“So, you take me to your esteemed pack doctor,” Bethany proceeded to grumble at me, “who, by the way, is a complete asshat. Without conducting a single viable medical test, he determines—by sniffing me—that I’m going to start blowing apart from the inside in two days’ time unless you can figure out some ‘mind block shit.’ Then, with no further discussion about my impending blow-apart-and-die-shifting prognosis, you drop me off with Wyatt: a perfectly lovely gentleman whom I very much enjoyed speaking with. However … surprise! Wyatt wasn’t allowed to tell me anything about the shifting process either. Go figure.

“But you know what Wyatt did tell me that was interesting? He told me he has a ‘true mate’ who is part of a rival Brazilian werewolf pack.”

Christ. Fucking Wyatt!

“Wyatt told me he basically just decided he didn’t want to be with his mate because she’s an untrustworthy, conniving, murderous bitch. And so … he’s not. With her. End of story. Imagine that? He didn’t even have to take her head off or anything to accomplish it.”

When I’d gone back to retrieve Bethany from the drawing room I’d left her in with Wyatt, her scent had indicated she was more distressed than ever. And she’d looked utterly despondent. But the moment she’d spied me walking toward her, she’d simply looked pissed.

Clearly, she was. Because she’d started venting to me immediately, and she’d refused to be put off when I’d tried to tell her we would talk about things later.

I hadn’t wanted to risk an altercation with Bethany where we’d be overheard by too many members of my pack, so I was speed-walking us as discreetly as possible the long way through the outdoor gardens, heading to a spot where Avery had agreed she and Sloane would meet up with us.

“Apparently, they’ve just been living out their separate lives with minimal ill effects for seven months now. Care to explain to me how that works? Because it kinda contradicts everything that you, Avery, and Tiago have told me about true mates.”

“Honey, Wyatt’s situation is unique—”

“Oh, unique like our situation is unique in that you were able to go ten long years resisting a mating bond pull to me? Must’ve been hard for you, I bet, with all the supermodel werewolves crawling all over this place. And by hard, yeah, that’s a double-entendre ref to your dick.”

Wait a minute. I pulled her to a stop. Wrapping an arm around her waist, I teleported us to a private alcove in the garden closer to where we’d be meeting up with Avery.

“Are you jealous?”

“You know, a pre-poof warning, or maybe a poofing safeword, would be nice, Raul.”

“Answer my question, please.” I tilted her chin up in an effort to get her to look me in the eye. She refused, looking everywhere but my eyes. I couldn’t believe this. “Are you seriously feeling insecure about the fact that I waited so long to claim you? Is that what this is about?”

Yanking my fingers from her face, she took a step back, her blue eyes meeting my steady gaze.

“It’s not exactly flattering, Raul, to know that you were able to resist for a damn decade something that other werewolves can’t withstand for mere days. Hours even. Except for Wyatt, that is. And in his case, his ‘true mate’ was plotting to kill Avery and Sloane—even though she knew that Avery was one of Wyatt’s closest lifelong friends. Can you fucking believe that? So yeah … apparently it’s me and some murderous cuntbag who are holding down the exclusive minority title for the most ardently dodged werewolf mates ever.”

“Dodge you?” I didn’t know whether to kiss her or shake her. “Have you lost your mind?”

She paused a moment, as if considering it. “Yes, actually. I think I have. And no thanks to you.” She pursed her lips and made a study of the ground between our feet. “I just … don’t know why I’m here. You brought me here against my will. You said it was because you couldn’t bear to be without me a moment longer. But all you’ve done since is leave me with strangers.” Her narrowed eyes lifted. “And you’re so closed off to me. There are important things you aren’t telling me right now that I know involve me. Do you have any idea how fucked up that is? I’m a grown woman, Raul. It’s not right. It’s not normal to keep people you supposedly care about in the dark while making critical life decisions for them—like how to prevent them from blowing apart in the next forty-eight hours.”

“Raul!” I heard Sloane call out to me.

I turned to find Avery and Sloane swiftly approaching us. Sloane’s timid smile turned to stone as her gaze swept over Bethany, while Avery grinned and waved at us in greeting.

Bethany gasped. “Oh, my gosh, she’s beautiful, Raul.”

She stepped from the alcove and rushed right up to Sloane. Every muscle in my body jerked forward in reaction, and I had to hold myself back from stopping her.

Bending at the waist, she crouched down to Sloane’s eye level. “Wow,” she gushed. “Your eyes! I’ve never seen eyes that color before.” Bethy turned to me, then looked at Avery, her own eyes wide with awe and excitement. “Avery, your daughter is positively breathtaking. What a little stunner she is.”

“Sloane, this is Bethany,” I introduced, unable to stop myself from stepping forward and hovering in between the two of them. “Bethany, this is my friend Sloane—the amazingly talented young lady I was telling you about.”

“Hi, Sloane.” Bethany beamed at her. “It’s so good to meet you.” She offered Sloane her hand.

Sloane didn’t take it. Her expression had gone blank (on the surface) as she stared back at my innocent, unsuspecting mate. Beneath the surface, a mutiny was brewing. I could sense it. Her tone was flat as she looked up at me and asked matter-of-factly, “Where’d you find her? Can you send her back there now?”

I faked a chuckle, my eyes seeking Avery for assistance. Avery forced a laugh in return, looking distracted. This reassured me somewhat because it was a good bet she was telepathically calling in for backup: Alcaeus.

“Bethany is visiting from California,” I told Sloane. “She and I grew up in the same town together.”

“We knew each other when we were kids,” Bethany inserted with a warm smile at Sloane, withdrawing her outstretched hand. “Isn’t that cool? I knew Raul when I was your age.”

Sloane’s amethyst eyes flared, spearing me with a look of betrayal. “You played Frozen with her?” Her little chin wobbled.

Ah, shit.

“No,” I rushed to assure her. “Never. Bethy and I never played Frozen together. I promise.”

“Bethy?” Sloane repeated on a breath, her dismayed eyes beginning to glow.

“Omigosh, Frozen—of course!” Bethany exclaimed. “I knew I recognized your beautiful blue gown from somewhere. I love that movie. And Queen Elsa is my absolute favorite. You make a wonderful Queen Elsa, Sloa—”

“It’s Princess Elsa,” Sloane corrected her, her expression cold.

“Ah … okay. But by the end of the movie she’s a queen, right?” Bethany looked to me and Avery for confirmation.

Avery gave her a smile. “Yeah, we’re going with the princess designation lately. We think it’s cooler and fits Sloane better.”

“Elsa becomes queen after her parents die in the film,” Alcaeus’s booming bass carried through the garden courtyard as he entered it. “Sloane still has both of her parents,” he pointed out with a goofy grin and a wink in Avery and Sloane’s direction, his long strides bringing him to his mate’s side. “So we decided Princess Elsa fit Sloane better.”

Alcaeus had decided that. All on his own. Pretty sure he was afraid the film might give Sloane ideas about killing him at some point.

Bethany straightened and turned from Sloane to face Alcaeus at his approach. The welcoming smile on her lips abruptly faded when she saw him, though, her jaw going slack, her eyes crinkling with confusion and then widening with horror as a bloodcurdling scream climbed up her throat.

Birds shrieked and scattered from the treetops, and every werewolf within a three-mile radius probably cringed.

Too late, Bethy slapped her hand over her mouth.

“Wow, I am so, so sorry.” She tossed her head from side to side, giggling strangely and a little too hard as she tried to regain her composure amid her embarrassment. “I—I don’t know what came over me. It’s just that your face”—she flapped her hands at Alcaeus—“it’s … oh, crap, that came out so wrong.” Her eyes widened in apology at Avery next for using crass language in front of her child.

Avery gave her a stern look and shook her head. But she clearly wasn’t upset about Bethany’s reaction to Alcaeus or about her language in front of Sloane, because she scolded, “What did I tell you about apologizing, Bethy?”

Meanwhile, Sloane’s expression had gone from devastated to quietly delighted as she watched Bethany stumble through managing her mortification.

Bethany’s eyes cut to me next, shining with profound apology and confusion. She looked completely rattled. And still terrified. Of Alcaeus, of all incomprehensible things.

“You must think I’m crazy,” she said to Avery. “What an introduction, right?” she attempted to joke to Alcaeus, who looked at her strangely a moment before recovering and giving her a practiced smile.

“Nah,” he dismissed. “I get that reaction all the time.”

Avery couldn’t contain a snort behind her hand as she elbowed Alcaeus in the ribs.

And I couldn’t contain an eye-roll. I’d never understood what Avery saw in that old dork. But she was constantly finding his tired antics adorable. Hilarious even.

“You just remind me of … someone.” Bethany fluttered her hand and shook her head, still studying Alcaeus. Still looking terrified of him. “Or … not.” She tilted her head to the side. “We haven’t met before.” She squinted one eye. “Have we?”

“Mm.” Alcaeus pretended to consider it. “Possibly.” Not a lie. He gave her a cheeseball grin and shrugged it off. “People tell me I have one of those faces.”

“You mean like a male model?” Bethy proposed. “Yeah, you know what?” She nodded in agreement. “I was just thinking maybe that was it. That you remind me of a male model I’ve seen in magazines or billboard ads before.”

Avery snorted again, and I realized she was snickering at me this time—at my jaw that had just unhinged.

Bethany had to be fucking joking.

“Well, it’s true. I do get asked if I model quite a bit, as a matter of fact,” Alcaeus said with a self-satisfied grin while tugging sheepishly on the back of his neck—feigning modesty he had never in his lifetime possessed.

Of all the ridiculous—

“What’s a male model?” Sloane piped up to ask.

“It’s a guy who can’t get a real job,” I told her, “so he dresses up in different outfits all day like a Ken doll and posts an embarrassing amount of selfies online.”

“Raul,” Bethany chastised with an indignant laugh, punching me in the arm. “Don’t tell her that. Sloane, that isn’t true at all. It’s a perfectly respectable career for a man, the same way it is for a woman.”

“Could I be a model when I grow up?”

“No,” Alcaeus and I answered in unison.

At least we agreed on that.

“Wow.” Bethany shook her head at us both. “Protective much? Limiting much? Sloane can be anything she wants to be when she grows up. And she’s definitely gorgeous enough to be a model.” She bent at the waist and directed her words at Sloane. “I mean that. You are positively the most beautiful little girl I’ve ever seen. And I hope we get to spend—”

Kitsune’s excited yapping filled the courtyard as he bounded over to Sloane, who turned away from Bethy mid-conversation and knelt to gather the Akita in her slender arms.

“Good boy,” Sloane told him, hugging the orange furball close and rubbing her cheek against the top of his head.

“How did …” Bethany looked at once elated and confused. “That’s my—”

“Kitsune,” Sloane said. “My new puppy.”

I glared at Stephen, who had entered the courtyard a few paces behind the mutt. “You gave Bethany’s dog to Sloane?” I barked inside his head.

“Sloane will take better care of him,” he had the nerve to respond telepathically. “Hopefully.” He appended. “It’ll be a good test for her.”

Closing my eyes, I raked my fingers back and forth across the top of my scalp, grasping for composure as I scented Bethy’s mounting confusion and anxiety. By “test,” Stephen meant a test to see if Sloane would kill the puppy. Bethany’s puppy.

My mate was distressed enough already. She didn’t need this on top of everything else.

“Sloane,” I said, kneeling at her side and smiling into her violet eyes. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding. Kitsune is actually Bethany’s puppy. We brought him here for Bethy.” She stared blankly at me. “But I’d love to get you your own pet. How about I get you another Akita wolf puppy?”

Her eyes blinked once. Twice. “No. I’m keeping this one.”

“For real, Stephen?” Avery admonished. “That’s so low rent. Who gives away another person’s dog?”

“Bethany only got him a week ago,” Stephen argued in his defense. “She hasn’t even potty-trained him yet. Or attempted any form of training of him,” he said under his breath.

“Quit judging her,” I snapped, straightening upright. “Bethany works crazy long hours at the hospital.”

“That’s evident. Her dog ran straight to Sloane just now while ignoring her,” Stephen pointed out like it was the final damning evidence of Bethy’s failure as a pet owner. “We all saw it.”

I was on the verge of flattening him as I sensed Bethany’s embarrassment.

“Kitsune is my puppy,” Sloane announced quietly to no one in particular. “I’m keeping him.”

Alcaeus and Avery were the next ones to kneel down to talk to Sloane at eye level. They were trying to explain to her that she couldn’t just keep someone else’s pet, when Bethy jumped in with a shaky smile and offered sweetly, “You know what? We can share ownership of Kitsune while I’m here. How about that, Sloane?”

Sloane never uttered a word in response. But ten seconds later, the hem of Bethy’s sundress inexplicably burst into flames.

“What the hell happened back there?” I demanded of Alcaeus.

After we’d put Bethy’s dress fire out, Avery had teleported her to my bedroom in the mansion for a change of clothes, and I’d sent Stephen off with Sloane to play with Kitsune in the gardens, affording me space to talk with Alcaeus in private at last.

“Sharing is a difficult concept for an only child to—”

“Not that.” Idiot. “I’m talking about Bethany’s reaction to you.”

“Oh, yeah, that was a good sign. Seeing me must’ve triggered something for Bethany in her subconscious. I’d bet money her mind recalls everything that happened ten years ago the moment her emotional shield comes down.”

He gave me a ridiculous grin and whacked me harder than necessary on the back. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you didn’t do anything that you now regret—you know, during the time in which you helped psychopathic werelocks kidnap your unsuspecting mate and hold her life for ransom.”

“Nah.” I gave him my best imitation of his own exaggerated, mocking grin in return, whacking him so hard on the back his upper body lurched forward slightly. “Nothing too memorable.” I sniffed. “Nothing nearly as bad as what she’ll remember of you, anyhow.”

“Right?” He laughed. “It’s a damn good thing I’m not her mate, isn’t it? How long was it that you kidnapped her for again?”

Forty-six hours. I’d had forty-six wonderful, terrifying stolen hours in Argentina and Brazil with Bethany a decade ago.

“She wasn’t kidnapped, Alcaeus,” I reminded him.

Technically, Bethany had come willingly with me, Gabe, and Nuriel to Argentina. We’d taken her to the Salvatella compound in Puerto Iguazú, and that was where Bethy and I had stayed up all night talking and connecting. At the time, I’d made Gabe think I was doing it to help him figure out Bethany’s emotional shield.

That was the night when she’d confided in me about her parents’ relationship. And I had confided in her the truth about Miles and me being full-blooded siblings rather than half—as Bethy had always known us to be growing up. I’d told her about Aunt Cely being my aunt and not my real mother, which had prompted Bethy to ask me questions about Mom and how she’d died. And I’d somehow ended up word-vomiting to her like there was no tomorrow, confessing things to Bethy about my mom and my childhood that I had never shared with anyone before. And hadn’t since.

But then we’d taken Bethy to the Reinoso compound in São Paulo for the “surprise party” for Miles that she’d been led to believe was the reason for her trip abroad, and everything had quickly gone to hell. She’d discovered in brutal fashion that we were all killer monsters—and that I was a liar who had set out to kidnap her.

Alcaeus and I had been on opposite sides back then, and he’d lost his shit and had gone on a massive killing spree that day—right in front of Bethany. In fact, it had taken three of the most powerful werelocks in existence just to stop Alcaeus from killing me.

It seemed entirely plausible that seeing Alcaeus again had triggered dormant, suppressed memories in Bethy of the gruesome dining hall confrontation between the Reinoso and the Salvatella packs that she’d witnessed years ago.

“Oh, that’s right,” Alcaeus said. “I forgot. You guys charmed Bethany into going to Argentina. But you compelled her mom in order to get her to go along with it. I do remember that. Because Alex had Remy go back and alter Bethany’s parents’ memories for the time period that Bethany was away. And you would’ve compelled Bethany if she hadn’t had a shield already,” he reminded me. “These’ll be fun stories to tell your kids and grandkids someday.”

I gave Alcaeus a hard look, unwilling to dignify his remark with a reply. Instead, I asked, “How much do you know about the emotional shield Remy placed on Bethy?”

“Well, I know that in order for Remy to have placed such a solid emotional shield, Bethany had to have trusted him. She had to have opened up to him quite a bit and shared things that were very personal to her—stuff she keeps close to the vest.” He smiled and added, “Private feelings and memories she doesn’t share with just anyone.” Rubbing the salt in my wound.

“I think I understand the basic concept of an emotional shield,” I said flatly. And I didn’t appreciate the reminder that my mate had apparently shared more with Remy than she had with me.

Alcaeus continued, “Remy does this emotional mapping thing where he takes the most poignant, private memories and the feelings attached to them, and he weaves them into the mind shield so that they become locks essentially.” His face twisted. “Or maybe trigger points. I don’t really know the full mechanics involved.”

He was no help at all. “But it’s usually just one key, central memory that connects it all, right? Locking it together?”

“In theory.” He shrugged.

“Theory? We’re way past fucking theory at this point, Alcaeus. You wanna try a little harder to help me with this? Bethy could start the transformation the day after tomorrow, according to Rafe.”

“That’s a day or two too soon.”

“Tell me about it. That’s what I told him.”

“Although, you did bite her a dozen times.”

“It was ten.”

He chuckled. “Guess that leaves you no choice but to do something completely radical—like communicate with your mate and find out what her feelings are on things.”

“You think I haven’t tried? Could you stop assuming I’m your brother Alex for once and take this seriously? My mate’s life is on the line.”

“Raul, we can place one phone call to Alex and Milena to fix this.”

Not an option. “There’s no fucking way they’ll willingly lift Bethy’s shield.”

“Of course not. And they’ll demand that you turn Bethany over to them, too. But at least she’ll be safe because Remy can allow any one of them access to control her shift. You’re making this a life-or-death situation it doesn’t need to be simply because your ego can’t handle the thought of turning Bethany over to your sister—Bethany’s best friend,” he emphasized. “When you know Milena would guard Bethany’s life with her own.

“Given all the bad shit Bethany’s going to remember about you shortly, it might be in your best interest to turn her over to them. At the very least you could feign giving her some semblance of a choice in your mating bond connection that you already took away from her.”

What a crock coming from a guy who had waited all of about a minute after meeting his true mate, Avery, to get his dick in her—in a public restroom, no less. For someone with so little self-restraint, he sure didn’t give me any credit or sympathy for the pain I’d suffered for my mate situation. “I stayed away for ten years to give Bethy a choice!” I reminded him—and everyone else within earshot in the gardens.

He cast a raised know-it-all brow. “And your wolf bit her for every year he missed out on.”