“She’s Karl’s kid, Sven.” Per delivered the news with a sigh.
The horror formed in Sven’s features, and even I felt sorry for him, but he still smelled like her cunt, and my empathy could only go so far. His eyes found Isadora’s, and she shook under his stare, curling into herself with her arms around her midsection.
“What is she doing here?” Sven asked, his eyes on her as if it were her fault.
“I brought her here,” I said, rolling my shoulders back.
As I imagined, his hateful gaze was now upon me, but I was a big man. Much bigger than her, much older too. I could take his rage.
“It was the right thing to do.”
Sven stood, his steps heavy over our carpet as he got right into my face. “I thought we agreed to talk. That doesn’t look like talking.”
I shook my head. “There’s never any talk to you, Sven. You listened to us, but you dismissed it straight away and left. I have barely seen you since!”
Sven’s face contorted in pain with the truth I threw on him so easily. Of the three of us, Sven took Karl’s leaving the hardest. He withdrew from us and the community, and his heart became hard. Besides the fact I knew he was a pack member, I couldn’t say he was my pack brother anymore. Not when I barely sat down and had a conversation with him for over twenty years. I felt bad for hiding my intentions from Per, yes. But not from Sven. He was a ghost in this house. You don’t ask a ghost if you can bring guests.
“So because you didn’t like my answer, you ignored it? She’s Karl’s kid!”
“You didn’t seem like you had a problem with her,” I poked. I couldn’t hold myself back.
“Fuck you, Anders…” Sven spat.
His nose came closer to mine in a challenge, and my hands balled into a fist. We were twenty years late for this. Sven was begging for a punch for a long time.
“Stop, you both!” Per called.
I would have ignored him. I was more than happy to, but his voice didn’t come closer, and he didn’t even try separating us. My eyes flew over Sven’s shoulders, and I caught Per crouching over Isadora, his hand on her temple. He looked worried, his eyes on her in a way that twisted my insides. I stepped away from Sven, my shoulder bumping into his as I made my way to the couch.
“What’s happening?”
“She’s starting her heat, you dumbass.”
Chapter Eight
Isadora
“She can’t,” Anders snapped.
Once again, he annoyed me with just his tone. I didn’t know what was happening, but something must be wrong with me. My skin was too hot to the touch. I felt feverish and breathless as if something nasty had come over mein the past hour. Do they have crazy bugs in Sweden? This felt pretty much like a crazy mysterious Amazon bug.
Funny that after a lifetime in Brazil, I never got bitten by a crazy Amazon bug, but I was considering that happening here on the other side of the ocean. Maybe my brains weren’t working either.
“It won’t stop being true just because you’re stubborn,” Per argued, his hand coming to delicately touch my forehead.
I blinked at him. He was so handsome, especially this close. Lovely green eyes framed by black-rimmed glasses and shockingly black hair that looked so soft I wanted to ask him about his hair routine. He dressed really cute too, with a button-up and a vest. He looked like someone you bring to your parents’, very different from Anders.
“Let me check her,” the man who I let finger me said.
Sven.His name was Sven.
Even in my feverish state, I couldn’t forget so easily the look of disgust he showed in his handsome features when he found out who I was. I jerked from his touch as he approached, and his lips closed in a flat line.
“I’m a doctor,” he said.
My jaw was tense, and my eyes narrowed. I was a skittish cat for sure. I didn’t trust men. Not only the ones my dad told me not to trust but most of them in general. Like many bisexuals, I loved all women and resented my desire for men.
Sven touched my forehead at first too, and then brought his fingers down my jaw. He grunted under his breath before going to a bag left at the side of the couch and coming back with a thermometer, which he put under my clothes and arm without asking permission, and a stethoscope around his neck.
