by Hettie Ivers
Assuming you believed in prophecies, psychic phenomena, and all other things superstitious. Ah, hell, who was I to remain a nonbeliever? I’d officially turned Cujo less than 24 hours ago.
“Lupe told me about Nahuel. And Jussara.”
Kai nodded.
“You think … um … that Jussara will defect?”
He shrugged, still staring out into the trees.
“Do you think she’d really betray Alcaeus? After he raised her and all?”
“Don’t know, Milena.” Kai turned his attention from the forest to me. “But let’s hope not. I brought that girl into this world. I’d hate to have to take her out.”
I chuckled wryly, assuming he was being morbidly funny. Facetious. He didn’t laugh with me; his expression remained serious. All-righty. I cleared my throat and turned my own eyes to the forest, remembering that this was the same man who had killed Jacinda without a second’s hesitation.
On that macabre note, I decided to broach the grisly topic of what it actually took to kill a werelock—figuring I should have some sense of how enduring my new werelock species classification made me.
Kai obliged my curiosity by explaining the genetic distinctions between werelocks and werewolves. Werelocks, he said, could heal from virtually any wound inflicted unless serious magic was involved, or major organs were damaged or removed entirely for too great a length of time. Common werewolves were not as blessed. For although common werewolves possessed rapid healing and even some regenerative capabilities and therefore lived infinitely longer lives than humans, they were still quite fallible compared to a werelock.
Kai was in doctor mode, engrossed in relaying the differences in werelock versus werewolf regenerative capabilities to me, when a disheveled Alessandra materialized in front of us. She looked thinner and paler than the last fateful time I’d seen her in Alex’s kitchen. Her hair was a fright, and she was visibly shaking.
Kai jumped up to steady her when she swayed on her feet. “Damnit, you’re not supposed to be pushing yourself,” he reproached. “I told you to lay off the teleporting. It’s too soon.”
“I’m fine.” She whacked his arm away. “I’ve been teleporting all day. We need to talk.”
“I’m so sorry, Lessa,” I rushed to apologize. I’d followed Kai’s lead and had arisen from my seat as well. Only I held back a few paces, shifting awkwardly on my feet. “So, so sorry about what happened … erm … in the kitchen.”
She offered me a strange smile as her hazel eyes slanted in my direction, as if she was just now noticing my presence on the porch. “You called me Lessa.”
“Uh-mm … ye-ah?” My eyes surreptitiously scanned Kai’s expression for any clues as to what the deuce was going on with Alex’s sister. “Is that okay?”
“Of course! We’re practically sisters.” Her smile broadened and she ran a hand down the front of her dress, smoothing the wrinkled material and drawing my attention to the fact that she’d misbuttoned the top half. “Perfectly fine, Milena.” She turned to Kai. “We need to talk. Privately.”
“I’m not at liberty to leave Milena alone with you or anyone else right now. You’ll have to speak with Alex if you want—”
“I meant you, you imbecile.” Her tone turned nasty fast. “Now. Alone.”
“What’s wrong?” Kai crowded Alessandra once more, his concern-filled eyes searching up and down her person. “I told you to call Bianca or Marissa right away if anything change—”
“I said I was fine!” An unseen blast sent Kai flying backward and squarely onto his ass on the porch.
The commotion brought Alex, Remy, and Kaleb outside instantly, followed closely by Alcaeus and Lupe. Predictably, Alex and Alcaeus fussed over their sister, while Lupe shared a sympathetic eye-roll with Kai, the injured party. Remy invaded my personal space to ask what was going on and whether I was okay, while Kaleb lingered over the threshold, standing awkwardly at attention. As usual.
“I saw her,” Alessandra sobbed to Alex. “She’s still here.” She turned and leveled accusing eyes at Kai. “This is your fault. I just know it is! Why can’t you die already?”
“What the fuck’s she’s freaking about?” Remy whispered in my ear, his lips tickling the lobe, he was standing so unnervingly close. It was a small comfort to know I wasn’t the only one lost.
“Lessa, what’s going on?” Alex prompted. “Who is still here?”
White-knuckling the fabric of Alex’s shirt with both fists, Alessandra looked every bit a woman who’d gone clear off the rails. Then she confirmed it. “I saw Maribel, Alex.”
Alcaeus’s loud, uncensored groan of annoyance was instantaneous.
Maribel? She was talking about Maribel?
“When you were dreaming?” Alex clarified.
“No! When I was teleporting today.”
“Wait … what?” Kai jumped in. “You saw Maribel? Today? What happened?”
“Oh, for fuck, Kai,” Alcaeus spurned. “Don’t encourage this. Lessa’s not been well and she’s hallucinated. End of story. We do not have time to deal with your imaginary Maribel shit right now.”
“She wasn’t a hallucination!” Alessandra contended. “She was real, Al.”
Alcaeus threw his hands in the air, pacing and muttering under his breath about full moons and dead seers and Salvatella weenies.
Alex looked more concerned for his sister than annoyed, yet clearly tired and not interested in having this conversation right now. “Lessa, a lot’s happened. And we’re all exhausted. I’m going to introduce Milena to the soldiers who came from Salvador, and then we’re headed back to the house. Why don’t you come w—”
“She was so different, Alex,” Alessandra said, appearing on the verge of hysteria. “She wasn’t the same Maribel anymore. Except … except that she was the same … but she was … she was—”
“Dead?” Alcaeus callously supplied. “Yeah, I hear death has a way of changing someone.”
“Really, Al?” Remy sighed. “This is the best you can manage holding a revenge curse?”
“I’m trying, all right!”
“Seriously, we’ve got to find a way to tone down this asshole shtick before the meeting tomorrow.” Remy spoke to the group while casting a meaningful look at Lupe.
“Fuck you, Remy,” Alcaeus retorted. “Don’t pretend you’re not equally annoyed we’ve had to stomach seeing half of this family fawn and obsess over Maribel and her fucking unicorn pussy for going on two centuries now.”
“How dare you!” Alessandra shrieked. “You loved Maribel like a sister, Al, and you know it!”
“Eh, she was okay sometimes. I pretended to love her because she was your best friend,” Alcaeus told her. “And then because Alex got all stupid over her … and then because Kai got saddled with her. I’d no choice but to embrace the bitch as part of our pack.”
Omigod, finally! Finally someone who didn’t completely adore and worship perfectly perfect Maribel!
Alessandra’s mouth gaped open, her eyes on fire. “I am going to forget and forgive what you just said, because I know you’re not in your right mind. But don’t you ever talk about Maribel that way again.”
Alcaeus chuckled and held both palms up. “Hey, I’d be thrilled if this family could finally stop talking about Maribel altogether. She was nominally interesting in life, and she’s infinitely boring to discuss in death.”
“You’re lying. You loved Maribel. We all did!”
Remy’s sharp elbow jab to my ribs alerted me to the fact that I’d been grinning from ear to ear while witnessing the exchange between Alcaeus and his sister. I quickly quelled my inappropriate look of glee before Alessandra or the others might notice as Alex wrapped his arms around his sister and attempted to calm and comfort her. Awful as it was to be relishing Alcaeus speak so disparagingly of the dead and of poor Kai’s beloved mate, I couldn’t help but celebrate inside. I was terrible.
“Al, you are completely out of line,” Alex scolded in his authoritative Alpha ton
e. “Maribel was an invaluable, irreplaceable member of this pack, and we will revere her in memory. Always.” There was no denying it burst my happy bubble just a tiny bit that Alex was always so protective of Maribel. “In case you’ve forgotten, Maribel saved Lessa’s life in Madrid. As well as my own.”
Alcaeus huffed. “That was her job, Alex. It was also her job to foresee the threat in Madrid that nearly killed you both. Rather convenient we all choose to ignore that key mistake of hers in favor of only remembering the one that ended her.”
Kai growled low in his throat. He looked ready to shift and tear Alcaeus a new one. Alcaeus growled back.
“Stop!” Alex commanded them both.
Alcaeus laughed, a raucous sound. “Spare me. Your Alpha orders don’t mean dick to me, little brother.” Addressing Kai, Alcaeus’s eyes projected sincere contrition. “Look, I apologize. I stepped over the line. I’m just so fucking tired of seeing you continue to torment yourself over her after all this time.”
“Torment himself?” Alessandra said, aghast. “Didn’t you hear me? I said I saw her! Today.” She spun around in place, looking at each one of them—searching for some sign of recognition of something only she apparently understood.
“We heard you, Lessa,” Alex placated.
“But you don’t understand. She was surrounded by so much magic, Alex. I felt it! Far more magic than ever surrounded her in life. But it was like”—she wrung her hands, searching for the words—“a great … wall… of pure agony.” Her lip trembled. “A blanket of inconsolability. A tireless, horrific burden that no one should ever bear.”
“I know.” Kai nodded, his features set in a grim line. “I’ve felt it, too, Lessa.”
“You?” Alessandra scoffed. “How dare you even suggest you could understand? How could you have seen and felt her before like that and then behaved the way that you have?”
“Are you mad? You’ve all done nothing but try and convince me I was crazy and hallucinating my visions of Maribel for all these years. What behavior are you talking about?”
“You kissed Milena!” she screeched to the heavens, causing me to flush with embarrassment at the memory of my wanton behavior in the shower with Kai. Alex looked equally uncomfortable. And a little murderous. “And you were all over Lupe—”
“Enough!” Alcaeus bellowed. “Goddamnit, Lessa. You know we don’t talk about that. Ever.”
What? Lupe? My eyes cut to Lupe, who offered me a carefully blank look and a nonchalant shrug as Alessandra continued to rail at Kai. Stranger yet, at Alcaeus’s outcry, my blood’s vibration had spiked with energy, and I’d felt that weird tugging sensation in my chest again—just as I had during my dream encounter with Raul and Gabriel.
“How could you? How could you lust after other women—knowing your mate was still out there?”
“Christ, I’m not a saint!” Kai exploded, red-faced and flustered. “So I had two moments of weakness in the last ninety-eight years. Do you have any idea the amount of hot tail Al’s shoved in my face in the last century, trying to get me to break my celibacy? I’m not a damn eunuch, you know. The equipment still works!”
“Just not for me it doesn’t!” Alessandra bleated, her eyes flooding with tears. “I stood naked in front of you—like an idiot. And you never even got a semi!”
Oh … hel-lo!
“Yowza!” Remy whisper-exclaimed in my ear. “This just got good.”
Hells, yeah, it had. We were finally getting to the crux of Alessandra’s hatred for Kai. Lupe turned and coughed into her hand in a weak attempt to conceal laughter.
“You are a freak of nature!” Alessandra shouted at Kai.
“I’m a freak of nature because I can’t get it up for your perfect, high-and-mighty, heart-shaped ass?”
“Just. Fucking. Die already, Kai!”
Kai burst into humorless laughter at her hateful words. “Take a long, good look at yourself, Lessa.” He shook his head at her in disgust. “Antonio did you a disservice for the way he indulged you. And your brothers”—he glared from Alex to Alcaeus—“have perpetuated the damage. You were a sweet, kind-hearted girl once upon a time. But now … now you’re nothing but a spoiled, narcissistic fucking cun—”
Alex tackled Kai to the ground before Lupe could finish gasping, “Oh, no, he didn’t!”
“Well you’re a pack-less, family-less, freak of nature who doesn’t even know he’s supposed to die with his mate when she does,” Alessandra proceeded to attack as Kaleb took over for Alex in trying to restrain and calm her. Alcaeus was busy pressing Lupe’s face to his chest in an effort to smother her wild cackling and untimely bits of commentary.
“What if you’re what’s keeping her here, locked in torment? My God, you can’t get anything in your life right, can you? You never even belonged with Maribel. You were never good enough for her. And you ruined her!”
“But I was a good enough freak to fuck you, huh?” Kai shouted back in taunt from where he wrestled on the ground with Alex. “Sorry, my dick never got that memo, because it wants nothing to do with you.”
Alex’s fist finally silenced the freak debate, momentarily knocking Kai out cold and leaving the rest of us to deal with a hysterical, sobbing, ranting, and wailing Alessandra—without the ready aid of any sedatives that Kai’s bag of injectable doctor tricks might’ve offered.
Remy’s hot breath hit my ear as he released a sigh of irritation. “It’s going to be a long, unfortunate night, I’m afraid.”
I nodded my agreement.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Focusing all of my energy on not fidgeting and not making lame or terrified faces as I stood before the large gathering of soldiers that Kaleb had brought from Salvador, I comforted myself with the knowledge they were watching Alex, their Alpha, and not me, as he paced before the group, issuing directives mostly in Portuguese, and occasionally in English—for my benefit, I presumed. But when Alex walked back to me, coming to stand behind me and placing his hands on my shoulders, all bets were off as I struggled to heed Remy’s advice to “show no fear.”
Although none of the soldiers would dare to look directly at me, I still flushed at feeling their shift in attention. Don’t panic. Don’t panic.
“This is Milena Caro,” Alex’s voice boomed with authority. “Her life is to be guarded above all others—including my own. You will show her the allegiance and respect you do me.”
I willed my jaw to remain in place. Until he spoke his next words.
“Milena is my Alpha.”
None of the wolves actually broke form, but I got the sense they were all figuratively catching flies at this announcement. Alex’s right hand moved from my shoulder to rest over my galloping heart; his other slid around my waist, pulling me securely into him, making his meaning and intentions toward me crystal clear to everyone.
“When Milena is happy, so am I,” he tacked on, further cinching his status as my bitch, and putting us in the running for co-dependent couple of the year. My sweaty, shaky hands sought and covered Alex’s where they lay proprietarily over my heart and abdomen.
“Is there anything you’d like to add, my Alpha?” Alex prompted me.
Seriously?
His chin found a resting spot at the top of my head, and I turned bright red as all eyes fixed upon me in anticipation. Only the slight increase in pressure from his chin against my crown quelled my initial instinct to simply shake my head in response as my nerves were dictating.
I swallowed. I’d never enjoyed public speaking. Or being the center of attention. Alex held me a little tighter as my wide eyes assessed the sea of intimidating physiques and unfamiliar faces standing before me. It didn’t feel right having strangers put my safety above their own and everyone else’s in the pack, and I wanted to say as much. But I realized it was likely an epic faux pas to contradict Alex’s directive to his men—despite his declaration that I was the boss of him. I wanted to apologize for what my brother had done at the compound in Salvador. But I couldn’t
bring myself to go there either.
Eventually my eyes landed on Kaleb, standing to the left of his little army of enormous werewolves. His lips hinted at a smile as he gave me a barely perceptible nod of encouragement that somehow managed to convey more kindness and depth of personality than I’d heretofore imagined him capable of.
“Thank you,” I spoke up at last. “Thank you … for coming.” Thank you for coming?
When Alex’s head immediately ducked to kiss my shoulder, I knew from the way his chest briefly shook against me that it was to hide his amusement.
As I was frantically racking my brain for something more intelligent or poetic to say in order to save face, Kaleb stepped forward and dropped to one knee in front of me. “Milena, it is our great honor to serve and protect you.”
Everyone else immediately followed suit, the entire crowd of supernaturals bending to the ground in deference to me. As my red face broke into an awkward grin of appreciation, I knew from that moment forward it would be a challenge to continue disliking Kaleb so much after his smooth little rescue.
* * *
We spared few words on the walk back to Alex’s house. There were soldiers everywhere, it seemed, the air thick with anxious energy and the musky scent of impending battle. And I swore I could feel eyes on me the entire way, even when they bowed their heads as we passed. Heeding Remy’s advice, I made sure I kept my chin high, even as I squeezed Alex’s hand, gripping it like a lifeline.
I was beyond eager to be alone with Alex at long last by the time we finally reached his bedroom. Releasing the breath I’d been holding as the door shut behind us, I practically threw myself into his awaiting arms.
“What’s going to happen tomorrow?” I blurted without preamble.
He spun me in a circle before pushing my body up against the closed door, trapping me right where I wanted to be.
His obsidian eyes softened as he pressed himself closer, his long fingers threading through my hair like habit. The best kind of habit. “I’m going to make things right with your brother.”