Alejandro let his claws protrude from his fingertips. “Yes.”
* * * *
Crouching, Alejandro glanced toward Fulk who was moving up from the other side. They’d spent the last hour casing the area. Issac had managed to latch onto the residual magik that the kektaus had left behind. So far, they’d bounced all over the world, opening portal after portal and ending up at various locations. In the four days they’d searched endlessly, each spot had led them to another Deryn impostor. It had even gotten to the point that they’d come across kektaus posing as Ondrea as well.
A little part of him, one that he didn’t want to think about, was beginning to wonder if Deryn was still alive. Leaving her behind had been the worst thing he could have done. Had he just kept her with him she’d be safe, by his side. Now, as he looked around at the tropical rain forest they’d walked into from a portal, he couldn’t help but wonder what he’d do if Deryn truly had moved on without him or with who she thought was him.
His gut churned as he edged out further and broke through to a clearing. There, in the full sun was Deryn, or at least a semi close replica of her. He sighed. This one had some obvious differences. One, being the fact it was running about in full and direct sunlight. Another was that it wasn’t trying to hide the slayer portion of itself. It also had on a long white cotton wrap skirt and a matching bikini top. Its hair was piled up onto top of its head, leaving tendrils falling over its shoulders.
“Deryn doesn’t have tattoos on her wrists,” Kane said, moving up next to him.
He was right. She didn’t.
“Look,” Fulk said, pointing towards a rather nice looking white house.
Alejandro spotted Ondrea there or something pretending to be her anyway. This one’s hair was longer than Ondrea’s. She was also busy talking with a man who had his back to Alejandro. When he turned, Alejandro couldn’t believe his eyes. It was him, or at least it looked just like him. For the most part anyway. The impostor’s hair was about three inches longer than Alejandro’s and his choice of clothing wasn’t something he would have selected.
No. He tended to be a jeans and tee shirt kind of guy. The imposter had on black leather pants and a matching mesh short sleeved shirt.
The impostor covered the distance to the other Deryn and lifted her up and off her feet. She laughed and the sound moved over Alejandro, making him think of his Deryn. His body ached to hold her, be near her, anything.
The impostor snapped his fingers and music began to play all around them. He pulled Deryn into his arms and began to dance with her. They both burst into laughter as they did. He touched her chin and planted a chaste kiss on her forehead before moving towards a tree next to Deryn and picking something up.
The man disappeared into thin air before Alejandro could get a good look at what he was holding. It didn’t matter. He’d had more than enough of things pretending to be Deryn and him. He was done.
“Move in. Kill anything that moves,” he said, motioning towards the impostor Deryn.
* * * *
Deryn glanced back at Ondrea and shook her head. “He loves doing that. How long do you think the music will play for this time?”
Laughing, Ondrea bent down and picked up a sparring staff. She tossed one to Deryn who caught it with ease. “I have no idea but the man never ceases to amaze me. You were right to find him, Deryn. He needed us.”
She smiled and caught movement out of the corner of her eye. “Onnie.”
Picking up another staff, Ondrea nodded. “Right there with you, babes.”
The second that she spotted a glare, she knew someone was aiming a weapon at her. “Onnie!” She ran hard and fast towards her friend. They needed to get out of the open and get the other slayers organized.
The sound of gunfire filled the air. Bullets whizzed past her as she ran with the staff still in hand. Ondrea began running towards the complex as well. There was blur and then suddenly there was a man who looked like Alejandro standing in front of her, his claws out and his face full of hate.
Ondrea let out a soft laugh. “Oh, lookie, they made a Kane, too. I thought they were done trying this shit with us, Deryn.”
She glared at the man before her. “So did I.”
“Where is my wife?” the man asked.
She snorted. “I don’t know. Where’s the last place you left her?”
Not waiting for an answer, Deryn struck up with the staff, sweeping his legs out from under him. He flipped into the air and spun in mid-motion, landing on his feet with ease. He kicked out and struck her stomach with a force that sent her hurtling backwards.
“Where the fuck is my wife? You are not her!”
Rolling to her side, Deryn tried to get up only to find the man was closer than she thought. He kicked out again, this time catching her rib cage just right. Something important cracked. Pain radiated throughout her as she tried to draw in air.
Deryn coughed and spit blood. Grabbing the staff from the grass, she struck out with it, hitting the man and knocking him back from her. She staggered to her feet and glared at him.
“I am beyond sick of you things.” Coughing, she spit more blood and winced as she took a fighting stance. Her hand went to her side automatically as she did her best to brace her ribs until her powers could work their magik and heal her.
“Where is my wife?”
She let out a soft laugh. “At least you got new phrases. I was sick of the lame ass come ons.” She shook her head. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter what you try, you will not harm my family or any of my girls.”
He slashed out fast with his clawed hand and caught her across the face. She bit back a scream as she felt her flesh tearing. Deryn struck out and hit him in the side of the face. He came at her with his clawed hands and she did her best to duck and weave out of his reach. The pain from her punctured lung left her slower than normal, giving him the upper hand.
Time seemed to still as she watched his clawed hand come at her stomach. She knew she wouldn’t be fast enough. She braced for the pain she knew would come. He rammed his clawed hand through her flesh, driving it upwards, lifting her off her feet in the process. Pain stole the scream from her throat.
“Where is my wife?”
Deryn couldn’t have answered even if she wanted to.
“Issac,” the man said. “Get this thing to dump the Deryn look. It doesn’t deserve to die looking like my wife.”
As she stared down into his green eyes, she felt it, the pull, the draw to him. Her brow furrowed as she looked at his hand buried to the wrist in her stomach and the look of pure rage on his face. “A-Alejandro?”
He glared at her. “Where is my wife?”
The pain intensified tenfold and she realized that he was pushing in further. “Me,” she whispered. “Me.”
Issac appeared next to Alejandro. He lifted his hand in the air and thrust magik at her. It felt as though someone had dunked her in a vat of acid. Her entire body cramped and blood pooled from her mouth and nose.
“Where is my wife?” Alejandro repeated. He glanced at Issac. “Why isn’t it shedding its skin?”
Issac tore his power away from her and gasped. “Oh gods, put her down! Put her down now!”
“No, this thing will answer me. I am tired of this!” Alejandro shouted, ramming his clawed hand into her more.
Issac grabbed his arm and stared at Deryn with wide eyes. “Colonel, stop! It’s Deryn. She’s the real Deryn!”
“Bullshit! My Deryn doesn’t have tattoos on her wrists, wear skirts, hang out in the sun in full slayer mode. Where the fuck is my wife?”
“It’s her, sir! It’s her! I know it is!”
Alejandro laughed. “Fine. Then it can tell me what the first food I fed it was when we were together and what color dress it wore.”
Deryn struggled for air as pain continued to tear through her. She pleaded with her eyes for Issac to help her.
“She’s in too much pain to answer, Colonel! Put her down!”
“Ohmygods, Deryn!” Ondrea shouted. “Alejandro, no! It’s her. It’s your Deryn.”
“It’s her, Alex.” Kane rushed up and drew in a sharp breath. “Put her down. Now!”
“Not until it answers my fucking questions.”
Deryn drew on her strength and stared down at the man she’d assumed was dead. Tears filled her eyes. “Marido,” she whispered.
He stilled and tipped his head to side. Alejandro touched her lip with his free hand and put his bloodied finger in his mouth. His breath hitched and at the same moment, she felt his claws retract.
Deryn fell to the ground and laid there, staring up at a blood covered Alejandro. He made a move to come to her and she crawled as best she could. No part of her wanted him to touch her.
Ondrea dropped down next to her. “Deryn, oh gods. What do I do?”
She clutched onto her friend’s hand. “Take Alex and run.”
“What?” Issac asked, sliding down next to her. He touched her leg and let out a sob. “Colonel, you punctured her lung and have put a hole clean through her. She’s not healing the wounds. I don’t know why but her body isn’t even beginning to.”
Ondrea screamed out and grabbed Deryn to her. “No! She can’t heal something like this right now. Alex was too hard on her system.”
“Yeah, I’d say so, he gutted her.”
Ondrea shook her head. “No, not Alejandro, Alex. It took everything Deryn had to carry him to term. She’s still not back to a hundred percent.”
“What are you talking about?” Issac asked. “Term? She couldn’t have had a child, we’ve only been gone three weeks, Ondrea.”
Kane pushed everyone out of the way and dropped down next to Deryn. She stared up at her lifelong friend and blinked slowly. He shook his head. “I won’t let this happen again. Nava! Nava, come now! It’s Deryn. She’s hurt!”
There was a white flash and Deryn looked up to find Amador standing there with baby Alex in his arms. She shook her head and motioned for him to go but he didn’t. He took one look at her and energy began to buzz throughout the air. “Who dared to harm my granddaughter? Who?”
“Granddaughter?” Kane asked. “Who are you?”
Ondrea touched his arm. “That’s Amador, Alejandro’s grandfather and that,” she motioned to the baby in Amador’s arms, “is Alex. You’ve been gone for a year. We thought you were dead.”
Amador handed Alex to Ondrea and bent down. He lifted Deryn with ease. “Who did this to you?”
“I did,” Alejandro said, his voice weak.
Amador turned around, leaving Deryn and himself to face Alejandro. “Look! Look at what you have done, Alejandro. Are you happy with yourself? I watched this woman go through hell to assure your son lived, that your memory lived on. She came to me. She risked everything to see to it that I was part of Alex’s life too and this is the thanks you give her? This is how you treat your mate? A gift that you couldn’t stay away from more than a few hours when you were a little boy? A gift that you claimed as your wife within three days of having her back?”
Kane stepped forward. “Sir, we all thought it was one of the kektau posing as Deryn. We didn’t know. We’ve been searching for her and have run into nothing but kektaus.”
“Alejandro, come here.” Amador held Deryn out towards Alejandro. She wanted to argue, but was too weak. “Take her. You are the only one who can heal this damage for it was inflicted at your hand.”
* * * *
“This is a picture of her at six months,” Ondrea said, pushing one of the photo albums she’s insisted on showing him. “Look.”
He didn’t want to look. Looking made him think about what he’d one. He’d almost killed his own mate. That wasn’t all of it. His decision to make her stay had left her fighting to protect herself from attacks and fighting to survive the pregnancy.
The shock of being someone’s father still hadn’t worn off. Each time Ondrea offered to bring Alex out to him, Alejandro declined. He clearly wasn’t safe to be around. His judgment was skewed. He’d done the unthinkable. He’d turned against Deryn when he swore he never would.
Alejandro glanced at the picture of Deryn. She had on a pair of jeans that were under the tiny swell of belly she had.
Issac touched it. “She hardly looks pregnant at all.”
“Yeah, it was hard for Deryn to gain weight. The serum curbs her appetite and she was left no choice but to unmask her presence. She couldn’t keep taking it and without it, in mortal form, she would die. That’s how we ended up here, far from others. She can roam around and just be herself.”
She reached out and patted Alejandro’s leg. “The day after this picture was taken, Deryn came to me and confessed she could no longer feel a link with you. She assumed you had died.” Tipping her head back, she did her best to keep from crying. “She wouldn’t eat or drink. She wouldn’t come out of her room. She wanted to die. Nothing I said or did changed that. It wasn’t until Alex started to kick, making his presence really known to Deryn for the first time in the pregnancy that she realized she had to get up and keep going for him.”
“Who delivered him?” Issac asked.
“Becca, me, Nava, Amador and a couple of the other girls.”
Kane rubbed his temples. “Let me get this straight. We’ve been gone a year, according to your time, and in that time, Deryn’s become a mom, you now train original slayers, Becca Wilcox came on board and you’ve been collecting some of the lost Avatarian women along the way?”
“That and we went and got Alejandro’s grandpa. Deryn thinks we rescued him from a life of loneliness. Umm, I saw his harem. The man was hardly lonely.”
Alejandro expected Fulk to make a comment about having a harem. When he didn’t, he looked around the room for him. “Rodriquez?”
“He watches over the child now,” a deep voice said from the doorway.
Glancing up, Alejandro found Amador leaning against the doorframe, one leg crossed over the other. His gaze was hard and locked on Alejandro. The man didn’t need to tell him how much he’d fucked up. He knew and he hated himself for it.
Amador let out a slight laugh, sounding less than amused. “Hating yourself and entertaining leaving your wife and son for ‘their own safety’ is not the answer and it is not what my grandson would do in a situation like this. If I didn’t have an uncanny ability to weed out impostors, I would have assumed one slipped past. You are letting human emotions cloud your judgment, Alejandro.” He put his hand up to stop the protest he must have sensed coming. “Before you say it, you are not human. You were simply raised among them. Do not make their mistakes. Do not do as I once did--give it all up because you believe it is best for all involved if you just disappear.”
Ondrea snorted. “Yeah, having eternity with a harem looked like hard work.”
Amador cast an almost sad look at Ondrea. “One would think that lifestyle is fit for a god, a king even but....”
Issac shook his head. “It’s fine the first few years. You’re almost numb to it all. When you start to feel, you fuck it away.” He looked at the floor. “Only every time you’re in one of them you can’t help but think about how much they aren’t the one you love. How they never will be. You think about your daughter and how she’ll never know her father. Never know how much you loved her and her mother. You think about how you’re still alive and how you should have been the one to die. That it should have been you home that day. The sword was meant for you, not her. You think about how one error in judgment, one bad decision changed it all--put her and your daughter at risk, leaving them dead and you to forever have to find a way to live with the pain. Soon, the harem girls no longer help numb the pain. Nothing does. It never really goes away. You just find a new way to deal with the pain. A new cause to put your life on the line for.”
The room fell silent. Issac’s words sunk in and for the first time in the years he’d known Issac, Alejandro realized that other than knowing Issac was born a Fae prince, he knew little about his past.
He knew the man was over a hundred and that he never went home to see his father. He had no idea he’d been married.
“You mean son,” Ondrea said softly. “Alejandro has a son.”
“Yes.” Issac locked gazes with him. “He does. He was lucky enough to find them alive, to have his child born healthy and able to exist outside of his mother. He was lucky enough to be his wife’s true soul mate, giving him the power to heal mortal wounds. He’s one lucky bastard who better not even think of walking away from her or that little boy or I’ll kill him myself.” He stood quickly and stormed out of the room, leaving Ondrea staring at him with a blank expression.
“Umm, would you like to meet your son now?” she asked, her voice small.
“When Vonni confessed to tampering with the portal all I could think was that decades, maybe even centuries had elapsed here and that I’d find Deryn had moved on or worse yet, not made it. I couldn’t stand the pain.” He tapped his chest. “On the inside. It was nothing compared to seeing her look up at me, terrified of me and to hear her beg you to take Alex and run from me. She doesn’t want me near him or her.”
Amador ran a hand through his hair, revealing an arm full of Avatarian symbols. “That attitude will not only leave you alone for the rest of your very long life, it is the kind that will leave your family dead. Do you honestly think they would be better off without you? The others have not even really begun to attack. No. They are still unsure exactly what is going on--who is who and so forth. When they do, they will come at little Alex with a force you cannot even begin to imagine.”
Alejandro growled and stood. “No.”
“Yes. Already we fight to stay ahead of them for the sake of Deryn, you, others like you. Do you really think they will lay down arms the minute they find out the children they once sought to kill are having children of their own?”
Alejandro shook his head unable to believe someone would hurt an innocent child. “He’s so tiny.”
Shifter Fated Mates: Boxed Set Page 80