Alcaeus
“Who are Elsa and Anna?” I whispered to Avery as she passed me where I stood just within the doorway of Sloane’s bedroom. “Are they friends of hers that she plays with?”
I’d heard Sloane mention the names a few times amid her internal dialogue.
Avery gave me a restrained version of her “what the fuck” face and covertly shook her head, before walking farther into the room to set a tray carrying a glass of milk and a grilled cheese sandwich down on the floor about four feet from where Sloane was growling and arguing with herself.
I’d lost track of time standing in the doorway of the decimated bedroom, observing little Sloane growl and make humming noises. While she displayed some classic rogue-like characteristics, there was nothing common about her. At times she seemed overly refined, highly intelligent, wise beyond her years. Other times she came across as feral and demented. Any way I looked at it, the girl had the makings of a supernatural savant. She was clearly a genius and very special.
And she was going to be a werelock powerhouse to be reckoned with when she hit puberty in a few short years and shifted for the first time.
Sloane seemed to spend most of her time having conversations—or arguments—with herself as well as with … others. Who the “others” were remained the question. Sometimes she seemed to have control over the forces at play in her mind, and other times, those forces seemed to control her.
I wanted to believe that they were outside of her, but in talking with Azda, who had perhaps spent the most time alone with Sloane, I had a feeling the old woman’s intuition was right in that the greater darkness was within Sloane. It was a part of her and not something that could ever be separated.
The repetitive things the little girl said—whenever she did connect with the people around her—were disturbing. She talked about dying a lot in general. Of dying, of trying to stay dead, and of how she wasn’t supposed to have been born. It was a recurring theme with her. She also told me that she could only do bad things in the world—that the “voices” told her so.
None of this behavior made her an easy case to plead to Alex and Milena. Neither did the fact that Sloane possessed no scent. None whatsoever.
But for the times when Sloane didn’t look as if her head might start spinning in 360-degree rotations atop her shoulders, she was an exceptionally adorable child. A precocious little beauty who resembled her mother. Except for her eyes—which were a vibrant shade of violet.
Avery took hold of my arm and walked me out into the hallway before whispering in my ear, “She doesn’t have friends, Chaos. Elsa and Anna are from the animated Disney movie, Frozen. Her favorite. It’s the only movie she’ll watch.”
I nodded, my chest tightening at Avery’s confirmation of what should have been apparent: of course little Sloane didn’t have any friends to play with.
“Sorry,” I told Avery, wrapping my arms around her. “I should’ve realized.”
She smiled and shook her head. “You’re doing great.”
“Eh, I’m a little rusty, but I’ll catch on.”
As soon as I settled things with Alex and Milena, I was going to watch that Disney flick. And then I’d find lots of werelock kids to be friends with Sloane.
“Hey, know what I was thinking?” I pressed a kiss to Avery’s forehead. “I was thinking I’d throw Sloane another ninth birthday party to make up for the one I missed out on last month.” Her eyes widened. “We can rent a bunch of those big bounce houses and some giant trampolines and invite all the—”
“Whoa. Too much—too soon,” Avery said, looking at me like I was nuts. “She doesn’t like to be around very many people.”
“Okay, what if we go with just two bounce houses and limit the guest list to—”
“Chaos, she’s the Rogue,” Avery interjected quietly. “She does connect somewhat, but it’s relative, and it takes time. It’s not in the way that people expect. I know you mean well, but you’re going to need to be patient with her.”
I nodded and gave her an apologetic smile. “Right. Sorry. I tend to get carried away when I get excited about stuff.”
She stared at me, her expression unreadable. Assessing. “You’re really not freaked?” she asked. “I mean, because her behavior is so … different? And the fact that she can start fires with—”
“Are you kidding me? Nah. I told you last night I raised my little half-brother, Alex. He burned my house down five times. This is nothing. Sloane is a sweetheart compared to how Alex was as a kid.”
“Really?” Her brown doe eyes were bright with unshed tears. “You really mean it? You think her behavior’s not so far off the normal range that we’ll be able to convince your family?”
“Of course we’ll convince them,” I told her with confidence. “Look, as seriously as Milena takes the Rogue prophecy and her role as Alpha, my sister-in-law is a born softie—the sweetest, most kind-hearted soul you’ll ever meet. She’s all about fairness and doing the right thing, protecting the weak and subjugated—you know, all the classic do-gooder stuff. I mean, she does get a little self-righteous and hall-monitor-ish at times, but eh … our pack needed a little more of that. My brother Alex definitely needed it to balance him out.”
Avery still looked skeptical.
“Honey, Sloane’s just a child,” I stressed. A beautiful, gifted child. Who could possibly dislike her? Besides, we were expecting the Rogue to be an adult. I think every pack was. No one is prepared to exterminate a child Rogue, trust me—least of all Milena. And even if my pack were so inclined, they can’t, because it’s against our Reinoso pack law to persecute minors. Believe me, there’s no way Milena would ever harm your—our—daughter.”
I’d just gotten Avery’s scent and heart rate calmed when a blood-curdling scream came from Sloane in her bedroom.
Avery yanked my arm to hold me back when I made to bolt into Sloane’s bedroom. “No. Stay outside the door,” she directed. “She doesn’t like anyone to touch her or get too close when she’s upset,” she explained before rushing into the room herself.
Avery stopped and dropped to her knees when she was about five feet from her daughter.
She began talking to Sloane, keeping her voice level and calm despite the shrill, piercing wails that continued to flow from her child.
Regardless of Avery’s warning, I took a step forward into the room, listening with a heavy heart as my mate said things to try and soothe her distraught daughter—while Sloane shook her head rapidly from side to side.
If anything, Sloane might’ve been screaming louder now. It was hard to tell with the way my eardrums were ringing. Yet it didn’t seem to phase Avery.
Jesus. Was this their normal routine? How often did this happen?
I felt powerless as I stood there watching them—not being able to help. Not knowing how to help. I’d never felt so mortal before.
I took another two steps into the room, just as Sloane finally stopped wailing, and I caught the sound of muffled voices coming from behind me down the hallway.
I heard Azda saying, “You can’t go back there,” as I felt Kai’s presence approaching, and I realized that in my intense study of Sloane, I’d forgotten how long I’d been inside Avery’s house—how long Kai had been waiting for us outside.
“What the devil is going on in here, Al? Is everything okay?”
No sooner had the words left Kai’s mouth as he entered the room than Sloane screamed bloody murder again, and Kai was suddenly set on fire—his whole being flaming like a torch from head to toe.
Avery’s screams joined Sloane’s as she saw it.
Kai shouted obscenities, using his magic to put out the fireball that was encompassing him.
“Good God!” Remy’s unexpected voice exclaimed from behind me, just as Azda rushed forward into the room and doused Kai with a fire extinguisher, coating his now-half-naked, disheveled, but otherwise unharmed body in frothy white foam.
“Damnit, stop that,” Kai ordered Azda. “It’s out. Stop. I don’t require your assistance.”
“What are you doing in here, Kai?” I demanded, then turned to my stepbrother. “Remy? Why the hell are you here? How’d you get here?”
“Kai … brought me,” Remy answered distractedly, his eyes on Sloane where she huddled in the corner. She’d ceased screaming again and was now hum-talk-arguing with herself. “Oh, my God,” he murmured. “Those eyes … they’re … she’s …”
“Adorable.” I finished for him. “She’s fucking adorable, and that’s final.”
“Language, Chaos,” Avery scolded, her head snapping up from where she was crouched on the floor no more than three feet from Sloane now, attempting to get the little girl to engage with her.
“Sorry,” I apologized to Avery, before turning back to Kai and Remy. “Get out of here. Both of you. You’ve caused enough damage.”
“We have?” Kai’s harassed expression turned incredulous. “I just walked into a room and was literally lit on fire simply for asking if everything was okay.”
“Because you startled her,” I accused.
“I did no such thing,” he rebuffed. “Al, you’ve let this mating bond with that woman warp your mind. You’ve completely lost touch with reality. That child isn’t right. She’s not normal. Remy and I are fairly certain she’s the Rogue, Al. We have to bring Milena and Alex into this.”
“If she’s the Rogue, then every seer was wrong about the Rogue, because this child—my child—is perfect. And she can connect. Quit looking at her like that,” I reprimanded when Kai and Remy continued to stare from me to Sloane, aghast. “What is wrong with everyone? She’s just a child! An adorable, precocious little girl who relates to the world a bit differently than other kids.”
Remy shook his head, glancing around the destroyed room. “I’d argue it’s a bit more complicated than that. The darkness craves her, Al. I can feel it. Sense it. Can’t you guys feel that?” He looked from me to Kai, his eyes anxious.
“I feel it,” Azda piped up, nodding and raising her hand in the air from where she was crouched next to Avery’s side now, close to Sloane. “All day, every day,” she said with a sigh.
“Afternoon,” Remy greeted with an awkward smile and a little wave in her direction. He turned to me and continued, “The darkness … it’s like it runs to her—flows to and from her. It seeks her. As if it wants her to embrace it—to lead it. My God, this is just like—” His eyes cut to Kai, then to Sloane. “It’s exactly like it was with …” He looked at Kai again, then me, before frowning and looking back to Sloane. “Maribel.”
“What?” Kai balked, his eyes suddenly feral and fuming. “Have you gone mad? How dare you compare this unfortunate … creature to—to my mate—to my Maribel?”
“Yeah, Remy,” I rushed to attack him as well. “How dare you compare my perfectly beautiful little daughter to that warped and demented murdering psycho”—I swiveled my head to shout the last words at Kai—“who drained the life force from the living and consumed souls in the name of true love?”
Remy held his hands up, recoiling, as Avery joined in and yelled, “Ew, hell no—take that back! My daughter is her own person. She’s a child—a child with a clean slate and her whole life in front of her. Don’t you dare try to saddle her with the sins of some creepy dead soul’s baggage.”
“Exactly,” I chimed in. “What she said.”
“And furthermore,” Avery lectured, “even if by some bizarre metaphysical possibility she were the reincarnation of someone who’d walked this earth before, let me assure you that no daughter of mine would ever be desperate enough to get paired with mister constipation fucking personified over there.” She jutted her chin at Kai.
“Language, Avery,” I reminded her.
“Fine, fine.” Remy threw his hands up with an angry huff. “It was a wild theory. An intuition that struck me when I walked in and first saw her based on the energy flow I felt surrounding her and fact that Sloane’s eyes are exactly the same remarkable shade as our Maribel’s were. Never mind the fact that Sloane’s conception date was shortly after the time that Maribel’s soul supposedly finally, finally departed from the ether at long last—carrying a beast of a revenge-greedy, defective blood curse with her.”
Remy shrugged dramatically. “But what the fuck do I know? It’s not like I guess these things right every goddamn time before everyone else and yet no one ever seems to remember or give me credit for anything.”
“Language,” I snapped at him. “Watch your language around my daughter, Remy. And don’t try and turn this around and make it somehow all about you and your Jan Brady complex like you always do. We don’t have time for that.”
“This Maribel person,” Azda asked, looking in Remy’s general direction, “did she kill off all the seers ten years ago?”
“Yes,” Remy answered. “She did.”
Azda nodded. “I think the good-looking werelock’s theory is sound: Sloane may be this Maribel.”
“She is not,” Kai vehemently denied. “It’s preposterous; an utter disgrace to Maribel’s memory to dare compare the two.”
Avery and I chimed in, supporting Kai’s denial of Sloane being the reincarnated Maribel.
Remy ignored us, sighing as he turned to Azda. He gave her a polite smile and said, “Thank you, dear lady. And thank you for the compliment as well.”
“Her name’s Azda,” Avery told him flatly. “And she’s legally blind, just so you know.”
Remy’s brows shot up. “Ah, well, then,” he said with a dry, humorless chuckle. “Your mate’s a peach, Al. My congratulations to you both. Please do let me know when you’re bringing your new family to Morumbi so that Jussara and I can have enough fire extinguishers at the ready throughout—”
Kai noisily cleared his throat, cutting Remy’s irritated rant short just a few spoken words too late.
“What did you just say?” I asked, my blood igniting in anger. I knew there’d been something going on between Jussara and Remy.
Remy’s eyes widened a fraction in alarm, but he quickly recovered enough to mask his horror over his own careless revelation. But not his scent.
“Throughout the compound,” he fibbed. “Jussara and I—we’re in charge of fire safety for the whole place now. It’s a thing Milena started. She set up fire preparedness … teams.”
Kai pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head at the ceiling as Remy continued.
“We’re on … rotation. Fire safety team rotation. We do weekly fire drills and everything …”
“For God’s sake,” Kai exploded. “You and Jussara aren’t doing anything wrong, Remy. You’re both consenting adults who don’t need Al’s permission. For the record, I don’t approve of you and Jussara, and I never will. But it’s none of my business. What is my business is Al’s relationship to the mother of the Rogue—an aberration of nature prophesied to destroy us all.”
It took all my self-control not to change into my wolf and attack them both. “How long have you been sleeping with Jussara?” I demanded of Remy.
Kai growled—loud and long—silencing the room before telling me, “Remy and Jussara’s relationship is not up for discussion right now. Neither is the fact that we are turning this Rogue situation over to Milena, Al. You are not of sound mind at present. You’ve lost all perspective regarding this mission.”
“I am still in charge here,” I growled in his face, even as realization hit: Kai had already betrayed me to Milena. That’s why Remy was here. “What the hell have you done, Kai?”
“I had to report the Vasile pack ambush to Milena, Al. And I had to report this situation with the Rogue as well. Milena’s been worried about you for some time. Worried that you were losing focus on the mission and going off the rails in your grief over Lupe.” His features were as hard as his voice, his wolf eyes glowing, as he stood his ground—against me. “I won’t apologize for doing the right thing. For protecting the greater good—the good of our pack, not to mention the future of our race as well as the human race. I chose to make the responsible choices that you have refused to make, again and again.”
My first reaction was blind fury over Kai’s betrayal. But it lasted only a fraction of a second as I scented Avery’s fear—so sharp and pungent I felt as if I had been stabbed through the heart—not only in the back—by my best friend and Beta.
I had to get Avery and Sloane somewhere safe while I worked this situation out with Milena.
Never until this moment in my life had I felt so vulnerable and resentful of the fact that I couldn’t teleport. I forced my emotions under control and asked with a calm that I was nowhere close to feeling, “What have you told Milena?”
Kai exhaled. “Everything.”
I nodded. “You’re dead to me.”
“Al, you’re not thinking—”
Before I could even process what I was doing, I’d already grabbed Kai by his shredded, burnt clothing and thrown him from Sloane’s room, clear down the hallway.
Sloane started screaming again. Avery and Azda did, too. I realized that the hallway had caught on fire, as well as most of Sloane’s room, and I moved quickly to help Remy, who was trying to put it all out and keep the flames from Azda and Avery.
Amid the mayhem of Sloane’s wailing and of fires blazing to life right and left throughout the house, four Salvatella werelocks teleported into the hallway outside of Sloane’s bedroom, along with the lead Beta who had brought them.
“I told you not to fuck this up, Alcaeus,” Raul said to me as he waltzed right into the bedroom and crouched down beside Sloane.
When I moved to stop him, he blasted me aside. Then he did the unthinkable—the impossible: he picked little Sloane up.
Not only did Sloane let him do it; she immediately stopped screaming. And all the fires around us went out.