The next morning, Alex sat on her bed, hands pressed to her ears, listening to Morgan shouting in her head. It had started with trash and whore and had gotten worse from there.
The short circuit built in her head so that she barely heard the knock on the door and she regretted making her bargain with Cale.
He had decided to keep them both away from her, so she had spent the night alone. The nightmares had racked her sleep and set her up for a short circuit to start this morning.
She had never had one on the Anolis home world and had almost forgotten them. The noise in her head was so loud that she barely heard the knock on her door.
"Alex, I want to talk to you," Gabe called through the door.
"No," she called back.
"You must leave that room in your dwelling at some time."
"What part of 'no' didn't you understand?" She pressed her hands harder to her head. "Unless there's a mission, go away."
Gabe hiss-growled and stalked out of the apartment.
"He's gone," Rile said to the closed door.
"Yippee." Alex slumped on the bed, the voice in her head quieted, the short circuit now over.
"Come out."
"No, I'm done. Leave me be."
You and your brother fight enough. You're not fighting over trash like me.
"I'm not done with you. Come out and spar. You can't hide forever. I'll break down that door. I'm not the Perfect Eldest Son."
Alex wrenched open the door and glared at Rile. He bowed in an exaggerated manner to the training mat he had placed in her living room.
They squared off while Cale watched, unhappiness written on his face and clacking his claws.
"Keep your hands up," Rile ordered Alex. "They're too low to block well."
"Please take it easy," Cale begged. "Alex left the hospital only days ago."
"Alex will not get better sitting on the couch. She needs conditioning, as well as training in sword, staff, and dagger. Hermann and that agency that created her are still out there, looking for her."
"Thanks for talking about me like I wasn't here," Alex said.
Rile rolled his eyes and punched at her with easy, test jabs that she parried decently.
"Keep your hands up," Rile said and Alex complied for a few punches before her hands dipped again.
"I'm not telling you again." Rile punched through her too-low hand position.
Alex stumbled, her back hit the corner of the wall, and she went to her knees.
"Did you have to slam me against the wall?" Alex gasped. "That dagger wound still has sutures in it."
Cale jumped up to help her and raked Rile with an appropriate glare.
"You deserved a dagger in the lung. What were you thinking, chatting to someone who wanted to kill you?" Rile said, returning Cale's look. "You kill or disable your opponent, rather than tell her how anticlimactic your fight was."
Alex was settling painfully into the couch when Gabe walked in. He was at her side in a flash.
"I heard scuffling from downstairs. What happened?" He pried away her hand from her back and saw fresh blood, the tang wafted to all the brothers' sensitive nostrils.
"I tripped. When I reached out to steady myself, I must have popped a stitch or two," Alex said.
Rile and Cale said nothing at Alex's cover story.
"Cale, fetch the first aid kit. Let me see, Alex." Gabe gently pulled up the edge of her shirt. "You're right. The edge of the wound is open. Hand me the gauze." Gabe dabbed at the wound once he had the gauze and Alex sucked in her breath. "I'm sorry," he said.
"For what?" she asked.
Gabe didn't see the hope in Alex's face, but Rile and Cale did.
"That you were hurt," Gabe replied, still dabbing the wound.
"Oh," Alex said.
That hope just died.
"It's part of the job description," she continued.
"No, it's not. You should have stayed inside the Institute as ordered," Gabe said.
"This is my fault now?" Alex, still in sparring mode, jerked away from Gabe and grabbed three staffs from the wall. "Prove it."
She tossed staffs to Rile and Gabe. "If it hadn't been for your girlfriend, I wouldn't have gotten hurt." She made a quick jab at Gabe's midsection.
Cale groaned, but Rile smiled.
"We need to go," Cale whispered to him.
"I've been waiting for this argument so I can enjoy it," he whispered back.
"And take advantage of it," Cale whispered furiously but stopped when Gabe spoke.
"Cla wasn't my girlfriend. I had a mission to accomplish and I did," Gabe stated and this time Alex was able to clout him across the head.
"Oh, what you endure for the mission." Alex's staff hit Gabe's staff so hard that it was almost torn from his grasp. "There must be a high supply of Guardians if you have sex to save the world." Alex's side swing caught Gabe in the ribs.
Rile chuckled, "Good one."
Cale snatched up his own staff and tried to jab him. "Let's go back to our apartment, now."
"I wouldn't miss this for a portal back home. You go. I'm staying," Rile replied, swatting away Cale's staff.
Gabe sighed. "That didn't come out right. It's different for males. There was much going on and there was this irresistible physical compatibility."
Rile's eyes widened and Cale cringed.
"This is way too much information," Cale said. "As the humans say."
Alex swept Gabe's feet and he landed with a thud. "That's what this is about: sexual attraction," she accused the prone form.
Gabe clambered back to his feet. "No, it's not."
"Keep digging, Gabe, the hole is almost deep enough," Rile crowed.
"You're not helping, Rile," Gabe said.
"I'm not trying to help," Rile replied with a thrust that Gabe expertly parried.
"Cale, was this 'physical compatibility' irresistible? Did you and Deela-" Alex started.
"No, we did not! Leave me out of this," Cale called as he ran and hid in the kitchen.
"Alex, I'm sorry." Gabe sounded angry, not sorry, and he gripped his staff with whitened knuckles. "The circumstances what they were and the mission what it was, I did what I had to do."
"Oh, now you had to have sex. Well, Cale and Rile didn't have to." Alex feinted and her thrust hit Gabe's chest hard.
Rile smile widened. This was getting better and better. When Gabe stumbled a step back from Alex's blow, Rile tried to sweep Gabe's feet.
"Look what happened to him. The mission would have failed if I had acted like the perfect Rile." Gabe blocked Rile and gave a savage riposte.
"I saved Rile and we completed the mission just fine," Alex answered. She ignored the bloodstain creeping down the back of her shirt.
"You didn't save me," Rile said, offended, and his swing smacked painfully into her thigh.
"I most certainly did. Ask Mina." Alex looked in no mood to stroke Rile's ego and launched a series of rapid blows at him. "Ask everyone in that amphitheatre who watched as I battled that witch for you."
"While we're on the subject of Rile, how about you spending every night with him after that spectacular rescue? It was the talk of all the Anolis males," Gabe said, not above attacking Rile at the same time as Alex.
"That was different and you know it. We only slept next to, not with, each other. We watched each other's backs in hostile territory." Alex turned her attack back to Gabe.
"Was that really all?" Gabe asked in a nasty tone and blocked all of Alex's strikes.
"Yes. Just sleeping next to, not with. I swear it." Alex stopped to catch her breath. She dabbed the bloodstain and swept her bloody hand across her forehead.
Let Gabe see my blood that his girlfriend spilled.
"There is more you need to know. Rile, why don't you tell her?" Gabe asked. Two thrusts and a sweep left Rile bruised.
Rile's heart sank as Alex turned to him.
"Don't do this, Gabe," Rile warned and went on the offensive against his brother.
"Now you have something to hide. Not so perfect now, are you?" Gabe landed another strike on Rile.
"Gabe, Rile, what is this about?" Alex asked, considering how best to attack the two of them at once and not be slaughtered.
"Tell her, Rile. Tell her what happens after she falls asleep," Gabe ordered and pointed his staff at him.
Rile swatted it aside and his riposte almost struck Gabe's gut.
"Tell me, Rile. It's too late to hide anything now," Alex said.
His expression softened as he looked down on her. "Alex, it's not what you think."
"I don't know what to think," Alex answered, taking advantage of his hesitation to smack his thigh, as he had done to her.
"It's not what you are going to think," Rile added and stepped back.
"Tell her, Rile. Tell her what happened every night you slept with her. Because it was with, not next to," Gabe ordered again, following through with a thrust that Rile expertly blocked.
Rile looked away from Alex, ostensibly to concentrate on Gabe. "After you fall asleep, you start to . . . well, you glow."
"Oh." She was still puzzled and held her staff in a defensive position. "What does that mean?"
"It's . . . comforting . . ." Rile stumbled over the words.
"More than that." Gabe's tone was cold. "Much more."
Gabe and Alex attacked Rile at once. Gabe stop-blocked him and Alex foot swept Rile to the floor.
"Oh! You mean . . . oh!" Horror replaced the perplexity on Alex's face. "And you . . . and you too . . . none of you ever saw fit to tell me this?" Alex turned on Gabe and landed three strikes about his head and torso.
"I've never seen or felt anything sexual from you, Alex," Cale protested as he came out of the kitchen from where he had been hiding and watching. "I swear on my eggshell."
Gabe ignored him and addressed Alex. "I didn't see a need to tell you. But Rile should have. Do you think he really loves you? Rile has always envied everything of mine and tried to steal it. He had a taste of that glow and he'll never rest until he snatches it from me. He only cares about his own pleasure and taking everything of mine."
"Typical Gabe. You act like everything and everyone is your possession," Rile jumped to his feet and began hurling strikes at Gabe, herding him towards the wall. "I love Alex for being smart and strong and sacrificing herself for others, not because of some neuro-electric sex. Alex?" Rile asked.
The fury on Alex's face gave him pause. "Alex, you don't believe Gabe, do you?" Rile asked, and, when she didn't answer, he demanded, "Alex, after all we went through together, tell me you don't believe him."
"I don't know what to believe, except that you should have told me." She launched herself at Rile, staff a blur, eyes unfocused from the insanity that haunted her over all matters sexual.
Rile felt a flurry of blows about his head, shoulders and torso. He could only block a few of them, and a particularly hard hit to his head had him seeing double. He fell and the attack stopped as suddenly as it started. He saw two Cales blocking two enraged Alexes.
"Stop, Alex. He's down, and if you don't stop, you might kill him. He's a jerk, but I prefer him alive," Cale said.
"Talk to me after you've been raped, Cale!"
Cale landed several strikes hard against her staff, knocking her back a few feet. "You don't know me, Alex."
"What do you know about rape, Agama male?"
"I know you weren't raped by Rile. You were used as he enjoyed your power. He should have told you, but he didn't," Cale said.
Alex struck back hard, but Cale stood firm.
"You don't know anything about it!" Alex shouted.
Cale roared with rage and pushed her back against a wall. "I know all about it! When a young warrior in training goes missing for two weeks, and makes up a story about 'nearly being captured', it's taken for granted it was a true story. That trainee won't admit to his family that he was tortured and abused by more than a dozen enemy warriors, gloating they had captured the green-hided bastard son of a Clan Head."
Alex, Gabe, and Rile all stared at Cale.
"Rile used you. He didn't rape you. It was wrong, but he barely touched you. You didn't even know until Gabe told you. Rile and Gabe, both of you should have bloody told Alex. Gabe, mind your own bloody business, and start being a leader. I swore that no one would ever know. I don't blame you, Alex, but you can't blow up, out of control, forever at everything sexual. Now if you'll excuse me, I've had enough of you for a while. I need some alone time before I smack one of you." Cale flung his staff to the ground and marched out.
Alex hurled her staff at Rile and Gabe, her expression murderous. Then she followed Cale.
Rile waited until the door was closed. "Gabe?"
"Yes, Rile?"
"We really screwed up."
"Yes, we did, Rile. Yes, we did."
*****
A/N
The big reveal! Everyone reacts! Your reaction?
Almost at the end!
Dedicated to
[this song belongs in your werewolf book]
Addition at the beginning of the chapter dedicated to
Does this adequately answer the Alex Rile problem you pointed out?