Page 6 of Scars of the Sun
That got him to look up, though it was with more silent questions. I already knew what was coming, but his growing trust in my family, despite his hesitance, was clear when he shook his head, blond hair flopping around his ears. Sylviecupped his face with the barest of touches, and my own body felt the phantom sensation of when she would do the same to me.
No one had bothered to explain the full extent of my sister-in-law’s powers, but she’d brought me into a state of grounding calm more than a few times. I knew it was working when Delaney’s entire posture relaxed, and tears shimmered around his eyes. My brother watched Sylvie, reverence and love abundantly clear in his scent. Bright and rich like chocolate covered strawberries.
“We’re not the sort of pack that thrives on fear, honey. I know it’ll take time to get used to, but we want you here. Both of you,” she glanced at me, and I felt my own throat get choked up. Fuck, I needed to get out of here. There were too many feelings happening inside and outside of me for comfort.
Delaney stuttered a nod as Sylvie retracted her hand. He ducked his head, muttering a reverberating, “Thank you,” to both my brother and his mate. “I’m gonna head out now, but this has been great. Really.”
He gave us all an individual smile that had more of that sunniness, and I found myself shuffling my feet back and forth, trying to figure out how to excuse myself, too.
Orion beat me to it. “I heard you saying you wanted to go to the skatepark. Have fun.” His dry tone might’ve sounded like a dismissal to anyone else, but I knew it was a gift to save me from getting dragged into more conversation with the pack members that weren’t subtle in their eavesdropping on everything that just transpired.
He tossed me his keys, and I muttered something about seeing them back at the cabin before trying to calm my feet from a full on retreat. With the windows down, I drove the dark streets to the cabin to retrieve my skates before running back outside to drive to the skatepark. Though it readClosedat this time on Google Maps, when I pulled up, the white fluorescentlights were still on, illuminating the concrete and colorful graffiti that decorated it.
With my headphones draped around my neck, I kept my head bent toward my task of lacing up and selecting my usual warm-up playlist.
The park was bigger than I’d thought it’d be, with a large bowl in the center, a few ramps of varying sizes, and a multitude of ledges that were waxed and scuffed from use. I rolled over to an open area that was flat and felt the tightness in my muscles and lungs release. Though it’d been months since I’d skated, my body remembered, easily switching to skating backwards and forwards, creating my own path to follow. I crouched low, stretching my thighs, then started up a pattern of pivoting one-footed over and over. The soft indie song drove me, and the rewarding trickles of sweat trailed down my temples and the back of my neck.
Time ceased to matter, and neither did the other skaters that joked and whizzed through the air.
At least, until a familiar spice caressed the edges of my mind, like a tantalizing pass of a firm hand against my spine. Trying not to look like a thirsty idiot, I kept my gaze uncaring and casual while I made another revolution around my little area.
Was I drooling?Shit.
It was him. The Jaguar.
I was failing at feigning nonchalance, but who could blame me? He had his head thrown back, laughing at something his somber counterpart said, and his mischievous mirth lit up the air around him. Instead of up like the last time I’d seen him, his hair was down and framing his striking face like the most luxurious of curtains.
Without a care in the world, he grabbed the hem of his shirt and lifted it over his head. I swallowed and forced myself to do a couple spins to make it seem like I wasn’t ogling him like a creep.When I righted myself, he and his friend were over near the bowl, clasping hands with some other skaters and chatting with their boards at their feet. What really caught my eye, though, was the extensive collection of intricate tattoos over his whole body. Skulls on the backs of his hands, a flower on the side of his neck, a detailed tree line wrapping around his arm. With his back and shoulder to me, I could see a large, black dragon scaling his spine like the golden-brown tower that it was. Which then made me think of doing the same, and I nearly choked.
Such a strong and immediate attraction to someoneneverhappened to me. If I’d questioned for a second whether I wanted Delaney, nothing could compare to the way this shifter was short-circuiting all my mental faculties.
But it wasn’t just his body that was calling to me. As solid and loose as it was. No, the way I could still see the glint of dark amusement in his black eyes, despite the distance of concrete between us, left me nearly panting for more. He’d been locked down at Vinny’s that night, but as he shared a beer with his friends, I wanted nothing more than to be over there, to be… seen by him.
And when he turned over his shoulder, meeting my stare head-on and refusing to look away, I nearly fucking tripped over my own skates. The Jaguar grinned, white teeth looking blunt without a hint of the fangs I knew that he had. With a wink and a nod, he went back to his group, but for the rest of the few hours I stayed at the skatepark, I felt that same caress running down my back, my cheek, my neck.
CHAPTER THREE
RAMONA
Ifought the urge to push my sleeves to my elbows, gritting my teeth as they, inevitably, became dirty from the garden soil. The sun was mercifully obscured behind a sheet of gray clouds, and I held the pruning sheers steady. With Sylvie’s instructions in my mind, I snipped the stem of the ripe jalapeño pepper that had surpassed green and was beginning to turn red. I passed it from my gloved hand and tossed it into the wicker basket beside me.
“Aren’t these usually green? Does red mean there’s something wrong with them?” I asked absently, bobbing my head to the light music playing from the bluetooth speaker.
My sister-in-law remained facing the tomato plants that grew on wooden trellises against the old white house. I paused my harvesting to watch her run an assessing hand over the fruit. Though the warm weather and summer storms helped the garden tremendously, sometimes she would break out her powers to help the spoils ripen.
Or just for fun. Either way, I watched small, barely-there tomatoes turn into full, plump globes at her silent command. The breeze rustled the curls that escaped her topknot, as if an equally silent acknowledgment from the earth.
She barely had to give the tomatoes a twist before they released into her palm, and she placed them in her own basket. “No, when they turn red, the flavor changes a bit. Your brother likes the sweeter and spicier taste for certain dishes, so I promised that I’d let some ripen a bit longer for him this time.”
I nodded, turning back to gathering all the peppers that were how my brother had requested. After riding with Sylvie to drop the babies off, we’d spent the morning at her grandmother’s old house, where the air seemed charged, humming with some energy that I couldn’t name. It wasn’t unsettling, necessarily, but like the amplified version of how it felt to be around shifting Wolves or Sylvie when she performed a spell.
Though it was still blistering hot, the simple work held the fog at bay to where it was only tendrils of gray at the edges of my thoughts. Stirring and muttering despondence at all hours, all times. Here, though, it was overpowered. Even with my muscles tense from hours bent over tending to the plants, hot air pressing on me from all sides, I was… content.
At least, until I pulled my arm from the basket, settling in to snip off another pepper, and saw the giant fucking spider on the back of my hand.
“Holy fuck!” I squealed, trying to fling the ginormous black and yellow terror off of me. The embarrassing squeals and whimpers were inescapable, and apparently, so was the spider. The thought of squishing it was equally as unpleasant, and I shot up, stamping my bare feet and wiggling my arm, trying to get it off, off, off.
Sylvie came running over, hands outstretched. “What’s wr—be careful!”