by Hettie Ivers
Goddamnit, I resented not possessing the ability to teleport right now. Short of bribing or manipulating a guard, there was no other way out. And Milena and Alex had already blocked all of the guards’ minds from me.
I’d personally had a hand in conceiving and reinventing our holding cells here at the Reinoso pack estate in Salvador after Raul had managed to escape and lay destruction to an entire wing of the place a decade ago. Talk about irony. I was trapped within my own invention: stone-and steel-constructed walls too thick to break or blast through with magic—that were also reinforced by magic. Convenient.
Never would I forgive Kai for this.
Never would I forgive any of them.
My own family had stood before me as a united front—against me—when Kai, Remy, and I had teleported back to Brazil and I had sought their help in recovering Avery and Sloane from Raul.
Before I had known that they intended to betray me, I had warned them that Raul had changed—that he’d disobeyed his Alpha Gabriel to save Avery, arguing that his power development had to be greater than what we knew it to be at this point—greater than what Raul displayed to the world, at least.
Raul. That conniving sonofabitch always managed to have some secret that he was keeping from everyone and unlimited tricks up his sleeve. As much as I hated him for the way he had waltzed into Avery’s home and plucked little Sloane up in his arms like it was no big deal, as much as I resented him for teleporting both Avery and my daughter away from me, I also knew that he was possibly the only hope I had left—the only protection there might be for Avery and Sloane from Gabriel now that my own family had betrayed me and locked me away like I was the enemy.
Locked me up “for my own good,” they’d claimed.
My own good? To prevent me from protecting my own mate and her child!
They all thought I’d gone mad. But they were the ones who were crazy.
And they were all dead to me.
I still couldn’t believe how my whole world had gone to shit in a matter of minutes within the four burnt walls of Sloane’s bedroom. It had been easier for Raul to calm Sloane than it had been for him to subdue her mother. Avery had flipped out at his initial intrusion, her motherly protective instincts kicking into high gear when Raul blasted me out of the way and snatched up Sloane.
Yet Raul had still managed to convince Avery to come with him. Willingly, she’d agreed—right in front of me. Even after Raul had confessed to having switched the cell phone her friend Wyatt had given her for one with a tracking device days ago when they’d first met; confessed to have been watching the house ever since that day in order to make sure that she and Sloane were safe.
My mate had ultimately believed in Raul—trusted that Raul could keep her safer than I would when I’d tried to convince her not to go with him. I’d foolishly begged her to come with me instead—to bring her daughter to Brazil so we could convince Milena and Alex that Sloane wasn’t the Rogue threat the prophesies perceived her to be.
Avery had whispered that she was sorry, had told me with tears in her eyes that she couldn’t come with me—because she didn’t trust my family; she didn’t trust Kai.
And she had been smart not to. Wiser than I had been.
Raul had already saved Avery from Gabriel once. I fervently prayed he would do it again in my absence now. I had no other options.
Looking back on my four centuries, I realized now that mine had been a very privileged existence. Too much had come far too easily.
Avery was right about me: I did have a hero complex—to the extent that I accurately grasped what that was. And that hero complex had made me stupid.
Because I’d been so wrapped up enjoying a life where I’d long been top dog, spoiled and arrogant from centuries of besting every opponent, of overcoming every obstacle thrown at me, of always getting the final word in and having the last laugh, that my pride had prevented me from accepting the truth of Lupe’s situation all those years ago when I’d been faced with it.
For decades, I’d chosen to deny the reality of Lupe’s connection to Nahuel, because it was easier than accepting that I would never truly be able to save her—no matter how long she lived or remained under my protection. That I couldn’t fix it, as Lupe had reminded me on more than one occasion.
It was a shameful moment of realization now to see all of the ways that I had spent the better part of the past decade nursing my own ego as much as I had mourning the loss of a woman I’d loved so dearly.
Worse yet to admit that same stubborn ego had caused me to grossly underestimate my former best friend’s level of frustration with me; and had prevented me from fully acknowledging his and the rest of the pack’s increasing respect for and loyalty to Milena.
Milena had been weepy and apologetic about having to lock me up—moments before she’d knocked me out cold with a lightning bolt to the back of my skull.
She’d doled out every assurance that no one would ever harm Avery, promising me that my mate would be recovered safely from the Salvatellas and brought to me here. She couldn’t say the same for Sloane, though—not until she’d witnessed the Rogue’s behavior firsthand, she said.
And they’d all stood by Milena in agreement with this decision: my own brothers as well as Kai and Jussara. Even Lessa had taken their side and said it was best to recover Wyatt by other means rather than negotiate with a pack that had never been honorable.
Alessandra caving and abandoning me at my darkest hour had cut the worst of all.
But then again, I should have seen that one coming, too. Ever since our baby brother was born, Lessa had sided with Alex over me. And I knew of only one time that she’d been able to disobey his direct order when he’d been Alpha.
I hadn’t eaten any of the food they’d brought to my cell. I hadn’t slept a wink in the past twenty-eight hours and forty-three minutes since I’d been away from Avery. I wasn’t sure how I ever would again until I had her back safely with me.
I was curled up in the corner in my wolf form, revisiting all the ways I’d let my ego blind me and cause me to put my mate’s life in danger, when I caught the sound of Lessa’s voice on the other side of the thick cell door.
Then it stopped, and I dismissed it as my ears playing tricks on me.
Alex and Milena had forbidden Remy, Jussara, and Alessandra from coming to Salvador to visit me until everything was resolved with Raul. I’d heard them give the order.
And they were all likely on their way to meet with Raul by now. I had informed them of Raul’s demands in exchange for Wyatt’s safe return.
My ears perked up again as I heard the door bolts in the floor slip out of place, one at a time. No one had opened the door since I’d been in here. Food was provided through the smaller portal in the wall.
Were they letting me out already?
Had they recovered Avery?
I didn’t expect so. Not enough time had elapsed. And Avery’s energy still felt so far away from me.
And so sad.
A side bolt slipped out, then another.
The door swung open, and Lessa walked in—not dressed like a schoolteacher. She was wearing red-heeled combat boots and skinny jeans.
She threw a blast at every surveillance camera throughout the room, before turning her attention to me. “You look like shit.”
Lessa had come back for me! She’d disobeyed both Milena and Alex’s direct orders.
She could do that?
“You waiting for an invitation?” She stomped over and snapped her fingers in front of my muzzle. “Put some clothes on and get your head in the game, Al. We’ve got mates to rescue and a pack to take back.”
Avery
“Are you seriously on Facebook right now? Wait, who is—oh, my God, is that like your catfish profile? Lemme see.”
Raul jerked his iPad from my line of sight, locked the screen, and set it aside. “Finish your steak, Avery. We’re leaving in twenty minutes.”
I took another bite and went throu
gh the motions of chewing and swallowing as I again tried to distract myself with something—anything—to pretend that I wasn’t close to having a full-blown emotional meltdown as Sloane and I sat beside one another, eating steak for lunch.
We were seated across from Raul at a dining room table in the house we’d spent the night in with Raul and about twenty or so other werelocks. I wasn’t sure how many there were, really, because Raul had the other werelocks steer clear of Sloane and me for the most part. Azda had stayed back at the house in Durango.
I’d caught some of the werelocks talking in Portuguese, others in Spanish, and more than a few had spoken on their phones in French. I wasn’t entirely sure they were all part of Raul’s Salvatella pack, either. Because it seemed like some of them were just meeting one another for the first time.
I also hadn’t been able to figure out where we were staying. We’d teleported to wherever we were, and there was no indication anywhere in the house as to where that might be. The view outside our windows didn’t reveal much, either. There was nothing to see but dense woods stretching in all directions.
Since coming here with Raul, Sloane hadn’t had a single bad episode. She hadn’t had a screaming fit or set anything on fire, and she’d slept through the night without any indication of suffering nightmares. She was acting so passably normal it felt like we’d teleported into an alternate reality.
I, on the other hand, hadn’t slept a wink. I was a fucking wreck.
I missed Chaos. My heart hurt whenever I remembered the look of devastation on his handsome face as I’d told him that Sloane and I were going with Raul instead of with him.
“So who’s the hot blonde?” I teased the werelock who was now the only hope my daughter and I had of living to see dinnertime. “The one you were stalking just now on Facebook?”
“No one, Avery,” Raul said, shutting me down again as he wiped his mouth with his napkin and pushed his finished plate aside. He was upset about something. And he’d been fine only a minute ago—before he’d gone on Facebook.
Weirdo. He’d been friendly and goofing off around Sloane all morning—doing his best to engage her. And he’d been utterly nonchalant about the upcoming meeting with Alpha Milena and her pack, yet someone’s status update on Facebook had put him in a foul mood?
“I ate all of my steak,” Sloane announced, her violet eyes trained on Raul.
I swore my heart stopped and I nearly fell sideways out of my chair.
She’d said it without emotion, as usual, but her eyes remained fixed on Raul—looking to him for something.
Acknowledgement.
Approval. Connection.
Raul’s eyes leveled on hers, and he smiled and said, “Awesome. You want another one?” He extended his fist across the table to her. He’d been trying to teach her to fist bump all morning. “Come on, Sloane, don’t leave me hanging, girl.”
She didn’t extend her fist to bump his, but I could’ve sworn I saw her eyes warm just a fraction as she stared stoically back at him, and a hint of emotion—amusement even—softened her little pink lips.
I could’ve cried.
How the hell did he do that? What was it between them?
It still disturbed me on some level—this sense that Raul and my daughter were strangers who seemed to share some cosmic link beyond rational comprehension—but since seeing him interact with Sloane, I was comfortable now that he wasn’t that kind of predator.
Sloane rarely allowed me to pick her up without throwing a fit. The fact that she’d allowed Raul—a perfect stranger—to pick her up and hold her yesterday was unprecedented. The fact that she’d ceased screaming and torching things as soon as he’d done so was miraculous.
My daughter felt safe with Raul for some reason. I had to trust her instincts on this and believe that he could protect us.
Raul teleported us to a vacant swath of desert in Round Rock, Arizona: a small community on the Navajo Nation where we’d agreed to meet with Milena and her pack. Raul had told me that he had a bargaining chip to offer in exchange for the Reinoso pack agreeing to back off from hunting my daughter. But he’d yet to tell me what it was.
I’d more or less assumed that all the other werelocks who’d been at the house in the woods with us would be coming to the meeting with the Reinoso pack as well, so I was a bit flustered when Raul said it’d just be the three of us going.
“It starts to look desperate when you bring too many soldiers to a simple negotiation,” he said. “We don’t want to go in overgunned—looking like we’re nervous or something.”
But I was nervous.
As I stood there beside Raul, who was holding Sloane again, I scanned the horizon and spotted a gathering of what looked to be at least twenty-some people about three hundred yards or more away, standing closer to the rock formations the area was known for.
“I don’t feel overgunned.” I felt decidedly undergunned, in fact. “We’re one werelock, a werewolf, and a child, Raul.”
“Don’t worry,” he told me with a smile. “Sloane and I got this.” He set Sloane down on her feet in between us. “Right, Sloane?”
I still couldn’t get over the fact that she let him hold her so easily. Or that she hadn’t hum-talked to herself since early morning.
“Are we going to teleport closer, or do we have to walk all the way over there?” I joked anxiously.
Why was he so calm? Did he have some grand master plan? Or was he just an idiot?
“Neither. We’re gonna wait right here and make them come to us.” Raul crouched down so that he was at Sloane’s eye level. “You remember me from your dreams, right?”
She didn’t respond, but Raul continued as if she had, telling her, “I used to get really scared sometimes. And when the darkness closing in around me became tough to handle, you used to tell me that no one ever found daybreak by avoiding night—only by passing through it. Do you remember that?”
What was he jabbering about? Dear Lord, please let this surfer werelock saying bizarre, unsettling things to my child about dream encounters have an actual plan for today’s confrontation of superbeasts.
The gathering of werelocks was on the move now, walking swiftly in our direction. “Wow, they really are coming to us,” I announced to myself as my heart rate kicked up. “And they don’t look happy about it. Particularly … Alpha Milena.”
A willowy brunette with long, wavy hair was leading the charge—and she looked pissed. I suspected that had to be Milena, judging from the beefy hotties flanking her and the Brazilian god at her side who, at a distance, strongly resembled the photos of Alex Reinoso that Wyatt had shown me.
“Milena can’t teleport,” Raul commented. “I might be rubbing it in.”
I studied the werelock group approaching, hoping to spy the tall, gorgeous werelock I missed most among them. I spotted Killjoy Kai, and then Remy. I didn’t see Chaos anywhere, though. Why wouldn’t he have come? Was he all right?
Clouds rolled over the band of werelocks marching closer to us, partially blocking out the afternoon sun.
“Yes,” Sloane answered Raul’s previous question, her voice carrying a surprising measure of excitement. “I remember,” she said. Then she repeated, “No one ever found daybreak by avoiding night.”
Thunder cracked in the sky.
I felt myself frown. “Wait a minute … are they—”
“That’s right,” Raul confirmed enthusiastically to Sloane. “You do remember!”
“You said that to me,” Sloane told him, causing me to glance away from the sky and down at my daughter. For a split second, I thought I almost saw her smile as she said, “That’s what you say to me.”
Holy shit. She never smiled.
“That’s true,” Raul said with a laugh. “But you said it to me first. I’m just borrowing your cool lines.”
“Would you like to be her nanny?” I blurted. How was he so good with my kid? “Hey, are they somehow … causing this sudden weather change I’m witnessing? I know
that sounds crazy, but it kinda seems as if—”
“Calm down, Avery. Your heart rate’s all over the place,” Raul said to me before telling Sloane, “I need you to stay close to your mom while I talk to the Blind Warrior about some stuff. Okay? Hold her hand and try not to set anything on fire. Keep your cool, and just think: What would Queen Elsa do? Think you can do that?”
“I can,” she agreed.
Blind Warrior?
Sloane reached for my hand, and I gratefully gave it, grasping her small one in mine. It was rare that she let me hold her hand. Was it some kind of Alpha pull that Raul had on my child?
Raul stood and faced me. “They believe you’re Alcaeus’s mate. Even if they don’t like you or want to accept you, they won’t harm you. But still, keep your head down as much as possible if shit goes to hell fast, and try to remember that you’re not a werelock.”
I nodded and turned to watch the Reinoso pack as they came to a stop about twenty yards away, bringing the first drops of rain from the sky with them. Along with loud, rolling thunder—and more lightning than was at all normal for any flash storm.
I squeezed Sloane’s hand tighter as bolts of lightning illuminated the sky and smaller ones fell to singe the ground around us.
Hellfire. Alpha Milena wasn’t the Burning Man flunkie I’d pegged her to be.
When the angry sound of thunder finally quieted, Raul leaned into me. “So there’s something I meant to mention to you sooner about Milena.”
If side-eye could kill. “Such as the fact that she’s capable of electrokinesis?” I whisper-screamed through clenched teeth.
“Nah, not that,” he whispered back. “Don’t worry. She’s just trying to intimidate us. She’s all bark. And actually, she’s got full-on powers of empathic meteorokinesis or something, from what I hear. Not sure. We haven’t interacted much—at all—for about um … ten years or so.”
“What?” I gasped. “You said you were the only one capable of stopping her! You’ve put my daughter’s life on the line with a werelock you’ve never fought before?”
