Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
RAMONA
R ío took the next three days off of work, and I stayed at his apartment. Texts from my mother, and less so, Sylvie and Orion, filled my inbox, but I only responded to the necessary ones. Telling Sylvie where I was. Ignoring O’s reminders about his command.
I damn sure didn’t tell them that my brother’s prediction had already come true.
Number Fourteen. My mate, truly. Every time I thought of the word, the deep, fulfilled sensation in my chest would almost pulse, reminding me of its presence.
This time with Río was too sacred. My shifter side was fiercely protective of our mound of blankets and the tenderness with which we shared in them. I rebuilt it every time our fucking or lovemaking wore it down, and we lounged in each other’s arms, kissing and laughing and adjusting to this new feeling of more .
We talked for hours, filling in the gaps and enhancing our matehood in the process. Giving it sustenance to grow and fill, and already, I was acutely aware of his solid home within my heart.
And he told me more about the danger he’d spoken of. When he tried to warn me away from something that was unavoidable. As we sat up in his bed, he filled the picture of his past. That his father ran his family with a viciousness that was far, far worse than my mother ever could be.
“I lived in Georgia with my mom until I was ten.” That explained his slips into a Southern twang, at least. “My father demanded I come live with him and my sisters—Catalina and Xiomara—or he’d take it out on Mamá.” I nodded, remembering the names of his siblings that he’d told me a while ago. I rubbed his bare chest while he recounted for me the memories that haunted him. “And…” he took a deep breath, “I couldn’t let them find out about my younger brother. Javier. Or else our father would take him, too.”
My gaze trailed to his torso, where the three cranes flew, and I traced the wings of the two smaller ones that followed the larger. I flicked my eyes up to him, and he nodded at my silent question. “So I made sure that we all got out,” he smiled sadly, and a shallow dimple appeared on his left cheek. “Just wish we could’ve flown together.”
The sprawling sadness interwoven through this memory and his words was heavy. Too much for one person. I kissed his nose while he caressed the scars on one of my arms. “I’m sorry.”
“S’okay,” even though it wasn’t. “He’s grown, now. And Mamá is a fighter. I’ll see them again, someday. And they’ll both love you.” I felt the blush flare on my cheeks, so I hid my face in the crook of his neck. Some of his resignation gave way to an affectionate chuckle.
The one boyfriend I’d had before Río was a stupid high school thing. We’d gone to the same schools together since we were small, and our parents had already been acquainted before he asked me to homecoming when we were thirteen.
That had been an immature and flippant relationship. A puddle too small for a bird compared to the expansive ocean that was what Río and I were, now.
Still, we’d gone about this a little lopsided. As we’d eaten ice cream in our nest, with our marks still a fresh and lively red, he’d snarked and called our path ‘a little ass-backwards’. But then he’d grinned, his nose scrunching in happiness, and I couldn’t keep mine from rising to match.
“Um…” I mumbled now over his skin, right into his mark that’d healed to a brown impression of my teeth. “So, my brother.” Río traced the edge of my face, like he’d done on our first date—because it was a date, I now realized—and kissed my temple in encouragement for me to continue. “He wants to meet you. Properly.”
He hummed but otherwise didn’t react. “As Pack Leader or as your brother?”
“Not sure. Both? He said that he wasn’t going to ask you to become pack, but he needed to know you.”
Río gave me another kiss, and I relaxed into his chest, glad that he wasn’t getting upset at the notion. It’d be a shock to everyone when I turned up with a mate, but I was also excited to have him by my side.
“All right, Princess. You just tell me when.” I nodded into his skin and kissed his mark. He shivered, tightening his arms around me. “Who woulda thought that I would mate the most beautiful girl in the world?”
I groaned into his skin, “You are so stupid.”
“Nah, baby, I think I’m the smartest motherfucker alive. As soon as I saw those honey eyes of yours, I knew that I had to have you.”
My nose wrinkled. “Honey eyes?” I watched him suspiciously, but he just kept on smiling, like I was missing a joke, and we fell into each other once more. He allowed me to unfurl into a softer version of myself and open myself completely. Only with him.
We fell asleep sometime later, tangled and pleasantly exhausted. So much so that when I was awakened by a foreign distress in my stomach and the urgent blare of an alarm, it took me a moment to realize where I was.
The sky outside was already a bright blue, and, knowing that Río had an opening shift this morning, I figured that his alarm had been going off for a good while.
An elbow knocked into my ribs. The nudge didn’t hurt, but it wasn’t comfortable either. “Ow.” I propped up on my hand and blinked to further clear my senses. Beside me, Río’s muscles were past the point of tense, coiling as if he was facing an attack. But there was no one here other than me, so it looked more painful than anything. His features were twisted in outrage, beads of sweat ran down into his hair that stuck to his temples.
That was the feeling in my stomach. Whether I was truly experiencing it or just more attuned to him now, I didn’t know for sure. What I did know, though, was that I had to soothe him.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, feeling the burning and hard skin. “Río, it’s just a nightm?—”
His roar was loud enough to be heard a block away. It rattled my teeth, and if it weren’t for my own dormant training, I would’ve been completely thrown on the floor by whatever was happening in his dream world. Instead, we fumbled back onto the mattress, destroying the outer edge of our nest.
Río’s eyes were wild but unaware as he flashed his fangs at me, and my heart cracked for him. No, I wasn’t scared, because even though his teeth and claws could easily tear my throat out, he kept the latter buried in the mattress beside my head. He snarled in my face but went no further.
He breathed heavily over me, gaze still unfocused. “Baby, it’s okay,” I tried, going for a lighter caress on his chest.
Bad idea, because he ripped his hand out of the bed, and, before I could flinch, slapped himself. It caused a reverberating smacking noise and bright wounds from his claws that welled with blood.
“ Stop ,” I cried and grabbed his wrists. Twisting both of our bodies while he thrashed, I flipped us, disturbing our pillows even further, and straddled his hips. He kicked uselessly at the bed as I used all the strength I possessed to subdue him. I kept Río’s hands bound to the mattress above his head where he couldn’t hurt himself anymore.
In turn, he shredded the blankets, head whipping back and forth while he mumbled in a language I hadn’t yet heard him speak. It wasn’t Spanish—Portuguese, maybe?
“Río, honey, p-please. You’re gonna hurt yourself. I love you, please stop.” Fat tears plunked down on his cheeks, brushing into his lashes and arcing down to his ears. “You’re okay. I love you, please ,” my lips trembled as a particularly harsh wave of resistance wracked his body, arching his back before he collapsed back to the bed.
His hands were still opening and closing, making a complete wreck of the covers and sending up a flurry of pillow fluff.
So at a loss of what to do, I bent forward. Still unafraid of his body’s weaponry, I kissed at the side of his mouth. He growled but didn’t bite, so I risked a brush of my lips at his lower right fang.
A barely-there touch of his tongue met my lip. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” I chanted while I moved up his face. When I reached the sharp edge of his cheekbone, I dragged the flat of my tongue up the skin. Tasted the salt of his sweat and my tears.
The sour scent of fear began to retreat from the air, so I kept doing it. I licked up his face over and over while murmuring about how much I loved him.
I was so lost in my efforts and prayer that I hadn’t totally noticed that he’d stopped fighting me. Not until a hoarse croak halted my pleas. “Ramona?”
My grooming of his face became less frantic, switching back to kisses, but I didn’t stop. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”
“W—what?—?”
“You had a bad dream, you, you hit yourself, and I had to make you stop, baby tell me what to do, I don’t know how to make you feel better, tell me how to help,” my voice broke, muddled by the torrent of tears that refused to stop.
“What’re you…” he blinked up at me, eyes widening as he took in my panic that he was surely seeing. When he shoved against my hands, this time, I let him go, and he scrambled out of the bed. He was hyperventilating while staring between me and his hands as if he didn’t know what to be horrified by.
Then, he went from flushed to pale, and he dashed down the steps and to the bathroom. The door banged against the wall, followed by the sound of the toilet lid cracking against the tank and his vomit splashing into the bowl. For a moment, I was stuck, listening to him be sick and grieving over the ruined nest. It was silly, but my… my Wolf whined at the realization that our post-mating peace was over. Despite being so dormant that she would never fully emerge, she was part of me all the same.
I could kill his family , I cursed as I scrambled out of the bed. Río was coughing into the toilet, now, and I knew that they were the cause of his nightmares. Whether it was his father or sisters that scared him in his sleep, they’d all had hands in the abuse he’d suffered.
The acrid smell of vomit was wildly unpleasant, but I pushed through to hold back Río’s hair while he emptied the rest of his stomach. In the white-tiled bathroom, my suicide attempt scars were illuminated in total clarity, but I barely gave them a glance.
“Go back to bed, Princess,” Río said harshly and spat in the toilet. His words echoed within the roundness of the bowl as he clung to the side of it.
I stayed put. “No.” His alarm was still ringing beside the bed, no telling how late he was going to be for work now. If he even wanted to go.
“ Ramona ,” he barked, and I froze.
“I’m not leaving?—”
“?Escúchame!” He raised his voice, and I dropped my grasp of his hair. It fell in a tangled heap on his back. Río jutted his chin toward the door, “I gotta clean up and go to work. Put on some of my clothes if you need.”
My chin wobbled, but I did as he said. He clearly didn’t want me to bear witness to this, but why couldn’t I see this part of him? What did I do wrong?
I swept my wrists over my eyes, clearing another welling of tears, and trudged up to the loft. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from whining again at the sight of the ruined nest. Dismantling it made me sad, but seeing it all damaged was worse. Only one of the pillows survived the wrath of Río’s night terror, so I set it against the headboard. I threw the ripped comforter and blankets onto the floor and shoved on his hoodie that was two sizes too big for me. Eight puncture holes in the arc of Río’s hands were visible on the navy sheets, but I didn’t have the energy to fully strip the bed. I pulled a pair of basketball shorts from his dresser and slipped them on. He was being a fucking asshole, but being in his clothes comforted me all the same. I ran a hand over my mark and breathed a little deeper.
Río came back up the steps and paused. His jaw ticked while he barely looked at the bed, his scent a churning wash of emotions. None of them were happy, and I wanted to cry all over again.
He sighed, “I’ll buy more stuff for the bed later.”
While he dressed for work, I sat on the couch, watching the cleared sky through the windows and tried to figure out what the fuck to do. Río’s curdled shame and my own grief for our nest were making it hard to think, but what I knew for sure was that I wanted to be here for when we fixed it.
RíO
I kicked the walk-in closed, balancing fresh ingredients to replenish what was empty on the line, only to have the shredded mozzarella topple to the floor. A scatter of white cheese dusted the floor and my shoes, but all I could do was sigh and trudge through it to set the rest down.
I had a mate for less than a week, and I’d already fucked up.
It was fucking Xiomara coming around, bringing me into our dad’s bullshit. The night terrors used to be really bad, but through the years, they’d let up. And since I’d been with Ramona, they’d been nonexistent.
So, why fucking now?
I didn’t even want to run anymore. I just wanted to forget the Serafim name, all that came with it, and just recall my adolescent years as a blank spot to skip over. Frankly, everything between leaving Mamá’s house on my tenth birthday and meeting Ramona was pretty much irrelevant. Living with her, walking alongside my Princess, was what I wanted to do. What I needed. And why the fuck couldn’t I finally have that?
My throat choked up while I swept the floor. I’d ruined the nest she made for us, demolishing the gesture and honeymoon bubble we’d been in. It was hard to even look at her, knowing that she sensed every pathetic thing I felt about her seeing me that way.
The rest of my shift passed in a blur of one annoying and fucked up hour into another. It still beat following my father’s orders, no matter how brutal, but customer service was its own sort of hell. Even when I was a step removed as a manager.
I’d walked to work to give myself space to think, but when I returned home, the sight of my truck snagged my attention. How was I going to make it up to Ramona? She hadn’t texted or called, and if I were her, I’d probably be hiding out at my brother’s to get away from the problems I’d already caused. And she didn’t know the full extent of the shitstorm Mara would bring when she learned about this.
Unless I got us out of here before then. Yeah, another thing to drop on my mate.
“Fuck,” I muttered and unlocked my truck. The conversations needed to happen. I wasn’t so much of an asshole to sweep what happened this morning under the rug.
But running to the grocery store felt much more tangible with the swirl of emotions I was already feeling. I wasn’t a spectacular cook, but some of Mamá’s more simple recipes were ingrained in me. Ceviche de camarón didn’t involve using the stove at all, and tostadas were easy enough to make. By the time I left and returned to the apartment, I could smell Ramona’s presence inside. Had she stayed the whole time? I’d been so worried when I got in my truck earlier, I was too scared to truly check.
Now, with arms weighed down by the guilty shopping I’d done, I felt like a dog with its tail between its legs.
Stepping inside the small apartment, I was hit with the scent of us . This wasn’t just my home anymore, was it? We hadn’t really discussed if she’d be moving in, but the spicy-sweet of our union was home. My muscles relaxed, my mind further cleared. Tears collected in my eyes.
Home.
And when Ramona poked her head out from the loft to peer down at me, I almost dropped everything to race up to her. Because she was the true home. This apartment and this stuff didn’t matter as long as I had her.
She scowled down at me, but I saw the softness she held in her lips. The worry in her honey eyes.
I glanced around the apartment, noticing now that it looked pristine. The damn floor sparkled. Now, I wasn’t a slob, but I damn sure hadn’t mopped once since I moved in. The books I usually had scattered wherever I had been reading or sketching at the moment were in a neat stack on the coffee table. Even the fucking windows looked cleaned.
Oh, she was pissed.
I cleared my throat and headed to the kitchen area. “Hey, Princess.” Why did I feel like I was standing before a firing squad? Or facing down with Mara, armed with everything she could do and her fucking katana while all I had were my claws. Nah, I braced myself as she descended the steps, and I busied myself with unpacking the paper grocery bags. This was much scarier.
She propped her hip on the counter beside me, crossed her arms. Taking out the maseca was suddenly very interesting, and I gave the shrimp a few once-overs to make sure that they truly were deveined.
When it was evident I wasn’t going to say something, Ramona huffed. “Are you okay?”
I felt about five inches tall. It was one thing for everyone else to know that I wasn’t shit. It was far, far worse to have my mate see me that way. Too weak to handle some silly nightmares that I didn’t even remember by the time I woke up.
“Yeah.” I couldn’t look at her and see the rejection in her eyes, so I started on washing the vegetables and limes. The action at least let me do something with my hands, and I felt Ramona staring at me as I dried everything and began to work on the shrimp.
I chopped them into smaller pieces, tossing them in a bowl. “Do you want help?” she asked, almost hesitantly, and I risked a glance in her direction. There wasn’t anger rolling off of her, but I couldn’t parse through the nuance of her emotions. She didn’t look like she was about to demand we dissolve our matehood.
“You ain’t got to, baby,” my southern accent slipped to the forefront, and I frowned.
With a light touch on my shoulder, she stepped up to the ingredients I had laid out. “Just tell me what to do.”
“Um. You can slice those limes? There’s a citrus thingy in that drawer over there,” I pointed my knife at the right one, “and all the juice goes over the shrimp.”
She nodded, her big curls bobbing, and we worked in silence to get the shrimp marinating. It went a lot faster with her beside me, and soon, I was starting on making the tostadas while she chopped the tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and cilantro. Kneading the dough had always been my job before my life went to shit, and my hands worked with instinctual ease.
The soothing nature of making tortillas gave me enough courage to apologize. “I’m sorry, baby. For fucking up.” The words sliced up my throat, but I needed to say them. She deserved that much.
Ramona sighed and finished the last cuts through the cilantro. “I didn’t like that you left.”
I nodded, jaw working as I tried not to fucking cry. My princess had already been through so much. She still carried those dark feelings with her, and I needed to at least be mentally steady for her. Knowing I already failed was making it hard to not break down.
I didn’t realize I’d stopped kneading the masa and was staring off into space until her touch on my back snapped me back to attention. She rubbed in small circles, right between the shoulder blades. When I didn’t pull away, she stepped closer and rubbed her cheek on my shoulder.
I was shaking, trying to hold everything in, but she was sneaky this way. My mate. Her touch was reassuring and safe. When was the last time that I truly felt safe?
“What do you need, Río?”
“Beats me,” my chuckle was far too shaky for my liking, but there was nothing I could do about it. Even with the best of intentions, she couldn’t erase all the wounds I’d covered with my tattoos and years on the run.
“Does that happen a lot?”
What was she going to do when I gave her the depressing truth? Even if I wanted to, though, I couldn’t lie to her. “Off and on. Haven’t had one that bad in a few months.”
She placed a kiss over my work t-shirt that I still had on, right over my mating mark. “What normally helps you? I wanna know how to handle it better next time.”
“Princess. It’s not on you. You’ve got enough?—”
“Shut up. Tell me. I promise not to panic again if it happens.”
I clenched my eyes closed and began moving again. Not enough to separate us, though. I’d set out the cast iron tortilla press I had bought after my second year on the run. The store-bought shit never tasted right, so I indulged in the unnecessary appliance. Part of the reason why I had to buy a truck in that same year was because I couldn’t really stop myself from holding onto little parts of normal life. My Iceman and a small amp. Art supplies. The comal that I had already set up and heating on the stove.
“I…” The masa was warm between my palms as I pulled from the large ball, creating smaller ones that would soon be the tostada shells. After I’d made a few, Ramona jumped in, working slowly to make balls the same size as mine. “Just trying to calm me through it, I guess? If it looks like I’m—hurting myself. Wake me up like you did.”
She nodded and finished off the last of the dough, and I started flattening the first in the tortilla press. “I can do that.”
She accepted this so easily. Being mated to someone so broken that they couldn’t even trust their dreams not to leave them puking and overwhelmed. “Thanks, baby.”
Ramona hummed and watched me transfer the dough circle to the hot comal with a practiced turn of my wrist. I gave it a few seconds, letting the masa cook, before flipping it over with my fingers. Once it was done, I moved it to a plate and went to press the next one.
My mate already had it ready, a little thick, but not bad. I smiled in thanks.
We had a little assembly line going, and after the tortillas were all made, I moved them to the pan of hot oil. My initial intention of a low-effort meal had turned into a long process, but the quiet, concentrated time with Ramona was nice, and the result would be way better than eating our ceviche with tostadas from a plastic bag.
I showed her how to fry in the cast iron skillet, letting her take charge of the tongs while I instructed. The apartment filled with the aroma of my childhood, and I’d almost forgotten how this morning began. At least, until she deposited the last tostada on the baking sheet I’d designated for draining. “I’m still mad at you.”
I sucked in a breath, forced it out of my nose. “How can I make it up to you? I don’t really know how to get the memories to stop, but I don’t want to scare you like that ever again, and?—”
“No. I’m n—you yelled at me.” Her bottom lip jutted out ever so slightly. If she were a different person, I would’ve called the expression a pout.
It was hard for me to remember everything that’d happened this morning other than the exhaustion, the fear that she’d call this whole thing off, and the taste of stomach acid on my tongue. “I… I didn’t realize. I won’t do that again.”
She sniffed and leaned over to kiss my cheek. “See to it that you don’t.” And that was that.
The rest of the air loosened between us, and we finished assembling everything, all the way down to the slices of avocado to top our tostadas con ceviche de camarón. The first citrusy crunch wasn’t exactly like Mamá’s, but it was damn close.
Ramona was letting out happy little moans and hums as she ate, and my chest swelled with pride that she enjoyed our food that much. The dish was light enough that we both made it through an ungodly amount of food—her appetite rivaled mine, and I loved it—but I’d made sure to buy enough ingredients so that we’d have leftovers. Cleaning the kitchen also took half the amount of time with her beside me, and soon, the apartment was just as tidy as when I’d entered, scared shitless that she was going to break up with me.
“Go shower. I’ll find us something to watch.”
We went in separate directions, and I sped through my shower so that I could finally get to the good part of holding her. It motivated me to confront the place I’d claimed my mate right before I destroyed the nest she made for us. My hair was still dripping as I climbed the steps, towel wrapped around my waist.
I stilled as soon as I caught sight of the bed.
Ramona was sitting cross legged in one of my shirts and nothing else. Her shoulders were hunched, back slightly curled as she braided her hair over her shoulder. With one hand, she paused the laptop and looked up at me. She’d… she’d made a new one. There were new blankets, more pillows, and pieces of our clothes woven throughout to make a cocoon of our scents. “Princess.”
I blinked back the tears—what was it about this girl that was making me fucking cry all the time?—and continued up into the loft. She smirked, looking mighty proud of the little masterpiece she created, and I rushed through drying off the rest of the way and pulling on a pair of boxers. When I climbed in, she scooted just enough for me to settle nearly on top of her.
My purr rumbled, and I nosed my way into her hair. “This is perfect, Ramona.” Normally, I slept with my hair loose, but I decided to braid mine for the evening, too. Mirroring her posture, I combed through my hair with my fingers and got to plaiting. Her curls were a lot thicker than my wavy strands, so I quickly caught up and was tying mine off at the same time she’d reached the end of hers.
She smirked and fiddled with the end of my braid, and I pulled her fully into my chest. “I love you,” I whispered.
She tilted her head and pressed it to mine for a light kiss. “Te amo.” When I jerked back in surprise, her lips pulled back to reveal a full grin. I’d never seen her smile this wide before, her amber eyes sparkling. “That means ‘I love you’, right?”
I swallowed and nodded. “Te amo. My mate.”