Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
RíO
I needed to run. I should run, right?
Mara’s eyes and grin widened, as if she was daring me to do it. Madre de dios, how had I been so fucking stupid? As soon as Ramona had dropped to her knees for me, I should’ve thrown her kicking and screaming on the back of my bike and hightailed us both straight to Mexico.
“So, how you been, Yoyo?” My tiny big sister drummed her fingers on the front counter, and I swept my gaze around and widened my senses. Thank the universe for small mercies, Catalina wasn’t here.
Mara was still smiling, turning my own black eyes back at me, and I had to shove all thoughts of Ramona to the back of my mind. How was I going to protect her from my family if they were already here?
“Fine. What do you want.” Shrugging into my old training, the version of myself that hid all feeling, felt like putting on wet clothes. It molded to me, sticking uncomfortably, but was also familiar.
She pouted and flipped her short, wavy hair. After eight years, she’d chopped it to a bob that ended just below her ears. Her bangs were short enough to show a sliver of her forehead and thick, black brows. Like the perfect soldier, she wore a sleeveless vest and black slacks to make up her own kind of suit. And—Jesus fucking Christ, she had her katana slung on her back. Was she here to use that on me?
“I missed you,” she kept the pout on her round lips, but her eyes danced with mirth.
I put my hands in my pockets. “You saw me. Say what you really want, or leave me alone.”
Mara tsked, and I already knew more bullshit was coming before she swiped her hand so quickly that a human wouldn’t have been able to track it. The to-go cups, straws, and napkins all set beside the register crashed to the floor.
She didn’t even look down at the mess she made. Just kept watching me. At least the smile was back. If Mara was smiling like that, I’d learned that I was likely to make it out of the exchange unscathed. If she looked angry, a fight was surely going to come. But if she grinned with her eyes faraway and blank, there would be a massacre.
“Candy?” She offered a sucker she’d produced from her pocket. I shook my head, and she popped it into her mouth. “Is that the thanks I get for helping you escape, baby brother?”
I didn’t flinch. Couldn’t give her any ammunition. Yeah, she’d been the one to jostle me awake that night, told me to pack my shit, and occupied our father’s soldiers on my side of the compound so that I could ride off on my bike and finally leave. A few weeks prior, she’d discovered my nest egg when it was just a tiny thing. An account in a different name that my father had no access to that I was using to help Mamá and quietly growing to fund my escape.
Until Mara had found out about it. I’d thought I was dead for sure, but she wasn’t Catalina. Mara had hissed at me to stop giving our mother money, because if she was able to discover it, it was only a manner of time before he used it against the both of us. I held no illusions that my father was truly done with Mamá. But I’d rather go back to being an enforcer alongside Mara than give her up. I’d be a good little Serafim soldier until the day I died if that meant keeping Mamá and Javier safe.
Cata, Mara, and Pai didn’t know about him, though.
So, I’d left and heeded Mara’s warning. To save myself and keep my real family hidden and safe.
“Buena suerte, hermanito. No seas pendejo.” Mara didn’t hug me, but a rare tinge of emotion shone in her bottomless stare. If I had to guess, as I shoved on my helmet and started up my bike, it was fear and resignation. We weren’t friends, exactly, but she’d been the one to patch me up when my wounds were too extensive to do myself. She was the one who taught me how to beat someone for just enough information while keeping them alive to get or deliver the message. Her long hair fluttered in the soupy Georgia air while this side of the compound was dark. I stopped myself from asking how she was going to explain my absence. She could tell Pai that she killed me, for all I cared. It’d be better that way.
Those had been the last words she’d spoken to me, but this was not the caring version of my sister that’d snuck me extra flan after I cried the first night away from Mamá. Or the one that watched over me after the worst beating I’d fared—the one that took most of my eyesight.
She gestured to the glasses now with a slender finger, “You still wearing those stupid things?”
I stepped closer, skirting around the counter so that no barriers stood between us. I couldn’t show that I was afraid, but I also couldn’t give her too much to spark her interest. Just boring old weak Río working a dead-end job. Nothing worth reporting back to our father about.
“Not all of us are virtually indestructible.”
Mara crossed her arms and scoffed, but the action wasn’t anywhere as cute as when Ramona did the same thing. “Well, if I’d known it’d leave you looking like a fucking nerd for the rest of your life, I would’ve just kept it at the broken legs.”
How I had survived living in a house with her was beyond me. And Mara was the sensitive one. “Whatever. What did you come here for?”
“?Sabes donde está Benny?” She tilted her head, watching and waiting for me to slip up. It wasn’t phrased as if she actually gave a shit where our very distant cousin was.
And I already knew how this went. “Lo maté.”
Mara shrugged, unsurprised by the news but also unsurprised that I’d admitted to it. It’s not like he’d been well-liked. “Boring. Well, I’ll leave you to your poverty,” she took a disdainful sniff and looked around as if the sight of the register and old booths sickened her. Just as randomly, my sister spun on her heel and walked toward the door.
I forced my breaths to stay calm, to watch her put a hand on the door and leave.
She froze, and my heart plummeted all the way to my asshole. The afternoon rays lit her up, casting blues and reds through her hair. If I wasn’t stained with the same darkness that filled her, I would’ve said she looked angelic. Mara snapped her fingers as if she just remembered something important. “Oh, and I’ll meet you at your place for a beer when you’re done with this shithole for the day. Then you can talk to me about your mate.”
RAMONA
My brother was smoking again.
Sylvie rubbed his back, mouth pursed, while I occupied the kids as best as I could. Dahlia had already told him that what he was doing was unhealthy, and I had to apologize to both him and Sylvie for having the pack hidden in the guest room. In my defense, I thought that O had been so far past his addiction that he wouldn’t be tempted.
But, in regard to the Wolf pack, shit had totally hit the fan.
They couldn’t say too much with the kids around, but those people Orion met with had apparently retaliated violently. Sylvie had done her best to pantomime a literal beheading, and I’d thought she’d been joking before my brother solemnly confirmed.
I took a drag of my own cigarette and watched Ollie and Dahlia play in the little blow-up pool set up beside the garden. Sylvie rolled her eyes at me as I exhaled, but I just gave a helpless shrug. I’d been feeling happily anxious about the progression of my and Río’s relationship, but I didn’t want O to smoke alone.
Good god, the way he’d smelled when I left Tyler’s house. He tried to cover it up, by agreeing that he liked me, too. Which had been embarrassing as hell—how old were we, twelve? But the rich scent from him that’d embraced me at the same time his hands did… it was almost how my brother smelled when he was holding Sylvie.
From Río, it wasn’t as solidified, signaling a newer feeling, but it was fucking there . I took another drag and exhale from my cigarette. Could he smell the matching emotion that wafted off of me when I was around him?
“Mo ghrá, I don’t want you to watch me. I know that you don’t like when I do this.” Orion lit up another smoke to replace the one he’d just finished.
And Sylvie went on, caressing him and giving him support. “I don’t, but you need me more than I dislike the cigarettes, baby. How can we help?”
Ollie let loose a happy little screech while he splashed the water around him. Dahlia joined in, and it was at least endearing to see some joy. I watched them while I sat on the edge of the porch, between the two conversations. Originally, Orion had come out here to smoke alone, but the kids had insisted on a pool party outside with their daddy, and it turned into all of us out here.
“You can’t. They delivered the… rest of him by the time we got back from the meeting. I had to notify Jasper’s parents.”
I remembered the Wolf who’d gotten off of some kind of punishment during my first pack meeting who’d also stepped up to scout for the pack to get any extra info on the Serafim Group. It was looking like they weren’t going to take my brother’s refusal for an acceptable answer.
“I’m so sorry, baby.” Sylvie kissed my brother’s cheek, despite him dangling the cigarette out of the side of his mouth while he stared unseeingly at the lake before us. How would I comfort Río if we were in their place? While I wasn’t heartless , I definitely wasn’t sweet like Sylvie. Whether maternal instincts were inherited or reared, I didn’t have a chance in hell.
Princess, I think I’m gonna have to keep you . He was so damn snarky, but I believed him. There was no lying with emotional scents, and even now, I felt my chest want to hum with the particular note that went along with his Jaguar’s roar. There was a second there, when he held us both in that tree and worked on fucking me to oblivion, that I’d thought he was going to bite me. Like, really, really bite me.
I must’ve been losing it, because I wanted it. For the tie between Río and I to be complete.
“Mona,” Orion’s voice reverberated with Leader , and my body snatched to attention of its own accord. “I need to meet your… Jaguar.”
“Why?”
He ashed his cigarette in the handmade ceramic tray on the patio table. “Because, you reek of him. I will not demand he become pack, but I also need to know him since he’ll be sticking around.”
I squinted, sensing that there was something he wasn’t telling me, but if there was anyone that could escape the little trick I’d learned over the years, it was the one who’d taught me. Under the heavy scent of Leader, Orion mostly buzzed with stress that was like muggy air after a hot rainstorm. “He… I don’t know whether he’ll be staying here.”
“Bullshit.”
Hot anger flared within my chest, and I actually snarled. It was nowhere near as intimidating as a real shifter would have been able to do. The sound wasn’t human, though. “You’re not my Leader. You can’t order me around.”
My brother’s green eyes flashed, glowing around the edges, and his growl forced my eyes to lower, my shoulders to hunch. Goddammit , I swallowed the whine that almost slipped out, too.
Distantly, I noticed Sylvie get up from her seat and swipe up the babies from the pool before retreating inside. Leaving my brother and I to have it out.
“You are not yet Antler Pointe Pack, but you are still my pack. You intend to mate him, fine. But I will speak with him, too.”
I nearly choked, “ What the hell are you talking about ? I’m not…” but the words died on my tongue because it would be a fucking lie. My intense, half-shifter brain was fully on board with the idea of becoming his mate.
O stubbed out his spent cig but didn’t pick a new one out of my stash. The last nicotine-filled exhale made him look like a dragon as the smoke flowed out of his nose. “Invite him for dinner. Beers. A two-minute conversation, whatever. He will be here, or I’ll go to him myself.”
With that, my brother stood and went back into the cabin, leaving me to simmer down on my own and try to figure out what the fuck to do.
Before I could really stop myself, I pulled out my phone and pressed call beneath Río’s contact photo. It was a shot of him, tongue sticking out as he rolled past me on his board. I’d been scrolling through my playlist when he’d started rolling toward me, and I’d been lucky to immortalize his silliness in high definition.
The fireflies were out again, their yellow-green lights catching in the dying sunset. I hollowed my cheeks as I took the last draw from my own smoke and stubbed it out on the wood beneath me. Yeah, leave a burn mark for my asshole of a brother to deal with later.
I thought for a second that he wouldn’t pick up, but Río answered on the fourth ring, just before it went to voicemail. “Princess? What’s up?”
My lips turned down as I exhaled the smoke, not in nearly as cool of a way as my brother had. Usually Río sounded happy whenever he talked to me, but he sounded preoccupied. Almost irritated.
“Is this a bad time?”
“What? No. What did you need, babe?”
The term of endearment helped me soften, but I still didn’t like the way he sounded. It was so unlike him. Or maybe I still really didn’t know him at all. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Stupid fight with my brother. Are you too busy?”
“For you? Never.”
I waited, but he didn’t say anything else. “Uh… so can I come over?”
“Um—yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Whenever’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“One hundred percent. See ya in a few, sweet cheeks,” and the call disconnected. For a while, I stared at my blank phone screen, chewing on my lip. He sounded weird, but I had asked if he was certain.
Cursing, I stood and went to dump the ashtray and cigarette butts. Unsure of where the ashtray lived when my brother wasn’t relapsing, I set it back on the patio table before going to pack my overnight bag. Like hell was I staying here to be ordered around any more.
Even though my brother and I were quarreling at the moment, Sylvie offered up her car when I said I was going to Río’s for the night. Orion had been giving the babies a bath, and I didn’t give any of my typical protests when she assured me that I was more than fine to spend another night away.
I parked next to Río’s truck, stomach flitting with anticipation. That is, until I started up the steps that led to his apartment and took in the unmistakable female scent that led right up to his door.
Before I could parse through the different notes of it, Río flung open the door without me so much as knocking. His eyes seemed heavy, as if he’d suddenly become exhausted. His hair was in a messy nest atop his head.
“Hey, good lookin’. I missed you.” Río tried for his hallmark grin, but it was tight until it faltered to a weak smirk.
I made no secret of my sniffing of the air. His neighbors’ scents were faint, Río’s chiles and clove was strongest. But there was another. Like his, but it slipped and shifted, trying to escape me, as if it was the ghost of what a scent would be. Not a shifter, not a human or vampire—not anything I’d smelled before.
“Who did you have over here?” I shoved past him into his house, following the trail that led to the living area but went no further. My bag fell off my arm and onto the wooden floor with a thud as I continued to sniff around the couch. It was just so odd.
He sighed, and it sounded of a weariness I hadn’t heard from him before. Just when I was thinking I knew him, I was being hit with all of these uncertainties. “My sister surprised me.”
My nose stayed scrunched. He had mentioned that he had two older sisters that he’d gone no-contact with. But, again, there were a lot of blanks and missing information when it came to Río and his family. “That’s… nice?”
He snorted and ran a hand over his face. “You haven’t met her. It was far from nice.”
“Oh,” I dropped onto the couch. Shit, I just barged in and hardly even acknowledged how exhausted and down he looked. “Should I go?”
Río lowered his brow, as if he was really trying to decide whether I should stay or not, and my heart started to crack. “Nah. We can order some dinner? Watch a movie?” He inhaled and tried to give me another smile, succeeding a little more than last time.
“Yeah. That’s good. We can lay down and have a picnic in bed?” That usually made me feel better, anyway. Maybe he’d like it, too?
“Tryna get in my pants, baby?” He chuckled, but I decided that I didn’t like it.
I went over to him, trying my best to put my comforting hat on and raised on my toes while bracing my hands on his chest. He still smelled like me, and that was really all I needed. I kissed his cheek. “Or we could just eat and watch something where we don’t have to think.”
When I pulled back, Río looked pained, face pinched, but he didn’t back away. He grabbed my hands and planted small, light kisses on my knuckles. “Yeah,” his voice was thick, “thanks, Princess.”
I kissed the tip of his nose like he always did me. “I—no problem. Thanks for letting me come over.”
His smirk in return was easier, and we went back and forth about what we wanted to eat, eventually settling on sushi. Despite my disbelief that this town had any worth trying. Río pulled up the menu of a place two blocks over, but when I suggested we just walk over and pick it up, he said he wasn’t really up for walking anywhere.
His resistance struck me as a little odd, but I didn’t question it, and once the food was delivered, we set up our dumplings and trays of sushi while resuming the comedy sketch show that we were quickly making our way through. By now, we had favorite episodes that we alluded to with each other, and I’d now learned that, though he was quick to joke and laugh in real life, Río was a hard critic when it came to TV and movies. This show, though, he said, was one of the best he’d seen so far.
I left him in the loft while I dumped our empty trays and containers in his kitchen trash. While I walked barefoot over the old wooden floors, I turned over again and again the words that’d been on the tip of my tongue.
He’d done so well with my freakout last night, helping me take more steps in my healing that I didn’t even fully comprehend yet. I wanted to do the same for him when I didn’t need my scenting to know something was wrong.
By the time I got back on the bed, Río was leaned against the headboard, and he wordlessly opened his arms while his attention was still on the screen. The mattress dipped as I answered his call and settled between his legs. Drawing strength from his steady arms around me, I took a deep breath and opened my mouth.
“Río.”
“Huh?” He grunted and kissed the top of my head. He swept his fingertips on the fabric covering my inner arm, reminding me again of how much he’d already helped me. I wanted to do that for him, too.
Leaning up, I grasped the hem of my hoodie and pulled it over my head. My braid flopped against my chest, and I tossed the shedded fabric over the side of the bed. Río’s arms returned around my middle, claws absently fiddling with the edge of my bra but not attempting to take it off.
Another breath. “Do you wanna talk about it? Your sister.” I was no good at this type of shit. This was the first… relationship I’d ever had, as an adult anyway. He was the first person I’d been this intimate with and the first of the people in my life to know what I’d done. His kind acceptance meant more than a lot to me. It was everything.
Río sighed. “There’s not a lot I can say. She and my other sister had been influenced by our father long before I came to live with them. Before that, they’d only visit.”
“Was it—” I hesitated but decided to press on “—bad?”
“Like abusive?” I hadn’t wanted to use the word when he hadn’t, but I nodded. Río’s sharp, black claw played with the silver barbell through my bellybutton. “Yeah,” he uttered quietly, “S’how I lost a good chunk of my eyesight. The other scars and bruises healed, so I made sure to tattoo over where each one had been. Was depressed all the time. Finally got the hell out right before I turned eighteen.”
I stiffened, and the flood of tears was so sudden, I couldn’t stop them from spilling down my face. Again, the art on his skin took on new meaning. This time, it was somber and almost too much for my heart to take. “I’m so sorry, baby.” Río was so darkly bright, I couldn’t imagine someone being that cruel to him. His own family, no less. If I weren’t feeling so devastated for him, I’d want to crack his family’s skulls.
“Don’t cry, Princess.” Río caressed the line of my jaw and moved my head so that I couldn’t hide. His sharp fingertips prickled against my skin, and I leaned into the touch.
I let my tears flow and bit the inside of my cheek. “I hate that they hurt you.”
He chuffed, and a small smirk, a ghost of his usual sardonic expression, shifted his lips. Río planted a gentle kiss on my mine. “Thank you, baby.” He blinked a few times, worry creasing his forehead and moving in the air around us. I held his gaze while he figured out what to say, and I hoped like hell it wasn’t something to push me away.
“They’re the reason I move around so much.”
My heart started to pound at the memory of him being up front with me that day at the skatepark. That he’d eventually be leaving. Did his sister appearing mean that we were already at the end? More tears fell down my face, trailing into my mouth with salty dread. “Are you… going away?” Goddammit, my lip was trembling, but I needed to know.
Río’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and he took my arm, turning the scar up towards him. He bent to kiss it, and I already knew I wasn’t going to like what came next.
“So, there’s this Wolf girl with mile-long legs who’s kinda thrown a wrench in my plans to get the fuck out of dodge.”
The pivot of conversation almost had me getting pissed before he could finish the rest of his sentence. His black eyes were tender as they looked down at me through his glasses lenses. The light from the lamp reflected against the glass, and I saw the barest hint of golden specs in the depths of his irises. “Oh.”
“My family is complete shit and dangerous. It’s selfish of me, but I really want to keep being with you, Ramona.”
I gasped, and my heart racing in alarm turned to fluttering out of excitement. Hope. “I want to stay with you, Río.”
His jaw tightened and so did his arms around me. Squeezing and maybe a little uncertain that I was speaking the truth. “And when I have to move again?”
Could I promise this now? My stay in Antler Pointe wasn’t a vacation, but I also had the luxury to not worry about work or school while I was living in my brother’s cabin. Not that I’d thought the rest would last forever, I also hadn’t really thought through what I’d do afterwards. Other than the fact that there was no way I was going back to NYU or my parents’.
But with this Jaguar? Making a new future with him, spending our evenings just like this, taking rides on the back of his motorcycle? “I’d go with you.”
Río’s entire face went blank for a moment, and I worried that he was having a medical event or something, but then it turned thunderous. His body crowded around me, and he leaned down until we were nose-to-nose. His glasses slid down, almost bumping my face, but I couldn’t even chuckle at the cuteness of it. “Don’t fucking lie to me, Princess. That’s a shitty thing to do.” Four large fangs flashed at me as he spoke, outraged at what he perceived as an empty promise. I’d have to teach him how to read emotions, because if he could, he would know that I was telling the truth.
I pulled back my top lip, snarling right back at him with no heat. “I’m not lying. Take me with you.”
He froze again, with the two of us baring our teeth at each other, until—until his face crumpled. His fangs didn’t go away, but his eyes weren’t flashing with anger anymore. He pulled me into a smashing kiss that I accepted with my whole heart. Soft, wispy hair of his tickled my face, and his claws pressed into my bare skin. But the only urgency was to settle into this. That the next time he had to run, he didn’t have to be alone.
Río’s chest vibrated with a purr, and my own hummed in kind.