by Camryn Rhys
He’d wanted to sleep next to her, but it was…too much. Perhaps his touch wasn’t as horrible as she’d thought it would be, but it was still so foreign. She couldn’t imagine sleeping with another person—feeling contact all night long.
She and her mother had shared a room in a hut, but they didn’t sleep next to each other. Her mother had night terrors almost every night. Sleep was not something Citlani took for granted.
Most of the time she napped throughout the afternoon to make up for the lack of rest she got at night.
Now, instead of her mother waking Citlani with horrified screams, there was a man a few feet away that brought a new type of turmoil to her mind and her body.
She’d married him by the laws of her village, without the blessing of the man she called father, all to avoid the touch of the one man in the village she couldn’t stand.
The man who’d lost her mother.
To find a way to save her mother, she’d given herself to a stranger in the most intimate way possible. Was there some magick about him that made her mind wander when he touched her? Something was different. She responded to Tomás in a way she’d never responded to any male in the village before.
There was no time for notions of feelings. Her mother told her every day not to trust a man to want more from her than sex. All men wanted sex. It hadn’t been as unpleasant as she’d prepared for it to be. She’d even go so far as to consider it pleasant. There were those who spoke of sex in the village as pleasurable. She may have spent most of her life hidden away, alone, in a hut with her mother, but she wasn’t deaf. People gossiped.
After the sex tent Citlani knew sex could be enjoyable. She just didn’t know how to get from where she was…to that again. Did she want to? Did she have a choice? He was her husband now. He wasn’t aware of the sacredness of the sex tent ceremony, but she was. She’d done the very thing to him she’d tried to escape—having the chance to find a Fated mate.
A tear rolled down her cheek.
She could make it up to him. Anything he wanted. Every time he wanted to have her body, she would be more than willing. Once they’d found her mother and taken her safely back up the mountain, she’d show him exactly how grateful she was.
Pulling the blanket around her shoulders, Citlani exhaled slowly. The stress of the last few days had her stomach in knots. On cue, it gurgled angrily reminding her she hadn’t had a full meal in days. That one little date cake she shared had only stirred her belly a little.
“Lani.”
She closed her eyes tightly. Why wasn’t he asleep yet?
“Are you awake?”
No. Go to sleep.
Tomás’ backpack rustled as he dug through it. “I have some granola bars in here. You should eat something.”
She tensed as he scooted across the flat rocky place where she’d chosen to lie down. It protected them from the wind. Fewer trees meant fewer animals considering them as prey, not that any predators on this mountain would make the mistake of hunting a werewolves.
Citlani jerked at his light touch on her shoulder and sat up straight.
“Sorry.” He apologized so quickly. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Scared? She wasn’t scared. She just wasn’t used to being touched. Ever. Could he want her again so quickly? She pulled up the hem of her tunic, rose to her knees and reached for the edge of his tunic.
“What are you doing?” He caught her hand in his.
Her breath stopped. His grip was tight enough to make her take it seriously, but mostly, she was confused. He’d reached for her and now he didn’t want her? “You want sex. I give it to you.”
“We just had sex. Why would you think—”
Her gaze jumped to something cracking in the brush behind him. None of the villagers would think to come this way. Citlani had covered their tracks perfectly. Then a broad familiar male face came into view in the moonlight—Zolin. Her heart tried to claw its way out of her chest up through her throat.
How had he known to come this far off the trail?
The stranger released her wrist, and turned to follow her gaze over his shoulder. “Shit.”
“You took what wasn’t yours,” Zolin growled, pounding the stick end of his spear against the hard rock. “Citlani was promised.”
“Look, I didn’t ask for this. She just…” he caught her gaze for a moment begging for back up.
It wasn’t help she was prepared to give. In fact, every muscle in her body was coiled tightly and ready to flee.
Her stranger rose, squaring his body off with Zolin. They were an even match and it would be a bloody fight. A fight she didn’t have any intention of waiting around to see if Zolin once again took a claim on her.
These two could fight it out. Her mother needed her. Nothing would keep her from that mission, and now that Tomás had gotten her this far, she would go the rest of the way on her own before she would go back with Zolin.
The pissing match got louder and when the next few snarling remarks cut through the midnight air, Citlani slipped across the stream into the shadows.
It was better this way. She didn’t want anything to do with Zolin.
She could do this on her own. Maybe.
Tomás held up his hands to the advancing warrior.
Zolin’s grip on the spear was expert. There was no way he could get to his knife in his pack, and even if he could, he wasn’t sure he would win the battle.
“I told you she was mine,” Zolin growled.
“To be fair, you never said who it was you’d been promised to.” Tomás juked to one side when Zolin’s spear shot toward him. “Besides, I didn’t know who she was when she came into the tent.”
“It doesn’t matter.” The big warrior stabbed toward him again.
He slid out of the way and jumped onto a nearby rock. “If you would put your spear down, then we could talk about this like grown men.”
“I don’t want to talk.” The translator swept the spear and Tomás jumped over it, back onto the ground.
With a swift kick, he aimed for one of his hands, and Zolin moved so quickly, he missed.
The Huichol swooped his spear again, but when he stepped forward, his foot caught on a rock and the spear struck the ground.
Tomás struck the wooden handle when Zolin was off his balance and the weapon went tumbling. “There. Now, we can—” Tomás was about to bend and pick up the spear when Zolin’s fist connected with his face.
“I said. I don’t want to talk.” He jumped toward him and caught him around his waist and they both tumbled to the ground.
They rolled over and over, landing punches, until Zolin’s head smacked against a rock.
With the wind knocked out of him, the big warrior shook himself, but Tomás had him pinned in a matter of seconds. He had brothers. He was used to this, and he always ended up on top.
His knees pinned the warrior’s arms. “Will you listen to me? I didn’t know who she was.”
“No talking.” Zolin struggled beneath him.
“She just came into the tent and jumped on me, and then said I’d defiled her and I had to run. And look, you’d put some kind of oil all over me and I couldn’t… I didn’t have a choice.”
With every word, his eyes got bigger and bigger until he finally whipped his legs up and knocked Tomás to the ground. The big Huichol was on top of him like lightning, big hands around his neck. “You had sex with her?” His dark eyes were on fire, his teeth bared, spit splattering from his mouth.
“You…told…me…to.” Tomás tried to breathe between words, but the hands relaxed just the tiniest bit. “You said it was a tent for sex,” he dragged out.
Zolin rolled off him and sat on the ground looking at his hands. The jungle was so silent around them, like the animals and the trees waited for the fight to resume.
“You had sex with her.” He dropped his head.
Tomás sat up and put his hands on his own throat. The skin ached and his throat burned. “Damn, dude. Y
ou could have killed me.”
“That was the plan.”
“I had no idea who she was,” he said, trying to keep his tone quiet to match the somber moment. “She didn’t say anything. She just climbed on me and—”
“You shouldn’t speak of it.” Zolin stared into the dark. His voice dropped like a brick in the night. “She is your wife.”
Tomás choked on his breath and jumped to his feet. “My what?”
“Your wife,” he repeated. “You should not speak crudely about your wife.”
“No.” Tomás backed up until the rock stopped his steps and sat down. “There was no…I mean, all we did was…”
“You claimed her.” The warrior stood and wiped at his legs. “She claimed you. This is the way the gods,” he made the volcano sign, “would have it.”
But the reluctance in his voice told Tomás their fight wasn’t over. He recognized that certain kind of hurt that was too deep to put into words. It was the edge under every move Zolin made.
“I didn’t claim anybody.” He sat on the rock and considered whether he should reach out to offer some sign of friendship.
Only they weren’t friends. Still, the broken look on the man’s face. He hadn’t stopped staring into the dark since the fight had stopped. Something was knocking around in his head.
“You did,” Zolin said. “That’s what the sex tent is for.”
Tomás couldn’t stop the chortle of a laugh that burst out of him. “You said the sex tent was for reading the magick.”
“Yes, and when you find your mate, you claim her and she is yours.”
A brave bird began to caw in the distance. In this kind of thick dark, any sound was an announcement. The two men continued to sit in silence, as though they waited for the jungle to join the conversation.
Tomás fumbled for his backpack and heard one of the straps lap into the stream. He’d forgotten they were so close to the water. It was lucky they hadn’t pushed each other into it, although the cool water wouldn’t have been altogether unwelcome in the muggy night.
He dug around for his phone. He needed to see what time it was. Maggie would be expecting him to check in with a phone call when he got back to Choaca, but he hadn’t anticipated the detour or the sex tent…or the wife.
When he found the device, he tried to flip it on, but it wouldn’t light.
The power button made a little chirping noise when he turned it on, not unlike the brave calling bird. The sound echoed around them.
“I just need to speak with your village elders.”
“Yes, I know of your quest.” Zolin’s voice was still low and dark. “And you would have spoken with them if you hadn’t married the Chief’s daughter.”
“Whoa.” He held up one hand. “How about we stick with defiled?”
The warrior grunted and went searching for his spear.
Tomás’ phone filled the small area with light. 1:14. Still several hours before morning light. He shone the light toward where Zolin’s hands finally found his spear.
“I’ll give her back,” Tomás said. “All I want is information.”
Only that wasn’t strictly true anymore, and every part of his heart knew it. He wasn’t quite at the let’s fuck in the airplane bathroom mode, but Lani was gorgeous, and mysterious, and most of all, she had asked for his help. She may be a quiet one, but she had hidden depths. He could just tell.
He turned the light to find her. He needed to see if she’d heard his suggestion that he return her to Zolin. She wouldn’t be too hap…
Wait. Where is she?
Tomás flashed the light in the other direction, then toward the stream. Nowhere. He swiped at the phone to get the flashlight to work and shone the beam all around the clearing.
Nowhere.
“What are you doing?” Zolin barked. “Turn that off before a predator sees us.”
“Lani,” Tomás yelled into the jungle. “Lani, where are you?”
The translator took a step toward where the light shone. “The princess. Where is she?”
“That’s just it.” He made one more swoop of the area before switching off the flashlight and then his phone. “I think she’s gone.”
“Gone?” He lifted his spear and walked forward. But Tomás couldn’t see him well. His eyes needed time to adjust to the dark.
“Wait. Zolin.” He held out his hands. “She’s got to be gone. She asked me to take her to Choaca to find her mother.”
The big man’s face whipped around and there was a blaze in his eyes that Tomás could see through the dark. “She told you about her mother?”
“Only that she’d been taken, and that Lani wanted to find her.”
The warrior crashed through the brush, headed away from the stream, and Tomás dug in his bag for his shoes.
He slipped them on quickly and then ran after the translator. He hoped the man knew where he was going, because Tomás was flying blind. He wondered for a moment if one of them should shift, but before he could really process the thought, he heard a shimmer, and then the drop of the wooden spear on the ground.
Then, the howl of Zolin’s wolf.
Chapter Four
A wolf howl carried through the cool crisp darkness. Citlani’s skin tingled under the filtered light of the moon. Her magick swirled around her, alerting her to the approaching presence of one of her pack. She recognized the angry howl. No amount of covering her tracks would hide her from Zolin’s overbearing possessiveness.
She leapt down from a large rock and paused, regret stabbing her gut. Had Zolin killed Tomás? He wouldn’t have really killed him…would he? She glanced over her shoulder and frowned. Then she looked back down the side of the mountain. Choaca waited. Her mother needed help. No one else would go.
If Zolin caught her, she wouldn’t be able to do anything.
Her husband was a strong man. He would come through this and Zolin wasn’t a murderer. He just wanted…her. Always. The man had been obsessed with her since she’d come of age. She’d lost count of how many times he’d asked her mother for permission to take her as his wife. Zolin had said that her mother saw a ghost from the past in the market and disappeared, but he’d done nothing. And he had the cojones to say her mother gave her to him.
She looked down the mountain again and sighed. It didn’t matter. Citlani was linked to Tomás. She couldn’t abandon him. What if Zolin had left him wounded and exposed to predators in the jungle? As an outsider, he didn’t know what lived in the trees.
Citlani darted to her left, through some underbrush, and came out into a small clearing. Her feet drummed a ground-eating pace. She could circle back around to the stream and find Tomás and they could take another path down the mountain. But she had to move fast. Speed would be the only thing that might keep her ahead of Zolin’s wolf.
Or not.
Snarls and angry growls from too close behind drove her feet faster. The burning in her lungs and legs was completely forgotten. She dodged his first leap and let an angry snarl tear from her throat, warning him she’d fight.
He didn’t care.
A heavy, furry form leapt onto Citlani’s back, knocking her off balance. Before she hit the ground, she felt the warmth of his magick change around her and instead of fur, bare skin and very male arms encircled her body, cushioning her fall on the stony earth.
“Get off of me.” She wriggled, but he didn’t release her.
“You’re still under my protection. What were you thinking running off with a stranger?”
Citlani kicked and bucked as he stood and hauled her off the ground with him. An arm was locked in a vise grip around her torso, but that didn’t stop her from flinging her head backward. She winced as pain skewered through her skull, but the satisfying crunch and growl of his pain made it worth it. “Put me down! I have a husband. We were joined in the sex tent. You can’t have me.”
“You ran from your husband,” Zolin roared. “You shame him. You left a stranger in the jungle unprotected.”
/>
“I was coming back.”
“You ran.”
“I have to get my mother back. You’re certainly not going to do it for me.”
“She said not to come after her. She made me swear to keep you away.”
“I don’t believe you!” she screamed, kicking again and arching against his grasp.
He released her body and she whirled to face him. Blood ran from his nose, streaking most of his mouth and chin. He’d heal quickly, but she’d definitely hit home with her headbutt.
“My mother and I were inseparable. She would never.”
“The man who she ran from would hunt you too. She said you would be in danger if you ever came down from the mountain again.” Zolin took a step forward and reached.
“Don’t touch me,” she hissed. Never come down the mountain again? She lived for those trips. Citlani loved the town and its people. The buildings and beautiful things intrigued her. There was so much more to the world than the tiny little village where her mother had run to hide all those years ago. She would stay for her mother. She would do anything for her…anything but stay with a man she had no connection with at all.
At least with Tomás in the sex tent, there had been a spark. She’d felt interest. She didn’t know what to do with that interest, but it was better than being indifferent. For the first time in her life, she’d felt something.
“I only wish to fulfill my promise to your mother. She wished you to be bonded and protected. She said it was the only way to keep you safe.”
“Our magick does not speak when we are together.” Citlani crossed her arms and took a backward step.
Zolin glanced at the ground and sighed. “With a bond, it would’ve grown together slowly. Fate would’ve blessed my vow to protect you. You would’ve loved me in time. as I already care for you.”
She dashed to the left, but he reacted faster than she estimated. “No!” Citlani kicked again, clawing at his arm as it tightened around her waist. “Let me go. I have a husband of my own choosing.”
