Alcaeus
After Raul hung up on me, I immediately dialed Lessa. She answered on the first ring.
“Bad news,” I told her. “Raul has Wyatt.” There was no time to mince words.
I moved the phone away from my ear as screams of profanity and crashing noises sounded from the other end of the line. Finally, she regained her composure enough to snarl, “What does that bastard want?”
“He wants an agreement from our pack that we’ll back off from hunting the Rogue and from petitioning other packs to hunt it.”
“That conniving sonofa—”
“Just listen, Lessa. He wants an agreement from Milena that Wyatt’s friend—Avery, the Rogue’s mother—and her daughter, Sloane, are off-limits.” I cleared my throat and went for it. “Which, by the way, kinda works out well for me. Because um … since I last saw you, I’ve mated with the Rogue’s mom, Avery. We’re marked and everything. It’s a done deal. She’s really amazing, and you’re totally going to get along with her way better than you do Milena—I promise.”
There was dead silence on the line.
“Lessa? Are you still there?” She didn’t answer, but I continued anyway. “So we’re getting married, and I’m adopting her daughter, Sloane. I know she’s supposedly the Rogue and all, but c’mon, how much harder could it be to raise the Rogue than it was for us to raise Alex?”
When she finally answered, based on her numb, shell-shocked reaction to the multiple bombs I’d just dropped on her at once, I couldn’t tell whether or not Lessa believed me that Avery was my true mate. But ultimately, it really didn’t matter. The fact that Raul was holding Wyatt hostage was enough to get my sister on board with the plan of protecting Avery and Sloane and backing me up when I went to break the news to Alex and Milena about everything.
I reasoned to her that this all worked in her favor as well—assuming things went as planned and we recovered Wyatt safely. Lessa had been anxious about how Wyatt would handle her betrayal when he inevitably found out that she had used him to try and set up Avery and capture Sloane. But if she switched to team protect-the-Rogue now, then at least she could try and spin it to Wyatt that she’d betrayed him because she was trying to capture Sloane in order to protect her, not kill her.
She balked that it was a ludicrous spin, but really, why not? Based on what she’d told me about the level of tinkering she’d already been up to in Wyatt’s head, the guy didn’t sound all that astute.
I returned to my bedroom to find Avery still completely naked, sitting at my writing desk. I knew it was a visual that would stay with me and that I’d probably never again be able to get any work done at that desk.
She’d just finished up whatever she’d been doing on my computer and was taking measures to erase her recent activity as I stepped up behind her, placing my hands on her shoulders. I bent my head to kiss the mark I’d made last night on her neck.
“Sorry that took so long.”
“Hmm?” she responded distractedly, intent on her task.
I didn’t know how I was going to break the news to her about Wyatt. And I still needed more information from her about how she’d survived the rogue attack and her initial transformation before I could present the facts to Milena and Alex.
Maybe I could just tell her about Wyatt after we recovered him safely?
“Do these hurt?” I asked without thinking as my fingertips traced the scars on her upper back. “I mean bother—do they bother you?” I amended awkwardly. Personally, I was anxious to remove them—to heal them permanently with my magic—but I didn’t know how to present the option to her in a way that wouldn’t offend her. “You know, as a reminder of … stuff.”
Stuff that she hadn’t shared with me when I’d asked her about her scars in the shower, and then again in the bathtub last night.
She chuckled softly to herself and shook her head as she powered off the laptop. “Nope. Do they bother you?” she countered, before amending in a wry tone, “I mean hurt—do they hurt you? You know, as a reminder of stuff you weren’t around to save me from?”
As she pushed away from my writing desk, I backed up to allow her space. I was still trying to process what she’d just said as she stood and turned to face me. I couldn’t read her expression. And I couldn’t sense her emotions well enough in that moment to know whether I’d upset or insulted her.
She sighed. “Chaos, the scars”—she shook her head—“you’re going to have to get over them.”
“Over them? I don’t even know how you got them yet. How am I supposed to get over them?”
“Because they’re not relevant. These scars on me … they’re like stamps in an old, expired passport book. They only hint at the places I’ve been before. They don’t tell the story of what those places made of me—of the things that I learned along the way. They can’t tell you where I am today, or where I might be going next. They’re simply not relevant anymore.”
“Then why can’t you tell me about how you got them?”
“Because there are better things for us to talk about,” she said with a shrug. “More important things—like the things about me that matter now.” She reached up and cupped my cheek. “You don’t need to know the details of all the bad things that have happened in my past to know who I am. Who I am is right in front of you. The things that happen to us in life—that’s just circumstance. What we make of them … that’s who we are.”
She dropped her hand, making a “pfft” sound. “Hellfire, if you don’t know that yet after four centuries, then I don’t know what you’ve been doing for all this time.”
She crossed to my closet, disappearing inside.
“Of course I know that,” I said defensively.
I followed her and found her rifling through my clothes.
Wait—was she upset or not upset? She didn’t smell upset, but I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t figure it out. And I couldn’t stop staring at her ass.
“I need something to wear,” she muttered as she searched.
She didn’t sound upset.
“Are you going to help me by conjuring women’s clothing for me, or do I have to try and find something of yours that I can make fit?”
I preferred to keep her naked for as long as possible. Was that an option? I was still naked. Why did she need to be dressed?
I avoided the clothing question altogether and asked, “You’re not upset?”
She giggled. “No. But I can tell already that your hero complex is going to get on my last nerve if you don’t get it under control soon.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “This isn’t about a hero complex. I need to know things about you, Avery. I’m just trying to get to know you better. If I’m going to be able to convince my brother and Milena that Sloane isn’t the threat that they believe she is, then I need to know some basic things about you both—and that includes your past.”
“Okay, fine,” she relented. “I get it. So ask me something more relevant to now. To Sloane.”
Wow, sometimes I impressed myself with my ability to pivot and spin shit. I took a deep breath and went in for the big ones.
“Well, you still haven’t fully explained to me how you survived a rogue attack or your initial transformation.” I held my hand up to halt her when she opened her mouth to deny it. “I know you said you got lucky, but Alex and Milena will definitely ask about both, and they won’t believe that no werelock helped you or that it was luck.”
She pursed her lips and remained silent.
So I asked the question I least wanted to hear an answer to next. “And I need to know the identity of Sloane’s birth father. Was it your fiancé who was killed by the rogue?”
Please say yes. Please say yes.
She shook her head. “No.”
Fuck. Breathe. Don’t look upset.
After hearing the information Remy had gathered from the North Carolina pack on Avery’s “Holly Bishop Carmichael” identity, Kai had been convinced, based on Sloane’s date of birth, that Avery had been raped and impregnated by the rogue werewolf who had attacked her.
“So … Kai thinks that … well, he says that based on the birthdate the North Carolina pack gave us for Sloane, your date of conception would likely be …” I paused to swallow. I had been mentally preparing myself for this ever since I’d first heard about Holly Bishop Carmichael. It was best to just push it out and get it over with. “He thinks you were raped and impregnated by the rogue who attacked you.”
Proud brown eyes met mine directly, daring me to show pity, as she nodded and replied simply, “Yep. That’d be right.”
Fuck.
Breathe.
Think before you talk and react.
Damnit to hell, what exactly was a fucking hero complex anyway? What could I say to her now that wouldn’t sound like whatever that complex was that she kept accusing me of? Shit. It was all such confusing, uncharted territory I was attempting—when all I wanted to do was go out and kill something right now.
I’d been staring at her for too long without saying anything. I had to say something. I decided to just be myself and handle it how I normally would, while making a mental note to ask Remy what a hero complex was the next time we spoke.
“Avery, I’m really sorry that happened to you. And I just want you to know that you don’t have to act so tough about everything all the time. It’s okay to be vulnerable with me—”
“Wrong.” She held up a silencing palm.
Gah! Fuck. I’d blown it right out of the gates!
“You’re still not hearing me, Chaos. This has nothing to do with being tough. What I’m doing is giving that incident the emotional significance and space within the story of my life that it deserves. That’s the difference between being a victim while being victimized, and playing the role of a victim in perpetuity.” She planted her hands on her hips. “I’m sorry if your previous rescue cases never grasped that distinction, but I’m not interested in having you try and use my pain to make your dick feel bigger, so get over it.”
I was catching serious flies now. It occurred to me that I probably should’ve been offended by what she was saying to me. I was pretty sure she’d just called me out for being some kind of dinosaur chauvinist.
But my dick—the dinosaur chauvinist that he was—didn’t get that memo, because he was standing straight up at attention now, looking for the fastest route to getting himself buried between her shapely, naked thighs again.
I took a step forward, planting a concerned expression on my face as I reminded myself not to glance down at her breasts that were jiggling in my peripheral vision when she was lecturing me like this.
She continued, “That rogue attack: circumstance. The daughter I have as a result of that rogue attack—that’s the story of who I am. Today. You want to see me vulnerable? Talk to me about my child. Don’t talk to me about something that happened nearly ten years ago that amounted to a blip of time in the grand scheme of my life.”
I nodded and took another step. “You’re right.” Those two words had always worked with my sister whenever she was upset and lecturing me about something.
Avery’s eyes narrowed. “What am I right about?”
Damn.
If I went with “everything,” she’d know that I was full of shit and think I hadn’t been listening to her at all. The truth was I had been listening. But I could only remain so focused when she was naked and acting all badass like she was right now when all my blood was in my cock.
“You’re right that I’m a dinosaur chauvinist from the seventeenth century who has spent several centuries um … rescuing … too many damsels.”
Her brows went up.
Score. I totally had this. “But I think I can change that. With time and … hero complex … therapy.”
I winced as the last words left my mouth, knowing I’d taken it too far.
She bit her twitching lip, confirming it.
Yeah. Too far. Her shoulders were shaking with laughter now.
I’d get better at this.