Slip of Fate (Werelock Evolution Book 1)

by Hettie Ivers

  I was wasting my breath trying to appeal to his nonexistent humanity. I heard the sound of glass clinking and then liquid flowing. I assumed he was pouring the wine for himself, so I was surprised when I glanced back down from the ceiling to see him hold the half-filled glass of red wine out to me.

  “Uh … no, thanks,” I declined.

  “It’s an excellent pinot, I assure you.”

  “I’m only eighteen!”

  “I’m not likely to tell on you to the American Embassy, Milena,” he said with a laugh. “The legal age is eighteen here.” He pressed the glass into my hand. “Humor me?” he requested with a pointed look that suggested he might make it a directive if I didn’t oblige. “Take a few sips. It’ll help us both relax.”

  I rolled my eyes and grudgingly brought the glass to my lips. I made a face as the flavor overpowered my tongue and burned the back of my throat on the way down. I extended the glass back to him.

  Aghast at my reaction, he took the glass from my hand, swirling and sniffing the liquid carefully before raising it to his own lips for a sip.

  “It’s perfect,” he declared, offering it back to me. “Try it again.”

  I shook my head. “It’s awful. I don’t like it.”

  “It’s Romanée-Conti pinot,” he argued, as if that meant something.

  I shrugged and folded my arms across my chest, refusing to take the glass from him. Fuck him and his fancy wines and spa showers and closets the size of living spaces. “Well, it tastes like crap to me.”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” he protested superciliously, appearing thoroughly disturbed by my assessment of the stupid wine. “Have you never had wine before?”

  “I’m eighteen, asshole! And I was relaxed before you started sexually bullying me … freaking me out with your … your magical …”—I waved my hand in the air as I sought the words to describe it accurately while my face flushed in remembrance—“invisible tongue … trickery.”

  He nodded, biting his lip before covering his mouth again with his free hand, his eyes swimming with humor.

  “If you’re not going to feed me, I’d like to go back to my unnecessarily opulent prison cell now,” I said with a huff, scooting myself forward to the edge of the table.

  He set the wine glass down and held his forefinger up to me once more before darting over to a long row of large metal refrigerators. He opened and shut three or four of them before finding whatever he was looking for. He returned with a container of club soda and a wedge of lime. He added club soda to the glass of wine, filling it to the rim and then topping it off with a squeeze of fresh lime. He stirred the contents with the tip of his finger and then brought it to his lips, grimacing when he sampled his own concoction.

  “Sacrilege,” he muttered, offering it to me. “Try it now.”

  Reluctantly, I indulged him and found that it tasted much better. It was sweet, milder in flavor, and altogether palatable with the addition of the soda water and lime. I nodded in acknowledgement, taking another sip before holding it back out to him.

  “Oh, no.” He raised both palms in refusal. “That glass of wine is all yours now.”

  I rolled my shoulder and took another sip. Eh, what the hell? I’d had a beer once at a high school party. It had tasted dreadful, and I’d only managed to drink half of it. I’d gotten a slight buzz, but nothing too exciting, either good or bad, had come of it.

  I continued to nurse my carbonated red wine, enjoying the new flavor the more I consumed, as I watched Alex begin to sort through the pre-assembled ingredients and cookware items the nervous young kitchen worker had gathered.

  I’d been dubious as to Alex’s ability to boil water without assistance, so initially I simply stared in stunned silence as he heated a large cast iron skillet over the gas stovetop before brushing what appeared to be a half a dozen rib-eye steaks with coconut oil. But I snapped out of my stupor when he began sprinkling the raw meat with a dry rub preparation of herbs and spices.

  “Um … so I’m a vegetarian,” I announced.

  He raised his head and paused for the briefest moment before continuing to season the steaks.

  “As in I don’t eat meat,” I clarified stupidly after a beat.

  “I’ll fix a salad to go with your steak,” he said as the iron pan started to smoke. He placed two steaks onto the skillet, and almost instantly my mouth began to water at the delectable scent of raw meat cooking.

  I hadn’t consumed animal flesh since I was twelve. Yet now it smelled like the only food I wanted to eat. Confused, I gulped down more of my fizzy wine while I watched Alex poke and flip the rib-eyes with a two-pronged steak fork.

  I soon found myself staring at the way his chest and arm muscles flexed as he worked. Studying the blue veins that ran up the underside of his forearms beneath his golden brown skin. Pondering completely inappropriate and wholly irrelevant things like how the smooth skin covering his absurdly cut abdominal muscles might feel against my lips. I pulled at the collar of my V-neck henley and fanned myself, feeling hot all over.

  “Shouldn’t you be wearing a shirt?” I complained, my breath sounding ragged. “Or an apron at least? It’s not very sanitary cooking half-naked like that.”

  His lips curved slightly as he glanced up at me, his eyes warming as they caught mine, some sort of understanding glinting in their depths.

  “Would you like me to put something on, princess?”

  “Yes, please.” My voice was a faint whisper. But he’d heard me, because he turned and I found myself gawking at his muscular, broad back next while he sifted through a basket of folded linens on a metal storage shelf located behind him.

  Grabbing a white waist apron, he wrapped it around his midsection and tied it so that it was slung low across his hips overtop his lounge pants, effectively covering nothing that hadn’t been covered already. I felt my brows draw together and my lips purse into a pout. He gave me a toothy grin and went back to attending the stovetop.

  “You should wear the hat, too,” I insisted upon eyeing a classic-looking, white chef hat that was sticking out of the top of the bin he’d rummaged through.

  His brow lifted and he eyed me curiously before following the path of my pointed finger to the shelf behind him. I was sure he was going to deny my silly request, but he turned and snatched up the article I’d pointed at, slowly unfolding the comically tall chef hat and placing it atop his head. “Satisfied?”

  He looked positively ridiculous! I immediately clasped my hand over my mouth and screeched at the sight of him, swinging my legs giddily back and forth over the side of the table in a rush of girlish delight as I cackled.

  He shook his head, frank eyes assessing me up and down. Then he stepped forward and plucked the wine glass from my hand, threatening under his breath, “You’ll be the one wearing this hat and nothing else later if you don’t slow it down with the wine and quit being so cute.”

  Unsure of how to process the way my lower region warmed in reaction to his remark, I chose to ignore it. Alex emptied the rest of my carbonated wine concoction down his own gullet and set the empty glass atop the prep table.

  The steaks appeared largely uncooked still as he removed them from the cast iron pan, setting them aside onto a serving plate. I estimated he’d cooked each side for no more than a few minutes.

  Reducing the gas flame, he tossed butter, fresh rosemary, and several peeled, whole cloves of garlic into the skillet. The scent of rosemary, butter, and garlic simmering in the pan drippings was divine. My eyes glazed over with undeniable longing when Alex ultimately drizzled the buttery garlic rosemary sauce over the undercooked steaks.

  Setting the serving plate next to where I sat on the countertop, Alex grabbed a fork and knife, cut a small piece of the heavenly-scented rare meat, and offered it up to my lips.

  Though I was desperate to taste it, I shook my head in denial. “I really can’t eat that; I haven’t had meat in six years, Alex. I’ll get sick.” My stomach growled its disagre
ement.

  “You won’t get sick. I promise.”

  I made a childish whimpering sound, my mind and my body torn.

  “C’mon, you have to at least try it. I made it for you,” he beguiled in a seductive whisper, “… and while wearing this stupid hat you forced on me.”

  The guilt tactic proved the final straw to break my shaky resolve. It was my Catholic girl curse.

  I opened my mouth and let him feed me the bite of steak. My eyes rolled back in my head and I moaned as the soft, buttery meat virtually melted in my mouth. It was pure perfection!

  I gazed dreamily back at Alex and found him waiting, another bite of meat poised on the tip of the fork, ready for me. He seemed so genuinely thrilled that I liked it, I reasoned there was no way I could refuse a second bite.

  So I didn’t. And I even let him feed me a third bite before politely prying the fork from his fingers so that I could shovel the meat into my own mouth at a less leisurely pace.

  “Maybe …” I granted with a sheepish smile, my mouth half full of meat, “… maybe I could just have a few bites?”

  “Maybe.” He was beaming from ear to ear as he resumed his command of the stovetop and set about cooking the remaining four steaks.

  “I don’t understand this, though,” I mused aloud halfway through my rib-eye. “I don’t even like meat.”

  “Baby, you’re smelling fear and hearing your own heartbeat as a temporary side effect of the blood transfusion. I’m sure the meat cravings will pass as well once my blood works its way out of your system.”

  I hummed in agreement. Although I still had many questions to ask surrounding the whole werewolf blood transfusion deal, I wasn’t too keen on talking about it while I was enjoying the best barely cooked steak my vegetarian taste buds had ever sampled.

  “So … so, do you have many enemies?” I chose to blurt instead, circling back to our previous gangster line of discussion.

  He barked out a laugh as he flipped a steak over. “Well, let’s just say not everyone gets my brand of charm. But to be fair, most of my enemies have never gotten the best hug of their lives from me either.”

  I swallowed noisily in an attempt to avoid choking. “I did not say, err—think that it was the best hug of my life!”

  “Oh, that’s right,” he conceded with a lazy grin, “but only because you felt deprived of touching me back.”

  “Nooo,” I corrected again, “that’s not what I thought either!”

  “Uh-huh … whatever you need to tell yourself, princess,” he patronized, giving me a playful wink that reminded me of Alcaeus.

  “Do you think I could see Alcaeus today?” I asked the moment the thought popped in my head. “And Remy and Alessandra?” I added eagerly.

  Alex’s playful expression vanished. “We’ll see.”

  “Please? I’d really like to visit with Alessandra,” I confided. “Perhaps talk to her about Raul? And I simply have to thank Remy for his thoughtfulness with my luggage!” I gushed. “It was super-considerate of him to think of me like that.”

  I might’ve imagined it, but I could’ve sworn I heard a faint, extended growl over the sound of sizzling steak at the mention of Remy’s kindness.

  “We shall see,” he reiterated noncommittally, pinning me with a firm look that said the discussion was over for now.

  I decided not to press him further. After all, he hadn’t said no. And he made a really great raw steak.

  “Could I have some water, please?” I asked upon consuming my last bite of steak when I saw Alex headed in the direction of the row of refrigerators.

  I’d managed to eat a whole rib-eye all by myself in the short time it had taken Alex to finish cooking the remaining steaks. He had since moved on to the task of gathering and chopping vegetables and mixing salad oil.

  “And maybe another fizzy glass of wine?” I called out as I watched the graceful, mesmerizing beauty that was his retreating form.

  I saw the back of his head nod in accord before he opened another refrigerator. He stood in perfect profile to me just inside the open door, his arm draped over the side while he leaned forward, scanning the contents of the fridge.

  I couldn’t say for sure how such a thing had ever happened, but somehow, at some point I’d become so fixated on the shape of his rear in profile that I hadn’t even noticed it when he’d apparently spoken to me. I burned in mortification when a high-pitched whistle finally startled me from my obvious ogling, drawing my wicked eyes up to his.

  “Would you prefer flat or sparkling water, sweetheart?”

  One glance at the self-satisfied smirk on his arrogant face confirmed my worst fear. He’d totally caught me checking out his ass!

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I stared back at him with wide eyes. Time stood still while my heart raced, my own blood drumming deafeningly in my ears.

  Alex was in front of me seconds later, laughing as he coaxed me to breathe and stop panicking. He told me I was being far too self-critical and promised that everything was okay, assuring me that he was well used to being objectified and wasn’t the least bit offended by my salacious gawking.

  “But this isn’t like me,” I maintained, swatting his shoulder. “Something’s wrong. I don’t do that. This isn’t normal.”

  “Mm, pretty sure my ass garners that reaction from most women, so I’d say you’re perfectly normal, in fact.”

  I groaned and shoved against his chest. “I seriously cannot stand you!”

  “Oh, don’t I know it,” he agreed with a laugh, stepping back from my flailing arms intent on whacking him. “Give me one more minute and then we’ll go outside and eat, okay?”

  Without waiting for my reply, he dashed to the chop block where he’d been preparing our salad and recommenced dicing vegetables at such a blurred speed it was difficult for my eyes to follow his movements. Show-off.

  I remained miffed and steadfastly refused to be impressed even as he began tossing ingredients over his shoulder and catching them in the large serving bowl behind his back without looking. Idiot.

  “You’re ridiculous, you know?” I told him. “Now you’re just being lame.”

  That got his attention. He set the bowl down and turned his full focus on me, his expression serious.

  “Ridiculous, eh? Lame, huh?”

  Oh, my—I’d challenged him.

  Before I had time to utter a half-assed apology, he’d begun juggling large metal spoons and spatulas for my amusement. I was soon giggling and clapping despite my intention to stay mad when he started humming the classic circus theme song to go along with his antics. He looked so humorous in his absurdly tall and incongruously formal white chef hat, juggling utensils while bare-chested and barefooted in the kitchen.

  When he added knives to the mix, my reaction alternated between sucking air through my teeth and shrieking as he worked his way up to five large knives and the speed at which he was rotating them became too fast for my inferior human eyes to follow.

  “Meu Deus!”

  The shocked male voice surprised me, making me jump in my seat as my head swiveled to what looked to be the real chef of the house, judging from his attire, standing inside the kitchen doorway. Alex didn’t miss a beat, though, and he never faltered in his juggling.

  “What?” he barked rudely, his dark eyes briefly abandoning their focus on the circle of rotating knives above his head in order to glare at the intruder. “Never seen an Alpha in a chef hat juggle knives before? Get the fuck out of here!”

  The man blanched and babbled apologetically, first in Portuguese and then in English, seemingly for my benefit, as he gave a quick nod of acknowledgement in my direction before bowing and backing out through the door in which he’d entered.

  “Wait!” Alex called after him just as the door shut. The man reappeared. “Bring the lady a glass of flat water and a DRC red wine spritzer.”

  “Right away, my Alpha,” he ingratiated, moving hurriedly through the kitchen to do Alex’s bidding in s
uch a nervous manner it was upsetting.

  And as the man maneuvered his way around the far side of the prep table at Alex’s back where he’d been assembling our salad, I noted several distinctions about the anxious chef. Unlike most of the occupants I’d encountered thus far in Alex’s home, he was older. He wasn’t beautiful. And he was human. I realized it was his scent more than his appearance that had tipped me off to that last fact.

  I hopped off the table, ignoring Alex’s childish knife display in favor of chasing after the intriguing older gentleman as he headed toward the refrigerators.

  “Sir, it’s okay, I can get it myself,” I said as I caught up to him. I barely had time to see him return the sweet smile I’d offered with a look of abject terror, before I was grabbed about the waist and thrust behind Alex’s back.

  “You are not to speak to her.”

  “He didn’t!” I defended. “I spoke to him!”

  As I squirmed and twisted my body against Alex’s hold, my ire rising as I endured listening to the poor man apologize yet again for doing nothing wrong, my mouth gaped open as I happened to glance behind me and note that the knives still hung in the air all by themselves where Alex had been juggling them—although they had ceased moving.

  “Let me go!” I pounded my fists against Alex’s back. He ignored me, speaking to the man in Portuguese now. I caught Mateus’ name in the man’s response, further piquing my interest in him. I just knew he’d said something about me in connection with Mateus!

  “I’m Raul’s half-sister,” I called out over the barricade of Alex’s shoulder. “Did you know my brother and his father, Mateus? I’m being held hostage here,” I prattled foolishly for good measure. “Will you please pass along a message to Alcaeus to come see me?”

  Alex’s arm tightened around me, and I found my face mashed into the middle of his rock-hard back when he yanked me closer. As my nose and mouth pressed up against the smooth skin along his spine, my lips and tongue inadvertently tasting him while my nose delighted in his intoxicating scent, I momentarily forgot to struggle.