Girl from Jussara (3 page)

He could have entered her mind. He could have compelled her. He’d wanted to since the first day. Sometimes he wondered why he still hadn’t. It would be for her own good.
And he could know her name at last.

“I can’t help you unless you talk to me, sweetheart.”

Her wobbly knees failed as their backs hit the toilet, and she sat down with a noisy thud atop the closed lid. He knelt in front of her. She forced her green eyes to hold his, which were now thankfully hazel. For the first time she noticed he was naked except for a sheet wrapped around his waist. This was often the case whenever he rushed to her room in the night, and she’d come to suspect he routinely slept in the nude.

She recognized that her employer was not an unattractive male. Quite the opposite. Though he’d never brought any women home that she’d been aware of since her stay with him, she was fairly certain he saw more ass than the toilet she was seated upon.

She knew she should scold him for calling her “sweetheart,” and maintain the clear boundary she’d worked so hard to establish between them. But she didn’t.

He tucked her hair behind her ear on one side, his fingers proceeding to glide against her scalp in a gentle caress. “Talk to me, please? Tell me about the nightmares? Tell me what happened to you? Tell me who did this to you? Please? I can’t bear not knowing. Not being able to make it right.”

She shook her head, nearly laughing with bitterness. “You can’t make it right.”

“Maybe not. But I can try … if you let me? If you tell me what happened?”

She had considered telling him, knowing about Hector and the fact that according to Hector, Alcaeus had sheltered him from the Salvatella pack for most of his life. But her situation was different. Hector’s former guardian had been a powerful werelock who had requested this of Alcaeus. Whereas she was the alleged mate of one of his worst known enemies.
And she was carrying the enemy’s baby.

She’d sought out the Reinoso pack upon learning of their bitter rivalry with Nahuel’s, thinking their compound might possibly be the one place Nahuel’s family wouldn’t look or be able to access her. The one place her unborn baby might be safe. But she had no way of knowing how Alcaeus or Kai would react if they discovered her secret. Though they’d been good to her so far, they could still turn on her. They might hand her over to Nahuel’s family.

Or simply kill her.

“If I tell, will you promise … not to kill me … or my baby?”

“Kill you? Jesus Christ, Lupe, how can you ask me such a thing?” He rose and paced uselessly in the small bathroom. “What the hell do you think you could ever tell me that would make me want to kill you? What have I done to make you think for one moment that I’d ever harm you?”

She took a deep breath. “The man—erm … wolf … who did this … was your enemy.”

Elation shot through him at her confession, and he rushed back to his kneeling position in front of her. She was talking! She was opening up to him.

“You’ll have to be more specific, sweetheart.” He smiled tentatively at her in the dark, slowly, gently resting his big palms atop her shaky knees. Twice now she hadn’t corrected him for calling her “sweetheart,” and he quietly reveled in that small victory. “I’m afraid I have more than one enemy. Will you give me a name, Lupe? Please?”

Again, she hesitated, for what felt like an eternity. Eventually, her whole body began to tremble, and he was just about to tell her that she didn’t need to tell him and tuck her back into her bed, when finally she answered.

“Salvatella.” It was barely a whisper. “Nahuel Salvatella.”

His eyes abruptly squeezed shut. He swallowed the growl that wanted to rumble up through his chest. There was no need to frighten her further with a reemergence of his wolf. When he could speak in a voice that sounded human, he asked, “When? How?” Then simply demanded, “Talk.”

Her heart tripped and sprinted. “You’re angry.”

He nodded, eyes still closed. “Not at you, Lupe. Never at you,” he assured her. “Promise. Please explain what happened between you and Nahuel?”

Word of Nahuel’s disappearance had reached their pack months ago. He’d been presumed dead. But Alcaeus had never thought … never imagined … his sweet little Lupe … with that asshole? That pig? Alcaeus thought he might be the one dry heaving over the toilet bowl next.

He wanted more than anything to hold her as she relayed her terrible tale, but he was still too unpracticed with handling humans, and in his current state, he feared he might unintentionally squeeze her too tightly. Because he was positively stunned by her revelation! Horrified. Sickened.
Enraged.

Also, unbelievably proud.
Awed
. He could scarcely believe her courage and ingenuity. His Lupe had felled one of the Salvatella brothers. All by herself! Granted, Nahuel had never been known to be as clever as his older brothers, nor as skilled with magic in the manner they were. But he’d been a big beast of a werelock. A ruthless killer quick to rage and prone to pillage anything that got in his way—including Lupe’s parents when they had refused him their daughter.

And Lupe’s tiny hands and small person had chopped him down to pieces. Literally.

Now that he knew, now that he understood all she’d endured, the enigma that was his adorable, sassy Lupe made so much more sense. And she was even more irresistible to him than before.

He promised himself he would cease teasing her for always clinging to her machete. It had saved her once from one of their kind. She assumed it could save her again. He wouldn’t begrudge her that false security blanket.

And he would tell Kai everything. Kai needed to know. But they would keep it a secret from Alex … for now. Eventually, his brother Alex would have to know as well.

At length, he mustered enough inner calm to hold and stroke her hands gently in his while he listened. She let him. The whole time she spoke, she never cried once, her gorgeous malachite eyes barely dampening with the pain and sorrow her heavy heart harbored. It made his own heart break just watching her, witnessing her proud struggle. And he knew for certain then that he was falling hopelessly, irrevocably in love with the girl from Jussara.

He didn’t just want her physically. The feelings stirring within him went beyond possession. He knew he would do anything to protect her, go to any length to make her happy.

She didn’t respond the same way to him, he knew. It was too soon. She was too young. He would heed Kai’s advice and better curb his attraction so that she’d be more at ease around him—the way she was with Kai.
Like all women were with Kai.
He would simply be her friend.
For now.

When she was finished talking, he somehow wordlessly managed to coax her into his arms, and then into his lap. Another small miracle. She had never let him hold her or get this close to her before. It was probably only because she was so overwhelmed—her body racked by fear and exhaustion. But he would take it just the same.

She fell asleep as he held her, curled in his lap on the tiled floor, her hands folded in protectively over her distended belly, as Alcaeus spoke solemn vows to her crown, promising to protect and care for her always. Swearing he would always stand between her and the Salvatellas, that they would never find her, never hurt her or her baby.

He remained awake through the night, cradling her in his arms there on the bathroom floor. He didn’t dare move her to the bedroom for fear she’d awaken and shatter the tenuous spell of ease he’d somehow finally established. And he wanted to enjoy every moment of her peaceful slumber. Oddly, as he studied each curve and angle of her pretty face, losing track of time and of himself listening to the sound of her steady heartbeat and that of her growing fetus, he concluded it might’ve been the most satisfying night he’d ever spent with a woman before.

CHAPTER THREE

Alcaeus had wanted to employ simple magic, if not modern-day pharmaceuticals, to shield her from the pain of childbirth, but Lupe said no. She was adamant that her birthing process be whatever it was meant to be, whether long and painful or brief and mild. She wanted to experience it, saying she was certain becoming a mother was not meant to be a nonevent, so neither should the birthing process be made into one through manipulation of the natural order of things.

When the day of labor finally arrived and her contractions escalated, only sheer stubbornness prevented her from changing her mind as she walked the long, barren basement hallways that made up the compound’s little infirmary with Alcaeus, until her water at last broke. Twelve hours into Lupe’s labor, Alcaeus was so frantic with concern for her that Kai kicked him out of the birthing room, claiming his fretful behavior had already delayed the labor process for long enough.

Once Lupe was alone with Kai and his head nurse, Marissa, Kai instructed Lupe to embrace the worst of her contractions. He maintained she had to welcome the pain in order to be free of it, that fear and avoidance of pain only heightened it.

“Pain is nothing more than resistance,” Kai explained in that all-knowing, placid tone of his, dabbing a cool cloth over her sweaty brow where she sat propped upright in the oversized, fancy hospital-style birthing bed Alcaeus had made Kai order just for her—even though Kai insisted it was a ridiculous and unnecessary westernized contraption.

“True pain doesn’t exist beyond acceptance.”

“Can’t,”
she groaned. It wasn’t pain she feared—not exactly. It was that emotional breakdown she was perpetually holding at bay. Acceptance sounded awfully dangerous, particularly when she’d spent so much of the past nine months refusing to accept the reality facing her.

“No. Uh-uh …”

“Lupe.” Kai’s cultured voice held a subtle warning. “This is what you wanted, remember? I thought you wanted to experience the natural order of things?”

“I do! I am,” she barked defensively. “I am already in pain! I’ve been in pain for thirteen fucking hours now; where the hell have you been?”
Stupid, supercilious, hot wolf baby doctor.

Kai pursed his lips, looking annoyed. Then he turned to Marissa. “Go. Make sure Alcaeus stays occupied. Do whatever is necessary to draw and keep him away until I contact you with news of the birth.”

Marissa nodded dutifully. And then she left.

Huh?
Lupe liked Marissa. She’d always been one of the sweeter of the female werewolves Lupe had encountered at the Reinoso compound. And Marissa always assisted Kai. She’d consistently been present during each and every one of Lupe’s many pregnancy examinations. Lupe couldn’t fathom what had possessed Kai to send Marissa away now of all times, and for the remainder of the birth?

“Wha—
why’d you—? Hey!” Lupe whined. “Bring Marissa back!”

Kai leaned over her, and the look in his eyes instantly shut her up. She wasn’t sure why. He looked calm and collected enough, as was his usual physician demeanor. But there was something else there in his chocolate soufflé depths … something dark. Forbidding.

“I’m in charge here, Lupe,” he whispered.

Helpless to look away, she momentarily forgot about the painful contraction pulling her cervix apart.

She swallowed. Nodded.

“This is what you want, Lupe,” Kai continued, his deep voice sounding almost … seductive … practically a purr as his hand traveled over her big belly, down to the top of her pubic bone.

“Breathe,” he instructed, placing his other hand on her left breast, over her heart. “Relax. Breathe for me, Lupe.”

She did. It was pretty much all she could manage with him looking at her like that. With his hand on her breast. The other one so close to her crotch.

Wait …
He was her doctor!
He’d been all up in her genitalia and had felt her mammaries loads of times throughout her pregnancy. Why was she getting all weird and flustered by it now? When he was about to be way, way all up in her sex like no one had ever been before?

Holy Mother! It suddenly dawned on her this process was about to become excruciatingly … intimate. Things were going to get real fast. And she was going to feel vulnerable and highly exposed no matter what.

She was grateful now that Kai’d had the forethought to send Alcaeus away. Because as comfortable as she’d grown to be with him in the past seven months of constantly having Alcaeus in her space as her closest friend and protector at the compound, she knew she couldn’t handle him seeing her like this. He would’ve been too warm and affectionate with her, his eyes too sympathetic and loving. And she would have hated it. She’d have broken down under all of Alcaeus’ coddling.

“This is what you want,” Kai repeated, looking her dead in the eyes. “Say it for me, Lupe.”

“This … um … is what I want?”

“Not a question, Lupe. Statement. Try again.”

“This is what I want.”

“Better. Again. Look at me and tell me.”

“This is what I want.”

“Make me believe it, Lupe.”

“This is what I want.”

His nostrils flared. His pupils expanded. She thought she might’ve imagined the reaction, as his facial features remained otherwise unchanged. And when he spoke again, he was all business.

“Good. More. For me. Nice and easy … breathing in and out. Look only at me.”

His hands massaged her lower belly and palpated her pelvic area as she repeated those same words to him, again and again. She knew he was simply checking for and gently manipulating the baby’s positioning, nothing more. But somehow it made it seem like something outrageously personal …
sensual
… almost sexual … was transpiring between them when she was panting and groaning, “This is what I want,” again and again amid wave after wave of contraction, all the while staring into his eyes.

“Welcome the pain, Lupe. Embrace it. The pain brings you closer to your goal. The more you welcome the pain, the sooner you’ll hold your baby.”

Strangely, it did seem to hurt less, while another part of her brain registered the contractions were growing more intense, the respites between them shorter in length. But saying that she wanted it somehow made her feel a greater sense of control over the foreign biology now assailing her, helping her to believe that she was the master of this ancient birthing dance.