Page 84 of Scars of the Sun
“These are the people that hurt you?” She whispered, and I cracked my eyes open again—when had they closed?—to find her meeting my gaze head on, searching.
When I’d been dragged to the Serafim compound, I’d tried to keep a brave face when I thought it was a great idea to enact a hunger strike. My father who, cruelly, looked so much like me, had stood in the room, arms crossed, while his soldiers took turns beating me.
I’d been ten. And left to heal in my room alone, without food for two days.
When, at fifteen, I refused to rough up a mother for lapsing on her loan from us too many months in a row. Secretly paying her balance out of my own account, Cata had ratted me out, as she was the main keeper of the family’s finances. Pai ended up ordering the young Fox that’d reminded me of Mamá to be killed anyway. In front of me and right before he ordered Xiomara to shift and break my legs, along with the general beating that’d been meant for the Fox. But something about the combination of shock, head blows, and cracking my skull on the concrete floor in one of our warehouses had been too much for my shifter healing. When I’d woken to Mara sneaking into my room and setting my legs and smuggling me painkillers, the world was blurry.
I swallowed, snapping back to the here and now. “Yeah.” I fucking hated how much my voice shook. Though the power being a Serafim enforcer brought was intoxicating, I wasn’t cut out for that life. Not like my sisters who’d been snatched up by our father since birth. Our mother had started out as a fling and ended up meaning nothing more than a prized breeding source for my father’s little army of Shifters. Even though I’d been born a disappointment, he’d decided after my tenth birthday that I at least had some use and trained me to be a killer.
Ramona nodded decisively and leaned forward. I’d have fully accepted her ripping out my throat, would have preferred it to her denying me, but, instead, she held my face and kissed my nose. Then my lips, followed by a little lick along the side of my face.
I grasped her elbows, forced myself to exhale. In my ear, she whispered, “I believe you, my Río. Te amo.” Over her shoulder, she glared at her brother, lips pulling back in a snarl—onmybehalf. “You apologize to my mate right now, or I’ll never fucking forgive you.” The bright venom was gone from her usual barbs, and a cold conviction stood in its place.
Her brother appeared less prepared to rip my life apart at the seams, but it wasn’t looking like he was ready to fully back down, either. “Because I hurt his feelings? I have a pack and myfamilyto protect. And in case matehood has made you forget, Mona, that includes you.”
His green eyes flashed, and though I wasn’t Wolf, I sensed the layer of Leader authority now lacing his words. Ramona stiffened around me, body called to obey, but she continued to snarl. “You don’t know what they did to him, so shut the fuck up. Do you trust me?”
He grunted but nodded without hesitation.
“Well, I trust him. I love him, and unless you forgot, you can be born to a shitty parent without having to answer for their wrongdoings.”
The Leader blinked and glanced in my direction once again. The tension between all of us was so thick, a knife through it would probably leave thick trails of blood. A low, raspy rumble started, and it took me a while to realize that it was my mate. Growling and coiled to defend me.
Finally, her brother came to some sort of conclusion. “I will not apologize for being suspicious,” Ramona’s quiet growls grew louder but not so much to draw notice from the tables nearestus. “But I will for upsetting you, Mona. And for provoking any unpleasant memories for you. Jaguar.”
“He has a name, you stubborn asshole,” she hissed, and I would’ve swelled with pride at having such a fiery mate if I weren’t already a combination of keyed up and fucking crashing.
The Leader glared, almost as viciously as my mate could. “Río. And you will give us all the information you can to help us deal with your family.” Without so much as a goodbye, he stood, signaling the end of this train wreck of a double date.
The rest of us were slow to our feet, me most of all, but Ramona’s steady hand around my bicep gave me support. I couldn’t believe she still wanted me, now knowing full well how my family was. Naively, I’d hoped she would never discover the full scope of how terrible they could be and how I had been. I wished every day that I could forget, myself.
We followed the Leader silently to the parking lot, and it did cross my mind that perhaps he’d just try to kill me. However, when we came across their car first, he and Sylvie stopped to face us.
She looked me up and down, and Ramona started her low growling again. I pulled her into my chest and kissed the top of her head. “I can’t speak for my mate, but I believe you. Don’t make a fool out of me or my sister.” With that, she slid into the passenger seat. Orion closed the door for her. “Tomorrow, you will come to the witch house to discuss all of this with me. If you don’t, you’ll no longer be given the benefit of the doubt.”
I managed to nod. There was no love lost between me and the Serafim family, anyway. It’d been nothing to drop my father’s name as soon as I’d left that night.
We watched them both go, and it was with Ramona’s lead that we eventually made it back to the truck. She deposited me at the passenger door and told me to sit while she drove us backhome. I didn’t even have the energy to refuse, so I handed her the keys.
The rest of the night passed in a fog. One that kept me from the clarity that would’ve made me embarrassed at Ramona’s careful encouraging me up to the loft and undressing me as if I were a child. I stood stiffly beside the bed, waiting in a haze as she quickly built another nest. And when she pulled me into her arms, whispering about how good and loved I was by her, underneath the exhaustion, I was eternally thankful that she’d deemed me enough to keep. I fell asleep with my mate’s head on my chest, her kisses over my heart taping it back together.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CATALINA
The soldier, a shifter of some species I didn’t care to recall, repeated the news that left me chilled to the core. We’d finally added air conditioning to the warehouse office—what the fuck was with places up north not having A/C?—and it droned in the background, muffled beneath my rage.
The Glock I had resting on the desk was in my hand in half a second, bullet hitting the soldier between the eyes in a perfect shot. He slumped to the ground, but thank god for concrete floors.
“One of you! Clean this shit up,” I directed the command to the others who’d been standing off to the side. They’d been with us long enough to look unfazed at my disappointment. One darted out of the room, presumably to retrieve cleaning supplies, while the other hoisted the body in his arms.
Xo squeezed in the doorway while our employee moved the body. This was turning out evenmoreirritating than the situation back home—why were all the Wolves we came across determined to give me migraines?
Xo stepped over the pool of blood before my desk and whistled. I could smell the blue raspberry sucker she’d chosen and declined an offer of one from the depths of who-knew-whatin the pockets of her tailored trousers. One time, when we were children, dressed no different than we were now, she’d been carrying three ravens’ beaks, a dragonfly, and bubble gum.
“And where the fuck have you been?”
She shrugged, “Doing what you asked. Tailing the Wolf whore.”