All I could think about was her anyway.
Fuck. That body. That smell. That skin. I would’ve licked her from toe to neck and back again if she’d given me the chance.
“Hey.” One of the bear twins handed me the circulating bourbon bottle. “Where did you go?”
I lifted the bottle to my lips and immediately regretted it. How could a drink I’d had every day since puberty suddenly remind me of one of the best lays of my entire life?
As if I’d forgotten.
I couldn’t take my mind off Belle. Especially with that parasite hovering around her day and night. “I’m killed by boredom. I am sitting here, quite dead with the rivalry talk. Aren’t we here to figure out what we’re doing about Belle?”
“Easy, Alec. It’s the same old doubleganger shit we deal with every fifty years,” he said, and the second brother laughed.
I clenched my teeth. “Rena has never been a doubleganger. She dies and gets reincarnated.”
“Whatever you howl, Wolf. The bottom line is, you and the leech are fighting over that voodoo reincarnated girl for the hundredth time. What else is new?”
“What’s new is that he’s winning,” I seethed and jumped to my feet, leaves crunching under, bourbon spilling down. Belle had shunned Kayden and me, wouldn’t even talk to either of us. And Asher’s smell had been all over her all week.
“The wolves and the bears aren’t exactly best buddies, but the last time I checked we’re still brothers. We all belong to the same pack,” I said. “Do you really want to see that parasite living off an innocent human? Sucking her blood? Turning her? You know damn well Asher can’t be trusted. Vamps have no control.”
I knew the bears never liked that deal we made with the devil two hundred fifty years ago, but they still hated the vamps.
The bear brothers exchanged glances. “I didn’t see you getting all worked up about human lives when you shook hands with the devil himself.”
“Guys, bringing this up again won’t solve any problems.” Kayden joined the conversation abruptly. He’d been silent, only observing, from the beginning of the meeting.
“Maybe, but it seems that your brother needs the reminder,” the bear brother said, looking at me. “That deal you made put us at a fucking peace with the vampires. We can’t touch our natural enemies. They get to live and hunt, and we just watch. Have you thought about how many lives Asher has taken so your precious Rena gets fucking reincarnated? Lives we were supposed to save from him? Or Rena’s is the only human life you care about?”
I scratched the back of my head and peered at Kayden for support. He just looked away.
Seriously?
It was no secret my own twin blamed me, too, for what I had to do to save what was left of my mate. But he’d never done it in front of others.
It hurt. I didn’t need this from him right now neither did I need the reminder from the bears. I blamed myself every day for the consequences. Having to live with the vampires on the same land, with equal hunting rights. Turning a blind eye to their kills, only to wait every fifty years for Rena to make a choice.
To join the pack or go with the vamp.
They thought that didn’t hurt me enough every fucking day, every fucking second?
Whoever won got to spend the rest of her allowed years on earth as her mate, and the other had to leave Forest Grove until…her time ended.
Then we would start all over again.
Live with the enemy. Wait. Fight over her. Wait again for Halloween night when she would make her choice. Live the next few years accordingly. Repeat.
A sad loop Asher and I had agreed to revolve in because we had no choice but to do just that.
I couldn’t just let her die and never come back. I couldn’t face an eternity without her in it. Waiting to have a few years with her every fifty years was far better than living forever without seeing her again.
Yes, I’d doomed my pack with me, and there wasn’t a day when I didn’t wish there had been a way where I was the only one that suffered.
But I had to save her.
It wasn’t all about my selfish love for her and my refusal to just let her go. It was about her.
Rena came from a cursed bloodline. Hadn’t I made that deal that night, her soul would have gone straight to the devil. I couldn’t just let him have her. I had to do something, and that was the only deal the devil agreed to make.
