Somewhere Far🌶️

‘December 15th, 2017’

‘Forest outside of Lumen’

Eve

I clung to Raphael’s wolf, my fingers digging into his firm flesh. Not that he could feel it. Raphael’s wolf was massive, its strong body covered in the softest, thickest brown fur.

I’ve been clinging to his back for hours as he sprinted us far away from Lumen.

As he ran, all I could feel was the harsh wind slapping me in the face with each step.

It didn’t hurt. No, not at all. It was refreshing.

Like a reminder we were alive.

I watched as trees flew by us. We were long outside of Lumen, surrounded by nothing but forest.

The sky had gone from blue and shining with light to a fading grey, to a darker charcoal, and finally to a nighttime black.

I felt almost hypnotized, watching all the changes around me. Knowing full well I hadn’t changed at all.

I felt more under control now, sure. I didn’t think my new, rejuvenated powers would explode anymore.

But I also had to think about the man, the wolf, whose shoulders I was holding tight to. How he’d dropped everything to help me, to whisk me away.

He hadn’t asked me any more questions, to explain myself or to rationalize what was happening. He’d just nodded and shifted and pulled me along with him.

And now we were still running.

He must be exhausted, his wolf’s fur all matted against his body, his eyes squinted to shield against the harsh wind.

Like he’d read my mind, Raphael began to slow his sprinting until we came to a complete stop, just in front of a river.

He slid me off his shoulders and around to his chest, and I looked into his eyes, the same chocolate brown in wolf form as they were in human, and I could see the concern in them.

He was concerned about me. And for the first time in my life, I didn’t mind feeling fragile.

But as soon as my combat boots hit the ground, I felt myself return to my body. My energy was back.

I’d turned to look at the river, to see the way the moonlight was bouncing off the water, when I heard the same muffled sound as earlier, somewhere between a groan and a gasp.

My eyes went back to Raphael, and I caught him in the final stage of shifting.

He was the only werewolf I knew—probably the only were in existence—who didn’t lose his clothes when he shifted.

As he retook his human form, he was fully dressed in the jeans and T-shirt he’d been wearing when we were in his Pack House room.

I almost rolled my eyes. ~How many more signs of his superiority could there be?~

But then he was done shifting, and he was rubbing a hand over his chiseled jaw, his scruffy cheeks. His eyes found mine.

Then he was right in front of me, grabbing my chin.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice coarse. Probably from all the growling.

I nodded. “Everything’s much better out here. Thank you,” I said, and I meant it.

“Of course. I told you, Eve,” he said, gazing down at me, “I’m here for you. Everything about you, all of your problems, they’re my problems.”

And then his lips were on mine, pulling me into his warmth, into the safety of his strength.

For a second I let myself give in, but then I felt the power course through me again, through my veins, and I remembered the way the building had shaken.

I remembered my rage, my uncontrollable rage, and my baby.

Snow.

Everything came back to me, flooding me with rage and frustration and sadness. The deepest sadness I’ve ever known.

I pushed him off me, away from me, and turned my back. My shoulders were hunched, and I was trying to will my tears back inside my tear ducts.

“Eve,” he said, softly, and I could hear him stepping closer to me. He stopped when he was next to me.

“I can’t…” I said, not sure if I was mad at him or mad at me or just… mad at the world. “I ~can’t~,” I repeated.

“Do you want to talk—”

“NO!” I thundered, loud enough to ruffle some trees.

He closed the distance between us again, weaving his hands through my belt loops, pulling me close to him. “We can just be like this then. Without talking.”

But still it was too much.

Too much him, too much contact.

“No,” I said again, pulling free. “No. I just need… I need a distraction.”

“A distraction,” he responded, thinking. “Okay. Once upon a time...”

“Raphael, I don’t want a fairytale.”

“Just listen. Once upon a time, it was the tenth century. Ancient Spain. There was a family. They were like royalty. Wealthy, respected. But they were werewolves, in a time when being a werewolf was unacceptable.

“Humans thought of werewolves as disgusting, wild, savage animals. They hunted them by the pack. So this family, they kept their truth a secret.”

I watched him as he spoke.

When he stopped to breathe, he looked back at me, and shivers shot down my spine.

He grabbed my hand and guided me to a patch of grass by a big tree, pulling me down. We sat together, and he continued.

“The family had three sons, and the middle son, he was born to be an Alpha. He was strong and fast and a pain in the ass to everyone he came across,” Raphael said, chuckling.

“He was a troublemaker. When he turned sixteen, he inherited the scent of an Alpha. And one day, when he was walking home, a Pack smelled him. They followed his scent back to his mansion, knocking at the door…”

He trailed off.

“Well?” I demanded, engrossed.

“They asked him to be their Alpha. See, they hadn’t had an Alpha in some time, and they were desperate to have someone lead them. They were uncivilized. Having to live in exile meant they weren’t anywhere near as developed as the humans. So they begged him.”

“And?”

“He refused. He couldn’t leave his family, not to help some weres he didn’t know. He shut the door on them. Time went by, and his parents both passed on. His older brother was leading the family now. And the pain in the ass, the middle son, he didn’t like it.”

“He didn’t like his brother?”

“No, no, he loved his brother. He loved his family. But he had these… these urges. To take every morsel of power for himself. Because what happens when an Alpha pushes down his wolf for years and years and years… is the wolf claws its way out. It has to.”

“So what happened?” I whispered.

“One night, late, he couldn’t restrain it anymore. The wolf took over, killing both of his brothers, destroying the mansion.”

I covered my mouth in shock.

“Then he went into town. He killed everyone, everyone, until there was no one left. And then he found the Pack, the one that had asked him to help them, and he slaughtered them too.

“It was only when he was far away, in some cave deep in a forest, that his human resurfaced. And when he’d realized what his wolf had done, his rage came back, almost consuming him.”

“Almost?”

Raphael nodded. “Because someone appeared in the cave, out of thin air. A man… he looked like an angel. He was glowing, with gold hair. He said he was a Deity. But the pain-in-the-ass Alpha, he didn’t believe a word of that. Deities were nothing but fantasy to him.”

“What did he want?” I whispered.

“He said he come to the cave to kill him. That he was disrupting the balance, and the Deities didn’t like that. But the man, the angel, his name was Adonis, and he told the Alpha that killing him would be a waste. He had such talent.”

“So…?”

“So he offered him a deal instead. The Deity would let him live, if he agreed to help the Deities maintain balance in the universe. For eternity.”

“Did he take it?”

“He was stubborn. But eventually he did. He became immortal, received powers beyond any werewolf. From that day on he was the Alpha of the Millennium,” Raphael said then looked at me to gauge my reaction.

And I realized what he’d just told me, what he’d just admitted. He’d just revealed his life story. From before he became Alpha of all Alphas… to now.

I could see the pain in his eyes, the vulnerability, and it was a pain I recognized so well.

Because I had the same one.

Before I was me now, I’d been someone else.

Someone far more innocent, someone far more hopeful. I had the same past littered with humiliation and betrayal, and carnage.

I grabbed his face, pulling him close to me, kissing him hard. I felt closer to him than I’d ever felt, but still, it wasn’t enough.

I needed more of him.

I needed all of him.

I needed to feel him.

Now.

But it wasn’t like before. I wasn’t too exhausted to think straight.

No, I was thinking. I knew just what I had to.

I kissed him harder.

Then we were kissing again, and I was climbing on him, straddling him.

Tonight, I was going to give him all of me. We were going to have sex.

We were going to give in to the primal urges, the ones that called to us whenever we were in the same room.

The ones that demanded to be fed. We were going to satisfy them.

We were going to build the fire and then watch it burn.

We were going to let it consume us.

But just tonight.

Because, tomorrow, I would complete the mission that Barron Von Logia had given me ten years ago. The mission that I’d spent a decade avoiding. The mission that had to be completed by the end of the year.

Because if I didn’t complete it, Barron would kill my daughter.

So, yes, tonight Raphael and I would give in to our desire.

For the first time since 1516, we would make a feast of each other’s lust.

But tomorrow, I would kill him.

For Snow.