by Hettie Ivers
“Those monsters would tear every single one of us apart if they knew! Drain the last drops of blood from our decaying corpses to recover the power they believe was stolen from them …”
“What the hell’s happening, Al?” Alex’s concerned, indignant words broke through the memory of Mateus’ rant. “What have you done to upset her?” he accused, his thumb wiping the fresh dampness from my cheek.
It amazed me now how well the details of the argument I’d overheard all those years ago had stayed with me, even as I’d never understood what was happening, never until now deciphered even a hint of the meaning behind the words shouted in anger between my mom and Mateus. And there was still so much I didn’t understand.
“She’s all right,” Alcaeus said, his thumb tracing my ankle again. “Just a few unpleasant memories is all.”
“What memories? Who upset her? When? Who?”
“Why not take a lesson from two minutes ago and ask Milena those questions?” Remy clucked.
“Shut up!” Alex lashed out at his brother, before immediately taking his advice. “Milena, what is it? What’s wrong?” he beseeched. “You’re safe now, baby. Alcaeus will see to it your transformation won’t hurt anymore.” His fingers stroked through my hair. “Everything’s going to be fine. I won’t let anything hurt you.”
“Other than yourself, you mean?” Kai said, his tone unabashedly caustic. “Because you can’t seem to go five minutes without upsetting her,” he flagrantly—albeit accurately—charged.
Holy hell! My jaw dropped. My blind eyes flew wide. I’d never heard Kai even come close to addressing his mighty Alpha in an openly aggressive manner before. What had gotten into him? Was he trying to get himself killed?
Remy’s weak attempt to smother his subsequent shouts of laughter behind his hand didn’t help the situation.
“I’ll kill you,” Alex growled. “Leave,” he ordered. “Now.”
Alcaeus cleared his throat. “Won’t you please stay, Kai?” he contradicted.
“Why, thank you, Al, I believe I will,” Kai replied politely, if somewhat smugly.
What? Alex stiffened beneath me. His heart sped up; his arms banded around me tighter than before. Remy’s heart sped up as well. I could’ve sworn I felt magic crackling through the air in all directions.
“No,” Remy gasped. “How? Alcaeus, what’ve you done?”
“Milena, there’s a lot more you still need to learn about your family’s history, as well as ours,” Alcaeus continued—as if the hierarchy of power hadn’t somehow just completely shifted.
Or had I imagined that? What the fuck was going on? Damnit, why did I have to be blind right now?
“I don’t blame you for being scared.” Alcaeus’ voice was gentle. “But I promise you, Mateus was wrong. There were many things he simply didn’t know, and even more he didn’t fully understand. Please believe me when I tell you, sweetheart, I’m in this with you now. And I’ll lay down my life protecting you from the Salvatella if it comes to it.”
“As will I,” Kai inserted solemnly.
“I don’t … understand.” I was lost. Fresh tears formed as the sincerity of Alcaeus and Kai’s intentions washed over me, wrapping around and cocooning me in feelings of comfort and safety.
“It’s a lot to absorb, honey. So with your permission, I’d prefer it if we finished this conversation back at my home now, where Kai can also look you over thoroughly and do another blood draw. That okay?”
I nodded. I was pretty sure I’d follow Alcaeus anywhere right now.
“No,” Alex opposed, his tone flat, final. My heart sank. “Absolutely not. I agree we should take her somewhere more private to discuss all this, but there’s no way you’re taking her to your house.”
“Alex, you might want to start doing the right thing and honoring Milena’s choices,” Kai counseled dispassionately. “Because I believe Alcaeus intends to enforce you honoring her choices from now on whether you’re inclined to do so or not.”
Alex spat something back in Portuguese that sounded like it could only have been exceptionally rude.
“Christ!” Remy detonated. “She doesn’t just have some mutated Salvatella Alpha blood in her, does she, Al? She has the Salvatella Alpha blood! The Alpha blood of Joaquin?”
“What?” Alex erupted next, jostling me in his lap a bit in the process.
“We need to take this inside,” Alcaeus reiterated sternly.
“Goddamnit, it’s true?” Remy pressed. “She possesses the blood magic they thought you and Antonio stole from Joaquin and passed to Alex? The blood my mother was killed for? The blood the Salvatellas slaughtered hundreds of their own, not to mention thousands of others, searching for?”
“Good God, how the fuck did Joaquin’s lost blood magic get inside Milena?” Alex exclaimed.
“You fucking swore on your life you didn’t know anything about what happened to Joaquin’s powers, Alcaeus!” Remy indicted.
“ENOUGH!” Alcaeus thundered, causing me to cringe and shrink into Alex. “I didn’t know about it then,” he stressed through clenched teeth. “I do now. And incidentally, I just absorbed the greater portion of his powers into my own from Milena’s blood not ten minutes ago.” He paused a moment to let the meaning of his words sink in.
Damn. No wonder I felt so much better and my blood was no longer vibrating like a crazy tuning fork. But why hadn’t he just taken all of it? Then I could be done with this awful curse, and maybe … just maybe I could even somehow avoid turning into a dog?
My stomach somersaulted with excitement as I let myself dare to hope. I wondered if perhaps he needed my permission or something? Maybe he’d even agree to let me go home in exchange for it? I mean if it was power their warlock natures wanted most …
“So I’m taking Milena back to my house now to explain the details to her,” Alcaeus decreed. “Whether any of the rest of you agree with that decision or not.”
“Wait just a minute,” Remy piped up. “If you’ve absorbed the preponderance of Milena’s Joaquin Salvatella blood magic, then that would mean … fuck, that would mean—”
“Yes,” Kai confirmed in answer to Remy’s unfinished question, “it means that Alcaeus just became the most powerful werelock in existence ten minutes ago.”
“Alcaeus, you can’t do that!” Remy protested.
“Keep your panties on; it’s temporary,” Alcaeus said. “I had to absorb it in order to slow down her shift. And I’ll only hold it for her until her body has had a chance to catch up and is better equipped to contain it. She obviously will need to be taught how to use it. Until then it’s more of a danger to her than anything else. It’s fairly potent stuff. And I’ve left her more than enough magic to ensure her protection.”
I wasn’t sure what wild impulse possessed me then, but in my enthusiasm my hand shot straight up into the air, as if I were in a classroom and seeking permission to speak.
“Umm … soo … wait, um … couldn’t you just … take it all?” I suggested. “And … you know, just sort of … keep it? Like permanently?”
The garden went deathly silent.
“NO!” Alex was the first to roar. Remy and Kai chimed in with more emphatic, colorful rejections of my proposal.
“No, Milena,” Alcaeus answered. “It doesn’t work like that. I can’t just take it from you.”
“But what if I gave it to you?” I offered hopefully. “Would you let me go then?”
“NO!”
It sounded like all four of them had answered that time. Well, there went that feeble pipe dream.
“Honey, I wouldn’t keep it even if you begged me to,” Alcaeus pledged. “It was meant for you.”
“But I don’t want it!”
“Yes, yes, you do!” Alex interjected fervently. “You do want it, baby; you just don’t understand yet.”
“Uh … no,” I maintained. “I don’t. And I won’t—not ever.”
“It’s yours, Milena,” Alcaeus said. “And you will keep it.�
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“Agreed! Absolutely, she’s keeping it!” Alex affirmed, tugging me closer and mashing my face into his chest, as if to smother any further words from me on the subject.
Alcaeus chuckled. “Uh-huh … right. So, Alex, I can take Milena from you by force, or you can hand her over to me now. Alternatively, I suppose you could carry her to my house, but only if Milena says it’s okay.”
“Fine, I’ll carry her!”
Alcaeus released a world-weary sigh.
“He’s not quite getting the whole ask permission and honor her choice part, is he?” Kai commented.
“Fuck off, Kai!”
“Did you expect he actually would?” Remy said with a laugh.
“Milena, is it all right with you if Alex carries you to my home?” Alcaeus asked. “It’s only a short walk from here through the woods.”
“Sure.” I shrugged. “I guess so.”
As I said it, I realized how much I’d rather walk. I needed … space. But being that I couldn’t see, I supposed I would need to be carried. And I figured it’d be easier to let Alex carry me rather than provoke a World War III incident between the brothers by having Alcaeus attempt to take me from him.
“Kai, how much longer before she recovers her vision?” Alcaeus inquired in response to my unspoken desire.
“Five … maybe ten minutes?” Kai predicted, before tentatively offering, “I could speed it up if you’d prefer? Provided Milena doesn’t mind me entering her mind in order to do so.”
Huh?
“Milena?” Alcaeus prompted. “That okay with you?”
“Um … yeah …” Was he kidding? I was beside myself to see what was going on around me right now. Why the heck hadn’t anyone offered to speed it up sooner?
“This isn’t happening,” Alex fumed. I felt his muscles flexing and rolling to life wherever they touched me. “How the fuck is it that Kai gets to access her mind when I’m still blocked out? She’s my goddamned mate!”
“Ha!” Remy burst. “You are un-fucking-believable! Really? Now she’s your mate? Now that you know she’s harboring a power that rivals your own? Of course now you want her, you selfish motherfucker!”
“She has always been mine,” Alex blustered. “I’ve said as much before. I have always fucking wanted her!”
“But never as your actual mate until just now, you fucktard,” Remy contended with obvious disgust. “Ugh, don’t let him near her, Al! He doesn’t deserve to smell her.”
“Fucking semantics! You all know damn well I recognized her as my true mate the moment I first saw her.”
Okay, so maybe I did want to provoke a World War III incident after all. Because there was no way I was willingly allowing Alex to carry me now.
“Do we?” Remy challenged with an embittered snigger. “Was that what you meant then when you growled ‘Not mine!’ and fucking charged the poor girl in the basement? Right after Al warned you she had a head injury, no less?”
Alcaeus succumbed to raucous laughter as Alex persisted in arguing his pathetic case to Remy.
“Ah, fuck me, now this … this shit right here is my kind of hilarious karmic justice. Thank you, blessed ancestors!” Alcaeus exulted with glee. It sounded like he might’ve even high-fived someone. Most likely Kai, I suspected, as Kai’s voice was thick with mirth when he spoke to me next.
“Milena, are you ready?”
I nodded my permission and soon sensed Kai’s subtle entry, my thoughts momentarily drifting as I felt a strong vibration at the back of my skull, which spread throughout my cranium. I blinked rapidly when I began to see the outline of dark shapes and forms lit from behind. I blinked a few more times and the images became sharper.
Remy and Alex ceased arguing and the garden fell silent. I felt a little self-conscious at the notion of them all just sitting there observing me as I regained my vision.
“Relax,” Kai advised. “Give yourself a moment to adjust. There’s no rush.” I noted his voice sounded … different? No, that wasn’t it. His voice hadn’t changed, but the level of quiet confidence and authority behind it had. As the vibrations dispersed and waned, I was certain he’d already fully withdrawn.
“Th-thanks, Kai,” I managed to stammer as my vision grew clearer and vivid colors joined with the blacks, whites, and greys that had initially made up my restored eyesight. I was almost, but not quite able to discern the outline of Alcaeus’ form just a little ways in front of me in my line of vision, when Alex abruptly shifted me in his lap and tipped my face fully up to his.
“There she is,” he crooned, his fingers simultaneously caressing and imprisoning my face as my sight fully returned. “There’s my beautiful blue-eyed girl.”
As my newly recovered and unmistakably improved vision feasted on the sight of Alex’s handsome features gazing down at me, a fresh blush stained my cheeks. He truly was a devastatingly gorgeous man. But beyond that, for the first time, I caught sight of something else glimmering in the depths of those bottomless dark eyes of his. And it thoroughly stunned and petrified me. I blinked, hoping it would disappear when I looked a second time.
Nope. It was still there, reflecting brazenly back at me in a manner that stirred my very soul—as well as another emerging part of me.
I blinked again.
Oh … h-o-l-y … crap balls …
“What?” he asked, his lips curving into a perfectly entrancing, adoring smile.
I shook my head within the gentle hold of his warm fingers. I opened and then shut my mouth again, blushing frantically.
His brow pinched. “What is it, baby?” His eyes clouded with concern. “You can tell me.”
I shook my head stupidly again, utterly and unequivocally at a loss for words. I felt everyone’s eyes on me and turned an even deeper shade of mortified schoolgirl.
“It’s okay, Milena,” Alcaeus’ reassuring bass came to the rescue of my rattled senses. “Alex’s face scares most people up close like that.”
Alex’s black eyes rolled heavenward before returning to behold mine with a gentle expectancy. “Talk to me,” he coaxed. “Please?”
The scent of my own very tangible, profound terror only further served to humiliate and upset me. So I did the only thing any normal, eighteen-year-old abductee surrounded by supernatural freaks—and on the verge of becoming one—would do upon realizing she was unwittingly falling in love with the most evil one of them all.
I screamed.
Hysterically! I screamed my motherfucking head off. Like an I-accidently-just-set-the-whole-fucking-kitchen-on-fire-discovered-a-spider-the-size-of-a-mouse-in-my-bed kind of scream my fucking head off.
My horrified eyes never abandoned Alex’s. My Freudian high school guidance counselor would’ve probably accused me of displacement or some such shit. But that pretentious bitch could suck an egg. Because I was damn sure she’d never discovered she had an emerging inner dog desperate to mate with an asshole like Alex!
How the fuck else was I supposed to handle such a disturbing epiphany?
TO BE CONTINUED
COMING SOON …
FEAR THE HEART
Werelock Evolution, Book 2
Reconciling the mind and heart often provokes inner conflict. Throw in the whims of an emerging inner she-wolf entering her first heat cycle and the revenge demands of an ancient blood curse, and all bets are off!
All Milena wants is to rescue her brother and return to her life in Santa Cruz. Unfortunately, her situation in Brazil grows increasingly complicated as she uncovers more startling truths kept from her since birth—leaving her at a loss as to who to trust and what to believe.
Caught in the crosshairs of a vicious blood feud between two rival covens, Milena finds that guarding her heart is no simple feat … not when it’s the fearsome heart of an ill-fated blood curse that’s blossoming to life within her—threatening to unlock a long-prophesied reign of darkness upon the world with the power to destroy them all.
THANK YOU for reading!
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Hettie