Page 56 of Burdened Bonds
Renzo settles backwards, crossing his legs and resting his chin in his hands. “Tell me about the dream. Tell me all about it.”
I close my eyes. I can see it vividly in my head, just as clear as that film he’d conjured into the air. I watch it play out against my eyelids, describing it to him in detail. When I’m done, I open my eyes, and he leans back.
“Pip’s no beast, little rabbit. I don’t think that dream is about him. You’ve tried healing him. So have I. He’s sick. He’s going to get better. And that dream–”
“It wasn’t just any old dream!”
“Maybe,” he says. “But what it means isn’t clear. Not yet.”
I feel a little comforted by his words but the dream still consumes my thoughts. I want to talk it through with Stone, with Winnie, heck even with Azlan. I miss them all and the separation from my mates is painful, even with the draught Renzo’s been giving me. Are they feeling that too?
Is Tristan?
I lay my hands on my belly.
The pain when Azlan and I were apart after we first bonded was unbearable – so strong I felt like my entire body was being subjected to the cruelest form of torture. That pain didn’t fade until we started to sleep together. Is Tristan enduring that right now? Is he okay? A guilt about it swims through my body. Tristan hasn’t been good to me. He’s treated me like shit. He’s spoken to me like I was a piece ofshit. But he also saved my life – sacrificed his own for mine. No matter how hard I try, I can’t feel as angry at him as I was. I can feel myself softening.
“Renzo,” I say. “I know you want to protect me. I know you want to keep me safe. But I’m safest with my mates. I think you know that really and I need to get back to them.”
“There are bad people out there hunting for you, little rabbit.”
“There have always been bad people hunting for me. And I spent the first twenty years of my life hiding away from them, running away. I … I can’t do that any longer. I need my mates. I need my friends.”
The assassin is silent. He tilts his head from one side to the other as if weighing up the decision in his mind.
“I didn’t think fate gave a shit about me. I didn’t think anyone did,” he says without a trace of self-pity, “that was unless I was trying to kill them.” The right side of his mouth lifts. “Then they cared about me a lot. But fate, nah! I thought she’d cast me to the curbside long ago. Didn’t give a shit. I was wrong. She gave me you. Gave you me. She has something in mind for me. I don’t know what that is any more than I know what your dream means, little rabbit. But I’m thinking I’m destined to follow you so that’s what I’m going to do. You want to go find your mates, then that’s what we’ll do.”
“You’re going to come with me?”
“Need to keep you safe, little rabbit. You have a habit of hopping straight into trouble.”
“Yeah,” I say, “I do.” I smile at him, but it soon fades. “You know they’ll kill you?”
“Who?” he asks, his eyes flashing like he likes that idea.
“The man in black, Stone. Probably Tristan and Spencer too.”
“I’m like a cat. One of those mangy street cats. I have nine lives. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“So you’ll take me to Los Magicos? You’ll transport us there?”
He shakes his head. “Too dangerous.” I start to argue but he points at my pig. “I don’t think the little man could handle it.”
“So how will we get there?” I say with frustration. “You said there’d be soldiers out on all the roads.”
“We’ll go the long way. Over the mountains.”
“Over the mountains?” I stare at him in disbelief. He really is crazy. “That isn’t even possible.”
“Little rabbit, you really do underestimate me.” He leans forward and, before I know what he’s doing, he pinches my chin between his finger and thumb and stares into my face, his only millimeters from my own. “Everyone always does,” he says, and then presses his mouth to mine and kisses me.
The two of us have thrown our lot in with fate now. Both trusting that she knows what the hell she’s doing. And so, when the assassin kisses me – hard and incessant, seeking out my tongue with his – I kiss him back. Just as hard, just as incessant, just as needy.
We pack a few supplies from the hut into a rucksack, take some of the warm clothes stuffed in a tiny chest of drawers, wrap Pip up into a blanket and set off into the night, me desperate to start moving, Renzo adamant it’s too dangerous to stay in one place for more than one day.
It’s far colder outside than it was in the little hut, the sky heavy with a blanket of cloud and wisps of snow fluttering around us. I wrap the scarf I took around my head, my eyes tearing as a wind sweeps through the foothills of the mountains, and peer up at the peaks.
Out here in the open, my head is much clearer, not clouded by the proximity of Renzo or the masculinity of his scent. And I wonder again if I’m doing the right thing. If I’m trusting the right person. The mountains loom above us, tall and menacing and I can’t see how any person could possibly scale them. Then again, Renzo Barone is like no other person I’ve ever met. He sees things in a different way, I’m learning that. He looks on challenges that others have labeled impossible, crazy, suicidal, and sees opportunity. Fun, even.
