“Yes. Now we can go to the room.”
He chuckled, unable to hold on to the darkness with her clinging to him as she was. It was silly, really, trying to dry off in that position, so he gave up and just carried her to the bed. Finally, she released him and knelt on the mattress in front of him.
They were not having this conversation. It would be better for them to go to bed and act like this never happened. Tomorrow, he’d have his armor back and would be able to face her. Tonight, he just wanted to close his eyes and forget it all.
Cupping her hands to his cheeks, she forced him to look at her. “You. Are. Not. Your. Father.”
“Fabia–”
“Pequeña,” she interrupted. It sounded all right, considering her knowledge of Italian, but her accent was just a bit off.
He smiled. “Pequeña.”
The way her nose scrunched was adorable. “It sounds better when you do it.”
“It’s trick of the tongue.” His shoulders relaxed as he chuckled.
“Better?”
He nodded, knowing what she was asking.
“Now, don’t kill your brother. He was only trying to help. You know so much of my past and you don’t hold it against me.”
“You haven’t had to do the things I’ve done.”
“You’re right, I haven’t. But you’re a product of that environment, Adonis, nothing more.”
He snorted. “It’s why I run a cartel now. Iamthat environment.”
“You’re talking to the daughter of a Made Man, Adonis. I come from that world too. I can’t very well cast stones over who you are any more than I could hate Dominic or Pasquale.”
He growled. “We won’t talk about other men when you’re naked and in my bed.”
She slapped his shoulder and squealed. “Ew! One of those men is my brother! You know what I’m talking about though. You are who you are, and your pack loves you. They don’t run in fear and they aren’t terrified of you. They respect you as Alpha and know you are stronger. They worry about offending your or stepping out of line, but that’s the way of wolves. We’re not just human.”
“Wolves don’t deal in drugs,pequeña.”
“But we’re not just wolves either. I don’t have to agree with everything you do, and I won’t. Then again, I don’t agree with the life many of our Alphas have led. It is simply who we are.”
“Pequeña–”
“There is darkness everywhere, Adonis, and sometimes we need the darkness to survive. If war had come to a city full of non-combatants, they’d have been slaughtered. Encantado survived because of who is here. We can all be thankful for that. I’m a woman, Adonis. I never would have been forced to live like you, but my brother was. Every day he fought or was beaten. He killed or risked being killed. He’s colder, like you, more apt to attack, but he had me to protect, and maybe I kept some softness within him. We never got to know my mother. She died giving birth to me and my father hated me for it.”
“I am sorry, Fabiana.”
She shrugged. “I should hurt, but I never knew her. Didn’t hear the softness of her voice or know the curve of her cheek. Pasquale did, and knowing seemed to break him. I’ve been told I look just like her, and Pasquale made sure to teach me Italian. My father wanted me to remain ignorant, but I learned in secret until I could understand when he ordered his men to hurt me. I wanted to be as prepared as I could be.”
Adonis wished he could kill that man all over again for what he’d done to his daughter and what she’d had to endure. His mother had been no different, cowering when his father yelled for her, shifting into her wolf just to heal a multitude of broken bones and bruises.
“The only time my mother was safe was when she was pregnant,” Adonis shared. “He wouldn’t risk killing one of his children, and he wanted as many boys as possible. There were four of us, but only one remains.”
He’d ended them simply because they were too weak to fight against his father’s threats and abuse. They’d given in to his tactics, reveled in the pain of others, and any of them would have continued his legacy without fail.
Adonis wouldn’t wish that on any world.
“The one that remains is all that matters,” Fabiana whispered. “And that one is going to make love to me now, the only way he can. You know why?”
He sighed, lifting his face to the heavens. “Why?”
“Because there is no other man who can do what he does. And there is definitely no man in any universe I’d rather give allmyfirsts to than him.”
Adonis would never, in a thousand lifetimes, deserve the woman in his arms.
But he would pray every day that he would at least die trying.
