.” The words flew from my mouth, and I belatedly slapped my hand over it.
My eyes went wide as mortification sank in.
“Does that mean I can stay for breakfast?”
That smile of his would be my undoing.
“No. I mean, of course. I mean—I didn’t mean that last part like it came out. I just … really love eggs. And pancakes ... and coffee.” Oh, shut up, Bethany. “Would you excuse me, please?” I threw the covers aside and bolted for the bathroom, buck-naked.
I locked the door behind me and jumped in the shower, turning the water to its coldest setting.
I’d slept with Milena’s brother!
Scratch that; I’d fucked my best friend’s brother six ways from Sunday and back again, and I had loved every filthy second of it.
Shit, shit, shit.