Fear the Heart (Werelock Evolution Book 2) (25 page)

“Drunk?” I balked in exaggerated outrage. “Am not! Don’t you dare try to change the subject,” I rebuked, shaking my mom’s pointer finger at him. “We’re talking about your irresponsibility in teleporting me from the woods to the bathroom shower to the kitchen, when you knew damn well that it was unsafe.”

“Please?” he entreated, holding his free hand and his wine glass up in surrender. “Accept my humblest of apologies? Only point that scary finger elsewhere, you’re terrifying me.”

My brows knit together as I turned my pointer finger on myself, studying it. I shook my head. “Ugh, I’m not doing it right. I swear it’s positively petrifying when employed properly. I wish you could have seen the way my mom wielded one of these. She’d have had you, Alcaeus, Remy, and Kai all pissing your pants in terror.”

He chortled again, and I noted that the sound of his laughter grew more appealing and infectious each time I heard it.

“I’m certain,” he agreed with a solemn nod.

I was beset with giggles at the image of my mom scolding Alex and the others.

“You could always show me sometime,” Alex suggested tentatively, “through sharing your memories of her. If … only if you wanted to, that is.”

I chewed my lip. “Yeah. Maybe … sometime … when … when more time has passed?”

“Of course. And only if you want to,” he reiterated. A moment of silence and several sips of wine stretched between us before Alex confided softly, “I’m sorry I’ll never know her.”

I was sorry, too. I shrugged it off. “Eh, probably just as well. She would have hated everything about you.”

“Oh, I might’ve won her over.” He smiled. “I have secret charms you haven’t seen yet, darling.”

“Like creepy mind control?” I quipped with a disparaging eye roll. “Been there, done that.”

His head canted to the side, and his laughing eyes narrowed at me. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were hoping to goad me into spanking you again, princess.”

My eyes widened and my mouth opened and closed soundlessly in response to his allegation.

“Who could have predicted you’d enjoy a spanking so much?” he remarked with a knowing smile.

My throat went dry, and I blushed in spite of my intention to blow off his teasing. “I didn’t.” I emphatically shook my head in denial. “I didn’t like it. It was my she-wolf who responded—”

“Milena, it’s okay.” Alex held up a silencing palm. “Say no more.”

“But I didn’t—”

“And I believe you, baby. Only a thoroughly depraved she-wolf could ever enjoy something so deviant. I just hope we don’t have to put her down at some point, should she persist in engaging in such divergent behavior.”

He cleared his throat, and I was sure he’d done it to mask the onset of laughter that threatened to seize hold of him. “So tell me, what do you intend to do when you return to Santa Cruz?” he inquired, changing the subject.

My breath caught and I hesitated, afraid to allow the hope to continue to bloom in my chest that he was serious, that he actually wanted to know my plans—and that he really did intend to let me return to Santa Cruz.

Alex had bought me my house.
I clung to that truth for all it was worth. It just had to mean he’d intended all along to let me go!

“Um … well, my college plans kind of got derailed when my mom became ill. At first I thought I’d put things on hold until she was better, but then …” I frowned and let that sentence die while I took another sip of my wine spritzer. “For now, I’ve decided to take this first semester up to a year off, so I can start working and saving and then maybe apply for financial aid or scholarships. Maybe go to community college first?” I rolled one shoulder, eyeing him shyly to gauge his reaction. “That sort of thing.”

“Sounds like a sensible plan.” His smile was kind. “And what do you want to study in school?”

“Well …” I swallowed, my cheeks turning pink with a level of schoolgirl embarrassment that made zero sense, given our present course of discussion. I fidgeted, tucking my damp, freshly washed hair behind my ear as I reminded myself Alex had just spent the past few hours becoming intimately acquainted with my privates. Sharing what I wanted to be when I grew up should hardly have been cause for blushing at this stage. Yet I squirmed under his assessing gaze as I admitted, “Ultimately, I … want to study … law.”

Though his brow lifted in interest, he otherwise merely nodded noncommittally in response. “And what area of law interests you?”

“Public defense,” I answered succinctly with a sheepish shrug.

He grinned, chuckling with genuine amusement and raising his glass to me in salute. “Brilliant. I should’ve guessed as much.”

His admiration and approval seemed genuine, but I’d grown so accustomed to the negative reactions and critical remarks from friends and teachers whenever I shared my eventual law school plans that I automatically commenced jabbering in my own defense, explaining that I knew most people viewed mine as a foolish choice, given the massive student loans I’d rack up in pursuit of such a career, not to mention all of the frustrating constraints and tiresome politics and injustices I’d no doubt face working as a public defender.

“No, I get it.” He bit his bottom lip and nodded in understanding. “It suits you. You have that natural Atticus Finch instinct to protect the oppressed common man, to defend the Davids of the world from the Goliaths.”

“You think so?”

“I know so! Milena, you would’ve defended Felix at his own trial for kidnapping you, had he been granted one.”

My smile fell. “You’re making fun of me.”

“I promise you, I’m not,” he said, his eyes frank, his posture adamant as he leaned closer. “Look, I’ll allow that in truth, I believe you’re likely to encounter far greater moral dilemmas on such a career path than I suspect you fully realize at present, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re well suited or equipped to face those challenges.”

“Really?” My voice raised an octave in excitement at his evident sincerity. “I mean, you’re not just saying that?” My nose crinkled. “You don’t think I’m an idiot for wanting to be a public defender? Because everyone else always thinks so,” I rushed to confess.

“No. Not in the least.”

“Wow, that’s sorta crazy, you know? Because only my mom ever got it before,” I prattled, giggling nervously in spite of myself. “And I never quite took her support seriously, I suppose, since she always thought I was meant to save the world and all, anyway. I just chalked it up to her doing her loyal mom duty thing.”

“Funny.” Alex’s smile was rueful. “My mother held similar aspirations for me.”

My brows fused. “Your mom wanted you to go to law school?”

“No,” he barked out a laugh. “No, my mother envisioned that I was literally destined to save the world one day,” he mused nostalgically with a wry grin before rolling his eyes and tossing the last of his wine back. “To protect the weak and subjugated—specifically, the human race. Hence, the name
Alex.
Alexander means defender of the people. Protector of mankind.”

I nearly snorted wine spritzer up my nose. “For real?” Dang it if that wasn’t just the ultimate irony. “That’s positively insane!” I blurted rudely, shaking my head in disbelief.

Alex smiled amiably at my obvious shock, but I noted his eyes didn’t join in the amusement.

“I mean—I didn’t mean it … like that …” I fumbled in apology.

“’Course you did,” he countered with a forced smile. “How could you mean it any other way, given your experience with me? After all, I’m your Goliath.“

I thought to protest as good manners dictated, but realized it would only insult him further. So we fell into awkward silence instead as I made a study of the near-empty wine glass I held suspended over the pale blue silk covering my lap. I was wearing a sundress Alex had procured from Alessandra’s closet while I’d been showering. Somehow I suspected it was the most expensive dress I’d ever worn. Which was a shame, as I was terribly overdressed for a kitchen floor picnic.

“Um, so the name Milena,” I began conversationally in an effort to bridge the silence, “it means—”

“Gracious.
I know. And you are.”

When I gawked at him in astonishment, he sighed and gave me a feeble, lopsided smile. “You don’t think much of me, do you?” It wasn’t a question.

I winced internally. “Alex, that isn’t fair—”

His abrupt snort of derision startled me. “Princess, this mythical world of fairness you think you’re living in doesn’t exist.”

I flushed at his blunt, belittling tone. “Why do you always have to revert back to being an asshole, like it’s your default setting? There’s nothing wrong with wanting things to be fair.”

“Only there’s no such thing,” he scorned. “If the universe revolved around fairness, your mother and my parents might still be alive.”

I shook my head. “It’s not the same,” I contended, baffled as to how his mood had so quickly turned disagreeable.

“No? Explain it to me then.” His nostrils flared. “If things were fair, maybe I wouldn’t have had armies of werelocks attempting to murder me since the day I was born, hmm? And in a fair world, I might’ve been given an honest chance with you. The right time and circumstances for you to get to know me as a person, rather than forever regard me as some symbol of great evil and oppression.”

“I don’t … I don’t think of you like … that …”

My weak protest was met with an embittered eye roll and a fit of dry laughter.
And an inexplicable, stabbing pain in my chest.

“Hell, if life were fair,” Alex ranted, “your dad would’ve had enough damn sense not to try and hide you from me in the first place, and your brother wouldn’t be a power-hungry imbecile teamed up with the wrong fucking side, out to destroy us both.”

“He is not!” I exploded in my brother’s defense. “You don’t know anything! Goddamnit, you don’t know Raul like I do.”

“You’re right,” he snapped. “I know who Raul
is,
Milena. Present tense. You only know the boy that he
was.
You’re clinging to a fantasy of the brother you imagined he’d always be, not the one he became.”

His words stung, raking over both recent and old wounds. It made me want to hurt Alex. “My brother is a better man than you will ever be,” I lashed, arising to my feet. “And you’re not fit to judge him. You have no idea the things he’s suffered, everything he’s had to sacrifice in order to protect me.”

“Protect you? Is that a joke? You’ve done more to protect his sorry ass than Raul has ever done to look out for you. At this very moment he’s plotting to hand-deliver you to the greatest fucking threat to your life.”

“He’s confused.”

“He’s selfish and opportunistic!”

“Well, so are you! And I am done listening to you malign my brother’s character.”

“Too bad, because I’m not finished yet.”

He was on his feet and in front of me a split second later, disarming me of my wine glass and caging me in against the cool metal refrigerator. His ire was disturbingly more palpable in close proximity. Rather than strain my neck to look up at him, I chose to fixate on his heaving chest as I fought to get my own emotions under control. In spite of how livid and shaken I suddenly was, to my supreme annoyance, I found that I was also swiftly becoming aroused.
Stupid, cursed heat cycle.

“You wanna know what’s really unfair, princess?” Alex’s voice was soft, deceptively calm. “The fact that after one week you mean more to me than you have ever meant to him, and yet you would follow him blindly to your own demise, defending his honor with your last dying breath.”

“Fuck you,” I managed to puff out between tattered breaths. “I would never follow blindly after anyone. And despite what you may think, you do not know my brother or my relationship with him.”

“I know how one-sided it is,” he insisted. “I know that you are little more than bargaining collateral to him, Milena—a means to secure his own future importance in a world in which he wants desperately to belong.”

He made to brush a disheveled lock of hair from my forehead, and I jerked away from his touch.

“Raul is trying to rescue me from you.” I glared up at him in accusation. “That’s the only reason he’s with the Salvatellas right now. All he’s ever cared about is my safety and finding a way for us to be a family again.”

Alex’s expression went starkly blank as he stared down at me. No, not blank. It was something worse than vacant. And I knew in my gut I wouldn’t like whatever it was he was about to say to me next.

“Raul abandoned you a long time ago, sweetheart,” he imparted. “The last time he visited with your mother, he told her of his plans to go against Hector and Mateus’ wishes and be turned. As I understand it, she flipped out on him. Told him he would have to choose between this life and seeing you and her—the only family he had—ever again.”

My heart stopped.

“I think we both know what he chose. I’m sorry.”

“How do you know that? You don’t know that. That’s not true. You couldn’t know that,” I muttered in rapid-fire succession, more to myself than to Alex.

“He told Lessa about it afterward. Which was why she was even more shocked when she first saw you and discovered he’d actually chosen to abandon not a stepsister from a marriage of convenience but a blood relation.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I shoved hard against his chest with both palms and was astonished when Alex actually stumble-stepped back a few paces. He looked surprised himself.

“You don’t know that’s how it happened. Why should Raul tell Alessandra the truth about that one conversation he had with my mother when he didn’t tell her anything else that was truthful about us or our relationship to him?”

As the words left my mouth I practically believed them myself, despite the tightness in my chest. Raul had obviously been trying to protect us by making Alessandra think he’d severed all ties. That had to be it.

Alex’s eyes turned steely as he nodded. “Right. Valid point. Raul was never honest with Lessa about any of his intentions. Forgive me for assuming there might’ve been an instance where he was, much less a reason beyond his own self-absorption for disappearing and failing to provide you with his forwarding contact information.”