by Hettie Ivers
I whispered back out of the side of my mouth, “Can’t they smell it on me anyway? Tiago said—”
Raul shushed me and gave my hand a squeeze, and we didn’t speak the rest of the way. I was so out of sorts I felt like I might puke by the time we entered a pretty building adjacent to the main estate.
There was a supermodel sitting behind a reception desk. Raul barely nodded at her in greeting, and I had to restrain myself from asking if he’d slept with her as he pulled me down a sterile white hallway. We must’ve passed seven or eight identical doors with no discernible room numbers or markings on them before Raul stopped in front of one and opened it for me.
The spacious examination room we entered was sterile white, well lit, and sparsely furnished, as one might expect to find in a modern medical facility. But despite its classic utilitarian features, something felt off—and strangely sinister—about the whole space.
And then I saw him—standing in profile, hunched over the scope of an odd-looking piece of machinery in the corner of the room. He wasn’t dressed like a doctor. He was dressed like a civilian in jeans and an Iron Maiden concert T-shirt. He was tall, dark, bald, and built. Already I could see why Avery had described him as “really hot” simply based on the way his ass filled out his jeans.
“Rafe, I’d like for you to meet Bethany Garrett. Bethy, this is Rafe, our head—”
“Congratulations,” Rafe responded without turning to look at us. “You’re mated.”
Raul’s knuckles cracked at his side, and I heard his exhale. His voice remained calm, though, as he said, “Rafe, you didn’t even look at her bites—”
“Don’t need to. I smelled you on her from fifty yards away. You’re mated. And she’s changing in four days.”
“Six days,” Raul corrected him.
“Four,” Rafe insisted. Slowly, he straightened to his full height and turned to face us. And even though I was prepared for the scar, I wasn’t prepared for the impact of seeing something so alarmingly grotesque bisecting such an otherwise gorgeous face.
“You mean she’ll start the initial transformation in four days,” Raul proceeded to press. “But she’ll be done in—”
“Four. She’ll be fully shifted in four days. A full-fledged bitch.”
Um … bitch?
“That’s too soon,” Raul argued. “I bit her Friday night.”
“You bit her ten times.”
“So? That makes a difference in the shifting timeline?”
Rafe shrugged. “Never seen anyone infected that many times before. But apparently, yes, it does. Because she smells four days away from turning bitch.”
“You know what?” I broke in. “Let’s drop the bitch label if you don’t mind.”
“But I didn’t infect her every time I bit her,” Raul argued with Rafe.
“No? Could’ve fooled me.”
“Just fucking humor me and take a blood sample to see where her cells are in the transformation process.”
“Not necessary. It’s four days.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“Then you have an extra day or two to figure out how to get inside her head and control her shift. If I’m right, and you still don’t have this mind block shit sorted out in two days when she starts shifting, then your mate’s dead, and so are you.”
Talk about a horrendous bedside manner. I blinked at him in disbelief—while trying not to look at the hideous scar running down the midline of his amber-colored eye. “Beg your pardon?” I attempted to insert myself into the conversation again. “Could you repeat that part about the mind block—?”
“It’s nothing for you to worry about.” Raul squeezed my hand. “I’ve got this.”
“No, nothing for you to worry about, sweetheart,” Rafe mocked. “Not until your body starts blowing up from the inside at least.”
“Would you shut the hell up? That is not going to happen, and you know it.”
“If you die, I’m putting in a bid for Alpha,” Rafe announced callously. “So do not disappoint me in this, kid.”
My mouth gaped open. “This is the best doctor in the world? The amazing werelock physician that you brought me all this way to see?”
“Aw, did you say that about me, Raul?” Rafe smiled, and the scar running down his face widened—the skin breaking open before my eyes.
Ugh! Jesus, that was freaky.
“That’s really fucking touching. If I had feelings or any sense of pride left, I daresay I’d be flattered in this moment. But …” He waved an errant hand. “Let’s get on with this, shall we?” Rafe’s predatory gaze swung in my direction, and I realized it was the first time the crazy doctor had looked at me other than in his periphery. “I’ll need you to take everything off but that soaked-through thong you’re wearing and bend over the examination table for me.”
No further words—of a pseudo-medical nature or otherwise—were exchanged after that as Raul transformed into a giant black and white wolf and lunged for Rafe’s throat.
I didn’t get to see more than the initial attack, though, because Raul poofed me back to the waiting room area, and I found myself standing next to the supermodel receptionist’s desk as crashing and growling ensued inside the examination room.
Smiling, I extended my hand and introduced myself.
And then I held out all of fifteen seconds before asking Yamila Diaz’s doppelganger if she’d ever slept with my mate.
27
Raul
The meeting with Rafe had been a complete disaster. I needed to talk to Alcaeus about Bethy’s emotional block, and Mike was blowing my head up wanting to discuss some development related to the seer.
I decided to drop Bethany off with Wyatt, who’d returned from Puerto Iguazú yesterday, while I handled business with Alcaeus and Mike.
Wyatt was the quintessential “good guy” type. Born with a golden spoon and having only recently been turned, Wyatt was the most civilized werewolf within my entire pack—which was exactly what Bethy needed after her experience with Rafe and following the frightened reactions I’d sensed from her upon seeing the guards surrounding the mansion on our walk over.
But I quickly remembered that Wyatt’s upbringing and ingrained sense of decorum also backfired on me sometimes, when after his initial introduction to Bethany, he told her right in front of me, “I’d like to state for the record that I in no way support or condone your present abduction predicament. On behalf of our pack, please allow me to offer my sincerest apologies for any undue stress and inconvenience this has put on you.”
“Oh, my gosh, thank you.” Bethany’s eyes warmed on him as she made an “aw” expression, her fingers flying to her lips. “You’re the first person in this pack to even acknowledge that I’ve been kidnapped.” Her eyes slanted at me. “Others have tried to dismiss it as a ‘rescue mission.’ Even a vacation.”
“What the fuck, man?” I snapped inside Wyatt’s head, fighting not to roll my eyes in front of Bethy. It was a good reminder that I needed to put a more thorough gag order on Wyatt later to doubly prevent him from meandering into forbidden talking points with Bethany.
I pulled Bethy in for a quick embrace, telling her I’d be back as soon as possible. She purposely turned her cheek to me when I went in to give her a peck on the lips.
She’d become standoffish following our visit with Rafe after I’d told her that I had some business to take care of that would require leaving her with my friend Wyatt for about half an hour. She’d responded with a surly, “You know what? I have business to take care of right now, too—in San Francisco at my hospital job.”
Dismissing the ache I felt in my chest at her distress, and ignoring my wolf’s demands to stay and comfort her, I told myself I would make it up to Bethy later as I forced myself to turn away, rushing off in search of Alcaeus.
To my annoyance, I got waylaid by nine of my Betas, one after the other. Meanwhile, Mike kept tapping my head, insisting I meet him down in the catacombs beneath the mansion�
��the underground Salvatella vaults and maze of tunnels that stretched the length of the property and beyond. It was where our pack’s dead bodies were buried, both literally and figuratively. But predominantly, it served as Mike’s team’s surveillance lair.
I knew Mike wasn’t happy that I’d decided last night after my confrontation with Kai to press forward and escalate things by threatening the seer’s life in exchange for Bethany’s emotional shield being lifted. But it couldn’t be helped. If Rafe was right and I only had two days before Bethany started shifting, I couldn’t afford to waste any time.
As I caught up with Mike in one of the eerie underground corridors, I decided to head him off by getting straight to the point before he attempted to plead some long-winded case to me about the seer.
“Look, Mike, I get it. You have a hard-on for the seer. Don’t worry. Clearly Kai does too. He’ll get Remy to lift the shield on Bethany for us, and we won’t have to carry through on our threat to kill the girl.” I clapped him on the shoulder. “It’ll all work out. No harm, no foul, right?”
Emotions swirled to life in Mike’s eyes, the gold color of his wolf flashing through the grey for an instant, before closing off again. “Right,” he said tightly. “Except for a little poisoning that could possibly lead to permanent brain damage and paralysis. Sure.” He exhaled. “But that’s only part of what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Jesus, he was being dramatic. “C’mon, we can repair any damage to her. Rafe said he’d come up with a poison spell that’s fully reversible. She’ll be fine. And besides, the Reinosos are going to cave in an instant and unblock Bethany; you know it. You’re stressing over a non-issue.”
He held his hand up. “Raul, we need to talk about the vision I saw in Lauren’s dream. The one where you and Kai were fighting in wolf form.”
“You mean the one from that time when you ‘accidentally’ made out with her?”
Ignoring my razzing, he said, “After your confrontation with Kai on campus, I went back late last night to check on Lauren.” His jaw tightened when I gave him a raised brow. “Check on her mind,” he justified. “To make sure she didn’t remember anything from your encounter with her.”
Right. “Of course,” I played along, rubbing the back of my neck and nodding for him to continue.
“That is,” he said in an embittered tone, “once Kai had finished checking on her by railing her like an animal in the library.”
“Are you setting me up for an accidental sex story?” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “Because I left Bethy with Wyatt twenty minutes ago and—”
“She had the same dream again last night.” He shifted on his feet, glancing down the corridor behind me. “And … well, I have a bad feeling about us going this course with the seer and antagonizing Kai.”
“Uh-huh …” Riiight. I folded my arms across my chest. “Go on. I’m listening.” Humoring.
“I know what you’re thinking. And yes, maybe my emotions are a bit compromised on this mission where Lauren is concerned.” He lowered his volume. “But there were two white wolves in her dream last night.” He paused, his eyes on me, awaiting my reaction—as if he’d just dropped some major bomb on me that required settling, when all I could think about was what stupid werewolf and pack-life things Wyatt might be blabbing to Bethy right now that I hadn’t wanted her to worry about yet.
I needed to get back to them.
“Wow, that’s interesting. Can’t wait to hear all about it. Later. I gotta get back to Bethany.” I pivoted on my heel and had taken three strides down the darkened hallway when Mike’s voice halted me.
“You don’t win the fight, Raul.”
I looked back over my shoulder at him.
“The one with Kai,” he said. As if it needed clarifying. “I saw you go down in her vision. I didn’t see you get back up.”
“You’re grasping, Mike. Kai’s never been much of a fighter.”
“Not since you’ve known him, he hasn’t. Not for the past few centuries. But he’s changed recently. The stress of losing his friendship with Alcaeus was just the start. His behavior with the seer goes against every tenet he’s upheld since abandoning the feral arctic beast nature of his early self.”
I shook my head, scrubbing a hand over my jaw. “Mike, you told me yourself that her abilities were novice. That she was confused. That there was too much fear in her heart for her to be an effective seer.”
“I know.”
“You told me that because you were afraid I would order her killed to protect Sloane if Lauren proved to be a valuable seer and a threat.”
He rubbed his temple. “I know I did.”
At least he wasn’t denying it.
I turned and stalked back over to him. “And now you’re hoping to convince me she’s a valuable seer because you don’t want her harmed in our plan to trade her for access to Bethy’s mind.”
He nodded. “I know it looks that way. And it is in part. But it’s more complicated. This isn’t simply about my protective instincts for Lauren anymore. It’s about you. It’s about making a more prudent, strategic move where Kai is concerned.”
I bit the insides of my cheeks. Again, I was glad he at least wasn’t denying that his motives were compromised where the seer was concerned. But he was doing that thing where he dithered … knowing I wouldn’t like what he had to say.
“What are you getting at, Mike?”
“I don’t think we should incite Kai’s wrath by harming the seer. Whatever his twisted fascination with her is about, it’s serious.”
“Which is to our advantage where Bethy’s mind block is concerned.”
“Yes. Maybe. Kai has changed recently. I think these visions might mean something. The two white wolves in Lauren’s dream—what if they represent two opposing sides of Kai? After Kai’s white wolf takes you down, a second white wolf shows up and starts tearing apart the first one. Killing it—killing Kai. And the first white wolf doesn’t even fight back. What if the vision represents Kai’s feral nature completely overtaking him?”
“What if it just means there are two white wolves?” Avery’s voice startled us both as she teleported into the corridor. “And that I’m about to become BFFs with whoever this second white wolf is?”
Jesus, that girl was getting good at teleporting without a trace. I was torn between being impressed and pissed at her.
“What?” she balked when both Mike and I glared at her.
“Not cool, Avery,” Mike said.
“Hey, you’re the guy who is supposed to have eyes everywhere, Mike. I’m just keeping you on your toes.”
“How very thoughtful.”
“I know Chaos told me all this before, but remind me again. What’s the big deal with the white werewolf legend? How do we know for sure that Kai is the only white werewolf left in existence?”
“No one has encountered a white werewolf other than Kai in over four centuries,” Mike told her. “I think it’s safe to say Kai’s the only one left.”
“There’s an old Norse legend about a werewolf bringing about the end of the world,” I supplied. “You know—typical prophecy paranoia-sparking-type bullshit. Nordic werewolves were persecuted to the point of extinction as a result—particularly the white arctic werewolf.”
“White werewolves had all been brutally annihilated across the globe by the beginning of the seventeenth century,” Mike filled in. “All except for Kai, that is.”
“Yay for us,” Avery muttered.
“Look, obviously, Lauren’s vision wasn’t crystal clear,” Mike conceded to me. “She was viewing the wolves from a distance. There were a lot of fragmented pieces to the dream, and then Lauren’s own emotions became involved when the first white wolf went down. But she seemed to identify both white wolves as being parts of Kai: his past and present. I think the second white wolf represented his past come back to haunt him—Kai’s original, true feral nature before Alcaeus’s father rehabilitated him. And I’m sorry, but there was no mis
taking your wolf going down.”
I knew and trusted Mike well enough to believe he was telling me the honest truth about the vision as he saw it. That didn’t mean his judgment hadn’t been clouded by his own fear for me, though, or by his feelings for the seer.
But when all was said and done, I had enough history with Mike to know he would always have my back. What’s more, Mike was a brilliant strategist and a born leader.
“What are you proposing as an alternative?” I asked.
“I say we start by fighting fire with fire. We get inside Lauren’s head and fix it so that she recovers all of the memories that Kai has suppressed. We let her recall every single creepy stalker mind-raping episode Kai ever pulled with her. Then we block Kai out—erect a mind shield he can’t penetrate.”
It wasn’t unreasonable.
“I vote hell yes.” Avery raised her hand. “Lauren getting poisoned just hurts Lauren. Lauren realizing that Kai’s a perv creeper who’s been playing God inside her head—now that hurts Kai more where it counts.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “But what sort of mind shield do you think you can create that Kai won’t be able to penetrate?”
Mike smirked. “So glad you asked. Why an emotional shield, of course. While Kai’s been busy playing sadistic sex games with the seer, I’ve been busy actually getting to know her.”
“And you don’t sound the least bit bitter about being friend-zoned, either,” Avery deadpanned.
Trust Avery to say out loud what she and I were both thinking.
“All right,” I said. “I’m in. But we have to move quickly. It needs to be done by tonight. Rafe says Bethany is going to start shifting in just two days.”
“Perfect,” Mike said. “Because I already took care of it last night.”
He gave me a cheeky grin and teleported out before I could throw a blast at him, the motherfucker.
28
