Page 5 of Snag
“You’re not even ten here!” I say, instantly incensed.
He chuckles quietly. “Yeah, you were pissed about it back then as well. Even with your own arm in a cast. I’m only two months older than you. So we’re both nine here.”
Jaw clenched, I shake my head, my anger not at all assuaged by his amusement.
“Do you want to hear the story or not?” he teases.
I huff. “Yes.”
“My sperm donor wasn’t around,” he says. “If that makes you feel better. Oddly, the Cataclysm never actually laid hands on us … then.” He takes a fortifying breath.
And I know … I know there is something deep and dark hidden in that breath, that pause and hesitation. “That’s not the beginning,” I say, not certain if I’m protecting him or my own fragile psyche.
“Right.” Rought sets his chin lightly on top of my head. It is not a remotely dignified position, but I have absolutely no desire to push him away. “My mother intervened. Her and Reck, though he was still a kid himself and almost as badly hurt as me. Rath had gone for help. I’d mouthed off to some of my father’s enforcers, though I can’t tell you what was said. The Cataclysm was, is, all about survival of the fittest. His club followed that edict, even with his bastards.” He trails off thoughtfully.
“Your mother?” I prompt.
“Took a fucking crowbar to the two idiots. And they were scared of fucking too much with the Cataclysm’s current fuck. My mother held his attention longer than anyone before or after her. Anyway, she took off with all three of us. Me, Rath, and Reck. Stole a truck. Dead of night. Drove us all the way out of the Federation, somehow passing through the heavily fortified Navajo Nation to meet up with the Outcast, our uncle, just over the Californiaborder. Though none of us had met him yet, or even knew about him. She asked the Outcast for shelter. For us. Just us. She went back to the Cataclysm.”
My chest is aching, for him, for his mother. “They’re married now,” I say softly, not certain if I’m trying to comfort him or myself. “Your mother and the Outcast?”
“They are. For about twelve years. DeVille is my half-brother through my mother, but not my uncle’s kid. And my half-sisters, my mother and the Outcast’s twins, are technically also my cousins.” He flashes a grin at me. “But that’s a different story.”
I grin back at him, because I apparently can’t maintain any sort of emotional equilibrium right now. “Right.”
Rought settles his attention on the photo, his expression turning grim. “I think my mother thought the Cataclysm wouldn’t drag us back right away if she stayed with him. But no matter how many bastards he has … we have half-siblings we don’t even know about. Reck is his oldest. And Rath and I are …” He doesn’t complete the thought, just stares at the picture for a moment. “There are still things I don’t know all the details about. It was Grinder who brought us to Ingrid, not my uncle. The Outcast drove us to the estate, here, straight from California, but then left us at the gate. I think the Club traded a favor with Ingrid for the healing. All three of us needed it. None of us had our beasts then.”
“Most shifters don’t fully transform until their late teens,” I murmur quietly, to let him know I’m listening. Intently.
He nods. “Grinder brought us to the main house first to speak with Ingrid, but we didn’t go inside. Then three days later …” He touches the photo, then looks down at me. “You came out to the cottage in the woods, demanding to meet me, meet us.”
I laugh. And I realize that I’m here. I’m here in thenow. With him. Just like I was for that moment on the front patio of the main house yesterday. The moment I first saw him, even if he’d first met me when we were both only nine years old.
I want to be in the now with him. I want to ignore the terrible revelations erupting all around me, and all the conclusions sure to come. I want to ignore everything I thought was the truth, that I’ve now learned was some sort of a lie, and skip forward.
I feel as if Rought would be more than willing to jump into the now with me.
“Your arm was in a cast. You asked me …” He clears his throat. “You looked at my leg, at the bruising on my face. Ingrid had to heal me in stages.”
“Me too,” I say quietly, not wanting to interrupt him.
“You asked me if my mom was dead too.”
My heart suddenly feels as if it’s lodged in my throat. “And what did you say?”
He chuckles darkly. “I said no, but that I wished my father was. Three days here, by the ocean, surrounded by people who actually fucking cared about me, and not worried what my next so-called lesson was going to be … and I already knew I never wanted to go back. Then I met you. And you just cemented all of that.”
“But you did go back.”
“I did. The Cataclysm didn’t let us get away that easily. But he let us come every summer, to train with our uncle, the Outcast, because he thought it would get him a foothold in Cascadia.”
“Why here? The Federation seems more his … style.”
Rought snorts, then shrugs. “Power. It’s always about the accumulation of power, isn’t it? That’s why he …” He shakes his head.
“Why he … ?”
“Let’s put that on our list of things to figure out later,” he says, angling his head so he can look me in the eye. “Not that I enjoy looking back at anything other than you, Zaya.”
