Slip of Fate (Werelock Evolution Book 1) (2 page)

Felix began whining about something in the background, and the same female voice shot back at him to stay on his knees and shut the fuck up if he wanted to live. I fought to surface through the haze of my swimming head, willing my eyelids to work as I blinked again and again until they responded and fluttered open.

As my vision focused, I found myself gazing up at one of the most beautifully composed male faces I’d ever beheld. I think my mouth may have even gaped open as his green eyes twinkled down at me and an alluring smile curved his lips.

I sent up a quick prayer that he’d prove to be the good guy I’d allowed myself to hope he was when I’d been face down in the gravel outside.

“Sorry,” I croaked inaudibly. I tried again.
“Sorry
.
”

I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for. If Remy’s furrowed brow was any indication, he didn’t know either. His eyes roamed over my face until they came to rest on my lips.

And I blushed.

Stupid, stupid!
I’d no idea yet if he was the good guy or bad guy in all of this, and yet I was blushing like the lame schoolgirl I was. His mouth split into a wide grin, revealing perfect, movie-star white teeth, making him look even more attractive.

“Oh, good God,” the same female voice mocked in exasperation outside my periphery. “Don’t you have enough pets already, Remy?”

He chuckled, his eyes still unabashedly canvassing my features as I fought to keep my eyelids open—and struggled to comprehend what the woman had meant by
pets
.

“You’re jealous,” he said with a laugh. His tousled, chestnut-colored hair was slightly longer than chin-length. It gave him a carefree, boyish, mischievous quality, whereas the firm set of his jaw and the penetrating eminence exuding from those deep-set emerald eyes gave the impression he’d seen and experienced much of the world, and suggested he was not a man to be underestimated.

“Of
her?”
the woman spat with disdain. “She’s hideous! And
human.”

“She’s gorgeous,” Remy countered, smiling down at me. “Just needs to be cleaned and healed up a bit.” The tip of his forefinger skated across my bottom lip in a bold caress, and I felt myself turn an even deeper shade of crimson.

Somewhere in the back of my befuddled brain it occurred to me that he had to be holding me with just one arm in order to be able to use his other hand so freely.

“And she smells positively heavenly.”

Lowering his nose to my temple, he inhaled audibly along the side of my face to the crook of my neck. His soft, shaggy hair tickled my jawline. I shuddered. I was beginning to feel even more lightheaded and short of breath.

“Beneath the surface scent of fear and the stench of those plebeians’ grubby hands, her fragrance is beyond intoxicating, in fact.”

He appeared bemused as he lifted his head, studying me as if I were some rare enigma. “There’s an underlying scent to her I’ve not encountered before.”

“Idiot!” the female scolded. “Do you think Alex will just let you add Raul’s sister to your ever-growing kennel? Neither Raul nor his family are welcome in this house,” she reminded him in a haughty, know-it-all manner.

The smile slid from his lips, and Remy’s eyes darkened as they abandoned my face to scowl across the room. “Shut up and get Alex.
Now
. Before I compel you to do something you’ll regret, Jussara.”

I tried to turn my head enough to lay eyes on the woman he’d commanded.
Jussara
, he’d called her. But my head felt so heavy against his chest. It refused to budge. And my eyes seemed to be glued to his as I heard what I assumed to be her heeled feet stomping away.

What on earth had she meant by
kennel?
She’d called me “human” as if it were an insult. What had he meant by
compel?
I wondered what my brother could have possibly ever done to anger the man of this house—the one they referred to as Alex.
Could Remy really smell my fear?

“Don’t think so hard, angel,” Remy murmured, his fingers stroking across my brow. “Just focus on me, and all will be well.”

It was an easy request to oblige, as I found myself incapable of holding onto whatever it was I’d been worrying about previously. His broadening smile of approval was its own reward. I could’ve sworn I felt it radiating through my entire being, filling me with a delightful sense of warmth, safety, and affection that I wasn’t sure I could ever get enough of.

“That’s it,” he encouraged. “Relax your mind and let me in.”

As he spoke the words, they became all I wanted. All of my goals, grandiose dreams, and life purposes were swiftly vanishing, fading away into insignificance as my desires narrowed into just one: doing whatever it was the man gazing adoringly down at me now wanted me to do.

In the back of my mind, I realized this line of thinking was far from normal. But the warmth in my belly felt so good. And I felt safe for the first time since my arrival in Brazil, as all of my fears had fallen away as well. It didn’t make sense, though. And I knew it couldn’t be real.

It occurred to me that Remy was doing something to me that was entirely unnatural and that I should utilize whatever self-preservation skills I had left to snap out of this trance I seemed to be falling under, even before his gorgeous features drew closer, shushing and cooing at me to relax further and not fight him as his lips grazed my forehead.

Even before I felt the sharp, stabbing pain of what I could only describe as akin to an invisible knife attempting to pierce its way through the surface of my brain, causing me to gasp aloud. Even before I heard Felix shouting at me from somewhere to my right—

“Resist him, Milena! He has empathic powers of enthrallment. Don’t let him any further inside your mind!”

It was the first time Felix had addressed me by my given name throughout my entire abduction nightmare. Somehow it made him seem more human and allowed the meaning of his words to sink in, to cut through the fog encompassing me.

The stabbing pain stopped as Remy lifted his head from mine and affixed narrowed, disapproving eyes upon something—or
someone
—to my right.

“Break his arm,” Remy enjoined impassively. “Gag him and the others until Alex arrives.”

I heard the movement of what sounded to be multiple footsteps and noted a flurry of activity just beyond my peripheral vision. I was still unable to turn my head away from Remy’s visage. With all of my attention heretofore fixated on Remy, I’d not realized there were clearly numerous other occupants in the room with us—wherever it was that we were.

“Milena, please!” Felix cried out in a rush. “Please believe me? Your brother, Raul … we were friends once, I swear it … and he could resist their enthrallment!” It sounded like he was struggling as the words rushed out of him.

I heard a sickening crack. Felix screamed.

Terror lodged in my throat as I realized the first part of Remy’s cruel orders had been carried out, even as Remy gazed amiably down at me, a nonchalant smile quirking his lips as his fingers combed through my hair, massaging against my scalp in a manner I found unnervingly pleasurable given the fact I was becoming increasingly petrified of him with every passing second.

“Raul’s the only one we’ve ever known to resist their power,” Felix relayed quickly, his voice thick with torment. “Raul’s mind—it was special! Alex … Alex knew it! Yours might be, too … you have to try, Mil—” he pleaded, right up until his voice was muffled and reduced to grunts and groans of agony in the back of his throat as I presumed the second part of Remy’s order had been completed.

“Call Alcaeus down here,” Remy instructed as he turned on his heel. “And break his other arm.”

CHAPTER TWO

Remy covered my outer ear with his free palm, which served to simultaneously press my opposite ear more securely against his chest, effectively blocking my ability to hear whatever else was happening as he carried me away from my kidnappers and the frenzied commotion and palpable tension permeating the air.

It might’ve been only in my head, but somehow I swore I could still hear the sound of Felix’s other arm bone breaking behind us, along with his muffled scream.

Remy quickened his steps, shushing me and crooning words of comfort as his puzzled eyes searched my features. I hadn’t even realized I was crying until he’d deposited me upon a cushioned surface in another room and was wiping my tears away.

“Hey, hey now, it’s okay,” he consoled, concern pinching his brow. “Felix kidnapped you, Milena. He
hurt
you,” he stressed, as if I’d forgotten it.

For the first time since I’d awakened, I found I was able to look away from Remy’s face and observe my surroundings. Strange. Had I imagined I couldn’t do so before?

We were alone in a large and ornately decorated room. It might have been a fancy sitting or receiving room. One I imagined would be found inside of a grand mansion.

How had my brother ever come to know these people?

Remy stretched out alongside of me, half-seated, half-reclined, propped up on his side facing me, upon what seemed to be an oversized daybed.

“I’m not a fan of violence either, sweetheart,” he continued conciliatorily, dabbing a soft cloth over my tear-stained face, “but sometimes I need to take care of the bad guys.” He paused to regard me. “You understand, don’t you?”

He said it more as a statement than a question as his eyes scanned over me in a manner that made me feel profoundly exposed—like he was cataloguing every single subtle emotion I experienced as it played out across my face. Leaving me no choice but to attempt to mask and swallow my growing confusion and inner confliction.

What he’d said about Felix was true. Felix had kidnapped me. He had intentionally hurt me. But I wasn’t certain he was entirely a bad guy. For reasons beyond my comprehension, I believed Felix’s peculiar words of warning to me had been in earnest, delivered in spite of the immediate threat his actions posed to his own person.

And now both of his arms were broken.
And I was alone in a room and under close surveillance by the same man who had callously ordered those arms be broken.

I focused on breathing in an attempt to distract myself from my growing panic.

“Drink?” Remy reached over my head to an adjacent side table.

As he was procuring the proffered beverage, I took the opportunity to really look him over. My bleary eyes were soon roving uninhibitedly up and down his densely muscled, tall frame before I could think better of it.

He was positively huge! He was dressed in an expensive-looking white shirt and well-fitted slate dress slacks. I suspected they’d been tailored in order to so perfectly conform to his powerfully muscled thighs.

By the time my eyes returned to his face, he was smirking, and I blushed yet again at being caught ogling him.

Why was I ogling him?
I never ogled men. Now was hardly the time to start—
with a scary arm-breaking stranger!
What was wrong with me?

When he raised my head in one hand and brought a crystal glass of amber-colored liquid to my lips with his other, I finally snapped from my stupor.

“Nooo
… pee!” I blurted gauchely, my eyes widening with desperation and embarrassment as I realized I still needed to go. “Um … bathroom? Please?”

Remy’s abrupt shout of laughter shook the daybed. He tossed the drink down his own throat before fishing a cell phone from his pocket and thumbing what I suspected was a text message.

“But of course you may use the facilities, milady Milena,” he intoned with mock formality. “However, I’m afraid due to your injuries you’ll need some assistance. I’ve summoned a female companion for you. Think you can hold out a few minutes longer? I’m fairly certain this is a rather expensive couch.”

I nodded, feeling mortified now, in addition to the myriad other emotions I was struggling to decipher.

He arched one brow. “Even … if I tickle you?”

I squealed “no” and childishly pled “uncle” the moment his fingers shot out in pretense of a tickle attack, grazing the small expanse of my abdomen beneath the hem of my tank top before ceasing.

As I caught my breath and my spinning head, I looked up to find him beaming down at me.

“I got you to smile,” he boasted. “It seems I’ve made you cry, blush, and smile, all in the span of three minutes. Maybe at least you won’t reject me for boring you.”

He looked so ingenuously boyish, so harmlessly playful pouting down at me. It was all so confounding! So impossible to wrap my head around the fact that he was the same person who’d so coldly decreed the torture of another human being minutes ago.

“Are you … American?” I asked, cursing the increased heat that flared in my cheeks when his eyes sparkled and he shook his head, grinning broadly—as if to suggest he were withholding a great secret.

“Would you feel safer with me if I said I was?”

“Raul’s not welcome in this house, and that means neither is his family!” a booming male voice thundered, followed by, “Holy fuck, what’s that smell?” as another enormously built, dark-haired, gorgeously godlike man stomped into the room and into view just above me on the opposite side of the daybed.

“Fuuck,”
he swore, his nostrils flaring, his massive chest and muscled shoulders heaving smoothly up and down as he audibly sniffed in my direction.

“I want her,” he proclaimed, his hazel eyes devouring every inch of me in a way that was utterly primal.

Remy released an extended sigh. “Don’t scare her, Alcaeus. She has a full bladder and she’s already distressed.”

“Who is she?” the larger-than-life man named Alcaeus demanded.

“Raul’s sister.”

While Alcaeus muttered a string of colorful expletives, Remy squeezed my hand and reminded me to breathe. I hadn’t noticed I’d been holding my breath—or that I’d apparently been holding Remy’s hand in mine against my abdomen ever since I’d snatched it up trying to prevent him from tickling me.

Alcaeus was attired similarly, if not more formally than Remy. He was what my mother would have described as ruggedly handsome, with hard, angular features; jet black, short hair that had a slight curl to it; deeply tanned skin; and what looked to be more than a few days’ worth of five o’clock shadow. He looked older than Remy, maybe in his mid-thirties. And he was looking at me like he wanted to eat me!