Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CATALINA
T he soldier, a shifter of some species I didn’t care to recall, repeated the news that left me chilled to the core. We’d finally added air conditioning to the warehouse office—what the fuck was with places up north not having A/C?—and it droned in the background, muffled beneath my rage.
The Glock I had resting on the desk was in my hand in half a second, bullet hitting the soldier between the eyes in a perfect shot. He slumped to the ground, but thank god for concrete floors.
“One of you! Clean this shit up,” I directed the command to the others who’d been standing off to the side. They’d been with us long enough to look unfazed at my disappointment. One darted out of the room, presumably to retrieve cleaning supplies, while the other hoisted the body in his arms.
Xo squeezed in the doorway while our employee moved the body. This was turning out even more irritating than the situation back home—why were all the Wolves we came across determined to give me migraines?
Xo stepped over the pool of blood before my desk and whistled. I could smell the blue raspberry sucker she’d chosen and declined an offer of one from the depths of who-knew-what in the pockets of her tailored trousers. One time, when we were children, dressed no different than we were now, she’d been carrying three ravens’ beaks, a dragonfly, and bubble gum.
“And where the fuck have you been?”
She shrugged, “Doing what you asked. Tailing the Wolf whore.”
“And?”
She waved a hand, as if this wasn’t important to her. There was a reason I handled the logistics and money while Xo did the field work. When she’d told me she stumbled upon someone very interesting while strolling around town, I’d figured we could use it to our advantage. As always, it paid off to have her true form a closely kept secret from all outsiders that we dealt with.
And when this good for nothing pack of rabid mutts somehow blocked our business permits going through, I decided I’d had fucking enough. It made sense that they had influence in official places, but we’d dealt with enough packs that just fell apart or in line when we blew into town, I hadn’t given it any real consideration. They were making me look like a fool, and I wouldn’t stand for it.
“Well, since you don’t wanna go for the Leader’s house, I found the next best thing, prolly.” Xo shrugged again and bit into her sucker. She threw the stick onto the pile of blood another soldier was now trying to bleach and clean up. Pulling another sucker out of her pocket, she pulled the wrapper off and stuffed it with whatever else she had in there. This one smelled like cherries, and she popped it right in her mouth. “When you wanna do it?”
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. At times like this, I almost missed our sniveling brother. After reporting that she’d caught his scent, when Xo went out again, he’d apparently left town.
Pai had been bordering on disgusted when Río was born, but, in my opinion, he didn’t need some impressive gifts to wield a fucking gun. Claws and fangs could come in handy—all that Xo could do was more than an asset—but even shifters could get real cooperative when you had a gun to their temple. Less blood splatter that way, too.
“Did you find out when their next pack run is?”
She pulled out her phone and started scrolling like I hadn’t just asked a fucking question. I waited, vein on my temple feeling like it was going to explode, as she snickered at whatever was on her screen.
“Xiomara!”
“Eh? Oh, next full moon. S’three days from now.”
“Well, get shit ready!” Only she could get me to raise my voice from the carefully cultivated calm. Even when I killed, the angrier I got only resulted in a colder precision. I pulled at the chignon that was too damn tight on the back of my neck, letting my loose, dark brown curls fall into a haphazard heap that brushed my shoulders.
My sister tapped her phone a few more times, gave a final snicker, and turned her screen around to show me a photo of some roadkill that looked a week old, at least. Meu deus , I was surrounded by idiots .
She pouted, like I was supposed to understand whatever the fuck she found so funny, but put her phone away. With an exaggerated solute, she clicked her heels and chanted, “Aye, aye, captain!”
RíO
The Leader and I sat overlooking the garden, and this time, he’d offered me a beer to go with our little meeting. The first time, when I’d recovered a little from feeling like I was for real going to lose my mate, he’d been more than short and suspicious of me. He hadn’t even let me in the small white house, making me stand in the drive and unload all the basics about how my family operated.
Now, on my third visit, we’d graduated to sitting on the screened-in porch. I’d already told him everything useful. How there hadn’t been a pack that’d truly resisted the Serafim Group. Either they became part of the operations, or they acquiesced to them planting the legitimate businesses to launder the funds from the weapons and drugs. My father had started off as an aspirational loan shark and grown an empire—in both the supernatural and human arenas—within two decades. If he wasn’t such an evil motherfucker, I would’ve been impressed.
“What you’re already doing is smart. But I’d also make sure that Mountain’s Peak Pack is absolutely ready to come help at a moment’s notice. My sisters are good at what they do, and you pulling their licenses is only gonna make them angrier. My father might be removed enough to just transfer them elsewhere, but I can’t be certain his motives for coming here are purely for profit expansion. Just keep watching your back, especially.” I winced, “When we’d take down a group, the Leader was the surest way to wipe out the rest.”
“Have they made contact with you again?” He stayed facing the garden and took a sip from his bottle. He’d been nursing the same beer since we’d come out here, but mine had been sitting empty for a while.
“No. Not since my sister came to talk to me that night at Vinny’s.”
He harrumphed, calling to attention the unspoken fact that it was also the night that I’d taken his sister as a mate. He’d backed off on thinking I was with Ramona as a way to ingratiate myself with him and the pack, but I could still tell that he wasn’t a fan of me.
At this point, there wasn’t any information left for me to give him aside from anecdotes from my teen years that were all kinds of fucked up or most likely unhelpful. He listened through them all, face never changing. But I was becoming more accustomed to how he spoke, and after my mate’s speech before our first meeting, I was doing my damndest to not take this personally.
“You’re both the most important males in my life, so I need you to figure this shit out and get along. O, stop being a stubborn asshole, and Río, te amo. Don’t say anything smart.” With that, she’d given me a kiss and retreated into the depths of the garden to give us space. No doubt listening to our entire conversation in case she felt the need to intervene.
I fiddled with the empty beer bottle and checked my phone. Ramona and I were gonna have to head out soon, but I didn’t want the Leader to feel like I was running. “Have they done anything else?”
He shook his head. “No. And the quiet worries me.” He’d kept from me any plans they made to deal with my sisters, but, as far as I was concerned, we were all the better for it. If Xiomara decided to pop up on me again, I didn’t want even the possibility of her picking up on me knowing more than I should.
“Río, are you ready to go?” Ramona hollered from the raised vegetable beds, and I turned in that direction. She was in just a sports bra and athletic shorts, long legs looking golden under the cutting rays of the sun. She pulled off the gloves she’d put on to handle the plants, and Sylvie stood, too. They were far enough away that the conversation I had with the Leader felt private, but not so much so to make me anxious he’d try something. Like punch me with that right hook again. Really, if I hadn’t tried to barge in when Ramona had been in a bad way, we probably would be a bit further in our… truce. Than we were now, anyway. Oh, yeah, and if I hadn’t smart-mouthed him when I brought Ramona home that first time with her breath no doubt smelling like my dick. Really shot myself in the foot there, now that I was thinking about it.
Trying to find some common ground, I surreptitiously ran my gaze over his side profile, the black ink on his arm catching my eye. The art was thicker, more intense than what I had, but I could tell the artist who’d done it was skilled. “Nice tattoos. Where’d you get ‘em done?”
He didn’t turn, but by the furrow of his white brow, I knew he heard me. “All on my arm were done by a member of my old pack when I lived near Cape Cod.”
I nodded and tilted my head. “The old Celtic style is cool. Wait—was that all hand poked?” He nodded, and I whistled, impressed. I pointed at the wolf that ran along his arm, recognizing one of the symbols. “Is that a faoladh by chance?”
The Leader raised his brows, his expression shifting just enough to show the barest hint of surprise. “Yes.”
Boyish excitement filled my lungs, and he wasn’t looking like he wanted to shift and rip out my throat, so I pressed on. “The faoladh were always one of my favorites of lycanthropic mythology. Well, I guess they’re not myths, obviously,” I snorted. “Sure, some shifters can’t keep their instincts together, but most of us just want to live and respect the land we reside on, right? I used to have tons of books on folklore and shit when I was a kid, and I remember this particular one about a farmer who unknowingly saves the son of a family of faoladh.”
He wasn’t saying anything, so I kept on, “Irish folklore is really interesting—you know that they used to have a shit ton of wolves until the last sighting in the late eighteenth century? Never been there, but I wonder if any Wolves still reside there. I’d suppose so.”
I took a breath and realized that I’d been rambling. When I was knee-deep in my interest in these topics as a teen, I’d gotten made fun of by my sisters, ignored or punished by my father. But, sneaking a glance at my brother-in-law, his shoulders were the tiniest bit more relaxed. “My grandfather’s family came to the states to get away from the persecution of wolves. I’d imagine that I still have some distant cousins that stayed behind, though.”
My mate had apparently been listening to our conversation, and she wandered over and rested her hand on my shoulder. Before I could stop myself, I pulled her down into my lap. “No, I get that. My avó was a Jaguar, so the family packed up and moved from Brazil to start over. Not sure all the reasons, but deforestation and people hunting jaguars was definitely a motivator.”
The Leader nodded, and his eyes fell to his son who’d walked over and was trying to get his attention. The Leader got up to let him in past the screen door and plucked something off his head. When I saw the large spider that he lowered into a nearby dahlia bush, I suppressed a shudder.
Orion pulled his son into his arms and kissed the top of his head. “Are you leaving now?”
I startled at the abrupt halt to the conversation, but Ramona just twirled a lock of my hair around her finger and answered, “Yeah, we gotta get ready for the show tonight.” We were playing a set at one of the bars downtown, and even though my band responsibilities had taken a backseat to the shitstorm that’d been going on, Ramona convinced me to go through with tonight, knowing that being around my friends and playing would make me feel better.
The Wolf pup started grasping for the Leader’s beer bottle, so he pushed it out of reach. Ollie, the kid’s name was, shot me an affronted look, as if asking me if I could believe that shit, and I couldn’t help but chuckle. I hadn’t been around kids since my little brother, but drawing a little grin out of my mate’s nephew didn’t give me a wash of grief like I expected it to. More just aching nostalgia for the days when I helped Mamá take care of Javi.
I swallowed the longing to see both of them again and brushed a thumb along the curve of Ramona’s knee. Her winter grapefruit scent was mixed with the aroma of earth and heat from working the garden where Sylvie and Dahlia were still harvesting.
“All right. Bye.” The Leader said simply and stood, taking his son with him toward the rest of their family. The pup gave us a little wave over the Leader’s shoulder, and I waved back, letting out my claws to waggle in a way that Javi used to love. Sure enough, the little boy screeched a little giggle before his sister snagged his attention.
Ramona cupped my jaw and kissed my temple. “I think he’s starting to like you,” she whispered in my ear.
I moved my head so that I could meet her lips to mine. We kept it PG since the kids weren’t too far away, but desire started swirling in my gut with her support enveloping me and her cute little ass sitting right over my dick. “Or just decided I’m more use to him alive than dead.”
She traced just over my mark, not even needing to see it to know where it rested beneath my shirt. It made a shiver ripple down my spine. “Trust me. He wouldn’t have let the kids around you if he didn’t like you. Wouldn’t have talked about his dad’s family. If he doesn’t have to, he won’t engage in any pretending. It was genuine.”
I sighed and kissed the side of her neck, where I knew she was sensitive. She wiggled in my lap, and I chuckled, holding her tighter. “If you say so. Ready?”
She flicked the ring I had in my septum and smirked. “Ready.”