Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
RAMONA
T he three of us sat on the concrete, legs outstretched. The oversized t-shirt I wore was almost longer than my shorts, the sleeves extending to my elbows. After making the very conscious decision to not hide my arms today, I’d arrived at the skate spot and nearly ran home to change. But a half hour skating on my own and then a few with Río and Tyler, had me almost forgetting about the scars.
Río took a large swig of beer, and I had to fight to keep my attention from locking onto his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. I tore my eyes away and leaned forward to look at both him and Tyler. “You mean you guys have never…?”
The vampire smirked while Río choked on the last bit of Tecate going down his throat. I clapped him on the back a few times while his breathing evened out. He swiped the back of his hand across his lips, and I brushed a lock of his hair over his shoulder. “Fuck no. I would never let this sadist anywhere near my asshole.”
A relieved chuckle bubbled out of my mouth the same time Tyler slapped Río’s shoulder with the palm of his hand. “That’s racist, dude. I’m dead, not a complete sadist.”
Río cocked a brow while rolling his eyes. “Yeah, but you told me once that you want a pet . And one that’ll like it when you make it hurt.” I snuggled into Río’s side, and much to my satisfaction, he slung his arm around my shoulders.
I’d crossed paths with vampires here and there, but I didn’t think I’d ever seen one blush. Though they were technically dead, if you meant that their human lives had ended, their resurrected hearts still beat, their stolen blood still flowed. And as above-it-all as Tyler appeared to be most of the time, he evidently had a softer side that was able to be embarrassed. “Doesn’t mean I want to actually hurt them,” he gritted through his teeth.
Call my curiosity piqued. “Is it like a control thing?”
Tyler blushed harder, really highlighting his boyish features. “Uh?—”
“Oh, completely,” Río supplied.
“I don’t know how you don’t want to kill him most of the time,” Tyler mumbled.
I grinned conspiratorially. “Who says that I don’t?”
Río whirled around, switching almost instantly from betrayal to scheming to amusement. He slanted his lips over mine, taking my face in unflinching grip, and I immediately opened up for his prodding tongue. My heart rate rocketed, my belly swooping in anticipation. These few weeks filled with Río made Numbers Eleven and Twelve on my list. Fun and pleasure and contentment.
Also, desire. Something I’d felt so rarely was now a steady coursing whenever he was near, either physically or simply in my thoughts. Within that was lust, sure, but to have his jokes and care was even more fulfilling.
But you wouldn’t know that from the little whimpers sparking from my throat as he owned my mouth, only touching my face and lips but taking over everything. Never did I imagine I’d willingly relinquish it all for someone like this. But the past two weeks had been… good. After the nightmare of my parents’ confrontation, I’d grown even closer to my people in Antler Pointe. And myself.
Río kissed his way to my ear and gave it a tease with the tip of his tongue. “Keep talking, Princess. I like showing everyone how much of a slut you become for me.”
I twisted my head, bringing us brow-to-brow, and glared. That only pushed him to snicker and plant a kiss to the tip of my nose. More heat rose to my cheeks, but I was too focused on cooling down so as to not give him the fucking satisfaction. He leaned back, still holding me close.
There wasn’t nearly enough self-consciousness in my chest when I remembered that Tyler was just on the other side of Río. The dark eyeliner smudged around his eyes only made the widened pupils more prominent. He looked between the two of us and sucked his teeth with a pensive look on his face.
The flash of his finely-tipped fangs sparked enough curiosity for me to grab onto. “Is it true that those have venom in them?” I pointedly looked toward his mouth so that he’d know what I was talking about.
Tyler raised an unimpressed brow but still answered. “Yeah.”
“And does it hurt? The bite?”
Río nudged me, “You looking to get bit by someone else?” A few shades of his usual taunting were gone, but it truly had been innocent curiosity. And he’d never made to truly bite me with his fangs. Despite him coming close multiple times now, and each time, my dormant Wolf begged for it. He already called me his, and I craved his fangs piercing my neck. No matter that it’d only been two months or that I was still healing—I’d probably be doing that all my life. At least, that was the conclusion that Vera, an elder in the pack, and I had come to.
When I returned to the cabin after a few days at Río’s, I decided to take Sylvie up on her offer to find me someone to talk to. It wasn’t like I was completely against therapy, but, like Orion had concluded, a human who had no knowledge of what it meant to be Wolf wasn’t a good fit, either.
Vera was younger than what I would consider an ‘elder’, just shy of fifty if I had to guess. But she didn’t bullshit, calling me out in a way that was familiar. I pulled my phone out to check the time and saw that it was just a few more minutes before I was due at Vera’s house to talk again.
Though I knew he naturally preferred the hours after sundown, Tyler seemed to be in an okay mood today, even throwing a few dry jokes at me while he hung out with Río and I. Now that I’d been around him more, I realized that he didn’t dislike me—he was that way with everyone, save for his friends, with whom he was slightly more animated. And I’d never been able to sit down with a vampire before, let alone one who seemed willing to answer any sort of questions. All the vampires that I’d seen here and there were far too intimidating to just go up to and request they divulge all their secrets.
Tyler ignored Río’s heated question, and he instead responded to me. “From what I’ve been told and what I remember from before, the bite is slightly painful, but the nature of the venom chases it with enough pleasure so that it doesn’t matter.”
“Huh,” I took a sip from Río’s beer. “And how old are you, anyway?”
“Sixty-five last month.”
Río gave a long whistle and clapped a hand between Tyler’s narrow shoulders. “Coolest old man I ever met.” In his defense, he didn’t look a day over twenty-one, and I suspected that without the eyeliner, ripped jeans, and t-shirt, he’d look even younger.
“Remind me why I’m hanging out with animals again?” Río returned the insult by ruffling the top of Tyler’s head to make his short, messy strands even messier.
“Hey, I can’t shift, so leave me out of it.”
He swatted Río’s hands away and scoffed, “Doesn’t matter. You still smell like dog, but I guess you’re both not as bad, comparatively.”
A group of kids shot past us on their boards, excited chattering and whoops forcing us to halt our conversation until they passed and headed toward the bowl. The sun was working on setting, now, and more and more people were entering the park now that the day’s heat had fully broken.
Once any human ears were far enough away, I ventured, “Compared to what?”
Tyler’s darkly delicate features pinched as his eyes narrowed. “Lots of things. True shifters, Fae, humans. At least the last two usually have their wits about them. Some of the time.”
I wracked my brain, trying to remember if I’d ever heard of true shifters before and come up blank. Fae, I’d had some idea about, especially since apparently Sylvie had a grandfather with horns or something. He was a nice guy when I met him at her and O’s wedding, but what that meant as far as her powers, I had no idea.
But, “ True shifters?” What made them different?
Tyler looked at me like I was stupid but relented with more information. “Can change their form to mimic any living creature…? Have you really not heard of ‘em?”
I shook my head and felt a bit like Dahlia when I tried explaining to her something like why ice floated even though it was technically water. “No, but that sounds… cool.”
Río snorted and lifted his beer to his lips. He paused before downing the rest and crushing the can in his hand. Tyler chuckled, “Sure, until it drives them crazy.”
“Not always,” Río dropped his arm around me to recline back on his hands. He studied the skaters that dropped in and jumped out of the bowl.
“Not always,” Tyler agreed, “but think about it. Changing to different forms all the time? Maybe enough to forget what your real body is? I’ve heard of some shifters, Wolves and shit, that stay shifted more often than not. But that’s a consistent other form, like a tether. But to not even have yourself as an anchor?” He shook his head and crushed the rest of his beer.
That… yeah, when he put it that way, it didn’t sound so appealing. A waft of unease twined in my nose, like burnt toast, and I rested my hand on Río’s thigh.
He blinked a few times then smiled over at me. Whatever he’d been thinking about, probably what it would be like to not have his Jaguar to lean on, cleared just as quickly as it’d come on. He tapped my nose and laughed when I scowled. “Leave it to this geezer to be a walking encyclopedia, huh?”
Tyler didn’t have a retort to that one, aside from a scathing glance and pointedly facing forward, ignoring the teasing smirk on Río’s face.
We sat and people watched for a minute, cheered for a few kids that worked up the courage to drop in and jump out the other side of the bowl until my alarm went off, and I had to tear myself away for the Antler Pointe Pack version of therapy.
Río had picked me up from the cabin, so he was the one to drop me off at Vera’s. The sky once again threatened rain, filling the air with a humid pressure that’d been teasing us all week. Maybe by the time I left her house today, it’d finally rain.
When we pulled up to Vera’s driveway, she was sitting on the porch already, book and pencil in her lap. I hopped off of Río’s bike and pulled off the helmet that he’d surprised me with last week. It was black to match his, and I tucked it under my arm as I tried to smooth down my hair and stop the blush rising on my face.
I hadn’t given Vera too many details about Río—only that I had someone in my life and that it was new. By the pops of curiosity and amusement coming from her direction, she was certainly going to ask me about him.
Río left his bike running but climbed off to walk me to the edge of her yard. It was a modest-sized brick home with pretty hydrangeas out front that her mate, Lauren, cared for.
“All right, Princess. Be good.” I rolled my eyes and leaned into the kiss he planted on my lips. He twirled a finger around a loose curl that fell across my shoulder and lightly pulled before letting it spring back in place. “I’ll pick you up in a few hours?”
“Yeah.”
Vera cleared her throat, now not paying her puzzle book any mind. Río gave her a head nod of acknowledgement, but I heard the feline grumble he tried to hide. “Never thought I’d voluntarily be around this many Wolves,” he mumbled before giving me a final, deep kiss that pressed our bodies together. “I’ll miss you, baby.”
At times like these, my learned response, to clam up and ignore the endearments or actively brush them off, would have been easy to fall back on. But I was working on a new way.
Over his lips, I whispered, “Miss you, too.”
Río blinked a moment, then pantomimed cleaning out his ears, so I shoved him in the chest. His deep laughs rolled through us, and he gave one last nip at my ear. “Oh, I’m gonna eat you up later. Now get goin’,” he swatted my ass and got back on his bike.
No amount of glare I gave broke the cheeky expression on his face. He even waggled his tongue and winked before shoving his helmet back on and watching me walk up to meet Vera. My face felt like it was on fire, but I still watched him shoot off back up the street once I was safely on the porch. What an ass.
“Your mate’s a Lion?” Her purple-tipped pixie cut curled lightly around her ears and the back of her neck, and she was the only person I knew who might have had enough tattoos to rival Río’s. Hers, though, were a collection of classic American style that were faded and comforting to look at.
While Wolves could be any gender, any color and size, if I had to envision a female Wolf, I would certainly pick Vera out of a line up over my mother.
“He’s a Jaguar, actually,” I tucked my hair behind my ears before shrugging out of the jacket Río insisted I wear when I rode with him. That’d been the companion gift to my helmet, even if he hardly wore outer gear himself. When I righted myself, Vera was still staring at me, with that knowing smirk she gave me on the first day I came here. I’d been… barely pleasant. “What?”
She shrugged and stood, meeting me eye-to-eye. With a hand, sure and solid from her work as a tattoo artist, she ushered me inside her home that was becoming more familiar. I was here nearly every day, adding to my rotation through other peoples’ houses that I was slowly putting my stamp on. Each had their own versions of lived-in chaos, but Vera and Lauren’s was by far the most eclectic.
Each room was painted a different, bright color, or contained a sprawling mural, and the coffee table Vera led us to was so splattered in paint, I wondered if it had started that way as a design choice, or if it’d been a casualty that they decided to display.
The color gradient puzzle we’d been working on since the first day my brother dropped me off like sullen child at school was only a quarter of the way finished, and our mess sprawled the entire surface of the table. When he’d told me that he approached Vera specifically, as he’d thought we’d get along well, I’d been more than a bit skeptical as her mate’s soft-spoken and flowery introductions led us through the house.
When I’d first seen Vera, sitting on the floor as she was now, she’d demanded I help her with the puzzle. Naturally, I’d glanced at my brother, communicating the need to cut and run.
His flat eye roll retorted, Don’t be ridiculous. I know you well enough to not steer you wrong.
My dramatic huff and glare had spoken for itself.
Turned out, though, it was easier to speak about my emotions when my hands were occupied, and the almost mindless task of selecting a piece and trying to find where it fit was something that sifted through the darker thoughts until they more readily became a blip in the back of my mind.
“All right,” Vera drawled as she sat cross-legged and unceremoniously picked up where she’d left off on her side of the table. I put my helmet and jacket down beside me and did the same. Now that we’d long made it through the corner and edge pieces, the rest was very slow moving, but by the whole bookshelf dedicated to an array of puzzles and my own years of unprocessed issues, we had more than enough to work through. “You were saying about your mom.”
I tsked, “Now you sound like a therapist.” The piece I tried was the right shade for the top of the puzzle, but the solid purple hue gave no other clue as to where it might go.
She took a piece that matched the tips of her hair and found a fit near the corner closest to me. “I’m sure you don’t need a therapist to tell you that for most of us, our mothers are our introduction to the world. And for you, your introduction to your Wolf, as well. If she denies hers, it’s no wonder that yours is largely unknown to you.”
Vera had taken one look at me after Orion left on my first day and smiled, pointing at my chest, ‘Your Wolf is just as surly as you are. You’ll do fine here.’
“Well, if she’d show herself, it’d be a little easier,” I groused and tried for another fit but to no avail.
Sock-softened footsteps rounded a corner and headed toward us, sound of ice tinkling making my mouth water. Lauren wore a pair of AirPods, as she always did when I came over, and gave us a nod while she deposited two glasses of Thai iced tea on the floor beside us. It was always perfect, not too sweet, and apparently a family recipe Vera’s mom had taught her. I took mine up with a “thank you” while Vera caught Lauren’s deep-toned wrist and planted a kiss while never taking her eyes off of the puzzle.
The chocolate and berries aroma in their home was even deeper than O’s and Sylvie’s— decades of love that was woven through their scents. To the point that I couldn’t imagine one without the other.
Yesterday, I’d finally told Río about my little trick that I’d learned from Orion, and the confusion then delight that coursed through him when I further explained left me stumbling over my words.
“Aight, what am I feeling now?” he tested me, and I took a long inhale. Dry air like a hot day, the first sip of lemonade, and spiced chocolate and berries.
With a wry smirk, I listed them out, “You’re really hungry and excited. I’d guess because of the new riff you figured out earlier today. And… happy. Content that I’m here.”
He absolutely beamed at me, bringing my head into his chest while we lay in his bed, and kissed my eyelids. “You coulda cheated on that first one since my stomach growled five minutes ago, but well done, baby. Didn’t fuckin’ know it could be done, but leave it to you to figure something like this out. I’m proud of you.”
“Just because you don’t have the magic to let her take over doesn’t mean that she’s not with you. Always. My mother is like you, but she was raised just as her siblings. To acknowledge and honor all parts of her. I wonder how differently you’d feel if you were given that same opportunity.”
“Probably still fucking depressed.”
Vera hummed and picked another piece from the open box. “Are you depressed? Right now.”
“According to my two week grippy sock stay and the Major Depressive Disorder diagnosis, I’m going to go with, yes.”
“Not what I said. I asked if you were depressed right now. Not whether you had depression.”
I frowned and took a final sip from my iced tea before setting it down. I flicked away a drop of condensation that’d dripped on to the puzzle. Was I depressed right now? The episode with my parents calling came to mind, but—since then, no. From gardening, to skating, to hanging out with Delaney, the clouds hadn’t quite cleared all the way, but the pale blue sky was there, too.
“Don’t you think I haven’t been by myself enough to give a true answer, though?”
“You’ve got to get out of that mentality, kid. You do know that Wolves are pack-oriented, right? You think we decide to form these groups for shits and giggles? We crave not only companionship but community, too. Did you ever have that before you moved here?”
I hated it when she did this. Pointing out all the obvious holes in my ship that’d caused it to inevitably sink.
“Thought not. Your mom is probably subsisting off of pure force of will at this point. But that’s not your burden to bear. Shit way of getting here, but moving to Antler Pointe was probably the best thing you could’ve done for yourself.”
What I didn’t hate was how she never skirted around what I’d done. “I guess.”
“You guess,” her brow rose while she tapped a jagged-looking piece against her chin. “So if you’d’ve kept living life as you were, you guess that everything would be totally fine? If say… Ana had stumbled across your Lion instead of you, you suppose that would’ve been okay?”
My lip curled, and I grunted threateningly at images of Río being curled around the serious looking blonde I’d seen at pack meetings and working at the library. “He’s a Jaguar, and no, okay?”
“Ah, your Wolf doesn’t like that one bit, does she?”
“I… really like him,” I blushed.
She tapped the corner of a piece on the table, searching for where it might go, “And are you going to mate him?” I almost spat out my iced tea. “What?”
“Shouldn’t you not encourage I do that? Aren’t I… not healthy enough for that?”
She tested the piece in a few places before settling on the right one and sitting back to look at me. “As long as you do it for the right reasons, who cares? Only you will know if you’re following your shifter instincts or running from your problem. It’s not for me to say. You may be half human, but I sense your Wolf. Do you feel her pull toward this Jaguar?”
Her words hit me square in my chest, where I’d been feeling the tug toward Río since I first saw him at Vinny’s.
She nodded through my silence. “From what I know of you so far, and from our Leader, your Wolf side has been stifled. Though some choose to live the human way, when it comes to companions, our minds and spirits are naturally a bit different.” Vera looked up toward the kitchen, and her expression brightened like the sun breaking through the clouds. I followed her gaze through the doorway and landed on her mate, Lauren, who was washing dishes. “When your Wolf knows, she knows.”
Ugh , I frowned as a headache started pinching behind my eyes. “I didn’t come here for relationship advice.”
“No, just to stop wanting to off yourself. So far, we’re succeeding. Yay.” The corners of my lips twitched, and when I snuck a glance across the unfinished puzzle, hers were doing the same. I’d already told her about my list, though I was still trying to find a time to hit her with the fact that she was lucky Number Thirteen. Through these weeks, I more so brought out my running tally as a reason to pause when moments like this hit, but it was still a comforting resource when I needed.
Vera laid off of pressing me about the whole mating issue, and we wandered between further discussing my mother and the intricacies of pack dynamics that I’d never learned as a child.
I got lost in the conversation and our puzzle—so much so that when Río called me, I took a step back and found that we’d only just gotten the gradient barely halfway complete.
“I’m starting to think that we’re not good at these.”
When I put the phone up to my ear, trying to find the home for the piece still in my hand, I could hear his voice through the walls of the house and on the other end of the call. “You ready to go to mine, Princess?”
“Yeah, be one second,” I put the barely-purple piece in one slot, changed my mind, and guessed at the next one that turned out to be a fit.
Taking that as my cue to go, I unfolded my legs and tapped the table in goodbye. Vera was still working on her last puzzle piece for our session, so her mumbled goodbye wasn’t surprising in the least.
Going back out the way I came, I felt that familiar stir when I was on the precipice of meeting Río’s black gaze again, having his arms around me again. And sure enough, when I stepped out of the house, his face lit up like the bottle rockets I’d once watched him light at the skatepark with childish glee.
The air was still thick with the hints of a summer storm, but with Río’s mouth on mine, I didn’t even need the relief of a good rain. My helmet clunked against his back when I threw my arms around his shoulders in an embrace, his hands palming my ass and pulling me flush toward him. He nipped at my lip, teasing me with those sharp teeth. “Let’s hit it, baby.”