Fear the Heart (Werelock Evolution Book 2) Page 4

  Then again … I’d never had a dog growing up, and I’d always wanted one. Maybe this was just how it felt? To have someone who belonged to me?

  Internally, I shook my head of such an absurd thought before it could take root. Alex’s wolf didn’t belong to me. He couldn’t. I didn’t want anything to do with him, or with the horrible, cruel, and bloodthirsty world in which he reigned.

  And neither was he a puppy! A twisted monster who hurt—no, killed people—could only make a truly sad and desperate surrogate for the canine playmate I’d missed out on in my youth. But much like the long-coveted, impractical puppy my mother had argued we couldn’t afford and that she didn’t have time to take care of while working two jobs, knowing that what I wanted wasn’t feasible, or even sensible, didn’t necessarily make me desire it any less.

  The swishing sound of fabric flying through the air caught my attention just before a pair of men’s warm-up shorts landed on top of Alex’s furry head as he raised it from my neck.

  “Get a room you two,” Alcaeus teased. “Shift and put some shorts on, Alex. We need to talk about Milena’s connection to Joaquin Salvatella.”

  I blushed. Stupidly. Blushed. Over snuggling with Alex’s wolf, of all things. It was idiotic, to be sure. Yet, arguably, our present interaction somehow felt like the most pivotal and meaningful connection I’d experienced with him to date, and I was a bit saddened at the thought of it ending.

  My disappointment must have shown on my face, because my new playmate whimpered softly, his snout descending until the tip of his cool nose met mine. The shorts slipped forward over my cuddly killer wolf’s ears then, the smooth material falling across his left eye in a way that was comical.

  “You look ridiculous,” I told him, grinning like a fool as I pulled the material off of his head. He licked my face in retaliation. “Blech!” I giggle-shrieked. He did it again. “Stop!”

  “Alex!” Alcaeus boomed, interrupting our fun. “You’re not going to win Milena over by sitting on her in wolf form. Put some shorts on, we’re wasting time.”

  The black and grey wolf snarled, but complied with Alcaeus’ request. And a very human, very naked Alex was hovering above me moments later, his warm, dark eyes consuming me with unabashed longing.

  A tremulous, boyish smile lifted one corner of his mouth, and for a mad moment in time I wished with all my heart that things could have been different—that we could have been different. Because in spite of how much I wanted to hate him, I found it harder and harder not to like Alex. I knew it was wrong. Yet I couldn’t help thinking that in another time and place, under different circumstances, in a world whose innate cruelty hadn’t already crushed the individuals we might’ve otherwise become, I could have even … loved someone like Alex.

  Could have. But didn’t.

  Right?

  His pink lips twisted into a wry grin and he lowered his head, snatching up the shorts I was clutching against my chest with his teeth. Though my she-wolf was begging me to, I didn’t dare tear my gaze from his face, for fear of what other parts I might ogle. I forced my eyes shut as he reluctantly pushed himself up off the floor and away from me.

  “Lupe, make some coffee, please?” I heard Alcaeus request. “And get someone over here to clean up this mess? We’ll move this party into my study. Heads up, Kai!” He whistled sharply.

  More fabric whooshed above me, and I opened my eyes to see that Alcaeus had tossed a second pair of shorts at Kai’s white wolf, whom I was mortified to realize I’d forgotten about entirely!

  “You okay, man?” Alcaeus asked as Kai shifted into his completely naked and very well built human form.

  Dang! I was so stunned I neglected to look away as Kai pulled his shorts on and stood to his full height. I rationalized it was because I’d been so concerned, and was therefore overcome with relief to see that he hadn’t sustained any permanent injury at the jaws of Alex’s wolf.

  I heard Alessandra fussing over Alex in the background, asking him if he was all right, as I drew myself up to a seated position on the floor. Why on earth wasn’t she asking Kai that question?

  “I’m just dandy,” Kai answered Alcaeus, giving him a baleful look. “No fucking thanks to you.”

  “Aw, c’mon, if we’re gonna go play renegade in the States with Kaleb, we gotta get your prissy doctor ass back in the game again. Training time!” Alcaeus smacked his hands together as he came to stand next to a shirtless Kai.

  It dawned on me I hadn’t stopped staring when Kai’s still luminous blue eyes rolled their way from Alcaeus to me, his scowl morphing into a look of curiosity. I flushed, caught red-handed checking him out. His lips stretched into a glorious smile and his eyes shifted to their usual soft brown.

  “Well, at least now I know who my real friends are in this pack.” Kai gave me a nod of acknowledgement. I turned a darker shade of red when he mouthed, “Thank you.”

  “Renegade?” Alessandra erupted, stomping over to Alcaeus. “Oh, my God, don’t you dare. Alcaeus, this is hardly the time to pull an 1822 on me!”

  “What the fuck happened in 1822?” Remy complained, trailing behind her. I was relieved to note he’d pulled on some pants. “I hate it when you three talk in code.”

  “Just what the hell is going on, Al?” Alessandra demanded.

  Alcaeus frowned and crossed his thick arms over his chest. “I thought Kai filled you in?”

  “If, by fill me in, you refer to the thirteen random, disjointed text messages Kai sent twenty minutes ago dictating the bizarre facts of the morning’s events, then yeah”—she threw her hands in the air—“consider me fully informed!”

  Still smiling, Kai shook his head at their bickering and took a step in my direction, extending his hand to me in a silent offer to help me up off the floor. But he stopped dead in his tracks as Alex materialized at my side, angling his body in such a way as to block Kai’s and extending his own hand down to me.

  I shot Kai an apologetic look and accepted neither offer of assistance, picking myself up off the floor instead. No doubt they’d come after me, but in that moment, I just needed to get away.

  I couldn’t possibly belong to this dysfunction. Kai and I weren’t friends, nor was I a part of their pack. I didn’t want to analyze why I’d done what I had, much less attempt to understand why I felt so bereft and hollow inside the more I tried to dismiss my feelings for Alex’s wolf.

  “Milena? Where are you going?” Alcaeus called after me as, without a glance in Alex’s direction, or anyone else’s for that matter, I strode across the room and straight through the door I’d seen Guadalupe walking in and out of all morning, presuming it had to be the way to the kitchen. The sound of grinding coffee beans on the other side of the door further corroborated that assumption.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I followed the sound down the hallway to the right and through another open doorway. Alcaeus’ kitchen was generous in size, probably three times that of a typical single-family home’s kitchen. Guadalupe was its only occupant.

  Upon my entry, her face reflected surprise, which swiftly evolved to confusion and then concern. She killed the grinder as I approached her where she stood on the opposite side of the large, center island.

  “Please, may I help you?” I asked. Her frown deepened. “With the coffee? Please?” I swallowed, nervous at the manner in which she was regarding me.

  Finally, she nodded. “I’ll try,” she whispered, giving me a sad smile. She looked sorry for me.

  I shook my head. She’d obviously misunderstood me. Maybe her English wasn’t as fluent as it had seemed? But before I had a chance to rephrase my question, she told me where the coffee mugs were kept and instructed me to get a tray set up. I thanked her and spun around to search for the cups. Alex charged into the kitchen then, Alessandra and Alcaeus hot on his heels.

  “She probably just needs space,” Alessandra was reasoning to Alex’s back.

  “Nah, she’s looking for more cookies,” Alcaeus joked.


  “Milena, are you okay, honey?” Alessandra inquired.

  “I need to talk to you,” Alex told me, his beseeching black eyes impacting me like a sucker punch to the solar plexus.

  Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. And I couldn’t keep my wolf sequestered when Alex looked at me like that. Alessandra was right. I did need space. A continent of it.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “Can I talk to you, please? Alone?”

  I didn’t respond. I couldn’t even if I’d wanted to.

  “Please?” he repeated, the begging in his eyes making me want to scream my head off, to cry my heart out.

  It wasn’t fair.

  “I didn’t mean to lose it like that … to get so upset …” he stammered, “I didn’t want … didn’t think …” He ran a hand through his dark crop of hair as he struggled and failed to find the words. Words he’d likely never used, probably didn’t even know.

  Meanwhile, behind him Alessandra had made her “aw” face before covering her mouth with her palm, her hazel eyes misting over with emotion at her baby brother’s apparently unsurpassed adorableness. It was all starting to make so much more sense.

  Alcaeus stood just a pace behind Alessandra, covering his mouth with his palm as well, his broad shoulders shaking with silent laughter.

  “I just …” Alex tried again. “Look, it’s hard …”

  I could sense his rising level of frustration with himself as he continued to falter, smell his growing anxiety at my steadfast unresponsiveness. Still, I refused to throw him a lifeline. Even though it hurt me to hurt him, I let him hang.

  I had my own anxieties to manage, my own frustrations. And the more adorable he appeared to his sister, the more terrifying he was to me. I didn’t know how to handle this increasingly likable Alex. Didn’t know how to reconcile his dual personality or quell my own stark raving mad desire to cuddle and keep his wolf near me forever. Like a puppy.

  Lucky for me, Guadalupe did know how to handle the situation. She pitched a heavy metal ladle at Alex’s head and told him to quit distracting me, saying I had work to do. Then she threatened to Alcaeus that she’d quit if he didn’t get everyone out of her kitchen in the next thirty seconds.

  Alcaeus laughingly acquiesced, ushering Alessandra and a very reluctant Alex from the room. He exchanged words with Guadalupe in Portuguese before gently advising me in English that once the coffee was ready, my presence would be expected in the study.

  I gathered the coffee mugs, and Guadalupe and I worked in relative silence across the island from one another. I was more intrigued now than ever by her. Though I suspected she was in her early to mid-sixties, she seemed remarkably youthful and agile, particularly given her energetic exploits in the other room. Her chin-length, jet-black hair was amply streaked with grey, and she possessed the most striking, limpid green eyes. They dominated her other delicate features, and lovely as she still was, I imagined that at one time she had likely been an incomparable beauty.

  Eventually, my hands stopped shaking, and I mustered the breath to deliver a belated “thanks.” It was clear to me now that Guadalupe’s grasp of the English language was in fact superior to my own, as she’d accurately surmised before I had that I was seeking her help more so than I was offering mine.

  “You’re welcome, Miles.”

  My stomach leapt. No one but Raul ever called me “Miles.” It had always been his nickname for me, and his alone.

  “Did you … did you … just make that nickname up?” I sputtered.

  She shook her head.

  “Was that … did you …?” I grasped at words, sounding a lot like Alex had a minute ago.

  “Yes, I knew your brother.” Her words were so quiet they barely carried across the island countertop.

  I was stunned. Raul hadn’t even told Alessandra that I was his blood relative. I wondered how much he might’ve told Guadalupe if he’d told her my nickname.

  “Did he tell you about me?” My voice inadvertently rose in my excitement. “Did you know I was his sister by blood?”

  She pressed her forefinger to her lips, her eyes delivering a warning to pipe the fuck down. It reminded me of a gesture my mother might have made.

  “My loyalty lies with Alcaeus,” she stressed, her voice a whisper I almost had to lean across the island in order to catch, despite my newly enhanced supernatural hearing.

  I nodded my understanding of her position, a bit dejected that she wasn’t likely to share more. I continued to waste time arranging and rearranging the coffee cups into varying formations on the tray around the cream and sweeteners I’d placed at its center, while we waited on the fancy coffee press machine.

  “Your brother left quite an indelible impression on most of us humans here,” she broached unprompted after a long pause. “Arrived with a hero complex, departed with a Heathcliff complex.”

  My eyes shot up from the tray to Guadalupe’s. I was certain I’d failed to mask the hope and desperate interest they held when it came to learning anything about my forever elusive brother. I was distinctly more careful about keeping my volume down this time though. “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged, casually leaning onto the counter to get closer. “He was the big man on campus where you come from, was he not?”

  Yes. Without question, Raul had been popular growing up. He was eight years older than me, and the faculty had still remembered and eagerly asked after him by the time I was in high school. He’d played sports, earned excellent grades, headed the student council, and been crowned Homecoming King. And then there were the girls! By the time Raul was in eighth grade, his fawning female classmates were providing my mother with an endless string of eager, free after-school babysitting help for me.

  I nodded in agreement of her assessment, recognizing not for the first time how truly devastating it must have been for Raul when Mateus had callously plucked him out of school midway through his senior year, right when Raul was at the height of his high school glory days.

  “When he came here, he was nobody,” Guadalupe relayed, matter-of-factly, “his human abilities and accomplishments nothing compared to those of this world. He was angry. Depressed. His promising future had been stolen from him, and he was now expected to take Mateus’ place as a human pack member in the Reinoso household. Forever,” she emphasized with a raised brow and a pointed look. “For the rest of his life.”

  I got the disquieting impression she was perhaps trying to make sure I understood that the same was now expected of me with her “forever” emphasis.

  “It wasn’t an easy pill for him to swallow. On top of that, his father was dying. And Raul didn’t understand—couldn’t accept his father’s choice to forgo the magic the Reinosos had at their disposal to heal his condition.”

  “They could have healed Mateus’ bone cancer?” I asked, aghast.

  She shrugged. “We’ll never know. Alcaeus and Kai offered. Mateus declined. You see, most of us human pack members—even those of us who have no desire to ever be changed into a werewolf—have still availed ourselves, at one point or another, of the Reinosos’ healing magic. Several have lived longer lives as a result. Mateus was no exception. He’d cheated death on a number of occasions throughout his life after sustaining near-fatal injuries during missions abroad with Kaleb in America. But I think he was ready to move on.”

  So many questions and emotions assailed me at these riveting revelations Guadalupe was dropping so readily. Kaleb had gone on missions to America with Mateus? What sort of missions? Had Mateus actually known he was dying when he’d decided to ruin Raul’s whole life by bringing him here? Had he already made the choice not to be healed? Was he really that much of an asshole that he’d thrust Raul into a frightening and cruel world only to wittingly abandon him less than two years later—knowing full well he’d be on his own with no chance of ever escaping?

  I hadn’t thought I could despise Mateus’ memory any more than I already did, but I found myself approachin
g new heights of bitterness now. My disgust surely reflected in my features, because a cool, comforting hand fell upon mine atop the island, and sorrowful, crystalline green eyes appealed for my reconsideration.

  “You may never understand or agree with his reasons, but what Mateus did, he did for you. And Raul.” She looked thoughtful a moment, as if hesitating, before adding, “He just … he was never the same after Kamella died.”

  To say I was flabbergasted and appalled at her defensive stance in favor of Mateus’ deplorable, selfish actions would’ve been a gross understatement. How in the world a man as awful as Mateus had ever managed to con allegiance from someone so seemingly awesome and forthright as Guadalupe was well beyond my scope of comprehension.

  We didn’t have much time, though, so I bit my tongue and refrained from wasting it arguing with Guadalupe over what a soulless reprobate Raul’s father had been. “Will you tell me more about Raul’s life here? Please?”

  “Raul languished for a time,” she divulged, “struggling to find his role—to figure out how to gain the respect and adulation he’d enjoyed in his former life and carve out his own place of importance within the pack. After his father died, he was even more disheartened. But he was crafty, that one”—she grinned, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she cackled softly in remembrance—“and tenacious. He was determined to fight his way up from the bottom of the new food chain to which he’d been relegated.”

  A wide grin split my lips and a gleeful giggle bubbled up from my belly. That was my big brother—forever indomitable! It made my heart swell to know that he’d endured, that his spirit had not so easily been conquered by the untenable circumstances that had been forced upon him at such a young age.

  “He made valuable friends. While most of us humans here tend to stick together, Raul managed to forge closer friendships with the weres and werelocks.” Guadalupe rolled twinkling green eyes. “Most of them were female weres—at least at first. But eventually, he came to be well respected by all for his intelligence and for his unfailing effort to all tasks he was assigned. He was savvy enough to realize he had to work five times as hard and as long to gain any recognition when competing with supernatural beings.”