by Hettie Ivers
I took a deep breath. My stomach was in knots. My heart felt like it was being shredded.
“I’ve been thinking … if you’re my prisoner, then why should I have to leave?”
He laughed; a deep, mordant rumble of malevolent amusement that would’ve sent a saner woman fleeing for the staircase in self-preservation. But not me. I’d already checked my sanity back in the kitchen when I’d taken a cheap swing at Alessandra’s face.
He stole a glance over his shoulder at me. “You are playing with fire, princess.” It was more than a warning. It was a promise.
I stood my ground. “I know.”
“Why?” he eventually asked, still largely ignoring me.
“Because I need to know things.”
“Milena, I’ve talked as much as I care to for one night.”
“But you’ve barely told me anything!”
“I’ve said plenty,” he maintained, withdrawing a bottle from one of the shelves that finally seemed to meet with his approval.
“No,” I argued, willing my wobbly limbs to amble away from the staircase and back toward Alex, “you haven’t.”
When standing in place observing his back within closer proximity only proved to accentuate just how much my knees had started shaking—whether from apprehension or the cold of the cellar—I opted for pacing to distract myself. I was going to say my piece, and I refused to look intimidated while doing it.
“You tell me I don’t understand, and you say that it’s complicated. You describe your feelings on the night we met as ‘extremely complicated.’ But those aren’t answers, Alex. That’s the same as saying a big fat nothing, because I still have no clue what any of it means or where I actually stand with you.” I paused in my speech to gauge his reaction, but the back of Alex’s head gave nothing away.
“You speak in riddles and innuendo and act like somehow that should count for communication. You claim that everything you do and every decision you make revolves around me now. But I am not stupid! And I haven’t forgotten for one second how horrified and furious you were over my mere existence just a week ago, or the fact that you never wanted me as your mate until you found out that I had this”—I flapped my hands as I searched for the right words to describe my curse—“potentially cool … blood inheritance … thing happening.”
“That’s not true.” His thoroughly impassive, utterly uninformative retort only incensed me further.
“So tell me something that is!” I stamped my foot down onto the hard, compacted earth. “Explain to me what was so fucking complicated about your feelings that first night that you treated me the way you did. Because I’m just … I’m so lost here, Alex.”
Breathe. Walk. Don’t trip and fall. “And I’m trying so desperately to comprehend how we got to where we are now … with you buying up my whole neighborhood.”
“It’s scarcely a block. We’ve been over this.”
“But none of this”—I gestured between the two of us—“is sane, Alex! It’s not logical. Or right. I can’t … be with someone like you. We don’t belong. You have to know that, right?” I beseeched the back of his head. “Please, just admit it? You have to know that ultimately this won’t work and that we can’t possibly be predestined mates?”
“You need to go now, Milena.” His flat, monotone reply made me want to throw a full bottle of wine at his head.
“No! I can’t do that either!” I ceased pacing and folded my arms over the festering wound pulsing within my chest. “Because it hurts, Alex. So much. And I don’t understand why. Because I shouldn’t need—want you like this, when there are so many wrong, not to mention missing, pieces to you and to this entire situation.
“I’m in the dark about so much of what makes you who you are, and what it is that you honestly want with me, because you haven’t shared those things. And I just want to understand”—deep breath, sound confident, stand your ground—“how you feel about … stuff.”
Okay, not exactly the strong finish I was going for. “I mean, honestly, what is it that you—and your wolf—see in me?”
Annnd … nothing.
I told myself it didn’t matter whether he responded aloud to me or not, as long as my words prompted him to think, and to realize that the very idea of us as mates was ludicrous. But my heart wasn’t buying it. Neither was my wolf. I did want to know how he felt. And maybe I wanted him to convince me that it wasn’t entirely ludicrous. I was an idiot.
I pondered the cellar beams above. “Look, I’m never going to be brilliant or special in the way someone like Maribel was. No matter how much amazing magic is in my blood, I’m always just going to be … me.
“And while I may not need or want fancy things the way that you do, I think I’m entitled to know what’s been going on inside your head if you’re planning on appropriating my neighborhood. And I really don’t think I’ll be able to leave you alone in peace in this cellar tonight until you lay it all on me.”
I’d known all too well he was far from being in a communicative mood in his present state, but my heart still sank when it seemed I’d grossly miscalculated my ability to force the issue, as he proceeded in his perusal of the wine shelves, casually selecting a second bottle—as if I’d never spoken at all, much less begged him to share his heart with me.
When what seemed like an eternity of disappointing silence had lapsed and I was at the point of fighting back tears, Alex finally paused and turned to me, casually inclining his head in a sign of nonverbal conciliation.
“When I first saw you, I just … wanted you.” A flicker of unease flashed in his eyes, and for a second I feared that was all he intended to say on the matter. Then I saw a glimmer of hope. And determination.
“But it was more than a carnal desire to own you at the most primal, instinctive level,” he expounded in an even tone that seemed incongruously nonchalant, given his choice of words and the manner in which he was regarding me.
“More than an instantaneous, sanity-eroding drive to fuck you with the very last breath of my being,” he proceeded to calmly relay as he abandoned the bottles of wine he’d selected atop a nearby shelf and fluidly stalked closer. “To make you revel in it and crave me in turn with every secreted sexual urge you never realized you possessed, regardless of how dark, or dirty … or obscene.”
Sweet Jesus, he was good at sharing! It was a small miracle that for once my jaw hadn’t dropped to the cellar floor at his words as his impressive frame and heavenly aroma came to dominate the space in front of me, blocking out what little light and oxygen there was available. I probably had some shock-induced, temporary facial muscle rigor mortis condition to thank for it.
I hadn’t noticed I’d been shuffling backward until I felt a cold, stone wall at my back and wondered where the heck a wall had suddenly cropped up from. Alex’s left arm extended, his hand coming to rest against the wall beside my head. He looked every bit the dangerous predator he was as he leaned in to scent me. The knuckles of his right hand lovingly traced my jawline, tilting my face up.
“I wanted to worship you; to intimately explore every millimeter of you. Inside. And out. Devour you. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. I felt as if I might actually go mad from some demented, insatiable obsession if I didn’t manage to absorb every single morsel and thread of your very being within those first few moments.”
His warm, smooth breath mingled with my erratic gasps as his fingers encircled the column of my throat and began massaging the vertebrae along the back of my neck at the top of my spine.
“I was seized by a sense of panic that I might not be able to go on living if I didn’t discover each and every tiny thought and desire that resided inside of your mind and heart that instant. After a lifetime of studiously avoiding the emotional projections and needs of others, I was suddenly quite sure I’d die if I didn’t gain unrestricted access to all of yours.”
His touch was reverent. Tender. It was in stark contrast to the embittered rumble of laughter that bubbled up fro
m his chest next as he murmured, “Then I realized I already could.” He shook his head. “And they were so loud, your emotions. So full of hate and disgust. For me.”
It took effort to swallow. I felt compelled to say something reassuring, but words refused to form on my tongue.
“And your fear …” he continued seamlessly, “as it permeated my senses, yours was a terror so palpable as to be sickening. For several moments the thrum of your poor, panicked heart racing was the only sound I heard in the foyer. I was deathly afraid it would give out before I’d even learned your name or heard the sound of your voice.”
That same heart raced once more as graceful fingers slid from around my neck, down the vee front of my sundress, to trace the curve of my left breast. His dark eyes followed the path of his fingers, and I felt my skin prickle with heat.
“Stupidly, I presumed the cause of your distress to be that you’d just witnessed me callously take a man’s life in front of you, and the stench of your acute horror at my actions nearly brought me to my knees in a fit of self-loathing. But”—he chuckled dryly, his eyes still fixed upon my breast—“I reassured myself I could correct your horrendous first impression, taking foolish hope that I would be able to explain to you what Felix had done to betray me and endanger my pack, and that you would then see that I wasn’t the bad guy you’d taken me for.”
He paused, biting his lip thoughtfully as his eyes lifted to my face. “But as I took a closer look at you and scented beyond the initial mating attraction, suddenly it all clicked. Belatedly, it dawned on me that you were human.
“For the first time, I noticed your resemblance to Raul, and I realized you had to be the sister Felix had brought as a trade for Celio. And then I knew … you didn’t simply fear and hate me for killing a man in front of you. No, you identified me as your brother’s killer—and you saw me as the most vile, contemptible creature imaginable.
“I was a demon … the Grim Reaper … the most gruesome of all villains that had ever plagued your scariest of nightmares,” he intoned with such desolate bitterness my ravaged heart ached. “Yours was a loathing so profound you wished me nothing but the worst sort of suffering. And death.”
His lips curved into a smile that held no warmth. “Most certainly death. And in that moment of realization, all I wanted was to despise you back and believe the whole thing a terrible mistake.”
His smile faded. “I knew you could never love me. In the first place, you were human,” he snorted with disdain, abandoning my breast and backing away from me. Goosebumps blanketed my skin, eclipsing the warmth his hand and nearness had lent.
“You were barely more than a child. And you had absolutely no comprehension of what had even happened between us!” He shook his head. “Despite my soul-shattering attraction to you, I had to presume the very worst of your character.”
I felt myself flushing in offense at his damning appraisal. “Just because I was human?”
“Because you were Raul’s sister,” he hissed. “The family of a man I’d never fully trusted, much less respected. A man who’d conned and betrayed my sister as well as my pack. A man I wanted to brutally punish for his crimes. A traitor I’d only delayed executing in order to extract an admission of his crimes for Lessa’s benefit first.”
He wasn’t holding back any of his feelings where Raul was concerned for the sake of my own anymore. And the true depth of his hatred for my brother was both frightening and infuriating. But I forced my own indignation into check as much as possible. Because Alessandra had warned me. And because I didn’t want him to stop sharing.
“Alex, you don’t know that he’s guilty,” I stubbornly, albeit quietly, reminded.
“And you,”—his brow rose and he shook my own mom’s pointer finger at me—“don’t know that he’s not.”
“Yes,” I insisted, my breath coming in little pants, “I do.”
“Do you?” he challenged, suddenly crowding me into the wall again with one swift movement. I nodded. His brow creased as he tsked, “So young … so fucking trusting for no good reason.” There was a distant look in his eyes as he murmured, “I can’t remember there ever being a time when I was so thoughtlessly trusting of anyone.”
I couldn’t tell if it was envy or pity I saw in his expression. I went with envy. “I’m sorry … that your childhood was … the way it was. Really. I am.”
His frown deepened. “I know you are. Because you can’t help yourself, can you?” He smiled sadly. “I do wish it were because you actually cared for me,” he lamented. “But I’m afraid you’re simply a confoundedly empathetic creature capable of far too much compassion and forgiveness for your own good.”
He turned away from me and crossed the cellar to retrieve his wine glass. Upon downing the remains of the glass, he asked the ceiling, “Where was I?”
My she-wolf gnashed at me to tell him that I did care for him. But I knew I couldn’t lie about something like that.
Would it be lying?
“I think it was about that same time that I smelled my brothers on you. All over you,” he stressed, spinning on his heel to face me. His nostrils flared as he eyed me up and down. “Knowing my brothers, I could easily imagine the liberties they’d taken. I knew they’d had their greedy hands and mouths on you long before Alcaeus boasted about it. But when I realized they’d also stolen inside your mind, yet failed to heal your most critical injury, I was so livid I could’ve killed them both for that failure alone.
“Then, to add insult to injury”—a look of disgust tainted his features—“even though they’d failed to heal you, they’d somehow wormed their way inside your good graces and forged a fragile trust. Because you looked to them with such tremulous hope in your eyes that they might save you. From me—the evil monster incarnate. I watched in revulsion as your eyes repeatedly sought out Remy across the room, as if he was the hero you wanted—the person in the hall you trusted most with your life and safety.”
“I’m sorry.” It was barely a whisper, but it was all I could manage with the way his anguished eyes pierced me. Either he hadn’t heard me, or he simply chose to ignore my apology.
“Let’s see,” he reminisced with a sigh of feigned indifference before turning from me again to pour himself another glass of wine, “it only got worse from there, as I recall. Because after recognizing you as Raul’s sister and sensing your still unhealed internal injuries at Felix’s hands, I could barely contain my fury at having granted him such a benign end.”
He sauntered in my direction, leisurely swirling the fresh wine in his glass, as if our present discourse wasn’t upsetting to him in the least. He consumed half the glass before lowering it and addressing me again.
“But while I cursed all that was holy for not having a spell at my command that could bring Felix back to life so that I might torture and execute him more appropriately, I noted with horror how your innocent blue eyes paused upon his lifeless form with such pity.” His bark of laughter was maniacal then, shattering the mien of indifference he’d heretofore attempted to uphold.
“Even Felix you preferred to me!” he boomed, the angry, incredulous sound ricocheting off the cellar walls just as his wine glass exploded. My stomach leapt as shards of the stem, along with the remaining liquid, went flying, and the glass itself was crushed to mere dust particles within Alex’s fist. “A man who had kidnapped you, assaulted you, and offered your very life to me in a fucking trade!”
I nearly choked trying to breathe normally. “I … I’m sorry …” I tried again to interject. But once more, he didn’t seem to hear me. He seemed too engrossed in his own disturbing memories.
“And I lost it,” he confessed, his jaw tightening and his whole body trembling as if his very muscles remembered and were reliving the fury of that moment in the foyer that I recalled only too vividly myself. “I didn’t care what my heart or my wolf wanted with you. I wanted none of you.” His chest moved smoothly up and down as he left those hateful words suspended in the stifling ai
rspace between us.
“And yet … I still had to have … something from you,” he admitted in a voice so low and dangerous it immediately made me miss his shouting. “Something more than your fear and overwhelming aversion to me. I wanted—needed—to discover and carve out a piece of you no one else had unearthed, invade a sequestered part of your soul my brothers hadn’t accessed.” He flicked his wrist and the mess of glass and wine vanished from his palm.
“I wanted to uncover your darkest blind spot, your most shameful secrets, if for no other reason than to disabuse myself, and my siblings, of your feigned innocence and expose you for the same sort of fraud your brother is.” His spiteful words burned like acid in the pit of my gut.
“Only once inside of your mind, it didn’t take long to discover that you were nothing like Raul. You were simply … simple. Your mind was shockingly uncomplicated, in fact. And you … you were merely … sweet. Kind. Good. Fair. Nice.”
I might’ve focused on being more offended if he hadn’t looked so increasingly tormented as he tossed out those horridly banal adjectives to describe me.
“There was nothing.” He tossed his head from side to side in bewilderment. “You hadn’t a fucking scheming, manipulative bone in all of your beautiful body. Of course”—his lips quirked in a poor imitation of a smile—“you hated me, and with a passion that was rather impressive. So there was that. But you had reason. Which left me with nothing! Nothing I could rationally continue to fault or despise you for.”
A low growl tore from his throat and he took a cautious step back from me, as if he was afraid to get too close. “Do you have any idea how infuriating it was? Trying so desperately to hold onto my hatred for some slip of a human girl who was just this … beautiful … delicate …”—his hands clenched and unclenched into fists at his sides—“bundle of sweetness, innocence, and self-righteous, tearful fury in my arms?”
I had no answer. He didn’t expect one.
“You,” he indicted, raising his voice once more, “are fucking impossible to hate! Impossible.”