Page 85 of Scars of the Sun
“And?”
She waved a hand, as if this wasn’t important to her. There was a reason I handled the logistics and money while Xo did the field work. When she’d told me she stumbled upon someoneveryinteresting while strolling around town, I’d figured we could use it to our advantage. As always, it paid off to have her true form a closely kept secret from all outsiders that we dealt with.
And when this good for nothing pack of rabidmuttssomehow blocked our business permits going through, I decided I’d had fucking enough. It made sense that they had influence in official places, but we’d dealt with enough packs that just fell apart or in line when we blew into town, I hadn’t given it any real consideration. They were makingmelook like a fool, and I wouldn’t stand for it.
“Well, since you don’t wanna go for the Leader’s house, I found the next best thing, prolly.” Xo shrugged again and bit into her sucker. She threw the stick onto the pile of blood another soldier was now trying to bleach and clean up. Pulling another sucker out of her pocket, she pulled the wrapper off and stuffed it with whatever else she had in there. This one smelled like cherries, and she popped it right in her mouth. “When you wanna do it?”
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. At times like this, I almost missed our sniveling brother. After reporting that she’d caught his scent, when Xo went out again, he’d apparently left town.
Pai had been bordering on disgusted when Río was born, but, in my opinion, he didn’t need some impressive gifts to wield a fucking gun. Claws and fangs could come in handy—all that Xo could do was more than an asset—but even shifters could get real cooperative when you had a gun to their temple. Less blood splatter that way, too.
“Did you find out when their next pack run is?”
She pulled out her phone and started scrolling like I hadn’t just asked a fucking question. I waited, vein on my temple feeling like it was going to explode, as she snickered at whatever was on her screen.
“Xiomara!”
“Eh? Oh, next full moon. S’three days from now.”
“Well, get shit ready!” Only she could get me to raise my voice from the carefully cultivated calm. Even when I killed, the angrier I got only resulted in a colder precision. I pulled at the chignon that was too damn tight on the back of my neck, letting my loose, dark brown curls fall into a haphazard heap that brushed my shoulders.
My sister tapped her phone a few more times, gave a final snicker, and turned her screen around to show me a photo of some roadkill that looked a week old, at least.Meu deus, I was surrounded byidiots.
She pouted, like I was supposed to understand whatever the fuck she found so funny, but put her phone away. With an exaggerated solute, she clicked her heels and chanted, “Aye, aye, captain!”
RÍO
The Leader and I sat overlooking the garden, and this time, he’d offered me a beer to go with our little meeting. The first time, when I’d recovered a little from feeling like I was for real going to lose my mate, he’d been more than short and suspicious of me. He hadn’t even let me in the small white house, making me stand in the drive and unload all the basics about how my family operated.
Now, on my third visit, we’d graduated to sitting on the screened-in porch. I’d already told him everything useful. How there hadn’t been a pack that’d truly resisted the Serafim Group. Either they became part of the operations, or they acquiesced to them planting the legitimate businesses to launder the funds from the weapons and drugs. My father had started off as an aspirational loan shark and grown an empire—in both the supernatural and human arenas—within two decades. If he wasn’t such an evil motherfucker, I would’ve been impressed.
“What you’re already doing is smart. But I’d also make sure that Mountain’s Peak Pack is absolutely ready to come help at a moment’s notice. My sisters are good at what they do, and you pulling their licenses is only gonna make them angrier. My father might be removed enough to just transfer them elsewhere, but I can’t be certain his motives for coming here are purely for profit expansion. Just keep watchingyourback, especially.” I winced, “When we’d take down a group, the Leader was the surest way to wipe out the rest.”
“Have they made contact with you again?” He stayed facing the garden and took a sip from his bottle. He’d been nursing the same beer since we’d come out here, but mine had been sitting empty for a while.
“No. Not since my sister came to talk to me that night at Vinny’s.”
He harrumphed, calling to attention the unspoken fact that it was also the night that I’d taken his sister as a mate. He’d backedoff on thinking I was with Ramona as a way to ingratiate myself with him and the pack, but I could still tell that he wasn’t a fan of me.
At this point, there wasn’t any information left for me to give him aside from anecdotes from my teen years that were all kinds of fucked up or most likely unhelpful. He listened through them all, face never changing. But I was becoming more accustomed to how he spoke, and after my mate’s speech before our first meeting, I was doing my damndest to not take this personally.
“You’re both the most important males in my life, so I need you to figure this shit out and get along. O, stop being a stubborn asshole, and Río, te amo. Don’t say anything smart.”With that, she’d given me a kiss and retreated into the depths of the garden to give us space. No doubt listening to our entire conversation in case she felt the need to intervene.
I fiddled with the empty beer bottle and checked my phone. Ramona and I were gonna have to head out soon, but I didn’t want the Leader to feel like I was running. “Have they done anything else?”
He shook his head. “No. And the quiet worries me.” He’d kept from me any plans they made to deal with my sisters, but, as far as I was concerned, we were all the better for it. If Xiomara decided to pop up on me again, I didn’t want even the possibility of her picking up on me knowing more than I should.
“Río, are you ready to go?” Ramona hollered from the raised vegetable beds, and I turned in that direction. She was in just a sports bra and athletic shorts, long legs looking golden under the cutting rays of the sun. She pulled off the gloves she’d put on to handle the plants, and Sylvie stood, too. They were far enough away that the conversation I had with the Leader felt private, but not so much so to make me anxious he’d try something. Like punch me with that right hook again. Really, if I hadn’t tried to barge in when Ramona had been in a bad way, we probablywould be a bit further in our… truce. Than we were now, anyway. Oh, yeah, and if I hadn’t smart-mouthed him when I brought Ramona home that first time with her breath no doubt smelling like my dick. Really shot myself in the foot there, now that I was thinking about it.
Trying to find some common ground, I surreptitiously ran my gaze over his side profile, the black ink on his arm catching my eye. The art was thicker, more intense than what I had, but I could tell the artist who’d done it was skilled. “Nice tattoos. Where’d you get ‘em done?”
He didn’t turn, but by the furrow of his white brow, I knew he heard me. “All on my arm were done by a member of my old pack when I lived near Cape Cod.”
I nodded and tilted my head. “The old Celtic style is cool. Wait—was that all hand poked?” He nodded, and I whistled, impressed. I pointed at the wolf that ran along his arm, recognizing one of the symbols. “Is that a faoladh by chance?”
The Leader raised his brows, his expression shifting just enough to show the barest hint of surprise. “Yes.”
Boyish excitement filled my lungs, and he wasn’t looking like he wanted to shift and rip out my throat, so I pressed on. “The faoladh were always one of my favorites of lycanthropic mythology. Well, I guess they’re not myths, obviously,” I snorted. “Sure, some shifters can’t keep their instincts together, but most of us just want to live and respect the land we reside on, right? I used to havetonsof books on folklore and shit when I was a kid, and I remember this particular one about a farmer who unknowingly saves the son of a family of faoladh.”