Girl from Jussara (7 page)

Kai. A human Kai was on top of her in her darkened bedroom.

“Scream and I will give you something to scream about,” he cautioned before releasing her mouth and jumping from the bed.

By the time Lupe collected herself enough to sit up, Kai was in wolf form again, prowling from one end of the room to the next, emitting a low, sustained growl.

His pure white coat was filthy—matted with dirt and leaf litter. And—blood?

It was barely daybreak, the glow from the first rays of sunlight faintly visible on the other side of her upstairs bedroom curtains. Lupe wondered what could’ve happened to him to put him in such a state? To cause him to burst into her bedroom as he had?

As she watched, he morphed into his human form again—without so much as faltering a step or breaking stride in his pacing.

Kai was a gorgeous man when fully clothed. Buck naked he was divine. Mouthwatering. Even when dirty and disheveled and pacing her bedroom like a homicidal maniac as he now was. The man was built. Very
well
built—with the best of equipment in all of the most important places.

“You didn’t call.” His words were accompanied by the fiercest look he’d ever thrown at her. Before she could blink, he was pacing in his canine form again. And still giving her that look—his wolf eyes replete with accusation and betrayal.

“Son of a bitch,” she swore as her rattled sleep brain caught up. And then she proceeded to spew apologies as she realized that she had forgotten to call him.

She’d been so flustered after her encounter with Alex last night. She’d been in a daze as she’d gone through the motions of checking on Jussara in her crib, of insisting that Ines spend the night and getting Ines set up in the guest bedroom, before washing and collapsing to bed herself. She hadn’t wanted to think about her awful encounter with the Alpha or to contemplate the implications of Alex’s “punishment” sentence of lifelong service to Alcaeus and the Reinoso pack.

And amid her distress, she’d completely forgotten to contact Kai to let him know that she was okay. Forgotten about how Alex had callously forbidden Kai from following them last night, from reaching out to Alcaeus or in any other manner checking on Lupe’s well-being … any sooner than daybreak.

She apologized, and she told Kai’s pacing wolf form about everything that had happened with the Alpha. “I’m sorry, I never thought—didn’t realize you’d worry—” she rambled in explanation.

They were the wrong words to say, because the white wolf snarled and leapt onto the bed again. She squealed and instinctively shrank back, covering her face with her hands and flattening herself to the mattress.

“Why not?” Kai’s voice grated above her. The heat of his breath hit the backs of her hands. “Why wouldn’t I worry, Lupe? Because Lessa says I’m incapable of feeling? Incapable of love?”

“Didn’t mean it like that,” she said, her voice shaky and muffled behind her palms.

He tore one of those palms away from her face and pressed it flat against his chest over his rapidly beating heart, holding it in place there with his own hot palm.

“Feel that? It still works! It doesn’t know its efforts are futile. Doesn’t know that it was supposed to stop beating half a century ago. That no matter how hard it pumps, it’ll never be enough to bring me back to life again.”

She nodded quickly, her other hand still covering her eyes. Pressing harder than before—to hold her tears in check. She knew. Oh, how she knew.

“It still works.” Kai sighed. “And I still feel. Just … not the same as before.”

Moments passed in silence between them. Eventually, both of their heart rates calmed, and Kai released her hand. When he spoke again, he sounded more like himself—like the stoic werewolf doctor Lupe knew.

“What happened to your parents … it’ll never be okay, Lupe. And you might never choose to forgive yourself. But like it or not, you are going to have to learn to live amongst wolves now. And that means not constantly projecting fear around us. Starting today.”

She felt the loss of his heat above her and peeked through her fingers to see Kai’s naked, muscular back and well-formed ass on display as he strode across the room to her bedroom door. He closed and locked it. When he turned to face her, she was confronted by the sight of his full frontal nudity on display.

“We’re not leaving this bedroom until I’m satisfied that you can do it,” he declared.

Lupe bolted upright in order to stubbornly scowl across the room. Kai’s eyes had reverted to his human shade of brown, and she was less afraid of him now. “I will scream my fucking head off—”

“Try it and I’ll temporarily disable your vocal chords,” he threatened. “This is happening, Lupe. You and I are going to work past this trauma of yours before you behead another soldier and tempt Alex to do more than just take away your choices in life.”

“It was an accident. I was startled! Those beasts would’ve—”

“I am not Alcaeus,” he cut her off with a silencing hand gesture. “I am not blinded by hopeless unrequited love for you and therefore incapable of seeing through your manipulation tactics and general female bullshit.”

“That is”—she gasped—“you just … I do not—”

“Did you know that months ago, while I was tending to a full-grown male werewolf in the infirmary”—Kai began to pace—“listening to his cries of agony as his half-amputated leg regenerated itself, that it was still
your
pain
that I scented, so much stronger than my patient’s, all the way across the compound here at Alcaeus’ house, where you were watching your damned telenovelas?”

“They’re good shows,” she croaked defensively, pulling the bed sheet up around her shoulders. Seeing Kai’s nudity on display was somehow causing her to feel more and more exposed in her flimsy nightdress.

“In pain we find forgiveness,” he lectured. “Deliverance. But you won’t allow yourself to feel your pain. So you make it someone else’s.”

She shook her head. “Th—they’re good shows.”

“I know what you’re doing when you’re up here sobbing your eyes out in front of the television.” He paused in his pacing to aim an accusing forefinger at her. “You’re finding a way to relive the pain of that day in your mind through those actors. Through those ridiculous stories.” He smacked the back of his hand against his open palm. “Again. And again.”

She said nothing.

“But every now and then, you let your mind slip away from Emily’s pain in that São Paulo prison, and you start thinking of all the things you could’ve done differently that would’ve saved your parents, don’t you?”

She wouldn’t answer that.

“You think I haven’t done it with Maribel? You think I won’t do it for the rest of this purgatory sentence that is now my life? I will never know, Lupe. Never know if I could’ve saved her. But you”—he stabbed his pointer finger through the air at her—“you’re wrong to wonder. Because nothing you could’ve done differently would’ve saved your parents.”

She finally cracked and snapped, “How’s it different? You don’t know th—”

“I knew Nahuel Salvatella!” His soft brown eyes shifted to iridescent blue in a flash of wild anger. “And I promise you, he would’ve killed your parents no matter what. There was never anything you could’ve done differently. No possible scenario in which they ultimately would have lived.”

“If I’d said no—”

“You’d have gotten them killed sooner.”

“You don’t know—”

“Yes,”
he growled, allowing his irises to lighten further and his canines to elongate as he charged forward to stand next to the bed. “I do know. Nahuel was a jealous, covetous bastard, and he wouldn’t have wanted to share you with your human family.”

Cautiously, she began to scoot backwards on the bed, away from his glowing eyes and enraged expression.
And sharp canines
.

He pursued her, climbing atop the mattress. “Obviously, he never meant to lose his head and murder them right in front of you in such a messy, gruesome display of embarrassing werelock incompetence,” Kai disparaged as he slowly crawled closer. She backed up until she was huddled against the headboard. “But neither was he planning on letting them remain alive for much longer after you’d both departed for Argentina.”

He cornered her upon his knees, placing a hand on either side of her petite frame against the ornate, wrought iron headboard. “He would’ve sent someone else to do his dirty work, and he would’ve made it look like an accident, but he’d have gotten rid of them.”

He was too close for her comfort, his mud-streaked arms caging her in. He smelled of earth. Of sweat. Of man.

“And you’d never have been the wiser. You might’ve loved a man who had murdered your parents for the rest of your life without ever knowing it.”

“I—I can’t believe that.” She squeezed the soft flesh of her thighs with restless, clammy hands, hoping to ground herself.

He leaned closer, his biceps flexing, his chest and shoulder muscles rippling beneath his smooth, filthy, bronzed skin. His gaze was far too feral-looking for her to meet, so she lowered her eyes to the lace trim on the bodice of her nightdress. But then his penis—now in her line of vision—
moved
. And her terrified emerald eyes shot back up to his face.

Because he was semi-hard.

“Why not, Lupe? I’m telling you, I knew him, and he would’ve wanted your heart and devotion all to himself. That’s who Nahuel Salvatella was. Why won’t you accept it?”

“I don’t know!” she bleated, not knowing where to look or how to escape as he inched nearer still.

“Why?” He tilted his face level with hers. “Why blame yourself for what that asshole did to you?”

“He killed them because of me!”

At her wailed outcry, Kai pounced, and Lupe found herself flat on her back, the wind knocked from her lungs, her legs pinned beneath his, her arms secured on either side of her head in an iron grip.

“Wrong,” he rasped, his face inches from hers. “He killed them because he was a murderous asshole with no talent for controlling his temper.”

She squirmed, her heart racing, her breaths coming too fast. “But I fell for him! Was so sure I was in love with him—
a murderous asshole!”

“I know.”

“I let him touch me.” She panted for air. “Let him come inside me.” She couldn’t move. No matter how much she wriggled.

“I know.”

“There were signs.” She couldn’t breathe. Yet somehow she was still talking—saying more than she knew she should. “So many signs! But I didn’t know they were signs.”

“How could you have known?” His voice was calm, while she was becoming hysterical.

“And I liked it—the way he touched me. I liked
him!”

“I know. I know.”

She’d stopped struggling, because it was futile. “Thought he was my fairytale come true.”

“I know. It’s okay.” Kai licked the side of her face. She was too distraught to question why.

“Thought we’d live happily ever after.”

“You couldn’t have known.” He licked the other side.

“One minute we were holding hands—and it was the happiest moment of my life, and the next, there was blood everywhere.”

“I’m sorry, Lupe.” His mouth found her neck, his tongue lapping at the underside of her jaw. It was warm. Soothing.

“My mother … she was in pieces …”

“So sorry.”

She tilted her head to give him better access to lick her throat. “There was so much … ”

“I know.”

“So much blood … comes out of bodies.”

“Know it. Seen it.”

“Blood and pieces … my parents everywhere.”

He lapped at her cheeks. “It’s okay.” He licked her eyes. “You’re not crying.”

“On furniture …”

“I’m sorry it happened.”

“Walls. Me …”

“You’re okay now.”

“Me. Their blood was in my hair.”

“You’re safe here now.”

Her whole face was damp from his licking, not from the tears she wasn’t crying.

“Can’t forget.”

“I know.”

“Don’t want to forget!”

“You shouldn’t.” His tongue passed over her mouth.

“Thought I was a good person.”

“You are, Lupe.” He licked the corner of her swollen lower lip.

“Why then? Why’d I get
him
for a soul mate?”

“Fuck, I wish I knew.” His tongue glided over her lips again, and then it slipped inside.

His tongue tasted salty in her mouth, and she welcomed it. She welcomed his lips, firm but soft, hungry, but not demanding. His hands still restrained hers, his legs still pinned hers, but his lower body weight didn’t touch her. And now she wanted it to. She wanted his touch to progress, while at the same time, she never wanted his sweet kiss to end. Because there was so much hope in that kiss—hope for them both that they weren’t simply living out a death sentence. Hope that two fractured souls might merge and mend as one.

When it finally did end and Kai lifted his mouth from hers, his breathing was erratic, and his blue irises were bright, bleary bands rimming his dilated pupils. An unanswered question pulsed to life within the vein that throbbed down the midline of his forehead. She knew her own flushed face projected the same question.

And she felt the weight of Kai’s stare the way she wanted to feel his cock pressing between her thighs in that moment: hard and heavy.

“Yes,” he answered. “Were I still alive inside, Lupe, I’d be inside of you right now.”

Her belly fluttered at his words, warmth pooling within her core.

“But we can’t,” he told her. “Because I’m not.
We’re
not.”

He watched the regret that played over her features, followed by understanding, and resignation. “And because I want to bite you, Lupe. I want to feel your fragile skin tear open beneath my canines.” It wasn’t an apology. It was just a fact. “I prefer to come with the taste of blood on my tongue—with the sensation of broken flesh in my mouth. That is who I am.”

The girl from Jussara, young though she was, understood. Accepted Kai’s preferences more easily than most humans might have. Her mother had taught her to believe that they were all God’s creatures, and that although God’s initial creation was always central, it was primitive, not perfect, as others often believed. Because what God made, life experience was meant to form. So the end product, which some might view as warped, or misshapen, was always, always the true perfection of a being.