by Hettie Ivers
“No, but—”
“Tell me, if an enchanted deadly arrow was headed straight for your brother’s heart while another was headed for Alex’s at the same time, and you only had the ability to stop one, which would you stop?” she queried, an oddly winsome—and yet sadistic—grin splitting her rose-petal lips. “Whose life would you save?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “If this is a word problem, then you should probably tell me at what speed both the arrows and my wolf are capable of traveling.”
She tsked. “Deflecting wastes precious time, my lovely.”
“Answering sick riddles doesn’t?”
Our eyes locked in impasse. She broke first, her gorgeous irises lowering to study the ill-fated white king on the chessboard. “You know, Milena, sometimes we have to let the people we cherish the most go in order to find them again.”
Was I supposed to respond to that? Why had my heart hurt so much when she’d said it?
She looked away, as if distracted, or … lost. And suddenly, she was fragile again. Childlike. “It’s not love that prompts us to mark a mate. It’s fear. Selfishness.” The violet eyes that found me again were beseeching. “It’s a sickness, Milena. An inherent flaw of our species.”
I needed to wake up. As much as I wanted to believe that this scentless, bizarre woman was a harmless figment of my imagination, she was feeling more real to me by the second.
“You think love drives you to save Raul from the life he’s chosen and steer him toward the life you believe is best. But it’s not. That’s fear and arrogance guiding you.”
There was a certain truth to her words that chafed in a way I wasn’t prepared to admit. “He’s being controlled by Gabriel Salvatella! That’s hardly a choice.”
“What if you’re wrong?” she calmly countered. “What if I told you Gabriel hasn’t been controlling him to the extent you believe?”
“Who the hell are you to tell me anything about my brother?”
“I’m someone who knows your brother far better than you do at this point.” Her eyes were apologetic for the first time as she told me, “I guided Raul’s werewolf transformation, not Gabriel. I led him to seek out the Salvatella pack.”
“What?” Why? My mind was so jumbled I wasn’t sure if I’d spoken aloud or thought it. She answered nonetheless.
“I’ve waited a long time, manipulated countless events over the last ninety-eight years, to bring us to where we are today—in order to get my hands on a power source strong enough to sever a curse of my own making.”
I suddenly felt like I’d been punched in the throat.
“It’s never been personal, Milena.”
“That’s not an answer. Who the fuck are you?”
She shook her head. “Who you are is what matters, Milena. Our people believe ancestors place vessels in our path in order to carry us forward. Vessels are meant to change the course of our future. Sent to save us. And you are going to save me. And my white king.”
“Save you?” I took a step back. Then another. “From what?”
The shaky smile she gave me was wistful. “My father used to compare it to a Noah’s Ark situation. He said that recognizing a vessel demands a leap of faith. Because we have to be able to recognize and get on board with the receptacle that’s been sent to save us long before the actual storm rolls in.”
“Noah knew the flood was coming,” I pointed out.
“Naturally,” she said with an eye-roll, “but let’s assume Noah wasn’t just a lunatic who blindly believed a voice in his head and didn’t question it. The kind of dedication that is required to construct an enormous ark for no rational purpose demands a hefty dose of faith. Not knowing whether it’s divinity or madness driving you, but moving forward nonetheless.”
We weren’t really talking about Noah. But I nodded slowly, trying to determine the best way to deal with crazy. “Are you saying I’m like Noah? Or the Ark?”
She grinned. “I prefer to think of myself as Noah.”
Which made me the Ark. I resisted the impulse to back up another step. “What do you want from me? Why would you lead Raul to the Salvatellas?”
“You already know why. My white king is locked in check.” She said it as if it were the most obvious explanation. “Don’t you know I’d tear apart the whole universe? Bend, break, and rearrange every law of the cosmos before I’d give in to this fate and allow him to die?”
I shook my head out. “You want to win a game of chess that badly?”
“No.” She stood. She was taller than me—taller by far than I’d guessed her height to be from her seated position. Her angelic features reflected annoyance as she stared me down. “I want my white king to live,” she stated, her words clear, clipped. “That is all.”
So … she wanted to win a chess game? Exactly as I’d just said?
“Did you know, Norse legend foretells the werewolf will bring about the end of the world?”
Absently, I continued to shake my head. I hadn’t known werewolves were real until a week ago. And beautiful though she was, this bitch was bat-shit crazy.
“Nordic werewolves have long been viciously persecuted as a result,” she proceeded to relay. “The arctic werewolf in particular was preyed upon to the point of near annihilation by the beginning of the seventeenth century.”
“Umm … I appreciate the werewolf history lesson,” I interjected, “but can we circle back to the part where you claim to have controlled my brother’s transformation?”
Her eyes had taken on a dreamy quality, and she proceeded to talk at me as if I’d never spoken. “Lessa introduced Kai to me as ‘the White King’ the night we met. She used to call him that because he is the only known arctic werewolf left—a werelock born of Nordic werewolf and Inuit Shaman descent.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
What the—did she say Kai?
“By divine fate, Kai managed to escape extinction when the last of the arctic werewolf packs were hunted down and massacred across the land you know of as Northern Canada.”
Oh, my God … She was talking about Kai? Kai!
But if Kai was her “White King” she was desperate to get out of check, then that meant I was dealing with …
“Holy shit, Kai’s Canadian?” I shrieked in disbelief, my brain short-circuiting in overload at the realization I was conversing with a dead Maribel in my head.
She frowned. “Viking and Inuit blood run strong through the White King’s veins. Kai is a born survivor, the very last of his kind. I couldn’t allow him to perish for my mistakes in Madrid.”
“Kai’s a Viking? And an Eskimo?” I babbled on through my confusion. “And Canadian?” And dead Maribel—was she not truly dead?
Her purple eyes rolled skyward. “He’s descended from Erik the Red, yes.”
I shook my head in confusion, poleaxed, no longer processing. I was talking to freakin’ Maribel?
“The Viking? Erik the Red?” She looked peeved. “Father to Leif Erikson? Surely your American schools taught you of him?”
“Uh-mm … right,” I confirmed in a daze. “Leif Erikson … discovered North America.”
I was talking to Maribel! Knowing it was Kai’s deceased mate, Maribel, made her at once less scary and intensely more terrifying. Because what the fuck was she still doing hanging out for all this time? How was she talking to me in my dream when Kai had only caught brief glimpses of her on the rare times he’d teleported over the past century? Was this real? I couldn’t imagine my subconscious making this shit up just because of Lessa’s earlier tirade. She felt too real.
“Erik the Red hailed from Norway,” the beautiful dream-Maribel enigma chattered on, “but was banished to Iceland as a boy for his father’s killings, and then later exiled from Iceland for his own.”
Nice family. Great story. Was she dead or not dead? How was she in my head?
“During his exile, Erik sailed to and named the island of Greenland. He went on to establish the first Norse colonies there
during the final decades of the tenth century.”
My God, she really was drop-dead stunning—an undeniably rare beauty.
And Alex had slept with her.
“The colonies of Eric the Red thrived into the sixteenth century, until they mysteriously vanished—presumably due to harsh climate changes, plagues, and ongoing conflict with the Inuit people.”
I could scarcely focus on the words falling from her mouth. I was on the verge of interrupting to question her exact “dead” status, when she raised a silencing forefinger.
“But historical sightings of the ‘Fair Eskimo’ or ‘European Eskimo,’ dating back to seventeenth-century Victoria Islands, establish that some of those original Scandinavian colonists of Erik the Red survived, intermarried with the Eskimo of Greenland, and migrated westward into North America.”
What on earth was she getting at with this history lesson on North America? “So … you’re telling me … Kai’s Canadian?”
“Yes!” A strangled scream of annoyance erupted from her throat, startling me, as her eyes glowed neon violet. “Classify Kai as Canadian if it will help simplify things for you.” The stone tabletop flipped onto its side, sending chess pieces flying.
She glided gracefully forward in my direction over the mess. Only pride born from pure jealousy and a blossoming competitive streak prevented me from taking another step back in retreat.
“Kai is more than race or nationality. He’s everything! And he will live if I have to sacrifice the rest of the world’s inhabitants to save him,” she hissed in my face.
A thought occurred to me. Did she not know? Was she a ghost caught in some state of limbo purgatory with limited or distorted knowledge of events since her passing?
“But … Kai’s fine.” I kept my voice calm. Even. Because she was dead but not dead. “He’s still alive,” I reassured her. “And he’s fine. Completely healthy.” As far as I knew anything about werelock health.
Her brow wrinkled. Then she laughed. She laughed until there were tears rolling down her perfect cheekbones. My insanity theory had merit.
“Is he now?” Her expression was mocking. Smug. But in a flash it was enraged. Pained. And bitter. So bitter. I thought she might strike me.
“Do you have any idea what I’ve had to do to keep him alive for the past ninety-eight years?” Her nostrils flared. Her eyes glowed a creepy shade of silver. “Things your Pollyanna mind couldn’t possibly imagine, much less stomach. Despicable things. Evil things.”
I didn’t follow. She knew it. “No, you would never understand. How could someone like you?” She said it with such contempt, I felt myself flushing with embarrassment under the weight of her censorious glare.
Because beyond the hostility and disgust, beyond the bitterness, there was hurt. Disappointment. A look that said my inability to relate somehow wounded her more deeply than she’d ever admit. And still, I didn’t follow.
“In order to sustain what I am now, it takes a steady source of life energy that I can only obtain by either stealing lives or being lucky enough to catch someone in the process of dying and draining the life force from them before nature does.” She said it blandly enough, as if that wasn’t actually the despicable part of what she did. “But it also requires a darker power to fuel my magic, one that is harvested by consuming fresh souls on the path to crossing over.”
Oh.
I was going to be sick.
My throat felt like it was closing up on me, but I had to ask, “And just what are you now?”
She didn’t sugarcoat it. “Dead with enough borrowed life force coursing through me to keep Kai’s soul from following after mine.” Her chin went up. “I’ve done what I’ve had to do to keep him alive. I’ll never apologize for it.”
There were no words. I’m sure my face—if not my open mind—screamed it all anyway. Because my brain was rebelling against everything she was so calmly relaying. This couldn’t be right. This woman couldn’t possibly be Kai’s beloved Maribel. The same Maribel Alex had loved?
“But it will finally be over now. In a few hours I’ll disassemble your blood curse, take the power source I need to sever my soul’s connection to Kai’s, and be on my way to whatever hell awaits me on the other side.” She said the last part with a light chuckle. “Lucky you, I’m about to give you your happily ever after.”
It was my turn to laugh like an embittered lunatic. “Yeah … riight.”
“Extracting one of the most powerful blood curses of the millennia is hardly a laughing matter,” she lectured with a raised brow of condescension. “And the happily ever after you think you want now isn’t the one you need, little girl.”
“Oh? Well, that’s just great,” I sassed back without considering consequences. And then I completely lost it. “Thanks for looking out for me and knowing what I need, you old dead bitch! You … you’re fucking psycho! How in God’s name are you Kai’s true mate?” I shouted the question that perhaps angered my sense of injustice the most, while swallowing the one that disturbed my heart the most.
How the hell had Alex ever loved this demented nutjob?
She swallowed slowly, looking as if she was tamping down a growing urge to kill me and eat my soul. “Milena, if you want to be rid of the flaw within the blood curse forever, you’ll listen carefully and do exactly as I tell you now. And if you love Raul, you’ll let him go. Let him live his own life. It may not have been your fault, but you’ve inadvertently stolen enough of his life already.”
“Says the one who steals lives and souls for breakfast on the daily?”
“Not daily,” she corrected. “Time exists differently for—”
“Whatever! The timetable is irrelevant. Your evil doings in the name of twisted love aren’t up for debate here! And my blood curse can’t be extracted by anyone,” I declared with confidence. “It lives and dies with me.” Because Lupe had told me that Hector had said so.
“It can’t be extracted from you while you’re alive, to be precise,” she stoically corrected again. “And no living creature may take it from you.”
I knew a sinking feeling in my gut. Wasn’t that the same as what I’d just said?
“No,” she responded aloud to my private thought. “No, it wasn’t. I can take it from you. Unfortunately, you’ll need to be dead so that I may do so.” She said this as if relaying a minor inconvenience inherent in the process. “It will probably hurt,” she tacked on. “A lot.” She seemed less concerned about that part.
Hysterical laughter welled up in me. “That’s the happily ever after you’ve decided I need most? A painful death? So you can steal my blood curse and sever your connection with Kai?”
A part of me couldn’t help but feel a small sense of relief for Kai’s sake. If this were to be the end for me, Kai’s freedom from this psycho albatross of evil standing before me would be the consolation prize I’d cling to.
Her eyes turned hard. “I’m going to free you, Milena. One day you’ll thank me for this favor,” she sneered. “As sweet and pure of heart as you are, eventually the curse’s darkness would undo you. It would change you.”
“Fuck you. Don’t you dare use me as another twisted rationalization for killing people and eating their souls.”
“Joaquin’s curse is flawed,” she grated. “Flawed beyond any possible alteration or salvaging that any werelock presently alive is capable of. The dark power attached to it would subvert your natural instincts and predilections over time. Trust me on this.”
“But it can’t subvert me if I’m dead, eh? Great solution. Wow, you’ve got this all figured out.”
She ignored my sarcasm. “If all goes as planned, you won’t remain dead long. But I need you to make sure Alex doesn’t follow you when I pull you between worlds.” Icy fingers squeezed me by the shoulders, violet eyes piercing mine as if to gauge whether she had my full attention. When had she gotten so close? “Do you understand? This part is terribly important.”
I rolled disgusted, incredulous eyes a
way from hers. This madwoman was considered a genius among genius werelocks?
Her slap hit me unexpectedly. So hard I was too stunned to prepare for the second slap that quickly followed. Her eyes were balls of glowing indigo fire when I turned my gaping, smarting face back in her direction.
“I don’t give a damn about what you want or what you think of me. This isn’t a choice. I need you to live!” The third slap felt like it broke my jaw. “You have to survive this, Milena.” She said it as if to command that it be so.
“If this curse proves too powerful …” She began, then paused to take several calming breaths now that she had my full, wide-eyed, red-faced attention. “If somehow I’ve miscalculated the timing and my abilities …” She swallowed. “If I fail to fully drag this Salvatella beast to the other side and remain dead … you’re the best chance the human race will have of stopping me … the next time.”
Next time?
I had a terrible feeling I’d followed her meaning. Even as I prayed I’d misunderstood. I frowned. “Do you mean like … reincarnation?”
“Something like that.” She shrugged, looking uncharacteristically sheepish for someone who’d just slapped me around and issued demands a moment ago. “I wouldn’t be myself anymore, of course. I wouldn’t remember.” She looked guilty now. Oh, fuck.
“Through willfully severing my soul’s connection to Kai’s by means of such forceful, dark magic, I’ll probably be altered well beyond the creature I am now. So if I were to come back, there’s a high probability I’d be reborn fairly … different. Defective. Possibly”—she looked away—“as a werewolf unbound by the laws and constraints that all others of our kind are beholden.”
Aw, hell no! “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me?” I blustered. “Oh, my God, you’re referring to the Rogue, aren’t you? You’d risk being reborn as an evil Rogue bent on destroying all of humanity just to sever Kai from a connection he’s never wanted to be severed from in the first place?” I was seriously SOL if Maribel was what my new species considered perfection.
“My connection with Kai is not your business.”