Page 73 of Scars of the Sun
“Thought not. Your mom is probably subsisting off of pure force of will at this point. But that’s not your burden to bear. Shitway of getting here, but moving to Antler Pointe was probably the best thing you could’ve done for yourself.”
What I didn’t hate was how she never skirted around what I’d done. “I guess.”
“You guess,” her brow rose while she tapped a jagged-looking piece against her chin. “So if you’d’ve kept living life as you were, you guess that everything would be totally fine? If say… Ana had stumbled across your Lion instead of you, you suppose that would’ve been okay?”
My lip curled, and I grunted threateningly at images of Río being curled around the serious looking blonde I’d seen at pack meetings and working at the library. “He’s a Jaguar, and no, okay?”
“Ah, your Wolf doesn’t like that one bit, does she?”
“I… really like him,” I blushed.
She tapped the corner of a piece on the table, searching for where it might go, “And are you going to mate him?” I almost spat out my iced tea. “What?”
“Shouldn’t you not encourage I do that? Aren’t I… not healthy enough for that?”
She tested the piece in a few places before settling on the right one and sitting back to look at me. “As long as you do it for the right reasons, who cares? Only you will know if you’re following your shifter instincts or running from your problem. It’s not for me to say. You may be half human, but I sense your Wolf. Do you feel her pull toward this Jaguar?”
Her words hit me square in my chest, where I’d been feeling the tug toward Río since I first saw him at Vinny’s.
She nodded through my silence. “From what I know of you so far, and from our Leader, your Wolf side has been stifled. Though some choose to live the human way, when it comes to companions, our minds and spirits are naturally a bit different.” Vera looked up toward the kitchen, and her expressionbrightened like the sun breaking through the clouds. I followed her gaze through the doorway and landed on her mate, Lauren, who was washing dishes. “When your Wolf knows, she knows.”
Ugh, I frowned as a headache started pinching behind my eyes. “I didn’t come here for relationship advice.”
“No, just to stop wanting to off yourself. So far, we’re succeeding. Yay.” The corners of my lips twitched, and when I snuck a glance across the unfinished puzzle, hers were doing the same. I’d already told her about my list, though I was still trying to find a time to hit her with the fact that she was lucky Number Thirteen. Through these weeks, I more so brought out my running tally as a reason to pause when moments like this hit, but it was still a comforting resource when I needed.
Vera laid off of pressing me about the wholematingissue, and we wandered between further discussing my mother and the intricacies of pack dynamics that I’d never learned as a child.
I got lost in the conversation and our puzzle—so much so that when Río called me, I took a step back and found that we’d only just gotten the gradient barely halfway complete.
“I’m starting to think that we’re not good at these.”
When I put the phone up to my ear, trying to find the home for the piece still in my hand, I could hear his voice through the walls of the house and on the other end of the call. “You ready to go to mine, Princess?”
“Yeah, be one second,” I put the barely-purple piece in one slot, changed my mind, and guessed at the next one that turned out to be a fit.
Taking that as my cue to go, I unfolded my legs and tapped the table in goodbye. Vera was still working on her last puzzle piece for our session, so her mumbled goodbye wasn’t surprising in the least.
Going back out the way I came, I felt that familiar stir when I was on the precipice of meeting Río’s black gaze again, havinghis arms around me again. And sure enough, when I stepped out of the house, his face lit up like the bottle rockets I’d once watched him light at the skatepark with childish glee.
The air was still thick with the hints of a summer storm, but with Río’s mouth on mine, I didn’t even need the relief of a good rain. My helmet clunked against his back when I threw my arms around his shoulders in an embrace, his hands palming my ass and pulling me flush toward him. He nipped at my lip, teasing me with those sharp teeth. “Let’s hit it, baby.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
RAMONA
Ollie happily clung to the oversized long-sleeve shirt I’d put on this evening for the pack meeting, and Sylvie worked on carefully carrying the key lime pies she’d made for everyone. My brother crouched behind Dahlia, trying to calm her high-pitched concerns.
“Daddy, you gotta fix it!”
I slung the backpack they brought with them that had all the kid-type stuff while O unraveled one of the twists he’d put in my niece’s hair before we left the house. He used his tawny claws to comb through the large twist that Dahlia had somehow destroyed on the ten minute ride to Vera’s house. “I’m fixing it, darlin’,” he tied off the end with a hair tie and the green hair bobble that matched her overalls and complemented her red hair. “There.” He kissed her cheek, and the impending meltdown cleared as fast as it’d come on.
O held his hands at his sides, fingers moving restlessly while Dahlia clung to his pant leg. Though he was surprisingly good at doing Dahlia’s hair, the sensation of hair product on his hands, I knew, made his skin crawl. When we stepped inside Vera’s house, he promptly headed toward the bathroom to wash hishands, and I took the babies with me through the house and out into the backyard.
It wasn’t as extravagant as Tina’s, or as expansive as Orion and Sylvie’s, but it was curated with personality and care. More hydrangea bushes bordered the small, fenced-in property, and delicate wind chimes and stain glass hangings decorated the porch. Enough seats had been set out around a fire pit that I hadn’t seen before in my sessions here, and a few other members were already setting up.
There was a little pond in the corner, and as soon as they saw it, both Ollie and Dahlia squealed to join the other Wolf pup that was peering into the water. With her hand in mine, I took them both over there and left the setting up to the actual adults.
I sat cross-legged and monitored the kids’ marveling and splashing at the water, like they weren’t used to living with an actual lake in their backyard. A pup whose name I couldn’t remember babbled and waved their arms excitedly, ramping up the playtime to ear-splitting levels. I tried my best to shush and focus their energy on being quiet for the little fish that darted anxiously under the surface, but it was only halfway successful.