Deadlock: Southern Arcana, Book 3 Page 12

  Mackenzie hopped up onto the counter and crossed her legs, bouncing one foot so that her sandal dangled. “I’m not a magical expert or anything, but based on my experience, you’d know. I had some big badass spell cast on me to keep me from shifting, and when it started to fall apart… Well, there weren’t exactly lucid periods. First I tried climbing the walls, then I tried climbing Jackson.”

  Suppressing the blush that rose was impossible, so Carmen kept her gaze riveted to the coffee maker. “The, uh, climbing. Yeah, I’m familiar with that part. What happened to you…afterward?”

  “They had to reinforce the spell, but the second it was gone, I shifted. I couldn’t have stopped it.”

  It sounded nothing like the way she’d had to strain and grasp for the slightest flicker of magic. “Definitely not, then.”

  “Well, congrats.” Mackenzie hesitated, her foot frozen mid-bounce. “Right?”

  “Right.” Even as she spoke, Carmen shook away the tiny, inexplicable frisson of doubt that rose. “Right. I mean, this isn’t something I would have chosen.”

  “Then it’s good. And the rest will shake itself out.”

  “Of course it will.” Carmen leaned one hip against the counter. “Are Jackson and Alec outside?”

  “Yeah. Jackson’s got Kat on the phone about something and Alec’s dealing with…”

  “Oh.” She grasped the edge of the counter and tried not to babble. “Seems like I should help him, doesn’t it? They came here because of me. Alec wouldn’t have two dead people in his front yard if it wasn’t for me.”

  “That’s not—” Mackenzie leaned forward and dropped a hand to Carmen’s shoulder. “I don’t know if this is going to make you feel better or worse, but either way you deserve to hear it. This isn’t anything new for him.”

  Another warning. “Don’t worry, Alec’s already taken pains to explain to me exactly what his life is like. I know.”

  “Then let him take care of it. Let him do what’s going to put him on solid footing.”

  She’d spent years avoiding her father’s family and all other lasting connections to wolf society. Yet here she was, with a man who knew nothing else, treading the line between casual involvement and something that could change her life.

  Carmen didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  Mackenzie slid off the counter a second before the front door swung open. “I’m going to go check on Jackson.”

  Which meant it was Alec coming through the door. “Later, Mackenzie.” Carmen ran her hands through her hair and reached into the cabinet for two mugs.

  Footsteps sounded behind her, but Alec didn’t touch her before he spoke. “You okay?”

  She turned to face him, and her heart skipped at the implacable look on his face. “I think so. What about you?”

  He shrugged one shoulder, then looked away. “Nothing kills a hard-on like burying bodies.”

  Harsh words that covered something, though Carmen couldn’t tell what. She reached back and gripped the edge of the counter to steady herself. “I could have done it.”

  “It’s not—” Alec sighed. “I’m sorry. That was a shitty thing to say.”

  The space between them was more than physical, a palpable emotional distance that left her feeling awkward. “Do you want me to go?”

  “I don’t want you to.” That at least had the emotional punch of honesty, but it didn’t erase the tension vibrating off him. “I think—I think maybe you need to, though. Franklin can keep an eye on you, and I’ll be a lot more effective at finishing this shit with your family once I’ve got my head on straight.”

  “Once you—” Once she was gone, and he didn’t have to think about her anymore. Carmen shivered and crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s it, huh?”

  “It has to be it.” He took a step toward her, filling the small kitchen with the intensity of his power. “When you’re in a room, seventy-five percent of me is focused on you. The rest of the world might as well not be there. I can’t be effective like this. I can’t protect you.”

  He’d already told her that was what he needed more than anything. More than being close to her. “I understand.”

  “It’s not about you. You get that, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.” If anything, it made it hurt worse. He wasn’t pushing her away because she wasn’t what he wanted, or because they didn’t fit. She simply wasn’t worth fighting for. “I’m not going to sit around, Alec, waiting to be convenient for you. If I leave, I’m moving on.”

  It hurt him, and he couldn’t hide it. But he didn’t admit it, either. “This isn’t how I wanted it to go. I wanted—” A breath. His shoulders slumped. “Doesn’t really matter what. My life’s never going to be safe. There’s always another crisis.”

  Then you’re always going to be hiding. She didn’t want to torture either of them, so she took a step toward the door. “I hope you find—” The hard lump that formed in her throat choked off the words.

  He stared at her in anguished silence until the front door crashed open. Mackenzie strode in, bright-eyed and smiling and riding a wave of sympathy. “Hey, Alec. Sorry, should have knocked, but Jackson’s got some stuff for you in the car and it can’t wait.”

  Alec pivoted and leveled a glare on her, one so sharp it should have flayed her skin. Mackenzie just stared back, completely unperturbed—and clearly unwilling to leave. After a tense few moments, Alec stalked past her, pausing at the door to look at Carmen. “I’ll be right back.”

  It didn’t matter, because she wouldn’t be there, even if it meant she had to walk home. “Excuse me, Mackenzie. I have to pack my things.”

  Alec slammed the door behind him.

  “Well.” Mackenzie folded her arms over her chest and eyed Carmen. “I’ll hit him, if it makes you feel better. Probably won’t do much damage, but it pisses the hell out of him that I’m faster than he is.”

  Of course Mackenzie would have heard. Carmen flushed and shook her head. “I just need to go. Can you give me a ride?”

  “Not a problem. I’ll even help you pack.”

  The faster she could leave, the better. Maybe, if Carmen was lucky, the other woman wouldn’t want to talk about it, and she could lock down until she got home.

  She just had to make it home.

  Alec talked to Jackson long enough to make sure he and Mackenzie would get Carmen home safely. Then he got in his truck and drove.

  The coward’s way out, but he was feeling cowardly. Way too weak to watch Carmen pack her things and walk out of his life, even if letting her was the right thing to do. It had been so clear outside, with the stench of death in the air and the proof of danger at his feet. Carmen needed to be safe, and she wouldn’t be safe around him. No woman ever had been.

  But when she looked at him…

  He drove twenty miles before he was sure he could relax without turning the truck around and going back to stop her. His wolf clawed at him, furious that he’d let the female they both craved slip through his fingers. There’d been a hunt. A chase. So close to claiming her, and now she was gone, and they were alone.

  Always alone.

  At least someone else understood his pain. He called Andrew from fifteen minutes outside of town. A half an hour later they faced each other across the wooden floor of Zola’s second-floor sparring area.

  Words weren’t important. They’d never needed them anyway, not when Andrew had been reborn with instincts as overpowering as Alec’s own. Usually those instincts gave Alec the advantage, but today they felt fuzzy, compromised by his need for Carmen and the lack of her ripping its way into his soul, like she’d taken chunks of him with her when she’d gone.

  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 fuck 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 asshole 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 fucking 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 fucked 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 le
ast. “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 asshole who can’t make up his mind what he wants.”

  Franklin’s expression turned serious. “Of course he can’t. That man hasn’t spent more than twenty seconds thinking about what he wants in a long damn time. He’s probably out of practice.”

  Out of practice and scared by what could happen to her. “I’m an asshole too. It’s a bad situation, all the way around.”

  “Yeah. And shitty timing, with your family.” He smiled, a little lopsided. “Sorry, Carmen. You’ve had a week from hell, haven’t you?”

  “Could always be worse.” She just wasn’t sure how.

  Alec was running a red light when his cell phone rang.

  At least it was at an intersection so deserted he didn’t feel guilty about slamming down the gas when the light turned yellow. He fumbled for his phone as he zipped through the intersection, then swore when he read the display.