by Hettie Ivers
I swiveled my head from Remy to find Alex frowning at me in the strangest manner, his body suddenly tense and his entire countenance markedly changed from only a moment ago.
“Oh … my … fuck …” Remy cursed dazedly. “Alex …?”
Alex persisted in staring at me, his frown morphing into a horrified scowl that chafed my last nerve as I realized he was right; I was out of teacups.
So I slapped him instead. Hard.
I heard the sound of fine bones fracturing as my hand made contact with his face. But I didn’t feel any pain. It must’ve been the adrenaline rush. Alex’s mouth came ajar, and he gaped at me in disbelief. I couldn’t fathom why. It was hardly the first time I’d broken my hand against his face.
I slapped him again. Harder.
More splintering of bone combined with a highly rewarding smacking sound that by some sweet, impossible miracle managed to jerk Alex’s head to the side. I felt a wild surge of satisfaction that further fueled my adrenaline buzz.
But Alex captured my wrist before I could pull it back to strike him again.
“Stop!” he ordered, his face reflecting an unmistakable measure of panic I’d not seen him display before.
I realized my whole body had begun trembling like crazy, vibrating like the blood inside of me was doing. And then I felt it—foreign, yet familiar, a deep and ancient pain that was mine, though not mine, as the reverberation of some unsung, long-dormant violence overdue to have its day rolled up through my chest, past the back of my throat, and out across my bared teeth.
Oh, holy shit, I definitely was growling!
“Alex, do something! Her heart … it’s too fast … everything … it’s all going too fast.”
“Get Kai,” Alex enjoined, his voice annoyingly calm and even, his wide eyes never abandoning mine.
“Why aren’t you stopping it? You have to slow it down! She’s changing too fast. She’ll never make it at this pace.”
Alex didn’t answer, just continued to stare at me like I was some freak with three heads. My right wrist remained captive in his grasp, and my injured hand that was attached to it had begun buzzing and swirling with an energy that was uncomfortable, prompting me to contract and then flex my broken fingers. With sick fascination, I heard the bones re-break and realign themselves, knitting together and healing all on their own.
Alex and Remy heard it, too.
I yanked at my imprisoned wrist. “Let go of me!”
He continued to stare stupidly back, appearing to be lost in some manner of deep and strenuous concentration. It was really starting to tick me off! I raised my left hand to hit him, but he caught that wrist as well.
I overheard Remy instructing Thy to take the other girls back to the house and to send for Kai.
“I want Alcaeus!” I told Remy, followed by an impassioned, “Please?” as my eyes caught his. “I need him. I need to … smell … Alcaeus …” I awkwardly confessed, much to my own surprise and total confusion as the words escaped my lips.
I wasn’t sure why; I just knew I did. When I’d been in my coma, Alcaeus’ brief presence had comforted me most. His scent had been the most appealing and soothing. And in the hours since I’d awakened, I’d been petitioning everyone from Alex to Franco to help me get in contact with Alcaeus. Yes, I definitely needed to smell Alcaeus, I decided. Clearly I was going nuts.
I couldn’t discern the emotions that flitted across Remy’s face in reaction to my request, but he ultimately nodded his concurrence, and that was all that mattered to me.
When my eyes refocused on Alex, I found him looking at me as if I’d just stabbed him through the heart, prompting me to want to hit him again. Unfortunately, he was still holding both of my wrists.
It was then I noticed that atop the stone pillars lining the back of the garden space behind him sat a row of pretentious-looking, ornate vases. How I yearned to wield one of those vases against his fat head.
As the idea came to me, so did one of the hideous vases, flying magically through the air of its own accord to collide with the back of Alex’s unsuspecting head! I hoped it’d been terribly expensive—an irreplaceable family heirloom, perhaps?
I heard Remy swear and the girls scream and scatter, but Alex didn’t even flinch in response as broken pieces of vase fell to litter the ground around him. It made my tingling hands want to smash another one against his head. As before, just as the desire hit me, another vase miraculously leapt from the back row of pillars to fly at Alex’s skull. Again it shattered against his unflinching crown.
It couldn’t be me who was causing those vases to move?
A symphony of growls filled the garden as numerous guards, both in human and in wolf form, swiftly encroached upon me in defense of their precious Alpha. Alex snapped from his bizarre, focused trance then, arising from his seat to pull me close and shield my body from the guards as he shouted orders at them to back off, strictly forbidding anyone from touching me.
Some inner, angry beast of my own was already too threatened and freaked out by their intrusion, though, and every ugly, ornate vase in the garden went flying, attacking and smashing haphazardly against my perceived assailants.
Sweet Jesus! I was a token wrist corsage and a bucket of pig’s blood shy of being Carrie White on prom night at this rate. What the fuck was wrong with me? I couldn’t possibly be doing all this with my thoughts, could I?
“Please calm down?” I heard Alex beseech, his voice sounding curiously far away for someone who was embracing me. “Please breathe, baby? You need to calm down and breathe! Please, please, baby?” He sounded terrified.
As he said it, I realized I couldn’t. I couldn’t breathe. And I couldn’t see!
I could scarcely hear him or feel him holding me a moment later as my whole world became nothing but pain.
Uncompromising, inconceivable pain! It pulsed through my entire being, robbing me of all my other senses. It felt as if my bones were incinerating, my insides exploding. I was dying. I had to be! Because I didn’t think I could live through it if this level of torture persisted for much longer.
I heard screaming. It was horrific. Bloodcurdling. I knew it came from me. But I was helpless to stop it—blind to all else save the immense pain searing through me as I writhed in agony, my arms and legs flailing against Alex’s iron hold on me. Vaguely I registered another set of strong hands restraining my arms, extending and holding the right one out flat against the grass. When had I wound up on the ground?
Kai’s muffled voice spoke to me as if it were coming from the opposite side of a long tunnel as a needle pierced my arm. He said something about morphine. And then my world was spinning: my head dizzy, my entire body throbbing with a dull ache as tears poured unchecked down my cheeks.
Kai’s voice, along with Alex and Remy’s, floated over me. But I couldn’t understand their words. And I couldn’t see anything—although it felt like my eyes were open.
Alex’s hands were on me, running everywhere, stroking and calming my trembling limbs, his fingers wiping the tears from my cheeks, his lips feathering kisses over my face. Eventually I grew lucid enough to realize they were talking to one another in Portuguese. I sobbed that I didn’t understand, followed by a pathetic, “Please make it stop!”
“You’re okay. I promise it’ll be okay. Please, stay calm, baby?” Alex entreated, his face nuzzling mine. “You need to preserve your strength. Please try to relax? Is the pain a little better now?”
I choked and blubbered through my hysteria in response as he pulled me into his arms. While it did feel better—bearable rather, it was still the worst physical agony of my entire life. Beneath the dizzying effects of the morphine, I could still feel the pain radiating through me, decimating my insides.
“I’ve gone blind! Am I dying?”
“You’re not blind,” Alex reassured me, kissing my eyelids and stroking my hair. “It’s a temporary side effect. You’re going to be fine.”
I couldn’t help but note the fear in
his voice and wonder if he believed that. I was cradled in his lap now. It felt good to be held by him. Irritatingly, disgustingly comforting, in fact. Amidst the unprecedented physical torment, the confusion and terror consuming me over what the deuce was happening, it further angered me to know he could still induce that response in me.
“Side effect?” I croaked. “From your blood?” Jesus, I didn’t think I could handle any more side effects from my blood transfusion! I was starting to regret he’d ever saved my life with his blood in the first place.
“Milena, I’ve been up all night analyzing your last two blood draws,” Kai responded, his tone grave, “comparing them to the blood samples we took upon your arrival prior to your accident.”
“And?” Remy’s voice prompted. “What the fuck is happening to her? Why are we blocked? Why is she changing this fast?”
Changing? Oh, dear Lord, help me …
“Her werelock blood count appears to be multiplying rapidly. At an alarming rate.”
“Alex’s blood?” Remy balked in disbelief.
“No, not Alex’s blood. As you know, blood cells don’t reproduce. Not even our werelock blood. Her body is somehow generating werelock blood, producing it in her bone marrow—all on its own.”
“Impossible!” Alex rejected, his arms tightening around me.
“She’d have to be in possession of some latent werelock gene,” Remy pondered aloud.
What? Fucking Jiminy Christmas, I really had moved those vases with my mind!
“Yeah … well, you could … say that …” Kai muttered cryptically.
“How rapidly is she creating them?”
“Faster than anything considered remotely normal. Based on the rate of increase from the draw I took yesterday afternoon to the one I took last night, I’d estimate her werelock blood count has now more than doubled the amount she took from Alex.”
“What?” I was taken aback by how desperate my voice managed to come out. This couldn’t be happening to me. “My parents were not Cujos!”
“I know,” Kai said, his tone apologetic. “There was no trace of werewolf or warlock heritage found in the genetic testing performed on your original blood work. We checked thoroughly for that. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Try making sense of it anyway!” Alex demanded.
“A genetic mutation has occurred within her system, and it’s building momentum. It’s as if a switch was flipped, triggering the emergence of some hidden genetic coding that was there all along, although untraceable. Her human cells are dying off and being replaced. The morphine I gave her won’t last much more than ten—maybe fifteen minutes.”
“What does that mean?” I bleated. “My human cells are dying? I’m dying?”
“Shh—it’s okay; you are not dying.” Alex pressed kisses to my brow. “I won’t let you die.”
“You’re changing,” Kai clarified.
Changing? Oh, my God! By “changing” did he mean …
“We know she’s changing into a werewolf,” Remy said, clinching my worst fear. “But how soon? Why so fast?”
“I estimate within less than twenty-four hours.”
“That can’t be right,” Remy disputed. “It’s way too fast a transition.”
“I know,” Kai agreed. “Unless we’re somehow able to slow it down … her survival chances aren’t—”
“Shut up!” Alex barked. “She’ll be fine!”
A moment of unnerving silence followed while my life passed before my temporarily blinded eyes.
“You’re … positive, my Alpha? You’re completely blocked out of her mind?” Kai seemed to be hesitantly attempting perilous terrain. “Maybe … if you tried again? Now that the morphine has subdued her?”
“I haven’t stopped trying since her eyes first shifted, Kai! What the fuck do you think I’ve been doing here? I’m completely fucking blocked! I’ve approached access from every remotely conceivable angle I know of.”
“This is insanity!” Remy declared. “How the fuck can this have happened? How will we slow down her transformation?”
My spinning cranium struggled to grasp the random, confusing, supernatural puzzle pieces floating through the darkness surrounding me as my tears soaked Alex’s bare chest.
Alex was completely blocked out of my head? And without access to my mind he would be unable to slow down my horrendously painful transformation into a killer Cujo? Ostensibly resulting in my unfortunate demise?
Seriously? These were the cards I’d just been dealt? Was there no justice in the universe? After all the mind-raping bullshit I’d endured since my arrival, the fates chose to block Alex from my head now?
“I don’t know,” Kai admitted. “I’m sorry. I was afraid this might be the case based on my analysis, but I was hoping I was wrong somehow. There’s … more.” He cleared his throat before continuing. “Unfortunately, it gets worse.”
“Worse?” I squawked. “Are you flipping kidding me?”
I was a blind Carrie White who was turning into a dog in less than twenty-four hours, and apparently very likely to die in the process. How could it possibly get any worse?
Regrettably, I knew it could, though—based on the scent of Kai’s mounting trepidation.
“Milena has Alpha blood.”
“What?” Alex and Remy exclaimed simultaneously.
My head was pounding. It felt like my bones were on fire.
“Whose?”
“From our bloodline?”
Kai cleared his throat again. “No. I ran a trace. Three times,” he emphasized, “to be certain its origin. And her were blood is not in any way related or derived from the Reinoso family or extended family bloodlines.”
“Whose fucking blood is it? We’re running out of time!”
“You’re not going to like it, Alex,” Kai cautioned. “And it’s not going to help Milena’s present condition if you get upset.”
“I’m beyond upset already! Fucking tell me what bloodline so I know which Alpha I need to threaten or buy a favor from!”
More tense silence ensued. I was frantic to know what was happening, to read the expressions on their faces. Of all the shitty times to be suffering hysterical blindness or whatever the crappy blood side effect was wrong with me now! I was about to scream at Kai myself when Remy seemed to put the pieces together from reading Kai’s emotions—or however his brand of interloping voodoo worked.
“Aw, fuck! No? Fuck no … please say it isn’t, Kai?”
“I’m afraid it is. It’s a mutated form of Salvatella Alpha blood she’s generating.”
Remy cursed violently and then commenced growling and spewing what sounded like extremely rancorous—possibly murderous—sentiments in French.
A heavy burden of dread settled in my gut. I couldn’t be a Salvatella. Alex said nothing; his body was taut, motionless against mine. He didn’t even seem to be breathing.
I’d ceased breathing as well. Although I’d never heard the name Reinoso prior to arriving in Brazil, I had in fact heard the name Salvatella … on two memorable occasions. And judging from their reactions, I had a sinking feeling I wasn’t going to like where this revelation was headed.
“I’m sorry,” Kai said. “But it explains why you’re blocked out. Most likely at this stage only Alpha Gabriel Salvatella would be able to slow down and guide her transformation.”
“This is fucking bullshit!” Remy exploded. “Why now? Why is she shifting so damn fast? Having Alpha blood alone wouldn’t cause such a rapid transformation.”
“I’m not certain. But I think somehow Alex’s blood triggered it, or at least exacerbated the rate of cell production.” Kai blew out a lungful of stress-laden air. “God help me, this is going to sound idiotically unscientific, but it’s almost as if Milena’s ancestral Alpha blood is battling for dominance against Alex’s. The faster her body generates Salvatella were blood, the quicker Alex’s donated blood cells die off.”
Alex barked out a loud, bitter laugh that caused my unstead
y heart to skip a beat. “Funnily enough,” he remarked with ripe cynicism, “that makes more sense than most of what you’ve said thus far. Poetic justice indeed.”
As before in the little hallway off the kitchen, Alex’s desolation was palpable. Only this time, it was far worse, because I sensed it as if it were my very own. And I was struck by the most oddly desperate, maddening compulsion to do anything I could to console him.
Even now, when I should’ve been more concerned with my own imminent end. Even when I was far from ready to forgive him, a world away from ever even liking him, still, I couldn’t bear the profundity of anguish I knew he carried. It made my foolish heart hurt. And inexplicably, somehow it was a pain far ghastlier than the growing molten fire I felt obliterating my human bones now, despite the strong opiates in my declining system.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to his chest.
And I was. Maybe he didn’t deserve my compassion. But as my mother had taught me in grade school, often in life the people who seem to least deserve empathy are the ones who need it most.
And fuck it all … I was high on opiates—if only for ten minutes—and in no mood to question my crazy feelings for Alex.
Alex squeezed me tighter. His palm came up to cradle my cheek against his chest as he murmured something in Portuguese to my crown.
“Milena, please don’t?” It was Remy who spoke. “You’re the last one here who should be apologizing to anyone … for anything.”
“I know that name—Salvatella.” I heard myself profess in hazy disbelief as I attempted to both process and ignore my own bizarre emotional reactions to Alex’s unfathomable heartache.
“How?” Remy asked. “From Raul?”
“From my mom. She was being morbidly silly … joking around … at least at first …” I tried to explain through my cotton mouth. “It was after her last surgery …”
The one she never recovered from.
Alex’s fingers combed through my hair.
“They let me stay overnight with her in her hospital room. She was three sheets to the wind high on painkillers when she announced that she was dying.”