Alcaeus
Avery’s brown eyes blinked open suddenly. Her confused gaze shifted restlessly from me to Sloane to Raul and back to me.
“Shit. Did I die again? How long was I out?”
I laughed through the tears clouding my sight, thanking fate and every ancestor I could remember, along with every deity I’d ever considered worshipping, as I told her, “Yes. You did. Don’t ever do that again, please.”
I bent my head and crushed my mouth to hers. She kissed me back this time, her warm, full lips matching the passion and urgency of my own as I squeezed her living, breathing body to me so tightly it felt like I could merge us as one.
Her slender arms squeezed me back; her fingers slid through my hair and her nails scratched against my scalp, and I had never felt so alive, so strong and full of purpose before in my four hundred and nineteen years of life.
I felt like I could do anything; overcome any challenge or obstacle that came my way. As long as I had this unbelievably courageous, tenacious woman who smelled of petrichor at my side, I’d never lack for anything again. She was all I ever wanted. All I needed for the rest of my life.
When our lips eventually parted, she said, “I feel like I could fly.”
“I know the feeling.”
“Sloane brought me back to life again?” she asked.
I nodded. Swallowed. “I’m sorry I got here too late. I’m so sorry I couldn’t save—”
She placed a silencing forefinger over my lips. The corner of her mouth hitched. “I’m not. Never been one of those little girls who dreamed of a man coming to her rescue. Let’s let Sloane flex her hero complex for a little bit.”
I nodded.
“Damn, I feel really great,” she announced, her rich brown eyes bright, shining with love and life as she sat upright in my lap to face the audience of shell-shocked werelocks surrounding us. “Crazy alive. Like I drank Molly mixed with my coffee this morning.”
Raul busted out laughing. I looked up to find him wiping a tear from his eye. “Damn, woman. You really don’t know when to quit, do you?” He extended his fist, and Avery bumped it with hers.
“Never did. Thanks for having my back, surfer boy.”
“Aw, come on, you.” Raul swooped down and plucked Avery up out of my arms before I’d guessed his intentions.
How could I have? Who the fuck was idiot enough to grab someone’s mate from his arms after that mate had just died and come back to life again? Only Raul Morales, that’s who. I rolled my eyes and resisted the compulsion to punch him as he hugged Avery tight and twirled her in a circle off the ground while she squealed with laughter.
“Hey.” I scooted closer to Sloane, who was watching Raul twirl Avery. “What do you say? Wanna try it? You and me?”
She shook her head, not looking at me.
“How about just a hug?”
She shook her head again.
“Okay, how about a handshake?”
“No.”
“Secret pinky shake?”
Her little brow wrinkled, and her gaze shifted to me. “What’s that?”
I held my pinky up. “It’s where you just link pinky fingers and shake on something instead of using your whole hand.”
“I’ll think about it,” she told me after a beat.
Avery rushed back over and dropped to her knees in front of us.
“You died,” Sloane told her plainly. “I told you that you would.”
Avery nodded. “You did. You were right.”
“I couldn’t stop it. Just like in my dreams. I knew it would happen.”
Tears flooded Avery’s eyes as she nodded. “It’s okay, baby.” She reached a tentative hand out and brushed her fingertips against Sloane’s cheek. “You brought me back to life again.” Her tears flowed freely as she said, “Thank you.”
Lessa crouched beside me, throwing her arms around my neck and sobbing. “She’s Maribel. Oh, my God, she’s Maribel come back to life. She’s come back to us, Al!”
“I told you guys she was Maribel!” Remy’s annoyed voice exclaimed as everyone began to crowd around.
“When did you say that, Remy?” Alex refuted. “You never said that.”
I assessed each of their reactions as they expressed joy and relief at my life being saved, and shock and confusion over the Maribel 2.0 development, and I reflected on what we were going to do next—on where Avery, Sloane, and I would go from here.
Where would we be safest now that Sloane had been identified as both the Rogue and the reincarnation of Maribel?
Representatives from multiple packs had just witnessed little Sloane incinerate a powerful Alpha from the inside—witnessed her steal the life force and werelock powers from him and transfer them to her mother. They had seen a child Rogue who hadn’t even shifted for the first time literally raise the dead. In truth, I saw now that most of them appeared to be trying to hide how terrified they were of the small girl next to me.
They were smart to be terrified. And they were quickly scrambling to switch sides. Because who in their right mind would openly vote against a child with the ability to suck the werelock powers right out of you? Already the Alsace pack representative was singing a different tune to Alex, as I overheard him change his position and state that his pack was now in favor of protecting the Rogue.
Word would spread fast of this throughout the supernatural community. That much was certain. Sloane—Maribel 2.0—had changed the rules of our world. Again.
I noted that Milena looked deeply troubled as she observed Sloane with her mother. She also kept casting concerned glances at Kai, who was standing at her side.
I had avoided looking at Kai before, but as I did so now, I saw that he appeared more than troubled. He looked lost. Confused. Shattered.
I could tell that he was in denial of what he’d witnessed—overthinking things as he always did. He stared at Sloane, rubbing his chest, muttering to Milena that Sloane couldn’t be Maribel, that he didn’t feel anything, that there was no way she could be his departed mate come back to life—because he felt no connection to her.
Well, thank fuck for that mating bond being severed. Because as much as the idea of Remy and Jussara shacking up had disgusted and infuriated me, that was nothing compared to how I felt about the notion of my daughter Sloane ever being mated to Kai.
“Sloane, you were amazing,” Raul told her.
“I did what Queen Elsa would do,” Sloane said with a shrug.
Raul laughed and said, “You sure did,” making me feel even more left out of their inside joke.
I needed to watch that movie right away.
“I want to go now,” Sloane said to Raul, rather than to her mother or me.
As Avery and I shared a look, I knew where we were going next had already been decided for us. Sloane trusted Raul. Avery did too. It would take a lot longer—hopefully not more than a few centuries—for me to trust Raul, of course, but I was willing to give it a go. I’d go anywhere Avery wanted to. Join whatever pack she wanted to be a part of.
Avery turned to Raul and asked, “Got room for three more in your crew?”
He beamed. “Now more than ever.”
With Gabriel gone, Raul was now the Alpha of the Salvatella pack. I knew that the Salvatella pack was not going to embrace me with open arms, given the history of bad blood between our packs. But with Raul in charge and Sloane in our corner, we weren’t giving them a choice.
And while I suspected this coup was something that Raul had been plotting and campaigning for all along ever since he’d joined the enemy pack of his ancestors, he would still need help with the transition. A whole fucking lot of it, most likely.
Internally, I rolled my eyes as I got to my feet and wrapped my arms around Avery. We had our work cut out for us with two dangerous kids to parent now.
Best to negotiate my terms at the outset.
“We’ll join your pack, but with conditions, Raul,” I told him. “The first is that you return Wyatt safely to Alessandra. Immediately. We’re not going anywhere until I see Lessa reunited with her mate.”
At my proclamation, everyone around me began talking all at once as my family flipped out over the announcement that I was joining the ranks of the Salvatella pack—our longtime enemy. Meanwhile, Avery struggled to digest the revelation that my sister and Avery’s best friend, Wyatt, were fated mates, as well as the revelation that Raul had kidnapped and used Wyatt’s life as collateral with my family to bargain for hers and Sloane’s.
Then Raul dropped another bomb: Wyatt had been infected with werewolf venom—allegedly at Wyatt’s request—and would soon be joining the ranks of the Salvatella pack as well.
To his credit, Raul took it in stride when Avery delivered a punch to his face that sent him flying forty-some feet when she inadvertently put magic behind it—unaware as she was of her new werelock capabilities.
Yep, my mate was badass. Together, we could handle parenting our new Alpha.
But when Lessa declared that she was joining the Salvatella pack as well, and Raul flat out refused to accept her, I was the one who stepped up, ready to sock him.
“Just hear me out,” Raul appealed. “I am not an Alpha without compassion, as you well know,” he professed to Avery and me, placing his palm over his heart—laying it on thick. “But the thing is, Wyatt joined my pack first. And when I figured Lessa might ask to join as well, I did the honorable thing and checked with Wyatt to make sure he would be okay with that.” He grinned wide at my sister, and I had a bad feeling I knew where this was headed. I wondered if I’d last a week without killing my new Alpha.
Raul continued, “The facts are, Lessa betrayed her own mate. And not just a little bit,” he reported to the crowd with relish. “Not only did Lessa lie to Wyatt about essentially everything about herself, manipulate his mind on countless—and I mean countless—occasions, tap every one of his phone lines, plant tracking devices on nearly everything he owned, and follow him on surveillance cameras twenty-four-seven, she also set up his best friend Avery to be attacked on numerous occasions and was plotting to capture and kill both Avery and Sloane.”
He shrugged at my sister and raised his hands in the air, palms up. “I think you can guess which way Wyatt voted. But hey, in case you don’t believe me, I’ve got a video recording of Wyatt expressing his feelings on the matter himself that he wanted me to deliver to you. I’ll just send you the YouTube link.”
Raul ended up pulling up the video on his own phone and playing it for all to see and completely destroying my sister.
As furious as I was over the way Wyatt had chosen to reject Lessa, I could admit that he had made valid, rational points in the video regarding her level of deception. Maybe he wasn’t as dumb as I’d thought he was. I promised Lessa that I would smooth things over with Wyatt when I saw him, reassuring her that he wouldn’t be able to resist the mating bond pull for long and would soon change his mind.
I gave Lessa a hug goodbye, as well as Jussara. Despite Jussara’s deception regarding Remy and the fact that she’d sided against me in favor of Milena, there was little I couldn’t forgive and overlook where Lupe’s daughter was concerned. It had always been that way for me with Jussara.
But as for the rest of them, they could all go fuck themselves.
While Jussara and I were saying our goodbyes, Sloane surprised everyone by breaking away from Raul’s side and approaching Lessa, who was seated on the ground crying, with Alex and Remy flanking her, attempting to comfort her.
“No one ever found daybreak by avoiding night,” Sloane stoically told my sister. “Only by passing through it.” Then she raced back over to Raul’s side, and he promptly picked her up.
Avery, who was standing next to Raul, gasped and covered her mouth with her hand as she witnessed the exchange. When our eyes met, she said, “Oh, my God, Chaos. She just—I think she just tried to comfort your sister.”
Lessa looked equally shocked and charmed as she sobbed, “She really is Maribel. She’s Maribel—”
“That’s my line,” Kai, who had been silently standing next to Milena, suddenly proclaimed, his eyes wide with alarm. “By God, that’s my line!” he shouted. “That’s what I used to tell Maribel. She’s quoting me. She—oh, fuck. Fuck … My God, she really could be—”
“No,” Avery growled, pinning feral eyes on Kai. “That’s Sloane’s line—one that she shares with Raul. It’s their bonding thing. It has nothing to do with you or anything you used to say to your dead mate. My daughter is not the reincarnation of a murderous, lovesick nutjob who drained the life force from the living and consumed souls in the name of twisted love for you, Killjoy Kai!”
I winced internally and decided to hold my tongue. I was certain that Sloane was indeed the reincarnated Maribel, but as there was really no way to ever prove or disprove it, it was best to let Avery think that she wasn’t.
After all, Avery was right when she’d argued before that Sloane was a child with a clean slate—a child with her whole life ahead of her. Why saddle her with Maribel’s baggage? The fates had already done that by bringing her back as the Rogue.
“I’m sorry to say that Sloane most likely is Maribel,” Milena spoke up, gently contradicting my mate as she stepped forward and addressed all of us, her Alpha tone somber, her blue eyes sad yet severe.
“As most everyone here knows, I was the last one to see Maribel in the ether.” As she spoke, Milena’s gaze connected with Alex’s, before seeking mine, and finally Kai’s. “And she told me that this might come to pass. Maribel said that if she’d miscalculated the timing, misjudged her ability to fully drag the hideous dark power—the defect attached to and driving my blood curse—to the other side and remain dead, that she might be reborn as the Rogue of rogues. Reborn as an unholy beast filled with and controlled by darkness; a supernatural powerhouse bent on destruction and revenge.”
Well, I’ll be damned.
I’d always known that Milena kept her cards close to her chest. In this, she and Raul were more alike than most probably recognized.
Raul turned to Avery next to him and transferred Sloane to Avery’s arms, instructing, “Take her for a walk.”
“But I—”
“She doesn’t need to hear this.”
Avery looked ready to argue with Raul. But then it seemed to dawn on her that Sloane wasn’t resisting being held, and Avery beamed with happiness as she did as requested, walking our daughter out of earshot.
“The truth is,” Milena continued, her apologetic eyes on Kai, “Maribel knew that all of this was a possibility when she absorbed the dark magic of my blood curse into her soul and used it to sever her mate connection to Kai. She knew that what she was doing was something that was unnatural to our kind—that not only could it permanently warp her, but that it might endanger the future of our entire species. But she did it anyway,” Milena stressed, the blue in her eyes bleeding into angry, bright green.
To Kai, she said, “She did it even though I begged and pleaded with her not to. And then,” Milena revealed with a humorless laugh, “she reminded me that she’d killed my mother and Mateus, and had taken my only brother from me”—her green eyes cut to Raul—“before threatening to kill my best friend Bethany if I didn’t agree to go along with her scheme. Oh, and on top of that, she informed me that if she should come back as the Rogue, it would be my job to end her before the decade of no light’s end.”
I’d been in the dark after all. Milena had kept us all in the dark. I understood why she’d done it with Lessa and the others. And I was eternally grateful now that she’d done it with me as well. Because I, too, had felt the anger and resentment that Milena still harbored for Maribel. I had harbored it myself. And I might’ve acted on it had I come across Sloane before I’d met Avery. Avery had given me the ability to see the Rogue from a perspective I never had before.
“So that’s what your beef is then?” Raul had the nerve to ask his sister.
“You think this is funny?” she hissed at him. “You think I wanted this responsibility? You think I want to kill a child, Raul? A child!”
“No. I don’t.”
“You have no idea what it’s been like for me these past ten years, knowing this day might come. Knowing that she had made this my burden. She told me that I was the world’s only hope. That it would be my responsibility to kill her if she failed to stay dead and was reborn as the Rogue. Do you have any idea how conflicted I’ve been over this? Any inkling of the pain I’ve felt in my heart knowing that—”
“Yes, goddamnit,” Raul said, cutting his sister off with an eye-roll. “Yes, I do know.”
Milena frowned. “She told you?” She paused, then gasped. “Oh, my God, she told you, too, that I would have to be the one to end her if she—”
“No,” Raul interrupted her again. “She told me that I would have to be the one to end her if she was reborn as the Rogue.”
Milena’s jaw fell open. “What?”
“Maribel didn’t think you’d be able to do it when the time came,” Raul confessed. “She feared you were too much of a Pollyanna to pull it off. She was afraid you might go soft, wind up feeling sorry for a child Rogue, and fall into some misguided mission to protect rather than destroy the Rogue as she had asked of you.
“So she made me her backup destroyer. In exchange, she transferred Nuriel’s powers to me so that I’d have enough power to best you if it came down to it—if you failed in the mission she’d given you.”
Jesus. So Azda wasn’t the only one who’d changed her mind. As horrifying as Raul’s confession was—the notion that Avery and Sloane might’ve had both Raul and Milena out to exterminate them these past ten years—I felt myself feeling teary-eyed as I grinned with pride, of all idiotic things. My daughter was so damn adorable she turned her killers into protectors and nannies.
Milena’s nostrils flared. “What? She … she told you, too? She asked you, too? Then—what are you doing? You’d betray a dying woman’s wish to end her soul’s misery?”
Raul rolled his eyes. “Look, sometimes it’s not what people say that carries the most meaning, Miles. It’s what they do. Let’s examine the evidence. She chose Avery for a mother—a woman who doesn’t know when to quit. A woman who would gladly die protecting her. Not exactly the best choice for a soul looking for destruction. Then there’s the fact that she was born scentless, and somehow managed to extend that ability to her mother as well, masking Avery’s scent to all but her mate. Again, not the actions of a soul looking to be discovered and destroyed.”
“But she didn’t want this, Raul,” Milena objected. “She didn’t want to come back as some demented, fractured being attached to a dark curse. Don’t you see? This is her worst nightmare—a purgatory worse than even the one she imposed on herself for all those years in the ether. That’s why she asked us both to destroy her! Raul, she said that if I didn’t—”
“It doesn’t matter what she said, Miles,” Raul’s voice rose in anger. “The whole world doesn’t see in black and white and deal in absolutes simply because you do. I know what Maribel said that she wanted. I don’t need you to remind me. She says nearly the same things now as Sloane—because she lives attached to a dark energy that makes her feel terrible about herself, that tells her she can only do bad things in the world. She says she shouldn’t be here. That she was supposed to stay dead. But that’s not what she wants.”
“How do you know that?” Milena shouted. “How can you be so arrogant as to interpret that what she wants is other than what she so clearly told us both?”
“Because I just can,” he growled. “Because I just know, okay? She came back. She picked Avery. She found me before I ever found her. She pulls me into her nightmares when she gets scared—that’s how I found her. And I know that she wants what any soul wants. She wants redemption. She wants a second chance. And I’m going to see that she gets it. I’m not letting you or anyone else take that away from her.”
It was a lucky thing after all that I hadn’t killed Raul that fateful day in the dining hall ten years ago. After over four centuries, it seems I could still be surprised.
I’d just been yanked back from death’s clutches by the two people I’d wanted to exact retribution from the most throughout the past decade. And for the first time ever, I felt fully alive.
Once Raul had stormed off, I’d been left to rebuff another round of empty apologies that spewed forth from my family and former pack members. They were still apologizing for failing to protect my mate. Apologizing to me for Avery’s death—which they were only sorry about because it had nearly caused my death.
They didn’t get it. Hopefully one day they would.
I knew Milena’s heart was in the right place regarding her position on the Rogue. I had never known Milena to not have only the best of intentions. And that’s what scared me the most about her now.
History was full of terrible events borne of the best intentions. Raul was right. Milena did see the world in black and white. And Sloane was grey, uncharted territory—dangerous and unknown. Which made it almost hard to fault Milena for her stance. Seeing the world in black and white could make any great warrior blind.