Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
RAMONA
“ U m,” my voice came out raspy, and I took a gulp of the water Río had set on the coffee table beside the eggs and bagel he made for me. “Thank you for all this.”
He came over with his own plate, plopping down on the stretch of floor between the table and couch. “Lose your voice there, Princess?” I almost shot something back, but the way he took a giant bite of his bagel sandwich, looking up at me with messy hair and his glasses on with nothing but cheer and affection, had the barb softening on my tongue.
After we got back to his place last night, Río set us up in his bed with a laptop propped on the mattress with us. We settled on a stupid comedy sketch show that was easy to watch, and before I knew it, I was waking up, head on his bare chest, to the morning light streaming through the windows.
The cute Jaguar that was now lounging at my feet was a far cry from the one that I found myself on all fours for, moaning horsely into a pillow while he thrusted slow and deep.
Río and I ate in silence, watching downtown Antler Pointe awaken for a lazy and hot Saturday. I could already taste the rising temperature and humidity, making me even more aware of my need to shower and change. Río had offered for me to bathe here, that I could borrow clothes of his to tide me over till I got home.
But I’d declined, not wanting to open myself up for questions or to catch a glimpse of my scars in the mirror and pop my own bubble of happiness. I’d nearly succeeded in ignoring the friction between my sleeves and the raised, bumpy skin, until I saw his curiosity while he traced the exact length of the trail I’d taken my knife that day.
He hadn’t asked, so I hadn’t said anything about it.
“I’ve got a double shift today, so I gotta drop you off on my way in.” My thoughts broke and dissipated, ushering in disappointment. But of course, he had work. He’d spent all afternoon and evening with me yesterday, cooking for me this morning.
I nodded, trying to swallow the greedy urge to ask about when I’d see him again. The last thing I wanted to be was his needy… something. Friend with benefits? Lover?
We continued through our breakfast, and the companionable meal and subsequent clearing of the dishes felt more intimate than when he’d dug his claws into my hips. He didn’t have a dishwasher, so I washed our plates and the pan he cooked the eggs in while he got ready for work. He disappeared into the small bathroom, but all I heard was his toothbrush swishing and the faucet going. While I dried the dishes I washed, he emerged, sans glasses, with his hair brushed to a smooth, wavy sheen.
No shower.
I clenched my eyes shut while he bounced up to the loft and got the rest of his stuff for his shift. Sometimes I could almost convince myself that I was all the way human. There was no animal form to tap into or blame for the way I felt with my scent still sitting heavily on his skin. Did other women feel this way? When the person they slept with kept the remnants of them for the rest of the day?
Mom had never appeared possessive over Dad, at least, not in that way. As the provider for our house, as a catch, sure. But I was positive it wasn’t my human half that wanted to tote him around with me, to flaunt him and our scent to all. To bare my teeth at anyone that looked at him too long.
And I didn’t have any fangs, so I’d look like a fucking idiot while I did it.
“You thinking about something really hard, there.” Río palmed my hip, twisted, and pulled me into his chest. I’d been drying the same plate far longer than it needed, but with him in front of me, I easily dropped it to the counter with a clatter. The dish towel followed.
“Mm.” I could clearly see the edges of his contact lenses, and it made me wonder how severely he’d been hurt to cause such an extensive and long-lasting injury. What right, though, did I have to ask about it when I hadn’t been exactly forthcoming about much of anything about myself?
If I did, would it be meaningless since he had no intention of making this anything lasting, anyway?
A kiss right between my eyes halted the familiar, somber path. “Thank you for doing the dishes. You ready to go, Princess?”
I frowned but felt myself relax. “If you get to call me that, why don’t I have a nickname for you?”
He flipped my expression, reflecting back to me how I truly felt when I was with him, underneath all the bullshit that threatened it. “Whatcha got in mind? Daddy?”
Now I was downright scowling. “Fuck no.” His chuckles rumbled and shook the both of us. “Maybe you don’t deserve one, after all.”
“Well, keep thinking. Maybe you’ll convince me to work for it.” At some point, his hands had snaked down to grab my ass, resting as if they belonged there. Maybe they did, at least temporarily.
I reached up and pet the top of his head. “Hmph. Maybe if you’re a good boy, I’ll give you a treat.” My lips trembled as I tried to hide my smile, but the way his fingers clenched on me and the speed with which his smirk dropped then reappeared was confusing. At least until I picked up on the quick, lingering flash of his lust spiking. Interesting .
“Ha ha,” he said dryly, “let’s hit it.” He swatted my ass and grabbed his keys, leading both of us out of the door.
We didn’t speak as he fit his helmet on my head, nor did he ask for directions to the cabin, remembering the way from the first time he’d brought me. Was that only a few weeks ago? Only a small part of me had believed I would be arriving on my brother’s land on the back of his bike again. No way in hell had I thought I’d be doing it after spending the night with him.
Luckily for us, though both Sylvie’s and O’s cars were here, there was no one out front. Río kept his bike rumbling while I climbed off and removed his helmet. I blinked a few times and cleared the flyaway hair from my vision.
Río sat with his feet planted on the ground, gazing at me and continuing to stare even after I caught him. “You gonna text me later?” The casual way he said it was so at odds with the intensity that poured off him in waves. That promised repeats of our time together and the way he’d taken me. His question was a request and a demand and a confirmation all in one. How the fuck was this real.
“Perhaps.” I couldn’t help myself. I really couldn’t.
And I really should’ve known that he wouldn’t give two shits about snapping my body to his and fucking my mouth with his tongue, forcing moans out of me that were all too eager in the first place. Fuck, I was a slut for him.
My tongue was happy to let him stay in control of the kiss, and when I grazed the unmistakably sharp edge of a fang , I whined, clinging to him like I needed our mouths pressed together to survive.
Could I take him to my room really quick? Or would it be better to go a ways into the forest and just let him press me up against a tree? Río was squeezing my ass cheeks again, and my body felt like it was further electrified by the vibration of the motorcycle still idling. I bet if I straddled it while still kissing him, it wouldn’t take long for the pleasure to bust and for us to both come after all.
I started pushing at his chest, working on hitching my leg up and over his lap on the leather seat, needing him, needing it?—
“Ramona.” I stilled.
Our lips parted with a mutual smack, and I was relieved to see that Río looked about as much a wreck as I felt. He was so rarely flushed, but there was no hiding the redness on his face, and his fast breathing parted his mouth enough for me to see the tips of four ivory-colored fangs.
“Ugh, please don’t make me have to physically pull you apart,” the exasperated voice sounded even closer, and I realized that I’d been leaning back into Río for more. And he looked prepared to do the same.
Tearing my eyes from the black holes of safety felt a little like I was dying. Or slicing off a piece of me, but not in the way that’d usually settle my emotional storm.
But I did it, trying to focus in on my sister-in-law who held a basket overflowing with wild mushrooms. Her feet were bare, and her hair was in her usual topknot.
“I’m glad you’re having fun and all, but I have to draw the line at fucking out in the open in the front yard.”
My face flamed, words escaped me. What did it mean that I was more embarrassed about not feeling badly at all?
That snarky, dark chuckle just made it worse, forcing an actual shiver down my spine. “Sorry. Didn’t see you there.”
She looked Río up and down, and I didn’t fucking like it. For a flash, I envisioned stomping over and plucking her eyes from her skull.
“Even if I weren’t here, it’s pretty dumb to try to fuck the Pack Leader’s sister in front of his house without at least introducing yourself. There’s also the common decency thing, since, you know, kids live here.”
“Oh, god,” I groaned. Yeah, the crazed lust was completely simmered down now. What had I been thinking? Was this normal? Was everyone else just walking around wanting to mount and ride the person they were sleeping with whenever and wherever? I’d gone my whole life barely being attracted to anyone, and when I was, it required time and getting to know them to even truly feel it. But whatever spark I felt when I first saw Río had drawn me to him far more quickly than anyone else. And now that he’d opened me up to true desire? When would the flood settle?
“Not really one to care about pack dynamics. Sorry to disappoint, witch.” I smacked his chest, and he coughed as if it’d actually done something.
“She has a name, you ass. Sorry, Sylvie.” Low in his ear, I spat, “You’re never getting that fucking treat at this rate. Now, be good.” Unlike most people, I truly cared about what my sister-in-law thought of me. Maybe even more than my brother.
Instead of volleying something back, Río cleared his throat and inclined his head towards her. “My apologies.”
I smacked him again, though it was weak this time, “Don’t overdo it.” He didn’t even try to hide the deep roll of his eyes.
“Whatever. I’ll see you later, Princess.” He chucked the edge of my chin, and I stepped back, letting him back out of the drive and head to his shift at Vinny’s.
Sylvie stepped up beside me, but I refused to look at her. The damp earthiness of the spoils from her morning walk grounded me when it felt like a piece of me was driving away, too. This was all so dumb.
“Your brother was wondering where you were this morning, but I can understand why you didn’t check in.”
“Sorry. For acting stupid. I don’t really know what’s happening with me, to be honest.”
I felt her studying the side of my face, and her knowing hum made me brace for witchy impact. A ray of sunshine lit up our backs, but I felt rooted in place, waiting for her to share what she so obviously had deduced.
“What?” I asked when the anticipation got the better of me.
The basket shifted against her clothes as she shrugged. “Too soon to tell for sure. Now, go shower and then come and help me wash and sort these.”
She left me to breeze back into the cabin, and like the coward I was, I waited until she’d gone inside to follow her command.
My brother had indeed been looking for me, and after I showered and helped Sylvie wash the dirt and debris from her wild mushrooms, Orion scooped me up to run errands. If I was still a little sleepy following my night with Río, I didn’t mention it, all too happy to be moving and doing.
Though we had a personal chef and my mother’s assistant that ran most of the household errands back at my parents’ house, when I was dragged into going out and about with Mom, it involved a lot of interrogatory lunches and sitting in luxury stores while she tried on clothes and shoes. So much so that I often hid in my room until she gave up, and when I’d discovered that my peers elected to do the teen version of that, I stopped trying with them, too.
Orion’s idea of ticking things off of his to-do list consisted of picking up enough books on hold at the library to fill a large tote bag, making a Pack Leader house call for an elder that needed his patio railing repaired, and grabbing groceries for the next few days.
Any extraneous words were nonexistent but so was any lick of tension. In my brother’s kind of silence, I could exhale, and in my mother’s I felt suffocated. While we wove in between aisles at the grocery store, we both wore our headphones, in our own worlds and utilizing silent gestures to communicate back and forth. A tug on his shirt sleeve, and he’d follow me to the crackers I liked. Just a jerk of his chin, and I’d know to meet him by the baby stuff.
And after we returned, hauling it all into the house and organizing until everything was in its rightful place, I blinked back my surprise when he offered me a beer and to help him with his newest woodworking project.
Sometime after my niece was born, Orion added a good sized shed he outfitted as a workshop, though I’d never found myself in here before. If Sylvie had her grandmother’s house as a place for solitude, my brother had this place that was outfitted with neatly organized tools, sealants, paints, and a large, sturdy table.
One thing it didn’t have, though, was air conditioning. A large industrial fan blasted and kept the air moving, though it was far from cool.
At two different ends of a crib, my brother and I worked sandpaper in the delicate grooves of the spindles to prepare for staining. Which, apparently, would help it attain the color requested by the pack member who’d commissioned this particular project of refinishing their childhood crib for their own pup on the way.
Instead of a record player, my brother had a large bluetooth speaker on one of the tool shelves, and I mouthed along to ‘Grandma’s Hands’ while trying to get the smoothness Orion had instructed me to achieve.
The work was simple, soothing, and I let my mind narrow to that one task while scraping away the roughness of the wood. The tightness in my chest with Río away from me wasn’t nearly as immediate, and the numb gray that was a constant companion was now almost forgotten.
Even when Dahlia and Ollie came stumbling up to the entrance of the workshop, their usually excited babbling was quieted to cute little mumbles. A cool new bug, they announced from where they stood with Dahlia cradling the creature in her palms. Orion paused his task to examine what they’d brought and watched with a smile and with love in his eyes when they ran off toward Sylvie who still sat amongst their toys and snacks near the lake.
But it all was part of the rhythm. More notes played with the sweltering summer song that was a meditation as much as my time with Río was a lifeline.
After finishing one wall of spindles, I set down my sandpaper and took a quenching pull from the tallboy can of citrusy beer that I’d found to be far more palatable than the overly hoppy stuff Orion enjoyed.
I took out my phone to find another few messages from Río who’d been responding to me throughout the day. I frowned at the name he’d given himself in my phone last night, but resolved to keep it for a little while.
Sex God
I guess I’d have to go with Michoacán.
Me
Why there?
Sex God
Dunno. It’s warm. My mom’s from there. You?
I thought for a moment, uncertainty striking me as I tried to think of any place that I truly enjoyed being. But, how could I when my mind followed me everywhere?
Me
Not sure. I haven’t really been to too many places.
I waited for him to have some quip about me being rich, being able to go anywhere I wanted to. Which wasn’t a lie. I’d been to Japan, taken months-long trips to Europe and its most luxurious cities, able to see and experience everything that my or my parents’ hearts desired.
To be truly present, though? To see everything with clear heart and mind? No, I hadn’t really been there.
“Mona.” I stilled and set my phone down to find Orion glancing toward me while he started on the first spindle of the next side we had to do.
“Hm?” I took the easy way out and lifted my beer to my lips. To partially hide my face and do something with my hands.
He didn’t meet my eyes, but by their general direction of my forehead, I knew that he was looking at me and trying to figure out what to say. All our conversations today had been about the tasks at hand. I’d really been hoping that my brother’s idea of quality time truly didn’t include pointed conversations, but… maybe it did. “How are you doing? Are you enjoying your time here with us?”
He sounded sincere, but it raised my nonexistent hackles, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “Did Sylvie put you up to this? I’m good, O.”
Orion huffed and shook his head. He continued sanding, no longer looking weirdly formal and uncomfortable. “She did tell me that I didn’t spend enough time checking in on you.” Leave it to my brother to keep it a buck.
“Sylvie’s nosy,” I groused and picked up my little rectangle of sandpaper. My wrists and fingers were tender and on their way to aching, and sweat poured down the sides of my neck.
But the work with my brother was nice. As long as he didn’t meddle in my emotions, a plane of existence that neither of us were comfortable with. I already spent enough time with Sylvie and her intuitiveness.
“She’s empathetic and cares about you. About all of us. And she’s far more comfortable discussing these things than I am.” He glanced up, briefly locking eyes with me, “You didn’t answer my question.”
I gulped. “I’m good, O. Thank you for letting me stay here. Really.” My words were slow but, to my surprise, sincere. This was leaps and bounds better than the half-life I’d been living. School, work, home—dry and alone, rife with self-loathing and exhaustion.
I couldn’t even get fucked up. Best believe I’d tried—to be self-destructive with my peers who drowned themselves with weed and coke and alcohol. Harder stuff sometimes. But wouldn’t you fucking know it, I was practically immune to that too. At least, enough so that truly becoming inebriated would be wildly expensive and suspicious. And I’d never truly wanted it enough to seek out the supernatural channels, though I was sure they existed. Humans couldn’t be the only ones to get high, right?
I wondered if Río knew. With a mother that seemed to loathe her Wolf, I’d been waiting for him to take the lead on bringing up anything shifter-related.
He hadn’t of course. He hadn’t even let me see what his Jaguar looked like.
“How… how long did you wait to show Sylvie your shift?” I forced my voice to be light, casual, and by Orion’s quirked brow, the question took him off guard. Good.
He wiped at his forehead with the back of his hand. “Ah, well.” His gaze unfocused, and his cheeks reddened, as did the tops of his ears. Catching himself, his white brows lowered over his eyes as he studied me. “Why?”
My lips twitched, fighting at making my brother blush, but I truly did want to know the answer. Río and I were two leaves, blown from different trees and flipping through the air, buffeted by gusts of wind until we crashed and twirled into each other. Pretty soon another gust would pull us apart, and I was determined to discover every surface and bend and edge that I could before that happened.
I’d been lost in my thoughts, trying to find an explanation that wouldn’t give too much away, but Orion beat me to it. His voice deepened, and a new presence started filling the workshop. “I have no judgement, but there is no sense denying the shifter’s scent that clings to you.”
I bit the inside of my cheek but said nothing. He was right, and I didn’t need the influence of his Leader scent to stop me from dismissing it.
Whatever connection Río and I had forged in this short amount of time wasn’t something I wanted to deny or skirt around. Not when I didn’t have to, anyway.
My phone dinged with a text. “Is that him? You’ve been texting away all day.”
Defensiveness surged up my throat, something to throw the conversation back on him. A tease, and accusation, but nothing made the true leap into being spoken.
“What do you know about him, then?”
Internally, I flailed for an answer. So many things small or intangible. His name, the color of his bedsheets. The way he smelled of mischief and delight when he looked at me sometimes. “Enough.”
I expected a fight, or a stabbing remark, aimed to shake my foundation or shame me for my actions, but Orion just sighed and nodded. “All right. But if he’s going to come by here, I need to have a conversation with him.”
That got me sputtering. “Wha— no you don’t.”
He moved the sandpaper more furiously over a spindle, wood dust falling like rain. “I know that you’re grown, but you’re living in my home, and he’s already been here. Twice. Not to mention that Sylvie and Dahlia know him. As the Leader of this land, if he continues to see you, he’s my responsibility.”
“No, no he’s not.” I huffed. “This isn’t. That. We’re not like you and Sylvie. He’s just passing through town. Nothing but having fun.” Don’t you want to have fun with me, Ramona? Yes, yes I did, and I wasn’t going to ruin it by trying to turn it into something that it wasn’t.
Orion winced, shook his head, and remained silent, not pressing the issue further. And when he continued to work, bopping his head to the music and essentially paying me no mind, I released my held breath in a rush. He truly wasn’t going to?—
“A month, I believe. I was scared what Sylvie would see if she truly saw me. What it would change.” I kept my eyes on my hands, moving quickly over the wall of the crib but hanging on his words. I’d witnessed glimpses of the love and intimacy between my brother and Sylvie but had never heard him speak of anything like this. After a moment, he pressed on, “But, it was a concern only founded in my fear and insecurity. She’s been understanding and wonderful from the beginning. And having her know both parts of me is one of the best gifts she’s ever given me.”
That was… my eyes prickled, my chest tightening as I glanced at my phone, now resting facedown on the table.
We worked for a while more, reaching all the spindles and the legs of the crib until there was nothing left to sand. My back ached a bit from the work, but I could see how these projects were satisfying to him. How he could lose himself in it.
I stretched my legs and twisted my back left and right. When I picked up my phone, Río’s texts filled the screen.
Sex God
This job is somehow the most stressful one I’ve ever had. Just got yelled at by an old lady.
Favorite movie? For research.
What’s your stance on nudes? Happy to receive or supply ;)
If he’d been in front of me, I would’ve chewed him out, but behind my screen, I snickered.
Me
You’re an ass. And I’d rather experience all of that in person.
My brother cleared his throat, and I clutched my phone to my chest, as if he could somehow see what I was talking about. But he was busy retrieving the selected stain for this project and the needed brushes for application. “I’m not teaching any courses this summer. They’ve got some summer programs at the Montessori school, so Dahlia and Ollie will still go, just not as much.” I nodded, though he wasn’t facing me. He coughed again and settled everything on the work table. “And… I’ll be pulling back from most of my classes in the fall semester.”
I straightened, the hitching tone of his voice making me take notice. “Um, okay…”
He swallowed, face scrunched as he worked out what to say. “I’ve been… having a difficult time. Doing everything.”
I froze, and my stomach dropped. The dry, sure note of my brother’s voice was gone. Instead it was raspy and uncertain. The glass edge of his jaw was clenched beneath the short stubble of his beard, and his fingers tapped and knocked against the thick slab of the table.
“Are… you okay?”
Orion exhaled and set the wood stain between us, a brush for me to use before me. His nod was a quick twitch. “Yes. I think this will help.” He gestured to the crib and the rest of the shed around us. “Since I’ve gotten back to carpentry, I’ve taken on commissions from the pack and humans in this town. Teaching and taking care of the pack has been… a lot.”
That made sense. I picked up the brush and twisted it, trying to work out something helpful to say. I knew that my brother had his own challenges, but since I’d been old enough to recognize it, he’d already found ways to navigate and cope. To embrace what made him different to the point that it wasn’t something I thought much about anymore.
But I also knew that he was most comfortable by himself or with his mate and children. Between leading classes every day and a whole group of people outside of his family, I was overwhelmed just thinking about it.
I’d no clue that he was struggling to the point of having to pull back from his job, though.
“Uh… is it,” I chewed at my lip and forced the words out. If he asked me, I would follow through. “Do you need me to go? I don’t want to put too much on your plate.”
Orion had started tapping the handle of his own brush on the table, watching the jumping with unseeing eyes. At my question, though, the rhythm stuttered, fell. “No.” He dipped the brush in the can of stain and started applying it in steady strokes to one of the legs of the crib. “Sylvie suggested the idea, and I talked it over with Chris. They both suggested I adjust to the idea by telling a few people.”
“Chris?” I asked as I dipped my own brush in the stain.
“An elder member of the pack. It’s not like I can talk to a human therapist about these things. I trust his wisdom enough, though. And Sylvie noticed before I did.”
We descended into silence again, spreading an even coat that turned the light wood to a darker, richer color. It wasn’t like I had a… preference or something. In regard to Sylvie’s or Orion’s schedule. She worked from home, so we ended up spending the most time together, but if he was home more, I was content to leave him his space or help him like I had today.
After finishing the two legs and wall on my side, an uncomfortable twist of my stomach flung my gaze back to my brother. He was making progress far faster than I, already halfway through the second wall of spindles and railing. “Why are you telling me this,” I demanded.
He said nothing. Didn’t even look up at me, but he didn’t have to.
We weren’t the type of siblings to talk about this shit, and, and, if I hadn’t caved to Sylvie ’s prodding about my feelings, I certainly wasn’t going to fall to some crafty strategy they’d concocted behind my back. The wooden handle of the paintbrush snapped between my fingers.
No, there was no way I was going to talk about it with them. I’d never judge my brother for getting the help he needed or pulling back where he could, but it didn’t mean he was allowed to… back me into a corner so that I’d have to see the worry or pity or?—
“I just needed to say it out loud.” He nodded to himself, as if he couldn’t hear or scent the panic of my heartbeat or panting. “And I knew you wouldn’t think less of me for it. Thank you.”
Eyes wide, I sniffed repeatedly, tasting the air surrounding us. True to his word, his scent rang with the steady calm of gratitude, like the magenta sunset end of summertime.
He didn’t push me to talk, didn’t ask questions or request for me to spill my guts in return, even as I kept pausing my brushstrokes to warily glance his way. The scars beneath my sleeves itched, but we finished the wood staining without me having to reveal them or the darkness that led to their creation.
After we put everything away and closed up the shed, to return to once the stain was dry, Orion and I walked side-by-side to the cabin under the sky that was a deep tangerine. The small, too-soft voice in my head wondered if remaining silent was such a good thing.