Page 70 of Scars of the Sun
With his help, the helmet came off next, leaving sweaty little curls clinging to my brow. Río kissed them. “All right, baby, whatcha wanna eat?” He tickled my stomach, as if emphasizing its empty state, and I swatted at his hands.
His laugh rang throughout the stairwell, and he was still chuckling while we went inside.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
RAMONA
The three of us sat on the concrete, legs outstretched. The oversized t-shirt I wore was almost longer than my shorts, the sleeves extending to my elbows. After making the very conscious decision to not hide my arms today, I’d arrived at the skate spot and nearly ran home to change. But a half hour skating on my own and then a few with Río and Tyler, had me almost forgetting about the scars.
Río took a large swig of beer, and I had to fight to keep my attention from locking onto his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. I tore my eyes away and leaned forward to look at both him and Tyler. “You mean you guys have never…?”
The vampire smirked while Río choked on the last bit of Tecate going down his throat. I clapped him on the back a few times while his breathing evened out. He swiped the back of his hand across his lips, and I brushed a lock of his hair over his shoulder. “Fuck no. I would never let this sadistanywherenear my asshole.”
A relieved chuckle bubbled out of my mouth the same time Tyler slapped Río’s shoulder with the palm of his hand. “That’s racist, dude. I’m dead, not a complete sadist.”
Río cocked a brow while rolling his eyes. “Yeah, but you told me once that you want apet. And one that’ll like it when you make it hurt.” I snuggled into Río’s side, and much to my satisfaction, he slung his arm around my shoulders.
I’d crossed paths with vampires here and there, but I didn’t think I’d ever seen one blush. Though they were technically dead, if you meant that their human lives had ended, their resurrected hearts still beat, their stolen blood still flowed. And as above-it-all as Tyler appeared to be most of the time, he evidently had a softer side that was able to be embarrassed. “Doesn’t mean I want toactuallyhurt them,” he gritted through his teeth.
Call my curiosity piqued. “Is it like a control thing?”
Tyler blushed harder, really highlighting his boyish features. “Uh?—”
“Oh, completely,” Río supplied.
“I don’t know how you don’t want to kill him most of the time,” Tyler mumbled.
I grinned conspiratorially. “Who says that I don’t?”
Río whirled around, switching almost instantly from betrayal to scheming to amusement. He slanted his lips over mine, taking my face in unflinching grip, and I immediately opened up for his prodding tongue. My heart rate rocketed, my belly swooping in anticipation. These few weeks filled with Río made Numbers Eleven and Twelve on my list. Fun and pleasure and contentment.
Also, desire. Something I’d felt so rarely was now a steady coursing whenever he was near, either physically or simply in my thoughts. Within that was lust, sure, but to have his jokes and care was even more fulfilling.
But you wouldn’t know that from the little whimpers sparking from my throat as he owned my mouth, only touching my face and lips but taking over everything. Never did I imagineI’d willingly relinquish it all for someone like this. But the past two weeks had been… good. After the nightmare of my parents’ confrontation, I’d grown even closer to my people in Antler Pointe. And myself.
Río kissed his way to my ear and gave it a tease with the tip of his tongue. “Keep talking, Princess. I like showing everyone how much of a slut you become for me.”
I twisted my head, bringing us brow-to-brow, and glared. That only pushed him to snicker and plant a kiss to the tip of my nose. More heat rose to my cheeks, but I was too focused on cooling down so as to not give him the fucking satisfaction. He leaned back, still holding me close.
There wasn’t nearly enough self-consciousness in my chest when I remembered that Tyler was just on the other side of Río. The dark eyeliner smudged around his eyes only made the widened pupils more prominent. He looked between the two of us and sucked his teeth with a pensive look on his face.
The flash of his finely-tipped fangs sparked enough curiosity for me to grab onto. “Is it true that those have venom in them?” I pointedly looked toward his mouth so that he’d know what I was talking about.
Tyler raised an unimpressed brow but still answered. “Yeah.”
“And does it hurt? The bite?”
Río nudged me, “You looking to get bit by someone else?” A few shades of his usual taunting were gone, but it truly had been innocent curiosity. And he’d never made to truly bite me withhisfangs. Despite him coming close multiple times now, and each time, my dormant Wolf begged for it. He already called me his, and I craved his fangs piercing my neck. No matter that it’d only been two months or that I was still healing—I’d probably be doing that all my life. At least, that was the conclusion that Vera, an elder in the pack, and I had come to.
When I returned to the cabin after a few days at Río’s, I decided to take Sylvie up on her offer to find me someone to talk to. It wasn’t like I was completely against therapy, but, like Orion had concluded, a human who had no knowledge of what it meant to be Wolf wasn’t a good fit, either.
Vera was younger than what I would consider an ‘elder’, just shy of fifty if I had to guess. But she didn’t bullshit, calling me out in a way that was familiar. I pulled my phone out to check the time and saw that it was just a few more minutes before I was due at Vera’s house to talk again.
Though I knew he naturally preferred the hours after sundown, Tyler seemed to be in an okay mood today, even throwing a few dry jokes at me while he hung out with Río and I. Now that I’d been around him more, I realized that he didn’tdislikeme—he was that way with everyone, save for his friends, with whom he was slightly more animated. And I’d never been able to sit down with a vampire before, let alone one who seemed willing to answer any sort of questions. All the vampires that I’d seen here and there were far too intimidating to just go up to and request they divulge all their secrets.
Tyler ignored Río’s heated question, and he instead responded to me. “From what I’ve been told and what I remember from before, the bite is slightly painful, but the nature of the venom chases it with enough pleasure so that it doesn’t matter.”
“Huh,” I took a sip from Río’s beer. “And how old are you, anyway?”