Page 22 of Scars of the Sun
The rest of my evening was spent making my way through Benny. Filling my belly with the meat and bones I pulled from his body. My Jaguar wasn’t fond of the taste of intestines, but my rational mind pushed us through. There couldn’t be anything left of him, and eating everything was killing more than a few birds with one stone.
So, I crunched and tore, tail swishing, while I looked out of the large windows that let in the ghostly glow of the moon.
CHAPTER TEN
RAMONA
Ichecked my phone again before shoving it back in my pocket. No text back from Río, no matter how many times I looked.
The sun was brutal overhead, air like a convection oven with the slight breeze wafting from the lake. I dug my fingers back into the earth, pulling another sweet potato from the damp soil that filled the raised bed. With a little more force than necessary, I threw it into the basket I kept beside me and continued down the row.
“How’s the book coming, Sylv?” Josie drawled in between ear-splitting slurps from her straw. It made me cringe, but I didn’t say anything. Just kept focusing on the coolness of the dirt and smooth ridges of the vegetables I was harvesting. On what O would decide to make with them. And certainly not on my infuriatingly silent phone.
Sylvie sighed, “It’s fine. I’m taking some time away from it a little. My brain always rejects something about being firmly in the middle of drafting.”
“Does the main character die at the end in this one, too?”
Sylvie snorted, “Wouldn’t you like to know.” After a moment, she called over to me from where the two of them were loungingon the back porch, “Are you still doing okay, Ramona? You really don’t have to harvest those right now. They’d be fine for at least a few days more.”
I dropped another one into the basket, creating a sea of dirty orange and yellow leaves. I twisted to look over my shoulder at them, and strands of my hair stuck to my sweating neck. “I’m good.” Sylvie and Josie were laying out in bikinis underneath a large umbrella. They both glistened with a layer of sweat, and I eyed their scant clothing with envy. The denim shorts I was wearing were borrowed from Sylvie, as the only two pairs I’d brought were both in the wash. Even with their scandalously short length, I was dripping.
But being out here amidst Sylvie and Josie’s jovial chatter and with my attention on the garden was far better than being alone with my thoughts pressing against the slivers of hope that felt shaky and paper clipped together.
“Well, come up here and take a break at least. You’re gonna pass out with that sweatshirt on.” I wiped at my forehead with the back of my wrist, but I still felt the grit of soil leave a gross smear on my skin.
My instinct was to snap back at Sylvie’s friend, but the sweating pitcher of lemonade that sat on the table beside them started calling to me.
I clapped my hands over the garden bed, trying to clean them off as much as I could. My legs had already deepened in color a full shade or two, and my muscles felt both tight and stretchy as I stood. The wooden boards of the back porch were hot under my bare feet, and I wiped my palms off even more on my shorts before pouring a glass of lemonade for myself. While I drank and the two witches continued to talk, I checked my phone again. Nothing.
“You should get a text from whoever you’re waiting on in…” Josie lifted her sunglasses to squint at the bright sky. Aftera moment, she lowered them and reclined back in her seat, “Like half an hour maybe?” That was fucking creepy. For many reasons.
I was pretty used to Sylvie’s brand of witchiness, which mostly had to do with her garden. Or when she sometimes took walks with me in the forest, and she’d caress and whisper to the fungi she’d encounter like they were dear pets. Which, yeah, had weirded me out the first time I’d watched her do it.
But there was something psyche-chilling about being able to see the future so clearly. And being so comfortable to just blurt stuff like that.
When I remained silent, Sylvie sat up and swept her stare down and up my body, lingering on my wrists. She’d asked me a few more times if I wanted to talk to her about ‘it’, but she didn’t press when I refused each opening. What the fuck was I supposed to tell her that wouldn’t invoke a look of pity? Of serious, pointed questions of whether I was okay?
And more terrifying—she would feel obligated to tell my brother. Which I wasnevergoing to be ready for.
Sylvie opened her mouth, and I braced myself, finally having to confront what I’d been so set on avoiding. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with that Jaguar, would it?”
My mind floundered, shorting out for a moment after being built up to shut down or maybe start an argument with her.
“Jaguar?” Now Josie was sitting up, Kool-aid red buzzcut bright against her tanning skin. Her swimsuit was in the same color. “I didn’t know there was such a thing.” She lightly smacked Sylvie on the arm, “What more have you been keeping from me?”
I shot a look to my sister-in-law, “Shouldn’t you not tell people that?”
Instead of hitting me back, her face got a little redder, even though the rest of her remained relaxed. “She’d know if she ever met him. Witch, remember?”
A sardonic snort shot through my nose before I took another gulp of lemonade. It was true—Sylvie and I both knew immediately what he was when we first ran into him at Vinny’s. Aside from the distinct scent, he moved with controlled, rolling movements that barely passed for human, in my opinion. Especially when he was on stage or leaping into the air on his board.
“Okay, this may seem like a dumb question,” Josie piped up while she picked under her fingernails, “but when you have sex with a shifter, do you ever do it when they’re like… not in human form? Is that bestiality?”
My throat spasmed, and deep, stinging coughs wracked my body. The lemonade was like acid as I tried to get a control on my breathing. When I looked over at Sylvie who looked calm and contemplative, I had to mentally swipe away the gross things that came to mind.
“What?” Josie glanced between us with lips turned down in a pout.
Sylvie shrugged. “Not sure what other people do, but I wouldn’t think of having sex while half-shifted as bestiality.” I started choking again. “Why?”