by Hettie Ivers
He put me down. Nearly dropping me on my ass and stepping back from me. And I was pretty sure he would’ve preferred to have thrown me if he’d thought I could survive the fall.
I righted myself against the fence, then folded my arms across my chest as he stared me down—looking positively homicidal.
“You may be able to hold me hostage here, torment me with your sexual bullying, and hold my brother’s life over my head to get what you want out of me,” I lectured, “but it’ll never be what you say you really want. Because it will never be willingly! And it most certainly won’t be happily.”
His lip curled and he sneered contemptuously, “Well, I’m not so sure I give a fuck about your happiness right about now.” He backed me up into the fence again. “So keep misbehaving and forcing my hand, princess, because the use of compulsion is looking more appealing and justifiable by the second.”
I suppressed a rising sliver of fear before it could take hold. “You wouldn’t …”
“Wouldn’t I?”
“N-no,” I asserted unsteadily. “We both know that’s not what your … erhm … wolf wants from me.” It felt super weird referring to his wolf aloud to him like that, as if they were separate entities.
He harrumphed. “Really?” he challenged, leaning a hand above my head against the fencing. “You think you know what my wolf wants from you?”
“Yes! Maybe …” I wavered, my eyes darting to the side away from the harshness of his denigrating stare.
“Well?”
“I think he wants me to feel … safe,” I concluded, eyeing him warily. “I think he might even want me to feel”—I swallowed—“confident. Like maybe … he wants me to feel like his equal?”
I watched as Alex’s expression morphed from arrogant disdain to disbelief.
“Why?” he mouthed, the sound almost inaudible as it escaped his lips.
I shifted awkwardly, not sure I wanted to tell him why I thought that, and equally uncertain if that’s what he’d meant by his half-question in the first place.
“When he let me touch him, he made me feel like I had control,” I answered truthfully. “That I would be safe no matter what I did—however I interacted with him. So I don’t … I don’t think he’d force me … or manipulate me the way you suggest you would.”
“Are you kidding me?” he erupted with such vehemence it caused me to jump. “I just told you the very same fucking thing! Fucking told you that you were safe, and that I would give you whatever you wanted!”
“But you don’t mean it! They’re just empty words coming from you. If you meant them you wouldn’t turn around and threaten to compel me every time things don’t go your way.”
Pushing off the fence, Alex mumbled in Portuguese and ran a hand over his face, chuckling humorlessly and turning away from me so that his features were set in profile.
“Fine,” he agreed in a quiet monotone after a pause, sounding defeated. “I won’t touch you again. Not sexually,” he clarified. “Until you ask me to.”
“Seriously?” I blurted in astonishment.
“Yes,” he hissed.
“Swear?”
“Yes!”
I exhaled a rush of heady, giddy relief, grinning from ear to ear. “Awesome! Because I am never going to ask you to.”
He pinned me with a withering glare. “That’s a fool’s bet, little girl.”
“I’ll take it anyway,” I told him with glee.
“Super!” he rejoined with forced gaiety. “In the meantime, I’ll keep fucking anyone I want to then, understand? And I will expect you not to throw temper tantrums like a jealous girlfriend.”
“Puh-lease! You can fuck your way through the whole continent for all I care,” I sassed him, abandoning the wall and inching closer. “You’re the one with the jealousy issue.” I bravely jabbed my pointer finger into his chest.
A wicked smirk shaped his lips. “Well, now that that’s settled, do you still want to meet Amy?” he surprised me by asking.
“Absolutely.”
“Fantastic. Let’s go then, princess.”
*****
I couldn’t help but suspect he was setting me up again as I followed Alex through the gardens, struggling to keep pace with his long, impatient strides. I half-covered my eyes with my hand as we rounded the corner into a different little garden area than the one where we’d previously encountered Remy and his “friends.”
Two dark-haired, exotic-looking young girls were seated at a little café table, enjoying tea and some sort of breakfast spread. One of the girls appeared to be a mix of Spanish and Asian heritage; my best guess was from Vietnamese descent. The other more closely resembled the Brazilian beauties I’d seen in Alex’s house so far. I was relieved to note they were at least semi-clothed.
A third girl with long, dark brown hair was seated astride Remy’s lap at the table, the pair locked in an intimate embrace. She was clad in only a sheet, and her unruly hair hung forward, blocking both her face and Remy’s from my view—though it was abundantly clear their mouths were fused. She was moaning. And she reeked of trashy perfume.
“Alpha!” Thy greeted jubilantly at Alex’s entrance, setting her teacup down and turning her face up to him.
As he approached the table, Alex casually leaned down over her and kissed her in greeting where she sat. Thoroughly tongue-kissed her! While at the same time slipping his hand beneath the neckline of her filmy, low-cut sundress to cup her breast.
Right in front of me! My mouth fell open despite my best intentions to remain unimpressed.
Remy, who had visibly flinched at Thy’s initial outcry, was muttering muffled expletives as he seemed to be trying to extricate his tongue from the brunette’s mouth.
“I need to borrow Amy for a few hours,” Alex announced matter-of-factly after he’d released Thy’s mouth.
“Fuck, Alex, you brought Milena back here?” Remy pulled away from the mysterious brunette named Amy, his features awash with panic as they sought mine, and I caught a glimpse of her face for the first time as she turned in Alex’s direction.
Her large blue eyes were bleary with desire, her face flushed and her full pink lips swollen from kissing. She had high cheekbones and delicately lovely, if slightly understated, features. She looked a little dazed and out of it, giving the initial impression that she was one of those naïve, damsel-in-distress types who were always so irritating. At the same time, there was something uncannily familiar about her face that I couldn’t quite place …
“Wow, Amy has a twin sister?”
The Brazilian-looking beauty had spoken it. She was staring straight in my direction just as Thy gasped, “Oh, my God, it’s Amy’s doppelganger!”
Doppelganger? I turned and looked behind me like an idiot. Then I heard Amy’s soft voice remark, “Hey, she kinda does look like me!”
I felt my face drain of color as I turned back around to the little garden party. All eyes were fixated on me, save Alex’s.
My mouth went dry and my heart began to race as I watched Alex extract Amy from Remy’s lap. Lifting her to her feet, he secured the thin sheet tucked around her chest before gently combing the hair from her eyes. His lips curved as he studied her face, observing as her eyes rolled back in delight when those talented, long fingers of his began to massage through her tresses, raking back and forth against her scalp in a caress I was all too familiar with.
Bile rose up in my throat.
I sent up a quick prayer that I was still in my coma and that none of this was happening. While I’d often been told I didn’t quite see myself how others saw me, I was forced to acknowledge that Amy did in fact look like me. Perhaps not exactly, but there was enough of a similarity to her build, coloring and bone structure for it to be a bit startling—and creepy—of a resemblance. Particularly given the fact that Alex had fucked her. Six ways to Sunday and back again, apparently.
My legs grew unsteady beneath me as Amy gazed longingly up at Alex and inquired, “Are you going to p
ractice on me again, Alpha?”
The grin he gave her was so adoring I feared I might upchuck a whole rib-eye when he responded, “Only if that’s all right with you, princess.”
She smiled shyly and nodded.
Remy covered his face with his hands and groaned. “You are the single greatest douchebag I’ve ever known.”
I was in complete agreement with that assessment. And I was done watching this little garden shit show!
“Have a fabulous time!” I called out with exaggerated levity before turning and marching off, uncaring that I didn’t even know where the hell I was going.
I heard Remy call after me, and Alex call after Remy in Portuguese. I hadn’t gone fifteen feet before Remy was somehow magically in front of me, blocking my path. I squealed in surprise and clutched my chest.
“Milena, I’m so sorry!”
A thought occurred to me as I met Remy’s remorseful features. “Were you fucking Amy when I walked in on your ménage earlier?” I asked crassly.
“No! Absolutely not, honey, she was the one in the middle between Thy and Yara.”
I nodded and then shook my head. Wait? What fucking difference did it make? He’d clearly fucked her at some point. Why had I even asked such an irrelevant question?
“Where did she come from? How long has she been here?” Those were better questions.
“She’s an American student studying at the University of São Paulo. I met her when I was out two nights ago and brought her back here with me.”
“Why does she look like me?”
“I’ve no idea, sweetheart, I think these things just happen sometimes. She’s not related. We … checked,” he admitted sheepishly, “… just in case. She doesn’t smell nearly as amazing as you do, and to be honest, I don’t even think she looks that much like you.”
“Me either,” I was eager to agree. “At all! And she smells like stripper perfume.”
Remy cleared his throat to suppress a chuckle, covering his mouth with his fist. He glided closer until I had to strain my neck to look up at him. “Milena, honey, are you okay?”
Unshed tears burned the back of my eyes. Damn him. Why did he always have to sound so sincere in his concern?
“Has Alex been mistreating you?” he asked, his beautiful malachite eyes probing the depths of my own.
Where would I begin? I supposed it was all relative in these prisoner situations anyway. And Remy was no knight in shining armor himself to be confiding my troubles to.
“You don’t look so well,” he observed, his head angling to the side. His fingertips extended to trace my jawline. “Has Kai had a look at you since you woke up?”
I reached up and pulled his hand away. “I’m fine.”
Uncomfortable with his scrutiny, I trained my eyes on the decorative stone garden pillar he was standing next to. “Did you compel that girl to come back here with you?”
“Yes. And no.”
“Which is it?” I pressed.
He winced. “It’s complicated.” He tugged at the back of his neck. “I’m sorry you had to see this.”
My stomach was in knots and my heart was racing to the point where it was beginning to be painful. Yet I forged forward and asked what I needed to know. “Did you pick her up because she looks like me?”
“Yes.”
“And you and Alex both fucked her?” I asked with forced calm, although I already knew the answer.
He hesitated. “Yes.”
My head bobbed mechanically as I focused on blocking out the sounds of Amy moaning behind me back in the garden. It was becoming easier to do since my ears had begun ringing continuously.
My blood had also begun to vibrate. Though I knew such a thing was impossible, I swore it was so and that I could feel it throughout my system. It was starting to cause an internal buzzing sensation in my brain, in fact.
I wasn’t fine.
“Sweetheart, it didn’t mean anything,” Remy conciliated—right as the stench of Amy’s heightening arousal wafted over us. My imagination ran rampant invoking pornographic images of Alex attending to her. “She’s not you. She doesn’t mean anything to Alex. He’s just being a dick. Trying to get a rise out of you.”
“Gee, thanks! Hadn’t figured that part out.”
“You’re feeling the pull,” Remy ascertained, regarding me with a look of pity. “The stress of the mating bond. Aren’t you?”
“No!” I snarled. “I’m feeling the stress of knowing some other poor girl was kidnapped and molested by you two mind-raping sociopaths just because she had the misfortune of looking similar to me!”
He had the audacity to look surprised by my outburst and accusation. Really?
“Milena, I swear to you, it’s not like that.” His eyes pled for consideration. “We haven’t hurt her. And I promise she’ll be returned to her dormitory tonight unharmed.”
Just as he finished his sentence, Amy’s keening wail of orgasm cut through the ringing in my ears, and something deep inside of me snapped.
An avalanche of rage suffused me, swirling through my system like a tornado, skipping my heart’s rhythm until it beat an unnatural staccato bent on a song it had never sung before: one of wrath and of bloodthirsty vengeance, and pure insurrection.
A freakish, ungodly growl rolled up through my chest, and the stone pillar next to Remy cracked straight down the middle.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Weird. Had I just growled?
Stranger still, my hands were now tingling like crazy and I was oddly breathless—as if on the verge of an asthma attack, although I’d never been asthmatic. Remy’s eyes darted from my face to the cracked stone pillar beside him and back again. I recalled Raul telling me they didn’t get earthquakes in São Paulo because of its location in the middle of a tectonic plate.
But I couldn’t be bothered with Remy or with earthquakes right now, because behind me in a little garden area there was an ill-bred, overgrown brat of an Alpha who was asking for the bitch-slapping of a lifetime. And even if it required breaking every last bone in my hand in the delivery process, I was going to give it to him.
Just thinking about it spawned an increased tingling sensation and a bizarre swirling of energy within my hands, egging me on to the task at hand. Ignoring the perplexed expression on Remy’s perfect, chiseled face, I took the deepest breath my constricted lungs would allow.
Prepared to witness the absolute worst, I strode back in the direction of Amy’s squealing. She was making noises reminiscent of a baby seal now. Determined and primed as I was for whatever form of debauchery I was to encounter, the scene I came upon still rendered me stupefied.
Alex was sipping tea at the café table all by himself. Thy and Yara were on a blanket in the grass, attending to an orgasmic Amy with their hands and mouths.
“Couldn’t stay away, eh?” he greeted as my eyes flitted confoundedly back and forth from the girls to him. “I missed you, too, darling.”
“You are not funny!”
“We need to work on your sense of humor then,” he quipped, biting his lip to suppress the grin that seemed determined to break out across his self-satisfied features.
“I demand that you let these girls go this instant!” I railed, shaking my mom’s most deathly serious pointer finger at him.
“Oooh … jealousy’s quite the hot look on you, baby.”
“Jealousy my ass!” I scoffed, snatching the empty teacup nearest me from its saucer where Thy had been sitting earlier and pelting it at Alex’s face. He deflected it by some imaginary means, laughing.
“What are you offering me as replacement, princess?”
“Alex, stop, something’s wrong with her,” Remy voiced in concern as he materialized freakishly by my side.
“She’s suffering hopeless sexual frustration is all. Seen it thousands of times before.”
“No, really, Alex. She’s … off somehow.” Remy cough-mumbled something I didn’t catch.
I was off?
“I
’m off?” I shrieked. “You’ve both been fucking my doppelganger! And you’ve clearly mind-raped her along with these other unsuspecting girls.”
“Milena, it’s not …”—Remy shook his head, holding his hands up in supplication—“really not like—”
“Stop fucking saying that!” I blasted, tasting a level of rancor I was unaccustomed to. “It is exactly like that!”
The tingling, swirling sensation in my hands had come back full force, and this time it continued to spread, traveling all the way up my forearms.
“Milena, please?” Remy appealed. “Please calm down?”
Alex sighed and set his teacup aside in a manner that suggested he was put out by my outburst and my misunderstanding of the situation. Then he proceeded to address me in his most patronizing tone.
“Milena, as you know, humans aren’t my first choice of companion, as they are Remy’s,” he insulted. “But it’s not like we hurt any of these girls,” he had the nerve to maintain, just as Remy had. “Believe me, they have a very, very good time while they’re here.” He smirked. “A better time than I suspect your virginal inspiration could possibly conjure.”
I reached for the remaining empty teacup at the table, and I could’ve sworn it jumped off the table and into my palm before I had the chance to pick it up this time. I threw it at Alex’s head. Again, he deflected it.
“You finished? I believe you’re out of teacups,” he observed with condescension. “As I was saying, they have a good time and are then returned to their human lives in perfect health, their memories erased of all activity here, naturally.”
I was far from finished! A wall of anger was tunneling its way up through my stomach into my chest.
“How convenient!” I screeched in a high-pitched shrill that contrasted a bit strangely with the subsequent growling sound that began emanating from my chest. The tingling was all the way up to my shoulders now, and my heart was hammering out of control.
“If they don’t remember, it doesn’t count, huh?” I directed my ire at Remy that time. He looked panicked as our eyes met.
