Chapter 322: _ Planning
"It’s high time we start planning." Said María José.
I blinked at the ceiling. "Planning?"
She sat up and pulled the sheet around her in a warrior-queen style, like the softness of her bare skin didn’t undo me. "Axel, we can’t keep pretending this will go away. Ignacio isn’t just some metaphorical trauma we keep dragging around. He’s real. And worse, he’s watching. Probably laughing at us."
I didn’t know which made it harder to hear this; the fact that I knew damn well how right she was or that I had not the slightest clue how to take down a demon.
"Well," I muttered, rubbing my temples, "he’s got a terrible sense of humor."
María ignored my sarcasm and pinned me with that expression; the one that said she was two seconds away from listing out an entire PowerPoint presentation in her head.
"So how do we take a demon down?"
Right. Just that.
I groaned and sat up too, grabbing the closest pair of pants and dragging them on like a wounded animal. "You’re really giving me a full existential crisis and a war council in the same hour?"
"Time is a luxury we don’t have," she snapped and I totally understood her tension.
The way I see it, María José was the biggest victim here. Whatever Ignacio, the demon thought he was doing, he wasn’t doing them in her best interest. He was only hurting her... deeper and deeper all the time.
"Besides, it’s not like I’m doing this for myself. Ignacio’s not just my demon anymore. He’s ours." She softened up and added.
"Our demon. Cute," I muttered. "Should we get matching T-shirts that say ’Possessed since Madrid’?"
She gave me a look. The kind that could melt iron. Damn, I knew it wasn’t the time to throw jokes around, but I just hated to see her so... scared and restless.
I sighed, tugging my fingers through my hair until it stuck up like a lunatic rooster. "Okay. Fine. Let’s do it. Let’s not just talk about taking him down. Let’s plan and make moves towards it. Where do we start?"
"Patterns," she said, all business now. "He mimics. He plays mind games. He’s always gone for emotional sabotage over brute force."
"Yeah," I muttered. "He’s basically a supernatural gossip blog."
María shot me a smirk. "We need to figure out where he’s hiding. Last time he took your form. Then possibly mine. Which means he could be anyone."
"Except me," I said. "Because there’s no way he’d want to live with this level of trauma and taxes."
She ignored that too. "Álvaro?"
I flinched. My stomach twisted like it had taken a punch. "Could be. I mean, how else do you explain the creep fest he’s been running lately? Who walks around monologuing about seducing their brother’s wife with that much flair?"
"I don’t know," María said, biting her lip. "But if Ignacio’s in Álvaro, that means this whole Alpha challenge could be manipulated."
"And if he’s not," I added grimly, "then your actual brother-in-law is just genuinely slime in designer suits."
We stared at each other in silence, letting the reality sink in.
"I hate this," I muttered.
"I know," she replied softly, tucking her knees to her chest. "Me too."
"Do we tell anyone?"
She hesitated. "Who’d believe us? ’Hey, guys, sorry we’ve been cold and distant for two months—turns out it might’ve been a demon possession. Anyway, coffee?’"
I laughed despite all the heaviness and tiredness. "Okay, fair. So, what then? We wait?"
"No." Her voice sharpened. "We trap him."
Nah, the last time we attempted that, the outcome soured our marriage.
I narrowed my eyes. "María..."
"Don’t look at me like that. I’m not a fragile relic. I can bait him. He’s obsessed with me, remember?"
"Yeah. That’s the problem." My jaw clenched. "That’s exactly the problem."
She reached over, took my hand. "I’ve trained for months. I know how to fight now. I’ll be careful."
"I don’t care how careful you are," I snapped. "This isn’t like fighting off a rogue wolf. This is a shape-shifting, mind-controlling, manipulative hellspawn who apparently moonlights as your evil twin. He’s not satisfied with taking my form. He had to manipulate the same woman whom he claimed to love!"
Her eyes softened. "Axel."
"No. Don’t ’Axel’ me. I just got you back. I’m not sending you into the arms of a demon, bait or not."
She smiled, leaned forward, and kissed me gently on the forehead like I was the one needing comfort now. Which... yeah. Fair.
"I’ll be okay," she whispered. "I have you."
And just like that, she ruined all my arguments.
I sighed into her shoulder. "I hate how good you are at that."
We spent the next hour sprawled on the floor with a notebook and started jotting down every strange thing since Madrid. Weird behavior. Missed time. Álvaro’s weird hair flips. Carmen’s sudden love for pumpkin spice.
"Could be anyone," I muttered again.
"Even the maids?" she asked.
"Especially the maids," I replied. "Carmen’s been humming Gregorian chants in the pantry. That’s not normal."
She laughed, for real this time. It made her cheeks pink and her eyes shine. God, I missed that laugh.
I was still basking in the etherealness of her sweet laugh when a thought hit me.
"Hold on a second, María José. You know Álvaro is using taking the war to the witches and bringing victory home as his Alpha campaign?" I sat upright, a finger in the air.
Her eyes thinned. "Yesss... what about it?"
"What if, María, what if I counter that? What if in contrast, I settle for peace instead? What if I got to them with the offer of a truce and save the lives of wolves that might be lost during Álvaro’s war?" I beamed, feeling the train of ideas running through my mind.
My wife stared at me dead in the eyes for one good minute before scoffing and folding her arms. "Seriously, Axel? We are discussing something so important and hurtful to our relationship and you want to talk politics?!"
Argh... she doesn’t get it!