by Camryn Rhys
“You weren’t?”
“Maybe we should just get some sleep. These drugs you gave me, or Zolin gave me, or whatever… I can’t think straight anymore. And all your emotions. Can we just…” He got up and brushed the dirt from his clothing. “I’m going to go sleep over here, and you sleep over there, and we’re going to sleep all this off and make some clear-headed decisions in the morning.” Tomás dug around in his pack and found the blanket. “You take this. I think the cold will do me some good.”
Her confusion wasn’t as overwhelming as her fear had been, but he couldn’t put two thoughts together with all this feelings swirling around him. He needed sleep and space and…a lot of fucking tequila.
They would get to Choaca the next day and he’d call Maggie. Or his mother. Or his father. Or someone who could explain what in the hell was going on.
Chapter Six
Citlani opened her eyes. Morning had arrived and it was time to get moving again. She slid carefully out from under the blanket, leaving Tomás to sleep a few extra minutes. She’d tried to sleep away from him, but she’d tossed and turned, unable to calm herself during the night. Not until she’d moved to sleep next to Tomás had her brain finally shut down for a few hours.
Zolin had no right to link her to this stranger for her whole life. Sex and being married was manageable, but bonding meant he could feel her. Her mother had told her never to bond. Never to give a man so much control over her life. Now this stranger could look inside her soul, find her from anywhere in the world, and it was taking everything she had to mentally hold back the mudslide of magick that was trying to invade her mind from his.
It was too much.
He was asleep now. The waves of magick trying to meld with her thoughts were quiet for now. She sighed and sank to her knees next to the small campfire a few feet away from him. Zolin must’ve started it this morning.
She glanced up at the big rock where he’d spent the night. But he wasn’t there. A heartbeat across the clearing drew her focus. The big warrior was approaching, with two rabbits hanging from his belt.
He dropped them at her feet and turned away.
“Why did you stay?”
Zolin sat and leaned against the big rock. His eyes were dark, but they weren’t angry anymore. “I promised your mother I would look after you.”
“He is bonded to me,” she growled. “You made that choice for us. You don’t need to stay.” She rubbed the green tattoos that wound knotted double bracelets around both her wrists.
“I will get you safely back to the village.”
Citlani frowned, pulled her knife from the sheath on her calf and began to clean the rabbits. A little meat in the belly would make the long hike they had ahead of them go much smoother. The last place she intended to go was back to the village. Tomás had said he’d help her. She just hoped her mate would follow through on his promise. Zolin was more than a little intimidating.
She’d finished skinning the rabbits and had them sizzling on a spit over the fire before Tomás stirred beneath her blanket. She glanced over her shoulder as he stretched and groaned.
“Damn I miss beds.” He rolled toward her and met her gaze. “But that food goes a long way toward making up for it. Smells good.”
Citlani smiled, pride filling her chest. She might not know how to handle this thing growing between them, but at least she could satisfy his basic needs. Sex. Food. Maybe there could be more eventually. Maybe when the boulder of magick pushing down on her soul eased up. When was that going to happen? She wasn’t sure she could keep it out much longer. But the idea of being able to exchange emotions made her stomach flip flop.
She closed her eyes and focused on her mother’s face. Finding her was the only task at hand.
“You’re scared again.” Tomás spoke softly as he sat up. He moved to sit next to her and reached to touch her arm.
Remembering that her retreat had made him feel rejected before, she didn’t move. His fingers grazed her skin, leaving a trail of fire as they went, that shot straight to her core. She liked his touch, enjoyed it even, but at the same time, it made her want to run and hide. How could she want something and be terrified of it at the same time?
He pulled his hand away and frowned.
Her heart sank. She couldn’t bring herself to let his emotions inside, but he had no trouble feeling hers.
“One step at a time, yes?” Tomás turned the skewer the rabbits were on and rolled his neck back and forth, cracking vertebrae loudly. “I really do miss beds.”
“Mats are not that much better than the ground. Just cleaner.”
A chuckle rolled from her mate’s chest, and the sound eased some of the tension building within her. Perhaps being near him while he slept had pulled them closer than she’d intended.
Still, she planned to sleep next to him again. Once he was asleep, she could lie with him without him ever knowing. The pull that yanked at her soul was only pacified by his nearness.
Citlani had felt the same calm when in the presence of her mother, but not to this degree. Being near Tomás was different. The feeling was much stronger. So much more intense.
“The food is ready. Please eat, we should start before the sun gets much higher.” She pulled the rabbit off the fire and laid it on a flat rock next to Tomás. Then pulled the second rabbit down and carried it to Zolin. “Thank you for the food.”
He took the skewer and nodded.
She retreated back to the fireside and sat across from Tomás as he tore pieces of the roasted rabbit from the spit.
“Sit with me,” he patted the ground next to him. “You need to eat, too.”
She shook her head and he narrowed his eyes. “Explain, Lani.”
“I eat when you finish.”
“Well, I’m not from here and I want you to eat with me.” He ripped off a large piece and handed it to her. “Eat. Then we go to Choaca.”
It wasn’t custom, but he had a point. He was an outsider. Perhaps their women ate with them. She smiled and took a bite of the rabbit, wondering what else might be different with a mate like Tomás.
“You are going back to the village,” Zolin growled, stomping from his place by the large rock and crouching beside the campfire. “This one needs to speak to the elders, and you can’t go to Choaca. It’s not safe.”
“She’s my mate, thanks to you. I promised to help her find her mother and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Zolin’s eyes flashed gold and he snarled.
Citlani sucked in a quick breath and edged around the campfire closer to Tomás.
“Look, I’m perfectly capable of protecting her. I have friends that can help locate her mother. Everything is going to be fine.”
“No. You do not understand. Citlani cannot return to Choaca. She cannot leave the mountain. Ever.”
Ever? Was he touched by the gods? The man was making no sense. Why couldn’t she go to Choaca? Or leave the mountain?
Tomás stood and Zolin did too, towering over her mate. Tomás wasn’t a small man, but Zolin was a giant. The two men stepped away from her and she remained, quiet and forgotten beside the fire.
The men in the village always tried to speak away from the women, thinking they wouldn’t hear, but when quiet surrounded a conversation words always traveled. Especially when the listening ears belonged to a wolf.
“Citlani’s mother was not of our tribe, originally. The chief took her in nearly thirty summers ago. She was pregnant by a monster and had no family. The man who took her seven days ago, he is the same monster. She said he would torture Citlani if he found her. His heart is blacker than demons from hell.” Zolin spat at the ground and said a short verse to the sun god. “She made me swear to never let her daughter leave the mountain again. Then she ran.”
Air caught in her chest and wouldn’t budge. In or out.
Zolin knew much more about what was going on than he’d revealed previously.
She jumped to her feet and stormed over to both
of them. “She ran!” Citlani shoved Zolin’s arm and snarled, sucking in a deep breath. “So she wasn’t taken? You lied.” Her voice rose and she screamed. “You abandoned her to be caught by a monster.”
“Lani,” Tomás spoke gently, reaching for her.
Citlani shook and moaned. Sweat beaded on her forehead as she tried to sort through everything. Her mother had run? Had left her? Told Zolin to hide her from what…who?
Tomás focused all his calm on his mate. He could feel her resisting him, but he didn’t have time to give her all his attention. The broody warrior was padding from foot to foot in front of him, watching Lani like he intended to grab her and run.
“Why in the hell did you lie to her?” Tomás growled at him.
“This is not your concern.” Zolin’s shoulders dropped and his chest puffed out. “I was given an order by the chief’s wife. My only choice was to follow it.”
“Wait.” Tomás’ mind spun. Thirty years. Zolin had said Citlani’s mother came thirty years ago. Pregnant by a monster.
That meant she wasn’t the chief’s real daughter?
But…no.
He took his mate by the shoulders and focused on her face. Molten eyes. Sharp, angular features. How could he have missed this? She looked just like them. Marco DiSanti. Elise Blanchard.
“Your father,” he whispered. “Is the chief your father?”
Lani swiped at her wet cheeks, her anger abating slightly. “Not by birth. But he claimed me as his own.”
“We do not speak of it. She has been made one of us. Children of the volcano.” Zolin made the volcano god sign again and swiped his face to one side.
Tomás dropped his hands and turned on the camp. He darted to his pack and dug for his phone. The battery was running low, and there was no service. Zolin had warned him, there would be no amenities once they left Choaca.
But he needed to talk to Maggie. Immediately.
“What are you doing?” Lani’s voice seemed to have picked up a touch of his calm, but he’d lost his.
He stuffed the blanket into his pack, grabbed his water bottle, shoved his phone in the front pocket of the satchel, and took Lani by the hand.
“We’re going to Choaca. Come with us, or don’t. But she’s my mate now and I say, we’re leaving.” Tomás ignored Zolin’s roar and ran down the mountain.
At first, Lani’s emotions were swirling and unfocused, but the farther they ran, the more driven she was.
She dropped his hand and ran in front of him. “This way.” She pointed off to their right. Soon, they’d left the denser forest and were on something of a worn path.
They ran for what felt like forever, but the trail just continued to wind its way down the mountain. Tomás’ lungs burned and his feet hurt, but he felt clear-headed for the first time in more than a day.
He had to get to a place with cell service, and then he needed to call Maggie and get the whole team to Choaca. Fast.
The man who had impregnated Marco’s mother and Elise’s mother had also fathered Lani. The monster Zolin spoke of was the same man who had run a brothel of kidnapped werewolves. Were the men of this little Huichol village the same men from the mountains who had promised to bring down vengeance?
He and Alex and some of the others had been visiting villages in the mountains for weeks, looking for a place where there werewolves. But there were more wolves in the mountains of Jalisco than they’d all expected, and it hadn’t been easy to find wolves who knew anything about a statue and a book in Guadalajara—which was more than 100 miles away.
Tomás smacked his forehead and stopped his progress. How could he have been so stupid?
He rested his hands on his knees and bent over, panting. His father would’ve seen the resemblance right away.
“What is wrong?” Lani’s breath came quickly, too. “We are still hours from Choaca.”
“I need a minute.” He shook his head.
“Why?” Her features were so open, so innocent. There were things about her he already found endearing, but this was becoming his favorite. She genuinely didn’t understand him, and it was adorable.
He took her face between his hands and stared into her eyes. Into the same eyes that he’d seen on Marco for the thirteen years he’d been going to the Vegas strip to check in on him.
Tomás had been only eighteen himself when he’d seen the unbonded wolf for the first time. Marco’s mother had notified Tomás’ father—as the Vegas pack alpha—that her son had begun to shift, and Tomás had been the one tasked with watching him.
He hadn’t actually met Marco until a month ago, when they’d first discovered the connection between him and another unbonded wolf in New Orleans. But he had been watching Marco for years.
How could he have missed the similarities?
Tomás ran a thumb over Lani’s cheekbone. “I don’t think I can explain it to you.”
“But your emotions are strong.” She gazed at him, earnestly. “Does this mean you want sex again?”
He forced a breath out between tight lips. Whatever village women had taught her to watch for signs of men wanting sex…they’d really done a number on Lani. Then again, having a mother who’d been raised as a prostitute obviously had also created something in her he didn’t understand.
“I don’t need sex right now, Lani.” Tomás continued to slide his fingers along her face. “I just want to stand like this.”
“But you are aroused.” She put her hand on top of his. “I can feel it now, you remember.”
A small smile took his lips and he wound his fingers through hers. “I can be aroused, and not need to have sex with you.”
Inside her, he could feel the tiniest coil of desire begin to unwind. She liked touching him, too, it seemed. But he needed to show her the emotional side of their relationship was just as important as the physical. Especially now that he was learning more about her and where she’d learned her patterns. Why she was who she was.
He pressed his lips to the soft underside of her wrist, just where the bonded tattoos were.
She sucked in a breath and the desire in her grew more powerful.
But he didn’t indulge it.
“Why would you want to be aroused and not have sex?” Her voice was breathy, and he would’ve known she was turned on, even if he couldn’t feel her.
He liked knowing he could make her feel desire. Even if it was small. Unfamiliar.
He wanted her to want him more.
Tomás dropped his tone and pinned her eyes with his. “I will always be aroused around you.”
Her lips parted and her breath came more quickly. “You will?”
“I will.” Tomás took her hand and placed it over his heart, holding it there while his pulse pounded. “You are beautiful and sexy. And…you’re mine now. That will always turn me on.”
Tomás had to breathe for a moment while his desire grew. He didn’t want to make this about sex, and he didn’t want to jump-start whatever process made her take over and climb on him. He wanted her to feel her emotions. And his. “But that doesn’t mean I need sex.” He let his breath calm and touched her cheek again. “Otherwise, we would be having sex all the time.”
“And you don’t want that?”
He had to chuckle at the thought. If someone had asked him, a month ago, whether he would ever turn down sex with someone as hot as Lani, he would’ve told them to go straight to hell. But there was something about her.
“I want you to want it, too,” he found himself saying. There was something frightening about being that honest, but between the mate bond and Lani’s beauty, he wasn’t thinking straight any longer.
Crashing steps behind them made Tomás pull Lani into his side. He steeled himself for another fight with Zolin. But he’d made up his mind. They were going to Choaca, and they needed to get back on the road.
The big warrior was at least human this time, and hadn’t opted to track them down as his wolf. Although, he’d known where they were going. It shou
ldn’t require much in the way of tracking.
“Zolin,” Tomás said, holding out a hand, “Just leave us alone. We’re going to Choaca and I’m not going to listen—”
“I know,” he panted. “You’re going to need my help.”
Tomás arched his neck and backed up closer to Lani, wanting to feel her more solidly behind him. “What brought that on?”
“I can see that you are determined. But you are only one man. You cannot stand up to a monster on your own.”
He allowed himself a smile as he thought of the other members of his team. Maggie, Niko, Alex… as soon as he could get word to them, they would come as well. “I won’t have to, but I’m happy for the additional help. As long as that’s really what you’re going to do.”
A pained look crossed Zolin’s features, and he looked over Tomás’ shoulder. “She is not mine any longer. You were right to say that.”
“I’ll protect Lani.”
“We both will,” Zolin said, offering his hand.
“I don’t need protection,” she insisted from behind him and Tomás grinned. She probably didn’t.
“You will from this man.” Zolin pointed down the mountain. “Once you are within a mile of him, he’ll be able to sense your presence.”
A big, heavy thud landed in his stomach and Tomás sighed. Why hadn’t he thought of that? When he was close enough to his father, the man could track him down to a breath.
“That’s why her mother didn’t want her leaving the mountain.” Tomás nodded. “Once she knew where the man was.”
Zolin mirrored the gesture. “You will need help to defeat this man.”
He touched the pack that hung on his other side. His phone. He needed to call Maggie. He had to get his team on their way. Tomás pulled the cell out of the pack.
Still no service.
He’d have to run with the phone in his hand and try to find the first available bar. “Come on.” With his other hand, he took ahold of Lani. “We have to get to Choaca.”
Chapter Seven
Citlani ran, slowing her pace only enough to allow Tomás to keep up. He’d stopped a few hours ago and changed into his regular clothes. Why, she had no idea. They looked uncomfortable and the boots looked like rocks. His pace had slowed considerably since putting them on, but he refused to enter Choaca in the tunic.