by Hettie Ivers
“She’s the Alpha of the Reinoso pack? The pack that includes this breed of super-werewolves? Alpha of one of the oldest, largest, most powerful werewolf packs on the planet?”
“Not one of,” Wyatt corrected, “the largest, most powerful known werewolf pack. And the ones with the extraordinary magical capabilities are known as werelocks, not super-werewolves or superbeasts. The werelock subspecies originated from the union between a powerful warlock and a werewolf back in the first quarter of the sixteenth century.”
“You’re pulling my leg with this. She doesn’t even look Brazilian.”
“She’s not. She’s American. From the surfer town of Santa Cruz, California, as a matter of fact.”
“NoCal flower child turned rogue werewolf killer?” I shook my head. “We’re being set up. This can’t be right.”
“Avery, you of all people should know a person may be far more than what they appear on the surface.”
“Spare me the afterschool special message. I’m serious.” I proceeded to flip through photos, pausing on one where the flower child had gone from walking from the vehicle to being sprawled out on the pavement with multiple beefy hotties hunkered over her. “What happened here? Gunfire? Were they attacked?”
“No.” Wyatt coughed into his fist. “She ah … tripped and fell, I believe.”
“Oh, good Lord.” I offered the pad back to him. “Shall we move on to that French pack of superbeasts in Alsace? Got any pics of ’em eating croissants you wanna try and terrify me with?”
“Very funny.” He snatched the iPad from me and began searching through photo folders. “So she’s a little clumsy for an Alpha werelock. That doesn’t make her any less dangerous.”
“True.” I signaled our server for a coffee refill. “Suppose I’m unable to trip her?”
“Haha,” he deadpanned. “Avery, you need to take these werelocks seriously. Especially this Alpha Milena.”
“Believe me, I do. Come on, a cute, privileged white girl everyone adores? That’s a rival the likes of which I’ve never seen before.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You’re laughing on the inside.”
“That’s beside the point.”
“Just show me photos of the easy pack target with the weird name that you told me about so I can go and practice my tripping skills.”
He opened another folder of photos and flipped the iPad around for me to see just as our waitress approached with my refill.
“Sweet Jesus!” our server’s high-pitched voice rasped, taking the words straight out of my mouth as she and I both shamelessly eye-fucked the dark, hunky stranger in the photo filling up Wyatt’s screen.
Alcaeus
“Which pack laws would we need to break?” I asked Lessa as we entered the pet cemetery. “Aside from the one about keeping secrets from our Alpha, that is.”
“The one about executing minors.”
“What?” I halted in my tracks.
“Just hear me out,” she appealed, lifting her chin as she stopped and turned to face me. “When you and Dad enacted that law centuries ago forbidding the persecution and execution of the underage family members of our enemies, I don’t think any of us ever contemplated that the Rogue might be discovered while it was still a child.”
“Because it can’t be a child.”
“Of course it can,” she insisted.
I shook my head and resumed walking along the path lined with tombstones. “Lessa, never once throughout our species’ history has anyone reported encountering a rogue werewolf who wasn’t an adult.”
“Right. That’s because the run-of-the-mill rogue werewolf becomes one more or less by choice,” she reasoned as she kept pace with me. “But it makes greater sense that the Rogue prophesied to beget all rogues would be born as such.”
She had a point. It was indeed a possibility, if however improbable, that the Rogue might be found as a child. Which only raised more questions. “It’s too early developmentally to determine something like that in a child. What if a young werewolf was abandoned and forced to go rogue? Or abused by its parents or pack? We’d have to at least try and assimilate an underage wolf displaying rogue characteristics before we could determine—”
“Suppose we already knew?” she countered. “What if its own mother knew what it was and chose to hide it from the supernatural world?”
“How can it be considered a rogue when it’s still with its mother?”
“Because she’s still a child, Al,” Lessa insisted, impatience bleeding into her voice as she withdrew the phone that was vibrating in her skirt pocket and silenced it. “Think about it. Imagine a mother realizes that her daughter isn’t normal and can’t connect like other werewolves. That doesn’t mean that mother would give her child up. Least not if she had any spark of maternal instinct whatsoever.”
“She? You think the Rogue is a girl?” I failed to keep the disbelief from my tone.
Lessa’s eyes narrowed in a way that reminded me of our mother. “Why not? Who said the Rogue has to be a boy? None of the seers ever specified that it would be male. They largely referred to it as an ‘it.’ Everyone just assumed it would be male.” Her upper lip curled. “As with most things labeled powerful and dangerous.”
“You’re right,” I appeased. “The Rogue could very well be female.” I’d learned centuries ago that it was wiser—certainly less painful and time-consuming—to agree with Lessa when it came to such things in order to keep her on topic. “But how do you know this girl you’ve found is the Rogue? Where is she? How much have you interacted with her? When and how did you discover this? How old is she?”
“She’s American.” A smile stretched Lessa’s mouth. “Just like we always thought the Rogue would be.” Her grin turned triumphant—more than a little smug. “Milena’s been wasting the pack’s time searching every corner of Europe.” She huffed. “And Alex has just been going along with—”
“How old, Lessa?” I pressed her to the point.
She inhaled a beat and released a sighed, “Nine.”
“Nine?” I stopped abruptly. “You’re talking about us executing a nine-year-old? A little girl who probably hasn’t even shifted for the first time yet?”
Lessa’s phone went off again, momentarily distracting her as she stopped as well. “Look, I’m not happy either about that part. But put it in perspective, Al. We either exterminate one little girl or allow the entire human race to be slaughtered by an uncontrollable, malevolent rogue species destined to overrun the planet.”
“No. Absolutely not.” A child Rogue was a scenario I’d never contemplated.
Lessa groaned. “Stop pacing; you’re trampling the daisies. And mind your tells.”
Shit, I was pacing. And pulling on the back of my neck—an anxious “tell” of mine that our mother had often called me out on. It was always more irritating when Lessa did it.
“We are not killing a child, even if it is the Rogue,” I said as I continued to pace and yank at my neck. “If it is determined that the child in question truly seems destined to become the Rogue, we’ll simply have to take her and her mother captive and attempt to assimilate them into our pack. There’s no way we can definitively determine until after the girl hits puberty and shifts whether she’s actually going to be the Rogue in the true sense of the prophecy.”
Lessa shook her head, scowling down at whatever message she was reading on her phone. “It could be too late by then,” she said absently as she rapidly thumbed a response. “The little girl is already powerful. Far more advanced than she should be, given what I know of her werewolf parentage. She hasn’t even shifted yet and she can start fires with her thoughts! Just like Alex could as a child.”
The memory of how powerful and destructive our little brother Alex was by age nine was enough to give me pause to reconsider that Lessa may have a valid point about an exception to our pack law needing to be made. “How do you know all of this? How much have you interacted with the girl?”
“I haven’t. I’ve only seen the child through the eyes of a human man who is friends with the Rogue’s mother. All of my information on the girl and her mother I’ve gleaned directly from his memories.” She continued to thumb away on her phone. “He financially supports the mother and helps to keep her and the daughter hidden, but even he doesn’t know their actual whereabouts.” She looked up from her phone at last. “I need to be somewhere. And you need to get back. We’ll continue this later.”
In classic Lessa fashion, she teleported me back to Morumbi as fast as she’d whisked me away. Then she immediately teleported herself elsewhere, being intentionally vague about where she needed to be and when she’d return, leaving me in the lurch and still reeling from the confusing, incomplete information she’d just shared about her alleged child Rogue discovery.
I caught up with Milena and Alex back at the main estate. After extending the appropriate amount of praise to Milena for her impressive new abilities, I went on to grill them both for as many details as possible as to how she was accomplishing it. Alex was every bit as evasive as I’d expected he would be. And Milena was as forthcoming and eager to talk about it as I’d banked on.
Lessa had been right. Alex was partially helping to harness and magnify the supernatural powers of nature that now flowed from Milena as readily as her emotions always had.
When Alex excused himself to take a call that had come in on Milena’s phone, leaving the two of us alone in the sitting room adjacent to her office, Milena proceeded to share more than I had expected.
“I was so angry for so long about Lupe,” she confided to me in a quiet voice, her blue eyes growing bright with unshed tears. “One day, I was reflecting on it while in the woods in wolf form chasing the scent of a rogue that I’d been tracking. It had just begun to storm when I spotted him. I started sprinting. And I was imagining Maribel as I chased him down—as I’ve often found myself doing whenever I’m hunting a rogue.”
Her cheeks colored at her confession as her frank eyes bore into mine. I knew that this was something she probably had never shared with Alex before—possibly not with anyone.
“You know … since Maribel’s parting message to me when I last saw her in between worlds was about the importance of destroying the Rogue before the decade of no light’s end,” she elucidated unnecessarily in a weak attempt to put a politically correct spin on her previous revelation.
While her rationalization was truthful and factual, we both knew it wasn’t why she liked to envision Maribel whenever she was hunting rogues. I knew that Milena and I were a united, albeit largely silent, minority within the pack in that neither of us embraced the popular pack point of view concerning Kai’s deceased mate, Maribel, and her widely-praised-as-heroic actions ten years ago that had led to Lupe’s death. I couldn’t deny that I had on more than one occasion, myself, envisioned tearing Maribel apart as I’d torn into rogues.
“As I got closer to him, I was channeling so much of that hurt and rage,” she continued. “And suddenly, I felt the ground splitting open beneath my paws as I ran. I heard the sky crack with thunder.” She shook her head, taking her lower lip between her teeth as those guileless blue eyes of hers seemed to beseech the depths of my own for some greater understanding. “I didn’t realize that it was me who was conjuring the storm or causing the ground to split until lightning had struck the rogue for the third time.”
She brushed an errant tear from her cheek. “I stood over that rogue’s dead form and I just knew, Al. My emotions had always been the key—the impetus for so much throughout my life.” She shrugged. “It made twisted sense to me that they would ultimately manifest as my greatest source of power, I suppose.”
I leaned forward in my chair, nodding my understanding and silent approval as words failed me. I didn’t want to talk about Lupe. Or Maribel. But I appreciated that Milena could. More than that, I appreciated knowing that she still quietly despised Maribel just as much as I did, even though this was the most we’d ever spoken of it.
“I worry that we’re running out of time.” Her brow wrinkled, and she did that distressed lower lip thing that castrated Alex every time. I knew Milena well enough to know that it was an unconscious mannerism and not an attempt at manipulation. I was just thankful it didn’t work the same way on me as it did my brother. “The decade of no light will be over in a few months. Maribel was very clear that it would be vastly harder to destroy the Rogue once second sight was restored to the world—when the next generation of seers emerged.”
“Believe me, I know.”
“We’ve done all we can to unite the world’s most powerful packs against the idea of the Rogue. But there are still those who would protect it. Gabriel Salvatella continues to gain traction in the East. His Beta has somehow managed to charm the Saint Petersburg pack”—she cast her eyes to the ceiling—“despite barely speaking passable Russian.”
I noted she was still refusing to refer to Gabriel’s Beta—her brother, Raul—by name. I knew from Kai that she and Raul hadn’t spoken at all in the past decade. Not since Milena’s recovery immediately following the incident in the dining hall.
“I know, Milena. But we can only do so much. Don’t worry, we’ll find it in time.”
“I really wish that you would come back and help us here. Kai and I think the Rogue isn’t going to be found in America after all.”
Alex reentered the room, smelling as annoyed as I’d felt at the mention of Kai a moment ago. I was thankful for the interruption as Alex grumbled under his breath and poured himself a glass of scotch.
“What’s wrong?” Milena asked. “Is Bethany okay?”
Alex huffed. “Gregg has asked Bethy to marry him.” He and Milena shared a disgusted look.
“And she said yes?” Milena deduced with a wince.
“You need to talk to her.” He handed Milena her phone as he took the seat next to her on the couch. “Convince her he’s an asshat. Get her to call it off before it’s too late. For now I’ve convinced her they should have a long engagement.” He turned to me and announced, “We don’t like Bethy’s boyfriend, Gregg.” He tossed half his scotch back in one gulp. “At all.”
“Yeah. Caught that.” I couldn’t help but smile as I marveled at how protective Alex had somehow become of Milena’s childhood best friend. Maybe my little brother was a bit housebroken after all.
“There’s just something off about Gregg,” Milena said to me, scrunching her nose up. “I can’t put my finger on it, but he doesn’t seem entirely trustworthy.”
“He spells his name with three g’s, for fuck’s sake,” Alex proclaimed, as if it were the ultimate character indictment. Which it pretty well was. “I can’t understand what she’s thinking. We’re going to have to intervene.”
“No, we are not, Alex. It’s none of our business. Bethany has to make her own choices in life.”
Alex rolled his eyes. “Fine, then I’ll anonymously send her incriminating photos of Gregg’s penis engaging with other women’s vaginas so that she can better make the right choices in life.” He turned to me directly. “He cheats on her. I’ve seen it in his head.”
“Alex!” Milena gasped. “You said you wouldn’t.”
It was my cue to bail. “I’m gonna get going.” I stood. “Jussara’s probably waiting up for me back at the house.”
“Oh, no, I forgot I was supposed to tell you,” Milena piped up. “Jussara got called away for a … a thing.” Her eyes darted nervously at Alex. “She won’t be back to the house until tomorrow morning. So … so you have the place to yourself,” she said with an overly bright smile as Alex cough-laughed into his fist.
Fuck. Milena was a terrible liar. Always had been.
“I mean—unless you don’t want the place to yourself?” she rambled. “Because you could … you could just stay here, too. You’re more than welcome—”
“I’m good,” I said, my scowl directed at my laughing brother. “You wouldn’t happen to know where Remy i
s tonight, would you?”
“Remy?” Milena squeaked, causing Alex’s shoulders to quake anew as he covered his face with his hand.
“Yes. Remy. You know, that stepbrother of mine who has never gotten along with my ward, Jussara.”
“Oh, that Remy.” Alex beamed at me, enjoying my growing ire as he wrapped his arms around an increasingly distressed-looking Milena. “I believe he got called away for a thing as well. Didn’t he, love?”
Milena jammed her elbow into his ribs, and Alex laughed all the harder, successfully wrestling her into his lap even as she scolded and threatened him with lightning bolts.
I felt my eyes shifting, my blood boiling at the thought of Remy’s hands on Jussara. I still remembered the way she’d looked as a newborn. Remembered how big and delighted her little girl smile was whenever I’d come home at night and she’d run halfway down the stairs before jumping the rest of the way into my open arms. And I remembered the way Lupe would laugh so joyously at the sight of us in those moments before composing her features and yelling at me to take my fucking shoes off.
Milena’s eyes on me were sympathetic as her words penetrated my somber reverie. “I think it’d be good if you and Jussara talked more, Al.”
This couldn’t be happening. I’d only been away for ten years. I was imagining things, and Alex was using my paranoia to mess with me, like he always did. There was no way something was going on between Jussara and Remy.
“Where’s Kai?” I found myself asking. I wasn’t sure why. Kai’s patronizing face was the very last I wanted to see right now.
“I believe he’s at the infirmary,” Milena answered. “Or perhaps the lab. He said he’d be by later. I’ll tell him you were looking—”