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Chapter Fourteen

Aline

I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what the hell was happening, but there was one thing I knew for sure: I wasn’t letting Xochil and her family fight my battles without me.

While I was extremely worried for Avó, Xochil had already been shot. There was no way I was letting her go into danger without me.

But twenty minutes later, as we drove to an address that no one explained how they got or why they thought we’d find the other man there, I had to admit that I was confused about a lot of things. For one, Miguel, her cousin Jacob and her cousin’s husband, Chris, kept occasionally calling Xochil ‘Alpha’. No one batted an eye at it, either. I couldn’t tell if this was some sort of nickname or something to do with their furry way of life. Xochil had also referred to me as her mate again. Several times, in fact, and no one seemed surprised or confused. I’d heard the word goddess a few times, too. And the word dungeon.

I was beginning to worry about who these people were. It felt like I was entering a world I knew nothing about. Were they part of a cult? And more importantly, did it matter right now? I might not be alive if it weren’t for them. If Xochil had left when I asked her to earlier, I would be halfway to Brazil in the hands of these people right now.

Besides, I trusted her. I trusted them. So did my orixa, for that matter, and I had learned long ago to listen to him. So here I was, seated between Xochil and Chris, while Miguel drove us to the address with her Dad riding shotgun, at close to four in the morning.

Helios looked different from how he did earlier. Gone was the expensive suit, and instead, he was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a simple blue polo shirt that highlighted the muscles hidden under the suit. It somehow made him look more approachable and more intimidating at the same time. There was a power emanating from him that demanded not only attention, but respect, too. It was like he had an aura surrounding him that screamed of danger and power, though right now, much like Xochil’s, it felt like safety.

We pulled up to a house on the outskirts of the city. It was isolated and not in the best shape. In fact, it almost looked dilapidated and abandoned.

Miguel turned the headlights off as we approached the gate, and I wondered how he was able to navigate when I couldn’t see anything but darkness around us. Instinctively, I grabbed Xochil’s hand, feeling instantly safer when she squeezed it. The SUV came to a stop a few hundred yards from the house, and there was silence in the car for a few moments.

“I’ll go in first. Once it’s safe, I’ll let you guys know,” Miguel told the silent car.

“I don—” I started to say, but didn’t get a chance to talk.

“Chris and I will go with you. We don’t know how many people are in there,” Helios said, unbuckling his seatbelt.

“Wait!” I called out when they opened the doors. “You don’t have any weapons. How are you going to protect yourselves?”

“We are the weapons, sweetie,” Helios answered before he shut the door behind him.

“Don’t worry, Luna. We’ll be fine.” Miguel winked at me, and shut the door behind him before I could remind him that my name wasn’t Luna.

His cousins had also called me Luna, and I initially thought they had misheard, but Miguel knew my name, so I wasn’t sure why he was changing it now.

Once the internal lights turned off after the last door closed, I couldn’t see any of them. I looked over at Xochil, and I could feel her eyes on me.

“They’ll be fine. They know what they’re doing,” she assured me.

I wanted to say something, but then I heard noises coming from a distance and Xochil’s and my attention went to the house. I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear people screaming and—was that a roar? Did they have wild animals in there?

Less than five minutes later, everything went quiet again.

“Let’s go. Everything is safe now,” Xochil said as she opened the car door and held out her hand for me.

“Are you sure?” I asked, and took her hand when she nodded, though she didn’t explain how she knew.

We walked over to the house, entering through the front door as if we owned the place. Five men were on their knees in the living room, looking terrified.

“Where’s Miguel?” I asked, only to slam myself against the wall when a giant, reddish brown wolf padded into the room with clothes in its mouth. I reached over to bring Xochil toward me as the wolf started our way, but Xochil didn’t seem phased. She simply nodded at the wolf when it cocked its head toward her.

A series of cracking sounds tore my attention back to the wolf, and I watched in frozen terror as the limbs appeared to shorten, the reddish brown fur receded until all that was left was Miguel. A very naked Miguel.

Once he was back to standing, he pulled on the shorts and shirt the wolf had brought with it, then he turned to talk to his uncle.

“You… you… there was a wolf and then… you… you…” was all I could stammer.

“Aline? Are you alright?” Xochil asked me.

“He… he… what the hell,” I whispered, pushing from the wall and running out the door, trying to get some air. I sank down on the top step and pushed my head between my legs, trying to center myself before I passed out from my panic attack.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” Xochil asked, sitting down next to me, her hand rubbing my back slowly.

Surprisingly, it was helping, and I felt my panic begin to subside.

“Miguel just turned into a wolf,” I told her, then shook my head and corrected, “A wolf turned into Miguel.”

“I—yeah. I told you last night, baby. We’re shifters. Werewolves. What did you think that meant?”

“I thought you were saying you were furries! Not actual, paranormal, mythical creatures who could turn from human to wolves!” I answered, my voice rising higher and higher until I wasn’t sure she could hear me from how high-pitched my voice was.

“Furries? What are furries?” Xochil asked.

“People who like or dress up as anthropomorphic animals, cousin,” Miguel said, stepping outside.

“Why would anyone want to do that?” she asked, then looked at me again. “I told you we were werewolves. Why would yo—” she stopped, something dawning on her delicate features. “It wasn’t that you didn’t believe me. You thought I was delusional—crazy. Is that why you looked worried when I woke you up and placed a hand over your mouth so the intruders wouldn’t hear you?”

I could see the hurt in her eyes as she spoke, and I had no defense, except…

“It was more rational for me to think you had a weird kink and wanted to tell me about it before we had sex, than to think you were a fantasy creature!” I defended.

“She’s got a point, mija,” Helios pointed out from the door, but with one eye remaining on the kneeling men. “But how about we shelf this conversation for the moment while we deal with these guys?”

“Right,” Xochil said, standing up and going back inside without looking at me.

For some reason, that felt very much like she was mad and done with me. Miguel gave me a sympathetic look that confirmed my suspicion while he held the door open for me. I followed in behind Xochil and stood to the side. My head whirled around with everything I’d just learned about the woman I was falling in love with, and a world I didn’t even know existed.

“Where are your phones?” Xochil asked the men inside.

When no one answered, she asked again, but this time, I saw her eyes turning black. My heart raced, and I saw her dark eyes flicker over to me as if she could hear it. She swallowed hard, but looked away and growled out the question a third time.

Things were making sense now. The first time I saw her, her eyes had turned black, but I thought I’d been too exhausted, and my eyes were playing tricks on me. I thought I saw the same thing that morning during our first kiss.

How had I ever thought she was just a normal person? Jesus, the growling made sense now, too. It was still hot, though.

I was brought out of my thoughts when I heard the clattering of objects. Three phones were on the ground before the men.

“There’s five of you, and three phones. Where are the other two?” Xochil growled, and a shiver of lust went down my back.

I liked the power she was exerting right now.

“I d-don’t have m-mine on me,” one stammered.

“Where is it?”

“Bedroom.”

“And the last one?” Xochil asked, nodding to Chris, who started heading toward the back of the house.

“Bedroom,” the other one also stated.

“Why are you hunting my mate?” Xochil asked, and I was a bit confused.

We already knew why. I told them why.

“They have my daughter,” one answered.

“My wife,” another said, and two others nodded.

“My mom,” the youngest one replied.

“Who has them?”

No one answered her.

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me who has your families,” Xochil said, clearly over this whole situation. She looked exhausted and frustrated.

“Why would you help us?”

“Because it’s what we do,” Xochil answered, and I could see the pride on her father’s face as she did.

“His name is Benicio,” the youngest answered. “He controls the gun and coke trade. He controls Manaus.”

Xochil’s face took on a faraway look as Chris re-entered the living room with two phones in his hands.

“Did any of you send any information regarding Aline’s grandmother to your boss?” Xochil asked, and I felt my anxiety rising. No one answered for a moment, and Xochil sighed. “If you’re truly being forced to do this, I won’t punish you, but I need to know if my family is in danger.”

Her words surprised me, and I got a warm feeling spreading from my chest. She called Avó her family, and she hadn’t even met her. She’d told me she planned on keeping me forever, and with these simple words, I was finally realizing she’d meant them.

“Adriano sent the text,” the youngest answered.

“What’s your name?” Xochil asked him.

“Caio.”

“When did he send the text?”

“When he arrived. He had some paper in his hand and said the other three men died when they entered her house, but this would get our families released.”

“Will it?” Xochil asked.

“I doubt it,” the man sighed, hanging his head.

“Which phone is his?”

The man pointed to a phone, and Xochil picked it up and brought it to him.

“Remove the lock.”

The man did as she asked, though I could see the defeat in his eyes.

“How many of you are being forced to do the man’s bidding?”

“Just us and the ones we lost. We were the only ones without criminal records. It was easier to send us here than to try to smuggle other people in.”

“What was the extent of your mission?” Xochil continued to question them.

“Find her, find her grandmother, and report back. We’re not supposed to hurt either of them, but we needed to find the grandmother.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. We were just given orders.”

“Do you know why?” Xochil asked, addressing me for the first time since we’d re-entered the house.

“No,” I answered honestly. “I thought they wanted her to use as bait and get their hands on me.”

“Let’s take them home and figure out our next move,” Helios suggested.

“They won’t all fit in the SUV,” Chris pointed out.

“They will. They can cram in the back. They’re prisoners for the moment anyway,” Miguel answered.

We moved everyone into the back of the SUV, tying them up with some rope Chris found in the house. I was sitting up front now, as Xochil was unwilling to let me sit anywhere near the men. She was driving now, too, while Miguel snoozed in the back seat, completely unperturbed over the men crammed behind him. She still wasn’t really talking to me or even looking at me, but she did occasionally hold my hand while driving.

It was light by the time we arrived at a pair of gates with two metal wolves howling at a sun and moon. Weren’t werewolves supposed to howl at the moon only? I really needed more information. I’d never been one to read or watch a lot of fantasy, and I was beginning to realize that maybe that was a mistake. It left me wholly unprepared for a woman like Xochil.

The men guarding the gates waved us through, though I could see curiosity directed my way as we drove by. The place might have looked like a normal gated community, if it wasn’t for the giant mansion at the end of the drive. Xochil pulled up to the steps and turned off the engine. I looked at the people waiting for us there as I unbuckled my seatbelt, my eyes widening as a few familiar faces approached from the left.