5. Tyr
Chapter five
Tyr
Loving you is a secret that keeps trying to break me- Tyr Fate
She follows me silently up to the same hotel room we always meet up in, and each step pisses me off even more. Ryn says not one word, but her tension is everything. Everything about her is the same.
It’s painfully the same.
She stands beside me in the lift, and I keep my eyes on my reflection, refusing to even look at her. I can’t, if I do, I might end up just blurting out everything, and I would start yelling, and she would absolutely run.
My eye twitches, and I curl my fingers and then force myself to relax. She doesn’t seem nervous at all. She appears like she always does, confident, calm, and stunningly perfect.
Auryn Raines is an untouchable queen carved of ice at all times. Except, I have these vague memories of our last night together, her dancing on the table with Mako, throwing her head back and laughing as I kissed the inside of her elbow, my tongue flicking out to taste her skin.
I push that memory aside as the doors slide open. She follows me, her heels clipping on the carpet in a way that is familiar and drags memory after memory out of me.
I open the door and hold it, daring her to slide past me. She hesitates. Once, she never would have. Has so much changed?
When she sneaks past, I catch a little something in the air. Coconut, just the softest amount .
Digs folds his arms over his chest and stares at her. Of all of us, Digs was the most hurt by her actions. It took months for him to stop trying to reach her, for him to move on, but he still isn’t the same.
Envy sits with his head in his hands. He doesn’t even look up. I want to go to him and tell him that we have to do this. Explain again. But if Digs was the one who didn’t want her back the most because he was hurting, Envy didn’t want to bring her back because he didn’t want to hurt her. Which completely baffled me.
Mako walks towards her and pulls her into a hug. The urge to peel him off her, shove him away, and scream at him has me mute with rage.
She stands stiffly, and then her body relaxes. It’s as if, for the first time since she saw me, she feels safe.
I hate it.
I wish Mako had just stayed on the other side of the room and ignored her like the rest of us. Instead, I get to be jealous that he’s hugging her, and I have to stay mad.
“I missed you, little fish,” he murmurs.
I snarl, but everyone ignores me.
Ryn looks even more beautiful than she did when we last saw her. Her dark hair hangs like a waterfall down her back. Her blue-green eyes still have the ability to strip me raw. Accidentally running into her four months ago at Alpha Labels was the best and worst thing to have happened. Seeing her showed me that whatever was between us all wasn’t done, and we needed to sort it out. We deserved a clean end to this. It’s just too bad she never looked up and spotted me watching her. It might have made things happen sooner.
She just vanished.
Why?
Why appear and disappear?
Why ghost us?
I have so many questions.
“I thought we were friends.”
I don’t realise I’ve said it out loud until the room gets still, and I look up and find everyone staring at me.
“We are friends,” she says regretfully.
I think it’s the first lie she’s ever told us.
Fine, if she wants to be like that. I clench my teeth until they ache. “You owe us a song.”
She lifts her chin, it trembles, she finally nods. “You’re right. I do owe you a song.”
“So, you’ll stay-”
She flinches, and I wonder about that finch. What happened? Mako puts an arm around Envy and watches us .
It doesn’t matter; we need that song. We’re going on tour, and we need something. I can’t write, I can’t create without her. Everything comes out flat.
“Shall we get started?” I ask sweetly.
She grips her hands in front of her and stares down at the cream carpet, the same one that’s got a thousand memories of us. I can almost hear her brain racing. I wait, ignoring the small sound of frustration and disgust that Digs makes.
“Okay, let’s get started, then,” she concedes.
“Excellent,” I snarl at her and turn away. “I need a minute,” I say and stalk out of the room and into the small kitchen.
I don’t know what it is, but now she’s here, now I have her here, I don’t want her anywhere near us. I just want her gone.
“Happy now?” Digs growls at me as he shoves me.
I grunt back as he presses his chest right up against my back and growls in my ear.
“You had to go and get her. You had to drag her back. Has it helped?”
No, it has done nothing but make it all worse. “Shut up, Digs.”
“Ah, but we’ll have a song. I hope it’s worth it.”
I shove his hands off me and slip away from him. “Closure. We need closure.”
Digs stares at me, that knowing judgmental disapproval only pisses me off more.
“We don’t need closure. Closure was when she disappeared. How much louder does she need to say she doesn’t value anything we gave her?”
I huff and stalk to the kettle and turn it on.
“When you disappear out of someone’s life, that’s sending a very clear message, Tyr. Why is she here?”
I whirl around, furious. “Because I need to know why! I need to know what happened! Digs, I have to know.”
Digs’ expression changes too quickly for me to be able to tell. “She’s not your mother, Tyr.”
I flinch hard. When I grab a coffee cup, my hand trembles. “I know that.”
“You won’t get the answers you want.”
“I know, Digs! But I need to know why from her.”
Digs sighs, and all the anger goes out of him. He walks back towards me and pulls me into him, kissing me hard. His beard tickles my face and that almond scent of him that is so familiar wraps around me, mixing with the oak of mine. I kiss him back. I’ve been in love with this man since I was thirteen years old, and nothing has changed in all these years. This pack is the love of my life.
His big hands stroke down my back, easing the tension out of me.
He pulls back and presses a chaste kiss to my lips. “You know that I love you, right? I’d do anything for you.”
I breathe him in. “I know, Digs, and I love you. You’re my alpha.”
“And you’re mine.”
“My fate.”
“My choice.”
Digs hums and lets go of me, stepping back. “All right, let’s see if we can get her to talk.”
I smile at him in relief. “Thank you for understanding.”
“I’ll always understand you, Tyr. I might not agree, but I will understand.”
I make the coffees and carry the tray back to the lounge room. Mako is laughing and whispering with her. The sight of it makes my heart lurch and my stomach clench. An old wound resurfaces, and I feel that savage, possessive betrayal, but I squash it down, smothering it.
Mako says something else, stands up, and turns in my direction. I put the tray down and sit, only to have Mako climb into my lap, kissing me hard enough to make me forget what my name is. Damn bonds won’t even let me have my own feelings.
When he comes up for air, I can see the amusement in his eyes as he pats my cheek. His smirk is next level, and for a moment, I am irrationally furious that we have a visitor and that I can’t fuck my alpha the way he needs.
Instead, Envy clears his throat.
I glance at him, finding his white hair curtaining his face, and clarity comes back with a vicious shove. I pinch Mako’s thigh. “Off.”
He slowly slides off me and sits down beside me, squeezing Envy to his chest.
“What kind of song do you want to write?”
Ah, yes, the ice queen. God forbid she actually shows any kind of emotion. She’d probably have more interest in a cereal commercial than she does in our displays.
When did my relief over her acceptance of our pack relations turn to resentment and bitterness? When I wanted to see some kind of reaction and got nothing.
Now that I’m calmer, I really take her in. Long, dark black hair that is silky straight and hangs down to her mid-spine. Her blue-green eyes, those Raines eyes, are somehow colder than they ever appear on Lia or Locke. She’s curvier too than her cousin, with a bigger chest and wide hips. But Ryn is all confidence and suppressed sexuality. This is a capable woman.
Perhaps it’s all those designer label clothes. She’d look just as good in skinny, ripped jeans and a band shirt.
Instead, she wears blouses like armour and jeans that hide her body.
It all makes her untouchable .
A frozen queen who never shows her emotions, unless she is writing a song.
But when she does…oh, she goes up like a bonfire. She’s an eclipse that you can’t look away from. A once in a lifetime comet shooting through the darkness. There and gone. Impossible to hold but changing you forever more.
She changed me, but I can’t let go of her. I can’t exist wondering why she walked away from us, how she could walk away from us.
We were friends.
The very best of friends.
What happened?
Ryn leans forward and picks up a coffee cup.
“I want to write a song about friendship and how it all goes terribly wrong.”
There’s a great deal of satisfaction watching her choke on that mouthful of coffee.
“Hmm, bitter,” she murmurs.
Sure.
“So a song about friendships ending?”
“Yes, I want all the angst, the confusion, and all the feelings.”
She puts down her coffee cup and stares at me. I can see she knows what I’m doing. I raise a brow, challenging her. Go on, ask me, demand the answer, make a big deal about it?
Instead, she inclines her head. “I’ll go home and make some notes-”
“Oh, no. We’re doing this like we did in the old days.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“You owe us!” I say bluntly. “We want this song. We need it. So stay, help us, and then we can call it quits, and you can go back to whatever it is that you do when you ignore your friends.”
She flinches. I almost miss it, but I see it and what appears to be a flash of guilt in her eyes.
But then she looks up at me and stares. Cold as ice. I wonder what she’s thinking and lose myself in the myriad of blues and greens, and that swelling desperate feeling of missing this person so much that it felt like I’d cut my own arm off. And the rage returns.
Why did she leave?
She swallows and reaches into the tiny bag she’s got strapped over her shoulder. She pulls out the notebook she brings with her everywhere.
Once upon a time, I gave her the first notebook. It was a leather bound pad, the size of her palm, just big enough to jot notes. I got it for her on impulse and gave it to her the second time we worked together.
She’s still using it.
For some reason, that revelation makes my anger fade and hope insert itself .
If she hated us, she wouldn’t have that diary still. Surely.
Maybe I can convince her to tell us why.
Maybe then we can all move on instead of floundering in the past, stuck on what if, what was, and what could have been.