by Hettie Ivers
It took three tries, two swear words, and a lot of fist-pounding on the dashboard by my aunt for our car to start up, which did nothing to improve Cely’s mood.
I sat in the back distracting Miles, who hated being strapped into her car seat when we weren’t moving. I didn’t blame her.
When Miles began to fuss, I smushed her chubby baby cheeks together between my palms, creating extra rolls of face fat, and causing her nose and lips to push out and her eyes to droop down in a way that looked completely ridiculous. It never failed to make me laugh. And whenever I laughed, Miles would start giggling like mad too.
“Here, now you give me a manatee face.” I took her little hands in mine and helped her to smush my cheeks together. “Like this, see?”
“Man-tee!” She squealed and kicked her legs with delight at the comical sight my smushed face presented. “Man-tee!”
“Raul, stop getting her wound up,” Cely scolded as we pulled out of the parking lot at last. “I’m trying to listen for engine noises, and I can’t hear anything over all the giggling and shrieking back there.”
“Pretty sure it’s running,” I sassed.
She threw her pointer finger straight at the ceiling. “You are on thin ice, mister!”
The car behind us honked twice, and I cracked up so hard that tears sprang to my eyes. Miles started laughing along with me, as she often did—even though she had no idea what was so funny. She was in good company, because neither did our Aunt Cely.
“What the—? Why’d that guy honk at me? What happened? What the hell’s so hilarious now, Raul?”
“He thinks you gave him the finger, Cely.”
“He does not think …” She let out a gasp as she looked in the rear view mirror. “Shit, he does. He just gave me the finger back, that jerk.”
“Whoop, whoop!” I held my hand up for my sister to give me a high five. “That’s four more quarters for the swear jar in just this drive home from church. Aunt Cely’ll be taking us to Disneyland in no time.”
Miles mimicked my “whoop” and wacked her little fist against my palm.
We drove another several blocks before Cely spoke again. When she did, her voice wasn’t angry or indignant. It was simply sad. Resigned. “Raul, you have to stop calling me that around Milena. She’s getting old enough that she might remember later on. Besides that, she mimics everything you do. She already calls me Ma-Cely. She’s confused. We have to change that.”
My gut wrenched. It felt like the time Billy Duncan had kicked me in the stomach on the football field.
“I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to, but you need to call me Mom. You’re the bee’s knees to Milena … the pied piper …”
My eyes burned, despite how hard I fought not to get upset. And still I rolled those eyes at my aunt’s idiotic choice of old-person expressions.
Mom never would’ve said anything so lame. How had they been related, let alone twins? Aunt Cely was constantly saying stupid, humiliating things that embarrassed me—in a new town where I didn’t completely fit in and was trying to make friends.
It was bad enough I had to pretend she was my mom and call her that in front of my new teachers and the kids in the neighborhood. It already felt like a betrayal of my mom’s memory. But calling her Mom in front of my sister?
“Man-tee!” Miles squealed and giggled. She was smushing her own cheeks together now, trying to get me to laugh.
Letting my sister think Cely was our mom felt wrong. It was too great a lie to tell.
Mom always said lies divided people. It was why she’d told me the truth about Mateus being my dad, even though he’d never wanted me to know.
But now that Mom was gone, all Mateus and Aunt Cely wanted me to do was lie—about everything.
And they wanted me to lie to my sister most of all.
“Raul?” Aunt Cely sighed. “Can we please talk about this?”
“I’m not doing it.”
“Honey, I know I’ll never be your mom. I’m not trying to replace her for you. I’m just trying to keep you and your sister safe.”
“Father Salazar says it’s a sin to lie.”
She huffed out an embittered laugh and muttered something under her breath. But her tone was more playful than annoyed as she asked, “Since when do you pay attention at church?”
“I can play Tetris and listen to someone talk at the same time.” Duh!
“Then what did Father Salazar mean about those who could dwell with the consuming fire? Did you hear that part today?”
I shrugged. “Yeah. I heard it.”
“Do you understand what he was talking about? What it means?”
Another shrug. “It means that everyone’s gonna burn in hell because nothing we ever do is good enough and God hates us all?”
Cely gasped, jerking the steering wheel to the right and nearly driving us off the road. “No! Raul, what on earth? Of course not. Where did you ever get such an idea?”
Was she kidding? “Church. The Bible. Stuff Father Salazar says all the time.”
“Jesus, Raul,” she swore, then caught herself with a groan. “Fine. That’s another quarter for the swear jar.” She shook her head at the road.
“Raul, that passage isn’t about damnation. It’s about redemption. It’s about those who will be saved. He who is to ‘dwell in the devouring fire’ is the pure soul, Raul. He who is able to withstand ‘everlasting burnings’ is the righteous—the one who has known darkness, but can now walk with the light.”
Every time I entered one of Sloane’s recurring nightmares, I thought about what Aunt Cely had told me that day on our drive home from church. I wasn’t sure why. It never once helped me to feel better about the horror I was about to witness a little girl face.
Fire surrounded me—as always—in Sloane’s nightmare of her previous death (as Maribel) in Madrid. I’d missed the explosions, but the evidence of their impact was everywhere I turned. Unseen beings were screaming. Wailing.
The black cloud of smoke in the air was so thick as to partially obstruct my supernatural vision as the once-magnificent, castle-like structure in Madrid proceeded to crumble around me.
I found Sloane in the same place I always did: at the epicenter of the destruction—a lost beacon amid the madness—trapped in a ball of fire she couldn’t escape from.
Dwelling with the consuming fire.
The little girl stood there calmly, her body aflame, her eyes fogged over with confusion. And pain.
Sloane may have been able to withstand “everlasting burnings,” but the gruesome scene never looked anything like redemption to me.
19
Bethany
“Really?” I blurted. Mike saw me as a threat? “Why?”
“Raul chose us over you for a decade. His decision to claim you now could—will—change things. A lot.”
“How so?” I eagerly pressed. What did he mean Raul had chosen them over me for a decade?
“How not is more like it,” he griped. “Women always change everything.”
“Uh … yeah—for the better.”
Tiago showed up with a plate of vegetables and a steak the size of my head.
“You can threaten to blow up all of San Francisco,” I told Mike, “but I’m not eating even half of that.”
Mike chuckled. Tiago looked confused, but his dimples came out nonetheless to share in the joke he didn’t get before excusing himself again.
“Hey, I’m famished; where’s my steak?” Jorge asked from across the room, giving me a look that said he was hungry for more than steak.
I angled my body toward Mike as Jorge sauntered over to us. Jorge had made a point earlier of mentioning to me how much he’d enjoyed holding me down at the club last night—and that he was looking forward to the next time. He was probably at least partially responsible for Raul freaking out and biting my thigh to stake his “claim.” I’d barely refrained from making an immature gagging gesture in the face of Jorge’s comment before. Why wasn’t Raul bac
k yet?
“May I be of assistance?” Jorge offered, looking from me to the steak. “I overheard something about a forced feeding.”
Dick. “I’m good. Thanks.” I had to wonder how many of the guys had overheard my conversation with Mike—on purpose or inadvertently—given their supernatural hearing abilities.
He grinned and pulled up a barstool. “Mind if I stay and watch how good?” Jorge spoke with a slight Spanish accent—which might’ve sounded sexy had it not been ruined by the fact he was obviously a complete pig.
“If you’re that bored, who am I to stop you?”
Jorge laughed. “You’re right, Mike. She is fun.” His gaze roamed from my face to my chest. “And gorgeous.”
“Back off, Jorge.”
Jorge’s grin didn’t falter at Mike’s sharp tone. “Just trying to get to know the pack’s new queen, Mike.” His eyes returned to my face as he said to Mike, “You and Tiago have been hogging her most of the evening. Why don’t you go play with your seer for a while? You’re running out of time to hit that before we have to kill her, you know.”
Charming. Despite my aversion to violence, I really hoped Jorge was one of those quiet Gabe supporters on Mike’s list to weed out and kill.
“That hasn’t been determined.” Mike’s voice was cold.
Jorge’s gaze shifted to Mike, affording me a much-needed reprieve from his lascivious staring. “Oh, no? Thought I heard Stephen say—”
“You heard wrong.”
As much as I hated diverting Jorge’s attention back to me, the rising tension between the two wolves had piqued my curiosity. Raul and the guys had been talking about killing a seer when I’d first awakened on the plane. Thinking back on it, I realized it had probably been Jorge’s voice I’d heard suggesting the seer was “low-hanging fruit, ripe for the picking.”
“Seer?” I asked. “As in a psychic?”
“There another kind?” Jorge’s smirk shifted to me.
“Don’t know, Jorge. They didn’t cover the occult in med school. And my mom never let me call Miss Cleo’s hotline like I wanted to for my seventh birthday.”
Lance busted out laughing from the other side of the room. “Miss Cleo!” he exclaimed with a snort. “Call me now.” He mimicked the late television psychic’s phony Jamaican accent.
Grinning, I turned and gave Lance a nod of acknowledgement. I’d had a feeling that werewolf—or werelock, rather—was American. When I looked back to Jorge, I was even more delighted to note the smirk had been wiped from his face. He didn’t like being left out of a joke, apparently.
“So, what’s the reason you’re lobbying to kill this seer woman?” I raised a brow at him. “Is she a fraud? Did she give you a bad tarot card reading?”
“No.” His mouth twisted with disdain. “We need something from her werelock lover’s pack. Something that involves you, if you want to know the—”
“Enough,” Stephen’s irate voice cut Jorge off as he came through the arched doorway and into the dining area. Several more long strides brought him to the bar next to us, where I was most surprised to find Stephen’s scowl of disapproval directed at Mike rather than at Jorge as he said, “What are you doing? Why would you let him sit here with Bethany and—”
“I was just about to stop him.”
Stephen appeared unconvinced. “Bullshit. You wanted her to know—”
“She’s going to know soon enough anyway. We’ve only a matter of days before—”
“I think it’s time for Bethy to retire,” Tiago interjected. His sweet voice suddenly sounded commanding—and he was pushing his way forward, shouldering Stephen out of his way, to get to me.
“Don’t call her Bethy,” Jorge scolded him. “Only Raul can call her that.”
Tiago’s fingers wrapped around my bicep, gentle but firm as he pulled me from my seat. “My apologies,” he said to me, before saying to the others, “It’s time for Bethany to retire.”
“My steak,” I mumbled in protest, not knowing what to think or say as Tiago began dragging me away. None of the others made a move to stop him.
What was going on? Which one of them was in charge? I had assumed that Mike was in command in Raul’s absence based on how he’d been acting, but now that didn’t seem to be the case.
“I’ll send your food to your room,” Tiago assured me as he led me from the bar and down the narrow hallway to the airplane’s master suite that had been designated as my bedroom.
As the door clicked shut behind us, I took in Tiago’s tall, broad frame blocking it, and my heart began to race.
Tiago probably heard it, too, because he said, “You know I won’t harm you. Don’t you?”
I didn’t really know anything anymore, but I nodded in agreement to appease him just the same. “Of course.” Please let that be the case.
“You’re lying,” he called me straight out. “We can scent lies, Bethany. So I wouldn’t advise continuing to lie to any of us. Particularly Raul. Understood?”
Oh, my God. A rush of heat hit my cheeks. I suddenly felt dizzy; short of breath and claustrophobic trapped in this fancy bedroom suite with Tiago—whom I’d previously identified as the sweet, safe werelock aboard the plane. Where did that leave me now?
“Where’s Raul?” I demanded. “I need to speak with him.”
“Raul’s been delayed.”
“Why? Delayed where? Stephen’s been back for over an hour.” I had no idea what time it was or how long it’d actually been, but it felt like Stephen had been back for a while now, and I was anxious for Raul to return right this second. “When will Raul be back?”
“Calm down. Everything’s going to be fine.” He took several steps toward me, but stopped when I took retreating ones. “Raul is with Sloane. She had a nightmare.”
“Who?”
“Sloane. The special-needs child Raul mannies for.”
“Wait—he’s really a manny?”
“Yes.” Tiago’s dimples returned momentarily. “In a way.”
I rolled my eyes. “So I can’t lie, but no one else is capable of a straight answer around here?”
“Bethany, I’d like you to get washed up and ready for bed.” A directive, framed as a request, as he tilted his head in the direction of the suite’s bathroom.
“Okay,” I acquiesced. “I will. But I’d like for you to leave this room first.”
He shook his head. “You have twenty minutes; then I wash you myself.”
For a split second, I thought about screaming for help. But who on this jet did I really want rushing to my aid? Mike—the grouchy werelock dropping threats and talking about “disciplining” me? Creepy Jorge? Grape-smuggler Stephen? None of the monsters I’d met stood out as closet good guys.
New tactic. “You just got through explaining to me what it means to have a true mate. You told me Raul claimed me—for eternity. You really think your Alpha would be okay with you forcing yourself on me in the shower? That he wouldn’t—”
“Whoa!” Tiago’s eyes went wide. He held his hand up. “What are you talking about?”
“You just said you were going to wash me.”
“Exactly. Wash you. Not rape you in the shower.” His features screwed up, giving me a look like I was the demented one for jumping to unsavory assumptions amid my kidnapping predicament. “I was just going to clean your face with a warm cloth … make sure you brushed your teeth …”
A fresh wave of embarrassment overcame me. I refused to feel like the asshole about this. “Well, how am I supposed to know that? I’ve got wolves staring at my tits, commenting on my Kegel muscles, tossing around jokes about holding me down while their leader eats me out again. Pretty sure all the guys on this plane are convinced I’m an exhibitionist because they either witnessed firsthand or heard about my night of public club sex with Raul.”
“You are an exhibitionist.”
“Excuse me?”
“I didn’t stutter.”
“I am no—”
“And
I’m gay, Bethany.”
My open mouth shut.
His dimples reappeared. “You have sixteen minutes left.”
20
Raul
Although I couldn’t gain access to Sloane’s mind, she had somehow found a way to pull me into her subconscious when she needed me. She only did it when she was dreaming, so I didn’t think she was entirely aware of what she was doing, much less in full control of it—which presented an inherent risk for me in allowing myself to be drawn into the depths of her mind.
Sloane may have been a child still, but she was extraordinarily powerful. Thus far, I’d been able to resist her call—to choose whether or not I allowed myself to be pulled into her subconscious. I’d also been able to hold onto my ability to withdraw from her nightmares when I needed to.
But that could quickly change after she shifted for the first time and inevitably became even more powerful.
As I got closer, I paused when I saw that she’d been crying—something Sloane didn’t often do. Though I wasn’t sure yet whether to view it as a bad sign or a positive development, it was an indication to proceed with caution. She was obviously more distraught than usual.
The flames consuming her never seemed to harm Sloane physically in her dreams, just as they didn’t harm me. Within Sloane’s subconscious, it was always the blistering agony of meeting a dark and ghastly eternity in which she would have no escape and little control that eroded her psyche without mercy.
Made sense. It was the inferno of loneliness, the blaze of confusion, and the raging pyre of a defeat she refused to accept that had swelled the storm of denial within Maribel’s soul, twisting it beyond its breaking point.
“Sloane!” I called out to her, throwing up the shaka hand signal in greeting. “What gives, girl? You start partying without me again?”
Her tear-streaked face lit up when she saw me.
I jogged over and knelt beside her, making a quick study of the fireball encapsulating her. It hadn’t changed at all since the last dream. Damn.
