by Hettie Ivers
“It’s not only your burd—”
“I mean it, Milena. I’m out. We’re out. I’ll settle this feud with the Salvatellas once and for all, and then we’ll go anywhere you want. You have your entire life ahead of you—”
“It’s not only your feud, Alex. What about my family? What about Sofia and Hector? My family was ensnared in this mess long before yours; it’s not like you dragged me into it.”
“Well, I’m dragging you out. You were never supposed to be part of it in the first place. It’s not what Hector wanted.”
“It’s not what my mother wanted for me either, but I can’t just run away, Alex,” I proclaimed with as much fire and indignation as I could muster, hoping it might make the both of us believe it. I did want to run away—more so now than ever.
Absently, I wrapped my arms around myself, attempting to block the chill creeping into the room and the fear hovering over my heart, trying to hold onto the last piece of my innocence that I sensed was about to be ripped away. Alex sensed it, too. I knew it in the wild desperation I saw in his eyes right before they shifted—his yearning to whisk me away from it all before it was too late.
“You’re cold, baby.”
I tossed my head in denial. “Alex, something’s off. I feel it. I know you do, too. Those dead seers—”
“Let’s warm you.” He was on me before my next blink. Surrounding me. Fingers digging into the flesh of my ass, wrapping around my inner thighs to spread them high around his waist as he raised me off the ground.
“Alex, there’s something we’re miss—ahh!” He nipped my bottom lip as he pushed up inside of me, his hardness breaching my wet slit to stretch me wide as he carried me into the renovated shower room.
“On.” The new—and apparently voice-activated—shower system responded immediately to his monosyllabic command, instantly bathing us in warm spray from all angles.
He took me fast the first time—with my back slammed against the tiled shower room wall. And I loved it. I forgot about everything and anything I was supposed to be worrying about as I wrapped my arms and legs around him and held on tight, letting him be the anchor that I needed.
My mouth moved over his with a savagery that matched his own need as he ground his pelvis into me, his cock rooting deep, his big body pinning mine to the slick wall without reprieve until my inner muscles rhythmically seized around him.
He didn’t stop. He squeezed my ass as if intent on leaving bruises and fucked me harder still, demanding my satisfaction again and again—until my voice grew hoarse from screaming, my eyes had shifted, and my wolf’s claws and canines had emerged and drawn his blood. Only then did he achieve his own release, coating the depths of my womb with his hot seed.
His beast retracted and I sagged against him. Cooing sweetly to me in Portuguese, he tempered his touch, gently soaping and rinsing every inch of me as my internal muscles calmed and eventually ceased squeezing around his softening organ. Pulling out, he eased me down onto my knees in front of his bobbing semi-erection. I took him into my mouth without thinking, without asking, as his hands ran through my hair, rinsing away the sweet-smelling shampoo he’d massaged into my scalp.
While he washed his own hair and person, I clung to his large thighs and alternated between lapping at his balls and licking the length of his hardness as I felt the increasing slick of renewed arousal seeping out of me, trickling down the inside of my thighs to mix with the shower water and Alex’s escaping ejaculate.
Spent as I was, it registered that he was speaking entirely in Portuguese above me. And strangely, for the first time, I found I neither needed nor wanted a translation. Because the softly spoken words sounded so beautiful in Alex’s native tongue—and his black eyes were so loving, so replete with adulation as they smiled down at me—that no English translation could’ve improved upon the sentiment those words already conveyed.
He was still crooning to me in Portuguese when he pulled himself from my mouth and swept me off the floor into his arms. The shower spray became a light steam as he carried me across the room and draped my exhausted body face down and crosswise over the side of a massage table so that my hips hung over one edge and my chin rested at the opposite.
Stepping between my thighs from behind, he bent my right knee and brought it up onto the massage table beside my hip, positioning me so that I was spread wide—fully exposed to his gaze. Only my left toe still grazed the wet tile floor.
My fingers curled around the opposite side of the soft table by my chin, and I let my eyes drift closed while Alex murmured soothing words and proceeded to drizzle warm oil down the length of my spine and all over my spread ass cheeks.
And, oh … dear … God! What Alex did to me next on that massage table, I knew would bind me to him—body and soul—forever. Because what woman wouldn’t fall into full-blown hero-worship-infatuation-happily-ever-after-I’ll-have-a-litter-of-your-babies-soul-mate-kind-of-love with a man who could work his magic hands over her oiled body and administer the deep-tissue massage of a lifetime while simultaneously massaging her most sensitive inner tissue from behind with his glorious prick?
I achieved a state of being that transcended bliss—a connection with Alex that went beyond that soul mate neck-marking business. And as he continued to speak in his own language, after a while, I realized that I suddenly understood every word.
Because I blushed at the way he went on about the curve of my back and the shape of my ass. My insides clenched around his girth sawing slowly in and out of me as he described how hot, how smooth and tight I felt from the inside.
Pinned to the table, impaled by his hard length, I blissed out while he leisurely explored and massaged my ass cheeks until I was panting and writhing, begging him to fuck me to completion. But it was the dirty things he described to me in Portuguese that sent me climaxing with a violent intensity around his stubbornly unmoving cock at long last.
When and how had this miracle happened? Had I gone mad? Was it just possible that I’d understood Portuguese all along? Or maybe … had I always understood Alex—from that first moment in the foyer when I’d recognized him for the lost little boy he was?
What was language anyhow?
I remembered learning in school that some philosophers claimed language was born from our emotions, while others argued it originated from the evolution of logical thought.
But did spoken language really matter so much when all of the ways Alex loved and cherished me were already so clearly communicated through his every single touch?
Alex had verbally expressed his love for me numerous times, while reassuring me that he didn’t need to hear my words back. And although I’d shelved this in my mind as another chapter in the book of Alex under “things cocky Alphas say,” it occurred to me that maybe I’d missed the bigger message.
Perhaps Alex truly wasn’t anxious or needy to hear me voice my feelings for him aloud in plain terms? Maybe he did already know.
Maybe … I was the one who needed to hear myself say it out loud.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
My inner she-wolf’s hackles were up; her ears pricked in alert. I couldn’t shake the nagging suspicion that I was walking into a trap and that I should try to wake myself up as I attempted to navigate through the dark dream gardens surrounding Alex’s home. There was barely enough moon in the sky to light my way and not one familiar scent along the path. Then I saw my mom. Both of them.
My mom and her identical twin sister—my birth mother, Kamella—were standing in the garden that lay ahead beyond the bend, laughing at something an unseen male voice was saying. Seeing them standing next to one another, even within the context of this strange phantasmagoria unfolding, felt startlingly authentic.
The male voice became more pronounced and familiar when I rounded the tall hedge and recognized Mateus. Their hushed conversation and laughter subsided as all three turned to smile in my direction.
“Milena!” Mateus greeted, his expression brighter and more w
elcoming than it had ever been toward me in real life. “Come see the precious bundle we’ve all been sacrificed for.” He turned to face me fully as I approached, revealing a small bundle wrapped in a white blanket cradled in his arms, held high to his chest. A baby?
I came closer. The bundle was moving. Squirming. Mateus lowered his arms and pulled back the blanket to uncover a beating, bloody heart!
I recoiled in disgust, and the bloody heart fell to the ground with a splat, still pumping, as Mateus, my mother, and Aunt Kamella vanished from the garden into thin air. I turned and ran, fleeing through the maze of hedges. It was definitely time to wake up.
As I sprinted through the gardens, marveling at the ability of my subconscious to conjure up nonsensical gore, not to mention misplace an enormous mansion amid some hedges, I imagined myself where I knew I really was—snuggled safely in bed with Alex.
There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home, I chanted inside my head, willing myself to wake up where I belonged. That’s when I tripped over my own thoughts and dream feet and fell to the ground.
Where was home?
In sleep, my heart shouted the answer my waking mind refused to admit. My vision blurred with unshed tears as I stared at the earth beneath me. Because I realized there were so many other forces inside my head still trying to drown my heart out.
There was the call of my mother telling me to save myself and run far away while I still could, the voice of Raul screaming that I was betraying my own blood if I chose what I wanted most, and the damning eyes of Mateus projecting his belief that everything was my fault—I was selfish simply by virtue of being born.
And the most suffocating of all suppressive emotions was worming its way to the surface like an uncompromising stain, condemning me a bad person should I put my desires for my life over others’. That emotion always trumped all else. It had a name. What was it?
It was right on the tip of my consciousness when I felt the memory of Kai’s energy probing my mind, his doctorly healing touch searching for some specific part of my brain as Remy’s voice penetrated the very depths of my psyche, telling me that guilt was a choice, not a mantle I had to wear for all eternity because I assumed it was my birthright.
Guilt. That was it. Guilt was a choice?
Kai and Remy’s voices in my head insisted so. Their sentiments were echoed by my she-wolf, who bayed in agreement. It was the glaring difference between us. My wolf wasn’t hardwired to embrace guilt, and my predilection to cling to the emotion left us diametrically opposed. Unless I let it go.
A pained wolf’s howl broke my reverie. Another joined in. Then another. Soon a cacophony of howls called to me from all sides as I stood and turned in place, not knowing which direction I should run first. Human voices joined in, some familiar, some unknown, until it seemed as if the whole world was calling out to me at once. I covered my ears, yet I still heard them loud and clear. They were all calling my name as if they knew me. As if they … needed me.
“They do need you,” a disembodied female voice spoke from everywhere and nowhere specific, silencing all else.
The sun came out above in a clear sky of the truest of blues, and suddenly the gardens were bright and cheerful.
“ … But I called you first.”
This time the female voice spoke from my right, on the other side of the hedge flanking me—a tinkling, mesmerizing sound full of mystery and amusement.
I had to follow it. Dream or no, I felt a mad compulsion to know the woman behind that voice. It was rich. Cultured. With an accent and inflection that seemed vaguely familiar and yet all its own and somehow indistinguishably … perfect.
Expecting anything and nothing to confront me on the other side of the tall shrubbery, I wasn’t prepared to find an elegant young blond woman in a crème-colored silk evening gown seated at a café table playing a solo game of chess, humming Gigi show tunes. My insane mind’s ear immediately conjured Maurice Chevalier’s over-the-top, syrupy thick, French-accented voice to supply the missing lyrics to accompany the woman’s easy tune, “Thank Heaven for Little Girls.”
The woman didn’t smell like anything familiar—or anything at all for that matter. She was strangely scentless. Stepping forward, I cleared my throat to announce my presence before politely inquiring, “Which side are you playing on?”
Though I recognized it was an odd question, it was an honest one, because she seemed to be playing both sides in her solo game. She took her time before making the slightest acknowledgement that she’d heard me, and longer still to respond. Without glancing up from the board, she said, “Alcaeus was right about you. You skip straight to the loaded questions.”
“You know Alcaeus?”
“I know everyone you know, Milena.” Eyes still lowered, she inclined her head toward the game. “Do you play?”
“No. That is … not very well.”
“Shame.” When she raised her chin and leveled violet-blue doe eyes on me at last, I was awestruck. She could’ve passed for Emmanuelle Beart’s better-looking sister. If it were possible for a being to be too beautiful, I was staring at just such a creature. For the first time, I understood what Bethany meant by “girlcrushing.”
She was the essence of woman and child, the embodiment of sinner and saint—her eyes managing to convey that rare depth of purity that only comes of being irreparably tainted. If she’d proclaimed herself “Eve,” I wouldn’t have disputed it. Because I’d never imagined eyes could look so battered and world-weary, so possessed of anguish and pain—yet still cast the effortless glow of innocence she’d just accomplished with one casual glance.
“Which side do you suppose will win?” she asked, her eyes projecting such interminable, unfathomable hope that I was forced to conclude she was actually posing the absurd question in earnest.
And there was something in the way she looked at me—those goddess features reflecting an aching vulnerability that made my heart clench at the prospect of disappointing her with my answer. It took effort to draw my focus from the aesthetic genius of her face and formulate a reply. I didn’t know a lot about chess, but I knew enough to know when there were no more moves to be played.
“But the game is already over.” I nodded toward the lone white chess piece left on the board. “The white king is in check.” From every conceivable angle. “The black side has check mate.”
She released a sigh. “So it would appear.” Her fingers strummed the stone tabletop as she studied the pieces again. “Yet the white king remains in play on the board.” Her eyes raised in challenge. Not so childlike.
“But he’s finished.” I shrugged. “It’s inevitable. He’s surrounded.”
“The less imaginative might conclude so,” she insulted. “Yet there are a few more pawns still in play.”
But there were no white pawns left. There were no white pieces anywhere on the board other than the white king. “I see no white pawns.”
“I don’t need white pawns. Any pawn suits my purpose. I only require the right currency. Everyone can be bought.”
Not so vulnerable. And we weren’t talking chess anymore. “That’s not true.”
Her answering laughter was lyrical. “I’m afraid it is, Milena. And the time has come to discuss your price.”
“For what?” I shrugged again—mostly to play off the warning bells blaring through my system. “I have no price.”
“But of course you do. Everyone wants something.”
I tipped my head to the side. “What I want you can’t give me.”
She beamed, her face coming alive with purpose. “Try me.”
I shook my head. I had a bad feeling I wouldn’t like her purpose.
“Oh, come now,” she clucked. “What are you afraid of? Tell me. If you could have anything?”
I took a deep breath. It was no secret anyway. “I want my brother back,” I told her plainly. “I want for us to be a happy family again.”
“Really?” she questioned, her lips pouting,
her features a mask of puzzlement. “Are you sure? That’s what you want most of all? If you could have anything?”
“Yes,” I huffed, growing more rattled by the minute. Who was she to question my wants and desires? And why wasn’t I asking that key question aloud instead of answering her silly ones?
She seemed to ponder it before declaring, “You’re right. I won’t give you that. How very strange of you to ask for something back that you never possessed to begin with,” she muttered to herself loudly enough for my benefit.
“What?” I snapped.
“How can you claim to have lost something that never was?” She folded her hands together beneath her chin, her eyes wide with innocence as my own narrowed in anger. “A happy family that never existed?”
“It did exist! I was hap—”
“Was Raul happy?”
A lump formed in my throat. It was an awful moment of truth to realize I didn’t actually know. I tried to remember him as he’d been as a boy. To remember us—the way we were once as siblings. And still, I didn’t know. After everything that had happened recently between us, I could scarcely trust my own memory.
“Do you think an eight-year-old boy liked pretending his aunt was his mother for the sake of hiding his baby sister from an enemy and a world no one would explain to him?”
I swallowed. “That wasn’t my fault. I never knew—”
“Never said it was. Never made it any less painful.”
“I love my brother. I would do anything for him!”
“Would you give up your life for his? Sacrifice all of your dreams and desires just to keep him safe?”
“I … but—”
“He did no less for you.”
“Yes! I’d do anything for him!” Who the fuck was this dream bitch to be interrogating me?
“So you intend to choose him over Alex and join with the Salvatellas tomorrow?”
“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?”