Girl from Jussara

by Hettie Ivers

  “Do not disappoint your Alpha.” His eyes indicated his open palm.

  But he wasn’t her Alpha. She hadn’t agreed to stay. She was still there as Alcaeus’ guest. Her situation was temporary. She wasn’t a member of their pack. She stared mutinously at the large hand before her. For a mad moment, the genetic similarities to Alcaeus’ own hands, which she’d come to associate with providing care and comfort, were enough to make her hapless mind birth a desperate, fleeting hope that Alex’s hand might prove to be an offering of safety as well. Then he spoke.

  “Little girl, you will take my hand in the next three seconds, or you’ll take this machete through your heart.”

  She snatched his hand in hers.

  He smiled. “My brother perpetually underestimates me. Try not to do the same.”

  She nodded dolefully.

  They strolled. She barely noticed where. Her leaden feet only registered it as her funeral march as her imagination quickly ran rampant, conjuring all manner of gruesome scenarios for how he intended to end her.

  Mostly, her worries were dominated by fears for her daughter, though. What was going to happen to Jussara now? Would Alcaeus still care for her baby when she was gone? Jussara was barely a year old. Would she remember her mother? What if she lived her whole life never knowing how much her mother had loved her? Worse yet, the Alpha knew Jussara to be the progeny of his enemy. Would he even let her little girl live? Would he simply cast her precious bundle out once he’d disposed of her? Dump baby Jussara on his murderous enemy’s doorstep?

  Belatedly, she noticed they’d been garnering a crazy amount of attention as they made their way through the gardens. Animals in wolf and in human form alike stopped whatever they were doing to salute or bow their heads in deference, offering overly effusive words of praise and greetings to their pompous, spoiled Alpha.

  Blech! What a bunch of annoying toadies! Lupe was glad now that she’d never wasted time getting to know very many of these superbeasts during her year-and-a-half stay at the compound. They were all a lot of pathetic, spineless sycophants as far as she was concerned. And their Alpha was nothing but an arrogant bully too caught up in his own inflated sense of self-worth to recognize the obvious shortcoming that would no doubt seal his demise one day.

  Damn. Every she-wolf they passed was glaring at her like they wanted to gut her and eat her entrails. What was up with that?

  Then she remembered that Alex was not the hold-your-hand-and-stroll-through-the-gardens type. He was the fuck-you-from-behind-while-making-eyes-at-his-next-conquest-in-the-gardens type.

  The Alpha fucked she-wolves like he was punishing them. And they loved it. The dumb bitches lined up and bent over for it, assess tilted high, wet cunts gleaming in the moonlight.

  Lupe had chalked it up to an Alpha groupie kind of thing—like star-fuckers. Because the way those bitches carried on, pawing at his feet and begging to suck his cock, anyone might have thought it was coated in pure golden fairy dust. Or at least Belgian chocolate. The way they groveled and glorified him over what usually amounted to no more than a cold, hard fucking for all other leering wolf eyes in the gardens to see, would have been laughable in Lupe’s estimation … were it not so pathetic.

  Even he knew it. Lupe could’ve sworn she’d caught the Alpha rolling his eyes at their displays toward him as they walked.

  And it wasn’t only the women who were reacting to his handholding display. The fact that Alex was holding her hand for all to see was an anomaly his male pack members seemed to be having a rather difficult time processing as well. Even the pack’s unemotive head of security detail, Kaleb, whom Lupe had long ago determined had no personality whatsoever, barely managed to conceal his shock as they approached him.

  “Kaleb, allow me to introduce you to Alcaeus’ housemate, Guadalupe. She is the newest human member of our pack and a person of critical importance here.”

  Kaleb bowed in unnecessarily formal greeting. “Pleasure to meet you, Guadalupe.”

  “We’ve met,” she reminded him. “Multiple times.”

  “Kaleb, see that no one touches, verbally accosts, or so much as startles her. She is to be given a wide berth. Male wolves would be wise to avoid her altogether. In fact … spread the word that she’s off-limits and publicly execute the first idiot who tests that boundary. Questions?”

  “None, sir.”

  “Very good.”

  Lupe struggled to keep her mouth closed as Alex dragged her along, introducing her to two other high-ranking soldiers and issuing the same instructions he’d given Kaleb. She was positively dumbfounded by this turn of events.

  “Try to look less totally constipated if you can manage it,” Alex muttered derisively while simultaneously gifting her with an adoring smile as they continued their stroll.

  Lupe forced her lips into a strained grin.

  “No. No, that’s much worse. Stop that.”

  Once they were out of the gardens and into the woods, they encountered fewer and fewer pack members, and Lupe wasn’t sure whether she should be relieved or more terrified. As they neared Alcaeus’ house, the Alpha became chattier.

  “Did you think I didn’t know about you? Half of my guards are still of the opinion that little hellion of yours is mine and that Alcaeus is merely doing the honorable thing by you as atonement for my transgression.”

  She’d had no idea ... had never even considered that the lie she’d initially told in order to gain entry into the Reinoso compound might’ve still been circulating out there. “I … I’m … sorry I—”

  “Frankly,” he cut her off with a wave of indifference, “I’m inclined to sanction any rumor that might cure other females around here of imagining I possess even a shred of paternal instinct.” His nose wrinkled in distaste. “I do, however, resent the outlandish notion I’d be fool enough to waste my seed in some peasant farm girl. A human, no less,” he added with disdain. “But I let them continue to believe what they will—that I was careless enough to put a baby inside of you some drunken night when I was slumming it in whatever backwater you hail from, and then forgetful enough to not remember that I did it.”

  Lupe could only marvel at how the older brother managed to ooze charm from every pore twenty-four-seven, while this one couldn’t take a breath without being offensive.

  “I admit, I’ve struggled to understand my brother’s obsession with you.” His eyes raked her. “You’re passably attractive enough for a human, I suppose, but that doesn’t negate the fact that you’re utterly incompatible and genetically inferior on every level.”

  “Gee, thanks.” Shit. She hadn’t meant to voice that snarky reply. She dared a sidelong look at the Alpha as he brought them to a stop in front of the house.

  “But what truly baffles me,” he said, turning to face her head on, his dark eyes piercing, “is that you reportedly continue to reject my brother’s romantic intentions. And that you refuse to accept his very generous offer to provide you and your daughter with a lifetime of protection. Simply because …”—he canted his head in question as he stepped into her personal space—“you do not wish to make a commitment to join my pack?”

  “I … well …” She lost her voice as he raised his hand to her face. Oh … God.

  “Surely”—his knuckles grazed her cheekbone—“the certain death that awaits you outside of my protection is a far greater inconvenience than stomaching a lifetime of my brother’s fawning, wink-y-eyed ways and seventeenth-century sense of humor, hmm?”

  He smiled—a wolfish, toothy grin of victory, as his knuckles continued their gentle caress down the column of her throat to her exposed collarbone. The Alpha was known for being cruel and sadistic. Had he gone to the trouble of taking her on that little parade through the gardens just for the sick pleasure of tricking her into feeling safe before he tore her throat out?

  Lupe coughed, hoping to dislodge her heart from said throat.

  “There … there,” he soothed in response to her mini choking fit that ensue
d, looking far more amused than concerned. “I’m sure you understand, Lupe, that being the Alpha and sadist I am, that I will of course require something from you as reparation for the soldier you killed tonight.” It wasn’t a question.

  She nodded, blinking back the traitorous burn assaulting her eyes. She was prepared to swallow her pride and beg for her daughter’s life, but his next words stopped her.

  “I’ve decided as punishment you will stay on here as Alcaeus’ housekeeper,” he decreed. “You and your daughter are now permanent members of my pack. You will remain loyal to my brother for the rest of your natural or unnatural life, as the case may be. You will swear these things to me now. And you will tell me your given name.”

  It was a far better outcome that she had expected. And she had no choice, so she agreed.

  She swore to it. And she noted how it delighted him, the sicko. She realized he had no intention of ever sharing her given name with his brother, either. That was the point. Knowing something about her that Alcaeus didn’t and exerting his own control over her destiny in a way that went beyond his brother’s was just the kind of power trip the bastard got off on.

  He hadn’t asked for her fealty. Probably didn’t care one way or another about it. He’d only required her loyalty to his brother. He was an Alpha who valued obedience from his pack. Devotion didn’t matter.

  Her heart rate was just returning to normal when he raised her machete. The blade gleamed and winked at her in the moonlight as her jaw fell open, fearing the worst sort of twisted betrayal from her new Alpha. But instead, he merely handed it back to her, offering her the handle end as he held the blade.

  “Here. You won’t need this anymore.”

  She accepted her beloved papai’s proffered machete, too stunned to say anything before the Alpha started walking away.

  “For the record”—he turned and his dark orbs gave her one final, thorough sweep from head to toe—“I believe I might actually remember it if I were ever dumb enough to put a baby inside of you.”

  Her features reflected shock. Was that meant to be his version of a compliment?

  “Provided nothing of particular interest or remote importance had transpired that day, of course,” he appended drolly, before she had time to consider the possibility he might be capable of being anything less than a complete and total ass. “Your thoughts are quite loud and aggressive, little girl. Not so easy to forget.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Lupe awoke to the sound of feral growling, and to the jostling sensation of a four-legged beast leaping onto her bed. Her eyes opened to a pair of ice-blue wolf eyes glowing above her and to a giant, clawed paw sweeping down through the air toward her face. The frantic cry that climbed up her throat was silenced before it ever broke as a human palm clamped down hard over her mouth instead.

  Kai. A human Kai was on top of her in her darkened bedroom.

  “Scream and I will give you something to scream about,” he cautioned before releasing her mouth and jumping from the bed.

  By the time Lupe collected herself enough to sit up, Kai was in wolf form again, prowling from one end of the room to the next, emitting a low, sustained growl.

  His pure white coat was filthy—matted with dirt and leaf litter. And—blood?

  It was barely daybreak, the glow from the first rays of sunlight faintly visible on the other side of her upstairs bedroom curtains. Lupe wondered what could’ve happened to him to put him in such a state? To cause him to burst into her bedroom as he had?

  As she watched, he morphed into his human form again—without so much as faltering a step or breaking stride in his pacing.

  Kai was a gorgeous man when fully clothed. Buck naked he was divine. Mouthwatering. Even when dirty and disheveled and pacing her bedroom like a homicidal maniac as he now was. The man was built. Very well built—with the best of equipment in all of the most important places.

  “You didn’t call.” His words were accompanied by the fiercest look he’d ever thrown at her. Before she could blink, he was pacing in his canine form again. And still giving her that look—his wolf eyes replete with accusation and betrayal.

  “Son of a bitch,” she swore as her rattled sleep brain caught up. And then she proceeded to spew apologies as she realized that she had forgotten to call him.

  She’d been so flustered after her encounter with Alex last night. She’d been in a daze as she’d gone through the motions of checking on Jussara in her crib, of insisting that Ines spend the night and getting Ines set up in the guest bedroom, before washing and collapsing to bed herself. She hadn’t wanted to think about her awful encounter with the Alpha or to contemplate the implications of Alex’s “punishment” sentence of lifelong service to Alcaeus and the Reinoso pack.

  And amid her distress, she’d completely forgotten to contact Kai to let him know that she was okay. Forgotten about how Alex had callously forbidden Kai from following them last night, from reaching out to Alcaeus or in any other manner checking on Lupe’s well-being … any sooner than daybreak.

  She apologized, and she told Kai’s pacing wolf form about everything that had happened with the Alpha. “I’m sorry, I never thought—didn’t realize you’d worry—” she rambled in explanation.

  They were the wrong words to say, because the white wolf snarled and leapt onto the bed again. She squealed and instinctively shrank back, covering her face with her hands and flattening herself to the mattress.

  “Why not?” Kai’s voice grated above her. The heat of his breath hit the backs of her hands. “Why wouldn’t I worry, Lupe? Because Lessa says I’m incapable of feeling? Incapable of love?”

  “Didn’t mean it like that,” she said, her voice shaky and muffled behind her palms.

  He tore one of those palms away from her face and pressed it flat against his chest over his rapidly beating heart, holding it in place there with his own hot palm.

  “Feel that? It still works! It doesn’t know its efforts are futile. Doesn’t know that it was supposed to stop beating half a century ago. That no matter how hard it pumps, it’ll never be enough to bring me back to life again.”

  She nodded quickly, her other hand still covering her eyes. Pressing harder than before—to hold her tears in check. She knew. Oh, how she knew.

  “It still works.” Kai sighed. “And I still feel. Just … not the same as before.”

  Moments passed in silence between them. Eventually, both of their heart rates calmed, and Kai released her hand. When he spoke again, he sounded more like himself—like the stoic werewolf doctor Lupe knew.

  “What happened to your parents … it’ll never be okay, Lupe. And you might never choose to forgive yourself. But like it or not, you are going to have to learn to live amongst wolves now. And that means not constantly projecting fear around us. Starting today.”

  She felt the loss of his heat above her and peeked through her fingers to see Kai’s naked, muscular back and well-formed ass on display as he strode across the room to her bedroom door. He closed and locked it. When he turned to face her, she was confronted by the sight of his full frontal nudity on display.

  “We’re not leaving this bedroom until I’m satisfied that you can do it,” he declared.

  Lupe bolted upright in order to stubbornly scowl across the room. Kai’s eyes had reverted to his human shade of brown, and she was less afraid of him now. “I will scream my fucking head off—”

  “Try it and I’ll temporarily disable your vocal chords,” he threatened. “This is happening, Lupe. You and I are going to work past this trauma of yours before you behead another soldier and tempt Alex to do more than just take away your choices in life.”

  “It was an accident. I was startled! Those beasts would’ve—”

  “I am not Alcaeus,” he cut her off with a silencing hand gesture. “I am not blinded by hopeless unrequited love for you and therefore incapable of seeing through your manipulation tactics and general female bullshit.”

  “That is”—she gas
ped—“you just … I do not—”

  “Did you know that months ago, while I was tending to a full-grown male werewolf in the infirmary”—Kai began to pace—“listening to his cries of agony as his half-amputated leg regenerated itself, that it was still your pain that I scented, so much stronger than my patient’s, all the way across the compound here at Alcaeus’ house, where you were watching your damned telenovelas?”

  “They’re good shows,” she croaked defensively, pulling the bed sheet up around her shoulders. Seeing Kai’s nudity on display was somehow causing her to feel more and more exposed in her flimsy nightdress.

  “In pain we find forgiveness,” he lectured. “Deliverance. But you won’t allow yourself to feel your pain. So you make it someone else’s.”

  She shook her head. “Th—they’re good shows.”

  “I know what you’re doing when you’re up here sobbing your eyes out in front of the television.” He paused in his pacing to aim an accusing forefinger at her. “You’re finding a way to relive the pain of that day in your mind through those actors. Through those ridiculous stories.” He smacked the back of his hand against his open palm. “Again. And again.”

  She said nothing.

  “But every now and then, you let your mind slip away from Emily’s pain in that São Paulo prison, and you start thinking of all the things you could’ve done differently that would’ve saved your parents, don’t you?”

  She wouldn’t answer that.

  “You think I haven’t done it with Maribel? You think I won’t do it for the rest of this purgatory sentence that is now my life? I will never know, Lupe. Never know if I could’ve saved her. But you”—he stabbed his pointer finger through the air at her—“you’re wrong to wonder. Because nothing you could’ve done differently would’ve saved your parents.”

  She finally cracked and snapped, “How’s it different? You don’t know th—”

  “I knew Nahuel Salvatella!” His soft brown eyes shifted to iridescent blue in a flash of wild anger. “And I promise you, he would’ve killed your parents no matter what. There was never anything you could’ve done differently. No possible scenario in which they ultimately would have lived.”