Fear the Heart (Werelock Evolution Book 2) (15 page)

Lupe looked mildly intrigued.

“But not for a whole week. The longest I’ve seen him pull it off was a few hours. Let’s see, the main ones I witnessed firsthand were the soccer kneecap injury,” I recollected aloud, “another time when he broke his wrist skateboarding, and also when he broke his nose surfing. I wasn’t with him for any of his mountain biking or snowboarding injuries—”

“Spit it out, Miles. I will let you know if I think your theory is horseshit.”

“Fine,” I acceded, “one or sometimes both of his eyes will twitch the moment the pain hits, almost like a muscle tick. And after a while his right shoulder does this jerky spasm thing. Those are the telltale signs that he’s in pain and trying to hide it. At least, they were.”

“Hmm … so what does it prove if you don’t see your telltale signs?”

I shrugged, smiling doubtfully. “Well … there’s always the remote possibility he had the only completely painless werewolf transformation in history, right?”

She rolled jaded eyes.
“Or
 
…
?”

“Or someone outside of the Reinoso pack was helping to guide his transformation,” I proposed.

She made a little grunting noise in the back of her throat, but her features betrayed not an inkling of her inner thoughts on the matter as she stared past me.

I twisted and retwisted my hands in my lap. “In which case, we’d probably have a bigger, much scarier problem to deal with. But Raul would be innocent.
Right?
Innocent in the sense that he likely didn’t
willingly
betray the Reinoso pack by going to the Salvatellas in the first place as everyone suspects. I was thinking maybe … maybe he was targeted … like Luiza?”

“Possibly,” she allowed after a pause. “But what if it’s both, Miles?” Her glassy green eyes refocused on me. “What if you’re right and they did assist his shift? But what if it’s true he also sought them out in the first place?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I just can’t believe he’d do that, knowing what they did to our ancestors.”

Her lips pursed, and her forehead wrinkled. She seemed to be considering something carefully. “Oh, fuck me.” Her eyes flew to the ceiling as she made the sign of the cross. “I shouldn’t be telling you this”—she leaned close in order to whisper—“but they haven’t figured out yet how Raul found out about you being here in the first place.”

“Wha—?”

“No one at Salvador was given authority to tell Raul anything about you being in Brazil.”

I hadn’t given much thought as to when or how Raul had been informed of my presence at Alex’s home in São Paulo, so I was a bit stunned by Lupe’s revelation.

“So,” she sighed, “while Raul possibly had assistance from outside of the pack, as you suggest, they have also begun a witch hunt for potential traitors within.”

Traitors within? The possibilities were only getting more complicated.

“But hey”—she smiled and smacked her hands together in what I’d come to recognize as an Alcaeus gesture—“there’s always the possibility Kaleb’s an asshat and Raul was plainly in agony the whole time, eh?” With that, she started the first video.

After struggling through the first half hour of footage, mostly due to my initial shock at seeing how much bigger and bulkier Raul was than he’d been the last time he’d visited, two years ago, which incited my need to repeatedly pause and zoom in to make certain it was actually Raul, we ultimately got through the footage of day four rather quickly, watching the majority of it in fast-forward mode. The main reason being, there was clearly nothing to see.

As emotionally stirring as it was to see my brother again, and then to be viewing him within the confines of a prison cell to boot, the actual action—or lack thereof—contained in the material proved largely anticlimactic.
And inconclusive.

We witnessed no eye twitching or shoulder jerking. And although Raul was clearly anxious, pacing restlessly and often mumbling incoherently to himself, he didn’t appear to be in much, if any, pain. He seemed more … distracted.
Disturbed.

We’d pushed through day five’s footage and half of day six before Lupe shut it off, saying it would ruin her appetite if we kept going and she had to witness the actual initial dog morphing part. She received no argument from me.

***

I was exhausted and emotionally drained by the time Lupe and I sat down to lunch. And once my belly was filled with more undercooked meat than I’d probably ever consumed, I was hankering for an afternoon nap. But the new female werelock doctor, Bianca, arrived with Kai then, and I was made to submit to a full physical evaluation.

Bianca was nice enough. Not surprisingly, she resembled a female doctor out of a
James Bond
flick more than a real doctor, but I didn’t complain, as it was surely less awkward than the alternative, which was having Kai administer a pap test.

The examination had gone fine, I’d dressed again, and we were chatting about the changes that went with being a new female were when Bianca casually confirmed what Lupe had said earlier, informing me I’d entered the initial stage of my first heat cycle. At first, I laughed it off, still wanting to believe it was a sick joke. But as she kept talking, it became clear that this was not some form of new wolf hazing humor.

I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to smash something. But I was too short of breath, on the verge of hysteria. I broke down in a fit of tears instead. Kai materialized in the room shortly thereafter, and upon exchanging words with Bianca, silently scooped me up in his arms and held me while I cried.

CHAPTER TEN

I spent the remainder of the day holed up in Lupe’s sitting room, trying to lose myself in episodes of
Avenida Brasil.
Alessandra stopped by to visit, and after several failed attempts to engage me in conversation, curled up beside me on the couch and stayed to watch three episodes. I skipped dinner, barely spoke two words to Alcaeus when he came home, and flat-out refused to see Alex when he showed up.

Depressed and spent as I was, I still hadn’t expected to be able to quiet my mind and fall asleep so easily after the day I’d had. But I felt the pull to dreamland almost instantly as my head hit the pillow that night.

I’d been thinking of my mom, Raul, and home for most of the day, so it shouldn’t have surprised me when I found myself dreaming of the Redwood groves of Big Basin, trekking along the trails the three of us had often explored when I was a girl. It ranked among our favorite family outings, one of our most beloved and treasured sanctuaries.

But I was walking alone now, the afternoon sun fading to twilight. The trail was different. The familiar markers I’d come to rely on were absent. I wasn’t afraid though. I had massive, ancient Redwoods to keep me company, some of the oldest trees to bless the earth.

Raul had told me when I was six that if I listened closely, and if the trees found me worthy, they would impart their wisdom to me. I had come here often over the years seeking their counsel. I had listened for hours upon hours in the days and weeks following my mother’s passing, hoping to catch just a shred of their advice.

The wind changed direction, and birds scattered noisily from the trees above. I gazed up, watching their silhouettes take flight against the backdrop of the setting sun. When the tree branches once again fell calm, I returned my attention to the path and found there was a man now looking back at me, not fifty feet ahead, the fading daylight at his back. He was dressed in long shorts and a T-shirt.

At first, I thought it was Alcaeus, come to check on me. The man seemed familiar and looked to be about Alcaeus’ size and build. Except his hair was longer, and his facial growth was a tad scruffier, from what I could see, squinting into the fading sunlight. And while at first glance he stood tall and proud like Alcaeus, exuding a similar air of authority and confidence, there was something in his posture and body language, even from a distance, that made me think it was forced, something in his gait as he started walking toward me that seemed to indicate he was nervous about something. But when he raised his arm and threw up the shaka hand sign in salute, I forgot all else and sprinted straight for him.

“Raul?
Raul!
”

He ran forward to meet me halfway, and I screamed and squealed as we joyously collided. He twirled me off the ground in a bone-crunching hug that stole the breath from my lungs.

“Oh, thank God!” he rejoiced. “Thank fuck you’re all right! You are all right, aren’t you?” He set me on my feet to check, anxiously surveying me from head to toe.

I nodded vigorously, tears of joy rimming my eyes, my heart bursting with so much emotion. “I can’t believe I’m actually seeing you. That you’re here!” I bounced up and down in place in my glee. “I’ve missed you so much, Raul.”

“Are you hurt?” he asked again, his brown eyes radiating fear and concern as they swept over me. “Did they hurt you?”

I shook my head, beaming up at him and excitedly surveying him right back. He looked the same, and yet so very different. The most blatant change was, of course, his new build. He had always been tall and muscular, but now he was at least as brawny as Remy and Kai in my estimation, though maybe not quite as large as Alex, Alcaeus, and Kaleb. His face had also changed. Beyond the distinctive surface changes like the added scruff lining his jaw, the angles of his face seemed sharper than they had been before.

“Fuck,” he exhaled heavily in relief. “Are you positive?”

“I’m fine!” I all but giggled through my elation. “Absolutely, perfectly fine.”
Aside from turning into a werewolf and harboring an angry, ancient blood curse.

He grinned at last and then chuckled at what could only have been the goofiest of slaphappy expressions on my face. “Well, fuck, you look a lot better than I ever expected,” he admitted, still looking me over as if his eyes were playing tricks on him. He took my chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting my face from side to side, as if inspecting for damage. “Sure you’re okay? They’re not hurting you?”

“What?” I rolled my eyes and playfully smacked his hand away. “You thought I’d be bested by a pack of old werelocks? Now I’m offended.”

He laughed—genuinely laughed, fully and openly, like he’d always done—his brown eyes shining with the light of all that was right and good with the world. Just as I’d always known it to be when I was a kid, and he was my hero.
He was the same.
I had him back! We would be a family again.

I threw my arms around his neck and forced another hug on him. Just because I could. And because it was the happiest I’d been in over seven months. I didn’t know if I’d ever stop grinning and giggling, I was so jubilant.

“Aw, Miles.” He squeezed me tight, lifting me off the ground again. “Jesus, I’ve been worried about you.”

“I’ve been so worried about
you!”
I returned as he deposited me back on my feet. “Raul, when I couldn’t find you, when you went missing for all that time … I just … I …” My voice cracked with emotion and the first tears spilled over. “Don’t you dare ever leave again!” I whacked his hulking shoulder as hard as I could.

“Ouch.” He clutched his shoulder. “I think you dislocated it. C’mon, you’re on the brink of turning into a super badass werelock and you still hit like you’re a twelve-year-old? Try a closed fist at least.”

I reared back in affront and let fly a solid punch to his shoulder. My knuckles cracked in protest upon impact, but I was satisfied to see his shoulder jerk. I shook the sting out of my fist, noting with pride that I at least hadn’t broken any bones. I was definitely getting stronger with the change.

“Well, I suppose that’s progress,” he said with a chuckle. “Put some magic and some intention behind it next time and see where that lands you.” His smile faded, his eyes turning thoughtful. “How much power do you have right now? I can feel it, but it’s faint. And it feels like it’s being masked. Who’s holding it? Alex?” He was suddenly all business and twenty questions. “How much is he slowing your shift? Did he say how long it would take before you’re fully changed?”

I told him as much as I knew as we meandered down the path. He seemed surprised to learn Alcaeus was the one fully controlling my shift rather than Alex, although not as surprised to learn I was staying at Alcaeus’ home.

“Hey, I’m sorry if I hurt you last night,” he apologized. “I didn’t mean to. I’m still figuring all this out.”

I waved off his concern. “It was nothing. Hardly felt it.”

He nodded beside me, looking unconvinced.

“Are
you
okay?” I countered. “How are you handling the change?” I stopped walking to eye him up and down again. Despite studying video footage of him for most of the morning, it was still strange to see and digest this new version of Raul in the flesh. “God, you look so different.”

“Are you kidding? I’m better than okay. I’m fucking
Superman.”
He smirked cockily. “You wouldn’t believe the shit I can do now. It’s incredible.”

I gave him a withering look in retort, not really appreciating his cavalier attitude about the whole thing. But my disapproving countenance only caused him to snort in amusement.

“Damn, you look like Aunt Cely when you make that face.”

It took a second for his words to register. When they did, I just wanted him to take them back. Biologically, she may have been my aunt, but I would never think of the woman who had raised me as anything other than my mother. And it was upsetting to hear Raul refer to her as “aunt,” as if the title somehow marginalized her importance in our lives, her relevance in Raul’s heart. I didn’t like it.

“Fuck. Sorry, Miles.” He winced and scratched the back of his head. “I heard about Aunt Aracely. You doing okay with everything?”

I didn’t have a response to that. I started walking again, and he fell in step beside me.

“Least it was quick, right? I heard she went pretty fast?”

I wasn’t sure how that made it better, and the glare I threw him in reply probably said as much.