by Hettie Ivers
“I think I understand the basic concept of an emotional shield,” I said flatly. And I didn’t appreciate the reminder that my mate had apparently shared more with Remy than she had with me.
Alcaeus continued, “Remy does this emotional mapping thing where he takes the most poignant, private memories and the feelings attached to them, and he weaves them into the mind shield so that they become locks essentially.” His face twisted. “Or maybe trigger points. I don’t really know the full mechanics involved.”
He was no help at all. “But it’s usually just one key, central memory that connects it all, right? Locking it together?”
“In theory.” He shrugged.
“Theory? We’re way past fucking theory at this point, Alcaeus. You wanna try a little harder to help me with this? Bethy could start the transformation the day after tomorrow, according to Rafe.”
“That’s a day or two too soon.”
“Tell me about it. That’s what I told him.”
“Although, you did bite her a dozen times.”
“It was ten.”
He chuckled. “Guess that leaves you no choice but to do something completely radical—like communicate with your mate and find out what her feelings are on things.”
“You think I haven’t tried? Could you stop assuming I’m your brother Alex for once and take this seriously? My mate’s life is on the line.”
“Raul, we can place one phone call to Alex and Milena to fix this.”
Not an option. “There’s no fucking way they’ll willingly lift Bethy’s shield.”
“Of course not. And they’ll demand that you turn Bethany over to them, too. But at least she’ll be safe because Remy can allow any one of them access to control her shift. You’re making this a life-or-death situation it doesn’t need to be simply because your ego can’t handle the thought of turning Bethany over to your sister—Bethany’s best friend,” he emphasized. “When you know Milena would guard Bethany’s life with her own.
“Given all the bad shit Bethany’s going to remember about you shortly, it might be in your best interest to turn her over to them. At the very least you could feign giving her some semblance of a choice in your mating bond connection that you already took away from her.”
What a crock coming from a guy who had waited all of about a minute after meeting his true mate, Avery, to get his dick in her—in a public restroom, no less. For someone with so little self-restraint, he sure didn’t give me any credit or sympathy for the pain I’d suffered for my mate situation. “I stayed away for ten years to give Bethy a choice!” I reminded him—and everyone else within earshot in the gardens.
He cast a raised know-it-all brow. “And your wolf bit her for every year he missed out on.”
29
Bethany
I needed answers. Real answers from somebody who wouldn’t sugarcoat things. Straight answers from someone who wasn’t completely loyal to or controlled by Raul.
There was only one werelock I’d met in the Salvatella pack who fit the bill. The downside was he was a giant dickbag.
And the bigger hurdle that remained was how to orchestrate a private conversation with Rafe.
I knew Raul didn’t want me seeing the Salvatella pack’s head werelock doctor without him present. He’d made that much clear—and frankly, who could blame him after my meeting with Rafe yesterday?
Sneaking over to the medical building to confront Rafe wasn’t a realistic possibility. I was free to roam the mansion, but there were guards everywhere, and I was constantly being watched it seemed. I needed a werelock who had a reasonably high-standing position within the pack to help me. Someone who could smuggle me past the many guards and get me into Rafe’s building. But who, among the Salvatella werelocks I’d met, held enough authority to help me while being disloyal and unscrupulous enough to take the risk?
I considered my options as I strolled through the creepy gallery of statues in the west wing of the main mansion. Even if I didn’t get a single answer out of Rafe, the visit would be worth it if only to take refuge within the sterile white walls of the medical building for a few stolen moments.
While the exterior architecture of the five-story, palatial Salvatella estate was reflective of neo-gothic elegance, the interior was an epic shitshow of avant-garde fails. It was as if Versace and Liberace had taken turns decorating rooms, and then Picasso’s lesser-known, lesser-talented, bastard stepbrother had followed them vomiting random kitsch throughout. To make matters worse, everywhere I turned it seemed a flash of gilding was blinding me in the eye. They’d seriously gone to town with the gold leafing and gold accents in the place. In the words of my Granny Jean: Shit was basic.
Anyone would be anxious and on edge surrounded by such monstrous décor—before factoring in the actual monsters the place was inhabited by.
I was staring at an ostentatious marble bust of the last Alpha, Gabriel Salvatella, when Jorge came up from behind and startled me, asking in a flirtatious tone what I was doing all by myself in the gallery. My first instinct was to try and flee. My second was to scream as he came to stand uncomfortably close to me. But when a look of admiration came over Jorge’s features as he stared at the statue before us and he commented on what a great leader Alpha Gabe had been, I knew I’d found my man.
Going up on tiptoe to whisper in his ear, I told Jorge I feared I was on the verge of experiencing explosive gastrointestinal distress, and had come to the mostly empty gallery hoping to let out a little pressure where it would offend less werewolves. Keeping in mind what Tiago had told me about werewolves being able to scent lies, I tried to relay it with as much conviction and sprinklings of truth as possible. I mean, I was sick to my stomach over the décor in the mansion, not to mention my entire situation. So, not a total lie, right?
Jorge recoiled immediately, and I asked him sweetly if he would mind discreetly escorting me to see Doctor Rafe, saying I was too distressed over my situation to ask Raul, and that I didn’t know the guard werewolves well enough to admit to any of them that I felt on the brink of shitting my pants.
Jorge smuggled me through a few shortcuts within the walls—which added a new layer of creepiness to the mansion. I made a mental note that this most likely meant Jorge couldn’t teleport. Raul had evaded the question when I’d asked him how many of the werelocks besides him could poof. So far I only knew of Avery and Mike having the ability.
Jorge dropped me like a dirty bomb as soon as we were inside the medical building, claiming he was late for some meeting. The supermodel receptionist was nowhere to be found, so I wandered down the white hallway I’d gone down with Raul before, once again passing multiple identical doors with no discernible room numbers or markings.
As I got farther down the hall, I heard a woman moaning. Followed by a man grunting. Damn my rotten luck.
The next door I came to was ajar. And the much-revered quack of a werelock doctor was inside the examination room fucking his own receptionist—Yamila Diaz’s doppelganger—within an inch of her life.
Wow.
Like, holy shit, wow.
I froze, my eyes locked on the scene in front of me. I couldn’t have stood there for more than six seconds. But six seconds was plenty of time to see things I’d never be able to un-see.
And I didn’t just mean the size of Rafe’s dick.
I meant the way her breath escaped her each time he rammed deep—as if he filled her so completely there wasn’t room left for air in her lungs. The way her clawed fingernails dug into the examination table, the way her ass jiggled each time his muscled thighs smacked up against the backs of hers. How big his hands looked encircling her tiny waist. And how much raw emotion—how much profound bliss—her orgasmic face conveyed even when half of it was covered by a blindfold.
And Rafe’s wasn’t. Partially covered, that is. His face was on full display, his scar in full bloom—so much so that he was almost unrecognizable from the werelock I’d met yesterday.
When his head
snapped in my direction, I ran.
I didn’t get farther than the next examination room door before I found myself blown inside of it onto my ass, the door shutting and a lock magically clicking in place behind me.
The noises got louder from the room on the opposite side of the wall. Rafe’s grunt’s got angrier. The sound of flesh slapping against flesh came faster. Harder.
She started begging in Spanish.
He started swearing in Spanish—cursing her tight pussy and promising it would be the last time he fucked it.
I felt torn between rolling my eyes and touching myself as I sat on the hard cold floor—a captive interloper.
She wailed as she came.
But then he kept on going. And going.
Oh, seriously? How long was I going to be stuck in here? I got up and tested the door. Yep. No dice. It locked from the outside. Probably the only way Rafe kept any patients.
Several minutes and successive squealing orgasms later, Rafe finally shouted his own release. Two minutes later, he swung the door open to the room I was in to find me waiting, my arms crossed over my chest and the most fearless expression I could manage on my face.
He was dressed. Thank God for small favors. And his scar was back to looking normal-ish. He tilted his chin and sniffed the air as he sauntered in. “Shall I get you a change of thong?”
“What?”
“Your underwear. Is soaked through. Again, I might add.”
Oh, my God.
I felt my skin betraying me, my face flushing.
His upper lip twitched like it was having an epileptic fit trying to restrain the humor he so desperately wanted to express. “Heard about you being an exhibitionist. Seems you’re a voyeur as well.”
“I was not watching you,” I objected. “It’s hardly my fault that I walked in on you … you—”
“Fucking.” He smiled, enjoying my discomfort. The scar running down his face split open. “You’re here against Raul’s orders and without an appointment, so I’d say it’s entirely your fault.”
I tried not to react. “Look, I came to talk to you as a medical professional. Obviously, I didn’t expect to walk in on you. Where I practice medicine, doctors don’t copulate with their staff in examination rooms.”
“She is my patient first and foremost.”
“Great.” I rolled disgusted eyes. “Where I practice medicine, doctors definitely don’t copulate with their patients—in exam rooms or elsewhere.”
“Shame.” He canted his head. “What if it’s the only cure for what ails them?”
“This was clearly a mistake.” I stepped forward.
He moved to block my path, entering my personal space. “Not at all. I was hoping you’d be back for a more thorough examination. You know, I regret I didn’t get to watch Raul fuck and mark you. I think I would’ve enjoyed it. Very much.”
I slapped him hard across the face.
Annnd now things were really uncomfortable.
And I might’ve broken some bones in my hand.
I sucked in a desperate breath, telling myself it would be worse if I backed down now, as I shook my poor hand out and scolded, “Your bedside manner is atrocious. It’s unacceptable.”
Smirking, he reached down and adjusted the bulge in his pants. “Honesty’s not part of your modern-day Hippocratic oath where you practice?”
My eyes sought refuge on the ceiling, wanting to escape his penetrating amber gaze, his transforming scar, and the sizeable erection now pushing out against the fly of his jeans.
This had been a huge mistake.
“Let me see your hand.”
“Uh—yeah, I don’t think so.” Now was probably the right time to start screaming for help.
“I’m not asking. Give me your hand.”
My eyes snapped from the ceiling to his. “I am not going to give you a handjob, you psycho!”
He tucked his lips between his teeth and brought his fist up to cover his mouth, his shoulders shaking as his scar shifted and widened, the skin breaking apart once more. “Bethany, please,” he implored from behind his closed fist, his deep voice thick with suppressed amusement. “You have to stop making me laugh so much. I don’t want to traumatize you.”
Ha! Could’ve fooled me. “If you don’t step aside and let me leave, I’ll—”
“Give me your hand so I can heal it.” He dropped his fist from his mouth as he regained his composure. “You have a hairline fracture in your second and third metacarpals.” He held his hand out, palm up. “There’s still a doctor behind the monster.”
I wasn’t so sure. But I swallowed the lump of nerves in my throat and gave him my hand.
“I could use my saliva for this, but I’m guessing you’d be more comfortable with an injection.”
I huffed. “You guessed right.”
“Did you mean what you said before? About wanting to take Raul’s place as Alpha?”
“No. I didn’t.” Rafe’s fingers were gentle as they palpated the fine bones in my hand, testing the results of the magical serum he’d injected only moments ago. Already, my hand felt completely healed. “Everyone knows Mike would succeed Raul as Alpha. There. Good as new.”
“Mike?”
He nodded, releasing my hand. “And I would back Mike as Alpha. If not for Raul’s Joaquin blood inheritance and his strong alliance with the Rogue, Mike would be our Alpha now.”
“Really? Why not Alcaeus? I thought Alcaeus was second in command.”
Rafe barked out a laugh—a great guffaw would be more accurate—and the scar that ran through the midline of his right eye tore clean open. As I watched in fascinated horror, wondering what in the heck had been so funny about my Alcaeus remark, the white of his right eye turned blood red, then grey, and the iris turned a milky marbled black. “Fuck. Now see what you’ve done?” he said, still laughing. “You’ve gone and blinded me.”
“The last Alpha … did he do that to you?”
The brow over his good eye shot up. He ceased chuckling. “For real? You’re going to address the elephant in the room? During our second encounter, no less?”
I paused for a beat before committing. “Yeah. I am. Am I the first to ask about it so soon after meeting you?”
“No. Avery asked within seconds of meeting me. I think her exact words were: ‘What the fuck is going on with your face?’ ”
I giggled, then immediately slapped my healed hand over my mouth. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh.”
“By all means, do. Someone should get a good laugh about it. Yes. Gabe and his brother Nuriel cast this spell on me.”
“Why? Just to be cruel?”
He leaned against the steel laboratory table behind him. “Their younger brother was killed on my watch.”
“Gasoline drink—I mean the werelock you named the drink after? Nahuel’s Blunder?”
“Same.”
“How was his death your fault?”
“It wasn’t. But I made the mistake of blaming myself for it, and they scented the guilt on me when I came back delivering burnt pieces of his remains.”
Damn. Burnt, too? That had been one pissed off mate.
I knew it was probably terrible to ask it, and yet I did. “Can it ever be reversed? Your curse?”
“They said that it could—Gabe and Nuriel, that is. But I don’t know if it actually can.” A faraway look clouded his eyes, which had returned to their normal amber shade. I didn’t have to ask to know he’d spent the past sixty-some odd years trying to figure out how to reverse the curse. “I’ve come to think that was part of their torture plan all along: to dangle false hope in front of me. Keep me searching. Reaching for something I could never reclaim.”
“I can’t get over what monsters those Salvatella brothers were.”
“Gabe and Nuriel were no worse than their predecessors. Just different. And Nahuel, the youngest brother, wasn’t a bad person. Once upon a time, many of us, myself included, harbored high hopes for him.”
It was my turn to laugh—without humor. Silly me for forgetting for a hot second that Rafe was anything but a lunatic. “The brother who slaughtered his own mate’s parents? You think he was a good person?”
“I didn’t say he was a good person, Bethany. I said he wasn’t a bad person. There’s a distinction. As there are degrees. These mountains are full of monsters far worse than Nahuel. Some worse than even Gabe and Nuriel.”
“Don’t tell me: There’s a rival evil werelock camp on the other side of the lake? Let me know when the annual softball game face-off is.”
He smiled, flashing white teeth. This time, when his scar shifted, and the skin broke apart, I barely noticed it. I was beginning to get used to it as part of his normal facial expressions.
“It’s the truth.”
“What are you talking about? You can’t mean Nahuelito the Loch Ness,” I told him wryly, “’cause I know that dude lives in the lake.”
“No. I’m referring to the thousands of Nazis who established residence here to escape persecution after World War II. Bariloche is known as the Third Reich Capital in Exile for a reason. Many of them continued their legacy here.”
A chill ran through me. Because I knew he wasn’t joking. I couldn’t recall if I’d learned it in school or elsewhere, but I did remember reading about Nazis fleeing Germany for South America. The exact locations they’d fled to in South America just hadn’t stayed with me.
I felt a little sick now for having ever thought Bariloche was a beautiful place. And I was suddenly more homesick than ever for San Francisco.
“Make no mistake, Gabe got some things right,” Rafe said. “As did his brother before him. Prior to their reign there was nothing but constant infighting and defection. It was eroding and destroying our pack. Their first order of business was to put a stop to all that.”
