Page 1 of Scars of the Sun
PROLOGUE
Haunted, honey.
The woman—witch—beside the beautiful one cleared her throat, “We ordered online. Should be under the name Orion,” but my mind felt like static had settled over it, like a weighted blanket that demanded my calm and my attention. The wariness that had snapped to the forefront of my mind when they’d walked in was flattening.
The skin around her eyes was sunken and puffy at the same time. The way she curled inward speaking of a desire to disappear. But there was no missing the flat turn of her full lips or the light flush on the tops of her cheeks. What was she feeling? Did she sense the undeniablepull? Was I hallucinating?
Her expression remained vacant, and I shook myself. No. A strong, flitting physical attraction at most.
I busied myself with my actual job, trying to temper the calculating instincts that called me to react to the supernatural females before me. My shifter blood recognized all of theirs. Even if they were Wolf in nature.
A young pup, a non-shifter, and a shifter mate.
Without a word, I went back to the kitchen to retrieve the order that was indeed under the name Orion. Which, in of itselfwasn’t fucking good. Based on the research I’d done about this town, the local Pack Leader was of the same name. I wouldn’t be lucky enough to encounter such a random coincidence, would I?
In the short minute or so of me putting a container of breadsticks and sauce in a bag and stacking everything up, the familiar chill of resignation was settling over my shoulders. I’d been here for nearly six months which was the usual signal that time was up. There could be no settling. Not if I wanted them to catch up with me.
Two sets of eyes—one brown and the other that rich and light honey—settled on me. The pup’s light green, however, was pinned onto the styrofoam to-go cup filled with suckers that I’d put beside the register. It was stupid, and had turned out to be more for me than anyone else. I’d just finished a blue raspberry one before they came in, working dough beneath my hands and losing myself to the hours of the slow evening.
She was tall enough to reach it, the little girl with brown skin like her mother beside her and tightly coiled red hair, but maybe she needed the external permission? At her age, I would have just stretched on my toes to grab at least two or three. The need to ask permission to so much as take a deep breath had been beaten into me years later.
I plucked one randomly from the cup and extended it toward the pup whose entire face broke with glee.
She and her mother thanked me, to which I didn’t respond. Balancing their food in my hands, I transferred the two pizzas and breadsticks to the non-shifter Wolf that I was trying very hard to ignore.
Until the tips of our fingers brushed, the scrape of her fingernail as light as a butterfly kiss. Electricity, fire, ice, raced up my arm, and I tried my best to stifle the flinch. And… the purr that was forming at the base of my chest.
We locked eyes for an inhale that stirred my blood. On the exhale, the tingles were continuing to fizzle, once again demanding I take notice.
The three of them walked out of the door as images of peeling back her layers of apathetic gray to understand what terrors she was experiencing underneath ran through my mind. Would they match my own? Would the faint hint of sweetness bloom once I was let in past the taunting sour of her winter grapefruit scent?
I watched them go, all plan to get the fuck out of town banished to the back of my mind. No, it wasn’t right yet. No matter if I’d never let myself stay in one place this long in eight years. The decision didn’t even feel like me—it was already made. Like the one to leave the farmhouse at ten, then to smuggle myself out of hell at seventeen. Every town, every odd job, every temporary connection. The intrinsic sense of rightness hadn’t failed me yet, not truly.
My phone pulled me out of my trance, still staring out of the window after the red SUV they’d arrived in was long gone.
Bloodsucka
Yo. Still up for rehearsal tomorrow?
Right.
Accepting Ty’s invitation to replace their old guitarist had, logistically, felt like a ridiculous whim, but that same certainty had pushed me to agree. Breaking out my Iceman for more than idle strumming during my lone hours in the evening was surprisingly… fun.
I texted back, telling him to count me in, and returned to the kitchen to join Parker who’d finally returned from his smoke break. It was only the two of us tonight, and I wasn’t with that ‘I’m the manager’ bullshit to get out of work, so I made myselfuseful by cooking alongside him and taking orders as they came in.
But I saw a halo of black wispy curls every time I blinked. While I dropped wings and fries into spitting oil, I envisioned her spread beneath me, the bare, long legs I’d seen firsthand wrapped around my waist. Was her smile big and loud or small and shy? Was her laugh a melodic trill or a raspy bark?
If I tried, would I be able to set ablaze the ghosts that haunted her?
“No mames,” I cursed to myself while I shoved an extra large pie into the oven.I need to get fucking laid, that’s what I need to do.
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
RAMONA
One of the many therapists I’d seen recently suggested making a running list to turn to when shit got dark.