It slowed him down. Not so much that a lesser fighter would have been able to take advantage of it, but Andrew wasn’t just another wolf. He fought with a vicious edge and didn’t hold back. Pain blurred the edges of Alec’s misery. Frustration mounted every time Andrew spilled him to the floor, and that helped distract him too.
They fought for an hour before Andrew took him down with a right hook Alec should have seen coming long before it landed. The younger wolf stepped back, panting. “What the f**k is going on, Alec? I telegraphed the hell out of that move.”
Alec lay on his back and stared up at the ceiling as his jaw throbbed. Andrew was younger than him. A protégé. A successor. But he was other things too. A dominant wolf. Pack.
With the world spinning out of control, Andrew was a steady presence—someone who didn’t need his protection. It was safe to show weakness. “I lost her before I should have even wanted her.”
“What?”
Shit. It had gone down so fast no one even knew. “The doctor. Carmen Mendoza. I went sideways stupid over her, and my instincts went with me.”
“Oh.” Andrew dropped to the mat beside him. “You like Carmen?”
Like was a stupid word, one that made him feel a thousand years old, and it highlighted an uncomfortable truth. “Sure, I like her. Like isn’t what makes the world tilt ten degrees every time she walks into a room. She’s only half wolf, but I guess that half packs a punch.”
“Huh.” Andrew flashed him a quizzical frown. “I’m trying to wrap my brain around it. She seems so…..nice.”
“She is nice. That’s probably why she’s already walked out on me. I’m too much of an a**hole to make a nice woman happy.”
“Well, what happened?”
Alec covered his eyes with his hand. “I damn near lost it. More than once. You think what you did to Kat was bad? You had a f**king excuse. I’m just out of control. Drunk on instinct and stupid.”
Andrew snorted. “Speaking from experience, I don’t think you’d be this f**ked up about it if she walked out on you. If that happened, you’d be relieved, not beating yourself up.”
He wanted to ask Andrew how relieved he’d be when Kat started going out on dates with smooth-talking Miguel Mendoza, but he didn’t have the heart to rub salt in that wound.
At least there was one thing he could ask. One thing where Andrew was the expert, because Alec’s instincts had never been this out of control before. “Is your head clear? When Kat’s not around, when you’re not having to deal with her….. Does all the instinctive shit go away too?”
“Most of the time.” He shrugged. “Never goes away, not completely. What you’ve got to do is make peace with it. The pain’s yours. You hurt her, right? That means you deserve it.”
A chillingly succinct summation that told Alec more about Andrew than himself—and held up an unpleasant mirror. This was where Alec was headed. Straight to Andrew’s personal hell, where he sacrificed everything and gave up the woman he loved because it was the right thing to do. Whether anyone could see it or not, Andrew was still bleeding.
Bleeding, but clear-headed. Alec was anything but, which meant he was facing a different problem all together. Carmen had taken parts of him. His rationality, his higher-thinking processes. Some sort of magic had tied them together, and walking away might not be enough—assuming he could stay away.
Even lying on his back, bruised and aching, he craved her with an intensity that bordered on madness. Assuming he could walk away might be the dumbest thing he’d done all day—and that was saying something.
Chapter Nine
The next morning, Carmen woke to the scent of brewing gourmet coffee, and she knew she was in trouble when her first thought was disbelief that Alec was up before her.
She wandered into the kitchen and into the middle of a spirited conversation between Lily and Franklin, who sat with the morning paper spread across the table.
“Thank you, Jesus.” Lily latched on to her presence. “Carmen, tell this man why I couldn’t come get you by myself yesterday. I plugged the address into my GPS and—hand to God—the thing laughed at me.”
Carmen forced a smile as she poured a cup of coffee. “It’s not that far from town, Lil.”
Franklin’s eyes followed her, narrowed and slightly assessing, but his voice was light. “Lily’s a city girl. Keep trying to get her to come camping with me, but so far no luck.”
“We don’t have to sleep in the woods. We can build houses now.”
Carmen slid into the chair across from Franklin’s and avoided her boss’s curious gaze. “Lily’s never going to be your queen of the wilderness. May as well start shopping for a replacement.”
“Oh, ha ha.” Lily slid a plate of pancakes in front of her and propped both hands on her hips. “Shit, Carmen, you got kidnapped. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine.” Different, and not entirely because of the spell, but okay. “Barely a scratch on me.”
“And that’s the way we’re going to keep you.” Franklin took a sip of his coffee, and the mug looked tiny in his rough, callused hands. “I’m thinking about getting a part-time guard for the clinic.”
Carmen choked on her own coffee. “Did something happen while I was out?”
“You got kidnapped. Things are unsettled, and I’d rather not take chances. Not with you, or anyone else working there.”
Her kidnapping had had nothing to do with the clinic, but he was right about one thing—he couldn’t afford to take chances. “If you can spare me, I think I need some time off.” She could deal with her family, at least, and make sure no one else was put in danger because of her.
Franklin glanced at Lily, who raised both eyebrows and flashed him a pointed look.
Carmen set down her mug. “Okay, what’s going on?”
It was Franklin who finally spoke. “I didn’t want to put this on you, not on top of everything else, but your uncle’s been throwing his weight around.”
Rage rose at his words, sudden and breathtaking, like a punch to the gut. She closed her eyes and counted backwards, a trick she used to soothe herself. “Did he threaten you?”
“People threaten me all the damn time, Carmen. Keeping the clinic neutral is a full-time job. And sometimes I piss people off, like I’m going to hack your uncle off.” His mug hit the table with a thump. “So guards, when I’m not there. Just until things settle down a little.”
“Julio always says this is the kind of stunt Uncle Cesar pulls when he feels out of control. He shakes trees just to see what falls out.” Carmen smiled, the feral edge of anger still sharp inside her. “He’s shaking the wrong one this time.”
Lily watched her with wide blue eyes. “I recognize that look, Franklin.”
“Which is why I didn’t want to tell her.” Franklin braced his hand against the table and leaned forward. “I don’t get to tell you how to deal with your family, but you need to leave the clinic out of it. I don’t go a week without someone pissing in my Cheerios over something, and my place’d be shut down if I smacked everyone in the face simply because they have it coming.”
“Oh, I have plenty of reasons to punch Uncle Cesar in the head.” Carmen picked up her fork and stabbed at her pancakes. “We can start with the fact that he tried to sell me to your army buddy like a purebred poodle.”
It was Franklin’s turn to choke. “He tried to sell you to Jacobson?”
“Maybe sell isn’t the right word, since I’m pretty sure there might have been cash incentives readily available if Alec had agreed.”
Franklin shook his head. “Your uncle’s an idiot, and lucky he didn’t get his jaw broken. Alec’s sisters got to pretty much choose their husbands because even his father doesn’t dare cross him on the topic of unwilling arranged marriages. Granted, Alec’s father is a boot-licking lackey and not hard to bully.”
Even if his father had been strong, he might not have stood against Alec. “Cesar’s not stupid. He’s just utterly convinced that he’s right, and that the world should fall in line.”
“Then he’ll be sorely disappointed. In Alec, in you and in me.” Franklin pinned her in place with a stern look. “I’m fond of you, Mendoza, and not only because you work for me. You’ve got to promise me you’ll be careful.”
She could reassure him on that count, at least. “Trust me, Franklin. My family has a vested interest in keeping me safe and well enough to smile pretty for my engagement photo in the society papers.”
He didn’t smile. “That’d be a hell of a lot more reassuring if we were all human. A psychic could make you smile pretty for all the pictures they wanted to take.”
A week earlier, she would have denied the possibility. She would have been sure there was nothing her family wanted from her badly enough to go to such extremes. Now, she knew better. “I won’t let that happen.”
“Lily?”
Lily bent and kissed his cheek. “She’ll be careful. Carmen likes herself well enough to want to stay safe.”
She dropped her gaze so she wouldn’t have to look at them. “I’m planning on sticking close to home for the next few days anyway.”
A hand fell on her shoulder. Franklin’s, warm and comforting. “Alec’s in a damn pissy mood. Does that mean he did something dumb?”
She took her time chewing. “If you’re curious, you should talk to him about it.”
“Not a chance, Mendoza. Throwing myself on a grenade sounds like a better time than asking Alec Jacobson about his feelings. If you don’t want to share, I’ll stay curious.”
“Fine.” She dropped her fork and reached for her orange juice, wishing the glass also contained its fair share of vodka. “He’s an a**hole who can’t make up his mind what he wants.”