Page 88 of Love the Way You Lion
Apparating into the master bedroom of the house Taurus made for us, I look for Talia. A few days ago, we all moved from the Maison to get some privacy. Rafe and Talia took rooms in the guest house, and we switch off as people spent time together. Hex helped Rafe move his art supplies and displays to a room on the top floor so he could work.
It’s like we’re an actual family now.
Talia isn’t here, though, and I’m puzzled. I shed my work clothes and stretch up on my toes. All the aches seem to melt a bit as I feel the buzz of my home engulf me. I love my job and I’m getting good at it, but it takes a physical toll. The better I get at the different trials and test missions, the more difficult my assignments get.
It’s making Taurus crazy. He’d never tell me not to do a job, but I know he can’t help but check in on me to make sure they haven’t given me more than I can chew.
“You’re home,” my new mate cries as she comes up the back stairs. Clad only in a swimsuit, Talia looks every bit the summer girl she is. Her hair is piled up on her head, and she smells like suntan oil and the ocean.
I beam. “I am. I had a good mission the past two days, and I even saw the feathered fiend for a few because he couldn't help but check up on me in his not-so-stealthy way, and now you’re here.” I squint for a moment, watching her face, and I frown. “You’re here looking like you have something bad to tell me.”
She blinks. “No, no. Not bad, I—I want to ask something.”
Arching a brow, I drop onto the bed and try to hide my fear with a relaxed pose. “Now, I think whatever it is rather important, so rip the band-aid off and tell me.”
“I need some clarification,” she mutters, shrugging and looking at her hands like an embarrassed child. She pulls her hair out of the bun and shakes it out, walking over to the closet to change.
“What do you need clarification on?”
She steps out of the closet in a tank and shorts, her hair a tumble. I see one eye peeping out of the wall of hair she’s let fall over her face as she mumbles, “You and me. Is this—us—is this the same old, same old in your family circle? I don’t understand how your family works, and you said something the other night to Taurus. After the stuff we said yesterday, I’m confused.”
“You’re not her,” I say.
I have no way to make this any clearer for her because I can’t tell her what being Sari means. I’ve given her the most basic overview, and while all of that is true and hurts me, I can’t give her the rest.
“I don’t want to be.”
“Perhaps I need to be clearer about what happened with us. I can explain why it’s different.” I sit on the edge of the bed, knowing that recounting this tale will not ease her paranoia. I’ll do it anyway, though, because if she’s asking me, he will ask Rafe.
Rafe is far less equipped to shut everything off and talk about this dispassionately.
“Sari and I slept together twice. The first time was the night Rafe and Wilde were together for the first time. Afterward, Rafe and Wilde became a ‘thing’. Their relationship caused problems, but Wilde and Rafe claimed individually not long after. Sari didn’t approach me until she had a wild hair up her ass about completing a ‘family claim’. I think it was because she was trying to head off Rhea and Alistair. She and Wilde tried to pretend they were okay with us being involved with them, but their ‘approval’ never quite made it to their eyes.” I sigh, shaking my head.
“It was a chess game with them. Alistair and I mated; Rhea and Rafe mated. ‘Family claims’ came up, but not before I read a post where the four of them were ‘family mated’ at an event on the other side. Sari completed the claim with me to beat Rhea, and Rhea did what she could stomach to mark her spot on the mountain. Even without sex, I was the last frontier, I suppose.”
“I feel so odd about that. I don’t play those games, and I don’t have any interest in them. I don’t work that way.”
“Once Sari’s teeth were on me, I wasn’t important anymore. It was never about me; it was about marking territory. It hurt, but there were worse things to get hurt over, so I let it lie.”
“I’m not a sharer—nor is Taurus. We’ve never had these problems.”
“Unless you slept with me to have a notch on your belt, achieve some political goal, or it was part of some game: you’re not her. That’s how I know.”
It isn’t the only reason that I know, but it should be enough to keep her happy.
“You and Rafe changed things. I wasn’t with you because I wanted to nose in on you and him, nor vice versa with Taurus and Rafe.”
I chuckle. “Gosh, I sure hear that a lot. Rafe and I change things; we change people. You’d think it’d make us feel special, but it doesn’t. It only leads to pain and frustration—or has in the past.” I give her a serious look; my eyes are dark. “She never wanted me, Talia. She didn’t want anyone else to have me, but she didn’t want me. If I’m honest with myself, Rhea didn’t want me, either; she only wanted the ability to one-up Sari. I think that’s all any of them ever wanted.”
“I did it because of you.”
I smile, trying not to let my sadness ruin the moment. “I know I needed to know because I don’t want to have only a blood connection with you. I have feelings for you, and for self-preservation, I needed to know. I’ve never felt like this before or done anything like this before. I don’t like mincing words when it’s important.”
“I feel the same way. You understand why I’m less upfront about the subject because of the scars I carry.”
I close my eyes for a moment, thinking about the moment that I realized that the frenzy to mate with me had been about beating Rhea to the punch. It wasn’t long before the mess started. I’d never thought about the timeline until now. The family mating business happened, then the party, but Wilde started his bloody quest, and the Beast appeared. After that, the whole train derailed, and it all went to hell. I don’t know how it went so wrong so fast, but it did. It started with their deception and ended in pain for both of us.
How could I have known?
