by Hettie Ivers
I shook my head, dabbing the residual dampness from my face with the back of my hand. Did he mean Alex was planning on invading my dreams next?
“Possibly,” he answered my unspoken question, “… if he senses your dreams are distressing you.” He paused, his expression pensive. “But if you’re calm, he’s likely to let you sleep in peace and only come check your physical person.”
His words registered when I remembered how he and Remy had explained before that my stronger emotions were somehow affecting Alex.
“Will you let me help you relax?” he asked, the fingertips of his free hand tracing my collarbone. He looked strangely forlorn, perhaps regretful.
I eyed him warily. I suspected he meant to control my heart rate like Alex had done.
“Sort of. I’d like to simply make a few … suggestions, Milena, so that you’ll feel safe and worry-free during this dream time with me,” he expounded, his eyes embracing mine in a manner that was so profoundly personal, I was helpless to look away. “That way, we can chat, you can ask me any questions you want, but you’ll be able to stay relaxed and rest better. Sound okay?”
I nodded, feeling safer and more relaxed already.
“You feel unconditionally safe with me,” he affirmed with a wan smile. “Don’t you, honey?”
I nodded readily again, confused as to why I would ever feel anything other than safe with him.
“Good.” A crease formed between his brows, even as he smiled kindly down at me. His hand moved from my collarbone to splay across my stomach. It felt nice there. So I laid my own hand atop his. His smile broadened, but his eyes were still sad.
“I’m so pleased you shared with me about your mom.” Liquid warmth spread through me at his approval. “And it would please me even more if you always shared truthfully with me,” he added, pressing a chaste kiss to my forehead. “You would do that for me, wouldn’t you, Milena?”
He drew back to search my eyes again, and I nodded eagerly. I couldn’t fathom why he looked troubled, and almost … guilty. But I ceased worrying about it as I was rewarded with more delicious warmth spreading through me. It was virtually the best sensation I’d ever experienced.
“That’s right.” He smiled. “So good … so sweet.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this adored and cared for, and I never wanted the feeling to end. But there were so many questions I desperately needed answers to, I couldn’t afford to lose focus and waste the opportunity.
“Everything’s going to be okay, Milena. You’ll see. I promise Alex won’t hurt you.”
“Because you think I’m the vessel?” I blurted the question that had been bouncing around in my head. “Or because you think I’m Alex’s mate?” Just saying the words “Alex” and “mate” in the same sentence made me shudder in revulsion.
Alcaeus looked thoughtful a moment. “Honestly, I’m not entirely convinced of anything just yet.”
“He doesn’t even want me as his mate. He kept blaming it on his wolf. Which, incidentally, is super creepy,” I vented. “Are they separate entities? How does that even work?”
Alcaeus laughed. “No, they’re not separate, but they function quite differently, which sometimes can create a rift. The wolf operates largely on instinct; the man, on intellect. That’s not to say they each don’t employ the use of both, but recognizing a soul mate, for example, is purely instinctual for the wolf. Not so much always for the man.” He shook his head. “Particularly when that man is my baby brother.”
Alcaeus proceeded to relay the difference between what was perceived to be a true mate determined by destiny, as opposed to a mate chosen in the conventional sense.
He used his and Alessandra’s father as an example, revealing that their father, Antonio, had been happily married to their mother, Alyana, for 234 years, even though they had never been considered “true mates” or “soul mates” in the werewolf sense of the word. When Alyana passed, their father had been heartbroken, experiencing and displaying his grief for years to follow, much as a human might.
Thirty years after his wife’s death, Antonio met Remy’s mother, Renata, who had also been widowed. Alcaeus said that the moment Antonio and Renata first laid eyes on one another, their wolves recognized each other as their true mate. He joked that it took them as man and woman all of about five minutes longer to arrive at the same conclusion, and that they were inseparable from that moment forward until their death.
Alcaeus explained that another distinction of true mates was that they almost always perished together. He said even if one was perfectly healthy when the other passed, the mate left behind typically wouldn’t survive for long without the other. Moreover, they wouldn’t want to subsist without the other, and would soon follow their mate into the afterlife.
I tried to imagine it as romantic, given the right mate and the right circumstances, but it sounded like a raw deal to me. Talk about co-dependent! I decided to change the subject and ask what the heck a “vessel” was.
Alcaeus dithered a bit, maintaining that the vessel was a complicated, dichotomous concept to explicate. He divulged that within their historical records, as well as their consecrated books of legends and prophecies, the vessel was depicted as both a beacon of hope and harbinger of impending doom, and for this reason, many of his kind held ardent and often opposing viewpoints on the phenomenon. But the widely accepted belief was that their ancestors placed vessels periodically in their pathway in order to change the course of the future.
“From a strictly metaphysical, esoteric perspective,” Alcaeus ruminated aloud, “the vessel, as I see it, is always the light source we’re meant to embrace. It’s a savior, a deliverer, existing as the purest mechanism for our transcendence, should we choose to move forward.”
Hmm … didn’t sound too terrible so far. Saviors were usually considered valuable. So if I were deemed the vessel, it might at least keep me—and by extension, my brother—alive a little longer than a case of mistaken mate identity likely would.
“But in terms of the physical world,” Alcaeus said, “a vessel is quite literally the necessary means to our very survival. It’s the key to our future corporeal existence—which is often ultimately predicated upon it. And it commonly ushers forth an evolutionary push … a cosmic leap forward.”
I nodded. I was definitely digging the vessel deal.
“Yes, a vessel is quite the extraordinary occurrence,” he agreed, beaming down at me. He linked his fingers with mine where they lay over my stomach. “A rare and precious gift. However, historically a vessel’s existence has the tendency to be controversial as well, and invariably this can create quite a bit of conflict and strife within a pack.”
Ugh, there was always a dark side. I remembered that “saviors” were also often crucified, executed, burned at the stake … Great.
“The important thing to remember is that ultimately you always have a choice. No matter what the rest of us believe your role is meant to be, Milena,” Alcaeus told me, much to my shock and confusion. “Not even Alex can take that away from you.”
“Why not?” I bristled. “He’s taken everything else from me.”
“Look, I realize Alex can appear a monster at times,” Alcaeus quipped, “but Alessandra, Remy, and I raised that little monster,” he surprised me by revealing. “And while we may have failed in just a few aspects of our surrogate parenting”—his eyes flew skyward as if to suggest that was an understatement—“I know he’s capable of great love and compassion. Believe me, Alex is more than what he displays on the surface.”
I pursed my lips, resisting the impulse to contend that Alex was pure evil. For while I hoped Alex was capable of more admirable traits than those he’d heretofore demonstrated, I couldn’t help but think it absurdly liberal to credit him for attributes he was “capable of” when they were a far cry from those he in fact displayed.
“Now, by no means am I suggesting he’ll ever be good enough for you,” Alcaeus clarified with a good-n
atured wink. “But neither is he pure evil, honey. If I thought Alex would truly harm you or force you to accept a mating bond, I’d never have left you with him.”
“You could stop him? If … if it came to it?”
He paused reflectively. “I think I could.”
My heart sank. He didn’t sound very convinced.
“Milena, honey, I know you’re being completely honest with me right now, and I don’t want to repay that trust by lying to you. Alex is arguably the strongest we’ve ever seen of our kind, his power unprecedented. I don’t take going head to head with him lightly. And I’ve been around long enough to know it’s never wise to presume the outcome of any battle.”
While I understood and appreciated his honesty, at the same time I couldn’t wrap my head around how the scales were so grossly tipped in Alex’s favor.
“I don’t get it,” I bemoaned. “Why aren’t you stronger? You’re older! Why can’t it be you who’s Alpha? Alex said in the hallway that you used to be Alpha.”
“Ouch!” He made a wounded face in mock affront. “Sheesh, you go straight for the below-the-belt questions, don’t you?”
I giggled and begged pardon.
“Well …” He heaved a world-weary sigh. “If you must know, it gets a little old and tiring being top cheese. As seductive a force the conquest of power may initially be, ultimately it makes for a shitty mistress. I accepted the mantle and I put in my time, but it was obvious to us all Alex was destined to be Alpha. And I had no problem passing the torch to him when he was ready.”
I nodded half-heartedly in understanding. It didn’t seem fair, though. “But why him? Why is Alex so strong?”
“Remy, Alessandra, and I have come up with different theories over the years, but we don’t know for sure. Alex was gifted from the day he was born. But after his parents died, something … shifted … and everything he already possessed was magnified tenfold.
“It was a little insane, truthfully.” Alcaeus chuckled humorlessly in remembrance. “I lost my father and became Alpha as well as guardian to my five-year-old little brother in one fell swoop. But when that five-year-old brother somehow became virtually indomitable overnight …”—he raised his brows and whistled low—“it made for some interesting parenting challenges.”
“I’m sorry,” I offered after a beat, still digesting the revelation that Alex had lost both of his parents by the time he was five. “Alex’s parents … err … your father and Renata … was it an accident?” I inquired tactlessly, curious as to what sort of event could’ve taken out one of their kind.
“Eh …” He winced. “It’s not a happy bedtime tale. How ’bout I tell it another time?”
I nodded in agreement, already feeling like a jerk for having asked such a rude, insensitive question.
“Milena, it’s okay. It’s just a bit of a delicate topic is all.”
Strange as it was, I was almost getting used to the ease of communication that came with Alcaeus simply answering my unspoken thoughts. And it didn’t even seem intrusive to me like it had before with Alex. Perhaps it was because I was dreaming.
Alcaeus’ lips dipped to my ear. “Or … it’s because,” he whispered conspiratorially in his seductive bass that sent my stomach turning somersaults, “despite what Remy might think, I’m perfectly capable of being gentle when handling a very precious, and exceptionally enchanting, human.” He punctuated those words with a kiss to the shell of my ear.
For a moment it was hard to focus and remember what other questions I’d wanted to ask him as his lips ventured from my ear to my neck.
“Sorry,” he apologized, abandoning my neck to lean back onto his elbow again. “You were asking?”
I gathered my thoughts. “Um … so what exactly …” I swallowed. “Err … I was just wondering, well … what you are exactly, and also how old you are.” I smiled sheepishly. “Is that another rude question?”
“Nope.” He popped the “p,” his lips splitting into a playful grin, his teeth gleaming white in the starlight. “I am in my fifth century. Turning four hundred and nine this year. Basically, I’m in the prime of my life.”
My eyes widened. “Fifth century?”
“Uh-huh. Aged to perfection like a fine wine, baby.”
I wasn’t sure why, but his statement made me blush.
“And as far as what I am …” he said, squinting in contemplation, “I guess you could classify me as amongst the oldest of the second generation of a unique breed of shape-shifting wolves—or werewolves or weres, if you prefer.”
“What makes you different?”
“Well, our kind originated from the union between a powerful warlock and a werewolf back in the first quarter of the sixteenth century … in 1521, to be exact. And we’re considered an advanced breed for the fact that we possess rare magical abilities beyond those of the average werewolf. But I should probably back up a bit.” His brows drew together. “Wait, you sure you want to hear all this? It’s kind of a long story.”
“Yes!” I bobbed my head enthusiastically. Was he kidding? I was desperate to know what the hell the story was with them.
“Al-riight,” he sing-songed, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Let’s see … I’ll start with my grandpop, Bento Reinoso. Bento was a fourth-generation mage born in 1482, descended from an ancient family of mages of predominantly Spanish and Portuguese origin who’d migrated to Portugal. Grandpops was one of the most powerful mages in his coven, as each generation passed on more power and tools of the occult to the next.”
“Mage?”
“A mage is like a magician or sorcerer, except a mage operates more as a shaman or medical healer. And they’re also known for being masters at manipulating elemental energies. The Reinoso clan of mages in particular was well received and respected within the medical community during my grandpop’s time.”
I hmm’d in understanding, while wishing I’d paid better attention during those Harry Potter movies my mom had taken me to.
“But let’s skip right to the good stuff,” Alcaeus proposed. “In 1521, Bento crossed paths with a female werewolf named Lucia. I should mention that in 1521, weres didn’t socialize with either humans or even other supernaturals much. They pretty well avoided all but their own kind and existed mostly in secret, living in hiding, as they’d been well persecuted throughout the previous two centuries, drastically reducing their numbers.”
Despite how fascinating the information he was imparting about his heritage was, not to mention how likely crucial to my future survival, I found myself becoming distracted, my mind wandering to foolish things like how good it felt to hold his hand, and how much I enjoyed the sound of his deep voice.
“So when Bento met and fell madly in love with Lucia, their union was not only less than traditional, it was regarded as cursed. Forbidden. Lucia’s pack didn’t trust any outsiders, period. So a powerful mage such as Bento was completely out of the question. And my grandpop’s coven feared and hated Lucia instantly, refusing to accept her. They regarded weres as grossly inferior,” he informed me, “more or less considering them uncivilized, rabid dogs.”
Alcaeus paused, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “You know … kind of how you think of us as Cujos,” he likened, erupting into guffaws when I reddened with surprise and embarrassment.
“Sorry … sorry, just making sure you’re still paying attention,” he teased. “Anyhow, more than the social stain Lucia represented to my snobbier ancestors, their objection stemmed from the very real fear of the time that even one born with magic running through his veins couldn’t survive a bite from a werewolf. And it was unheard of that one not born of some werewolf descent could successfully survive the process of being turned into one.
“Fortunately, Grandpops Bento was a devout nonconformist,” Alcaeus declared proudly, “and by all accounts, a fucking badass. So he stuck to his guns and broke from the Reinoso coven of mages in order to be with my grandma, Lucia, thus earning the sullied title of warlock among hi
s peers for his perceived betrayal.”
Alcaeus shrugged dismissively. “No big loss there, right? Mage has such a pussy ring to it anyhow.”
“Bento and Lucia married, and five years later, after much persuading from Bento, Lucia finally consented to attempt turning him into a were. It worked”—he gestured to himself—“obviously. And when word got out that Grandpops had not only survived the change but was now more powerful than ever, pretty soon others from his former clan were keen on the idea of hooking up with a hot she-wolf.
“I should warn you, historically, Reinosos have been known to be a rather competitive lot,” he confessed. “Also, a bit greedy,” he muttered, his expression indicating that was yet another understatement.
“So even though most mages enjoyed an extended lifespan beyond that of a normal human because of their vast healing capabilities, an average werewolf’s natural life expectancy was still easily twice that of a mage.” He raised his brows in entreaty on behalf of his ancestors. “I mean, c’mon, who wouldn’t try to steal more time when presented with such an opportunity?”
I forced my gaze from his smiling full lips long enough to shake my head and shrug agreeably in response.
“And so a new clan, or pack, rather, of stronger, superior Reinosos gradually emerged as a result of Bento’s dissention,” he concluded.
Ever so casually, Alcaeus lifted our intertwined hands to his lips and began lazily brushing kisses across the back of my hand, and then along each of my fingers as he continued his tale.
“Some years later, Lucia and Bento produced a son, Antonio, the first known offspring to result from a werewolf and warlock union. Antonio proved to be an entirely new breed all his own, with strength and abilities far surpassing those of both of his parents, heralding the advent of the most powerful werewolf-warlock, or were-lock, breed in existence to this day.”
Alcaeus’ lips idled over my fingers as pain slashed his features. “Which, as it turned out, proved uncommonly timely.” Somber hazel eyes found mine. “For you see, the Portuguese Inquisition began in 1536, and Portugal held its first auto-da-fe in 1540. Witches, mages, warlocks, and werewolves alike were hunted down, tortured, and murdered en masse along with the New Christians. The losses to our kind were staggering,” he recounted.