Chapter 9

RIVER BROWN

Summer was beautiful. With waters as blue as the skies where the Goddess resided, with the air smelling like leaves and dried flowers and all things pure.

With the sun giving everyone hope that day had conquered night. Summer was my favorite season around the sun.

Winter was ugly. Winter was cold. Winter was frostbite and freezing to death.

Today, I liked winter.

Winter was like Neo Kincaid. Like his blue eyes, like his warm smile, like his lilting voice all rough but caressing like a warm blanket.

Two betas pass by me but I hide behind the concrete shivering like a leaf in a hurricane.

My mind replays Neo. How he shifted into his wolf, how snowy white his wolf was, powerful yet so beautiful I couldn’t take my eyes off him, tears pooled in my eyes when I saw him for the first time.

Beauty couldn’t compare to Neo. His wolf was striking and in his blue eyes I could see him.

I could see the man who offered to fight Xandar for me.

I cheered when Neo’s wolf almost killed X’s wolf, I cheered when it growled asserting dominance into the crowd.

Then…hell happened.

Neo’s wolf got shot by one of X’s betas.

I can’t forget the blood as he shifted back to man. I can’t forget the look on Connor and Shane’s face as they realized Neo was down and all of it is my fault.

Neo is…is…

“Walk away”

A voice as sharp as steel slices through the silence. Like a low warning against whoever he is telling the statement to.

I’m too afraid to look.

“It’s two against one, Kincaid”, another man mocks. My ears concentrate on Kincaid.

Which Kincaid brother? I don’t smell Shane. Neo is…I don’t know if Neo is alive which leaves…Connor?

It takes seconds before another dose of screams engulf the air. Another second for me to hear two thuds and silence filter in.

The two men are dead, I know.

I can also hear heavy footsteps approach my hiding place and I’m too tired to run.

I sit and await my fate.

Rough, warm fingers wrap around the nape of my neck, I suck in a breath as the man who is squatting in front of me angles my face to his.

“W—why are you shirtless? “I ask.

I can see every vein, every ridge of muscles, every drop of sweat on his skin and he is all man.

He smiles like I’m the funniest thing he has seen in a while.

“Are you hurt?”

Emotionally and mentally? Yeah, I am.

“No but I think I peed a little”

I didn’t. I’m nervous. I’m scared. I betrayed him. Them.

Connor’s hand moves from my neck pushing my hair from my face and wiping what I’m assuming to be dirt or blood from my cheek.

“A little pee never killed anyone, River. Can you stand?”

“I-I think so”, I stutter.

Connor pulls away from me and I miss his touch, his scent and that smile he gave me a few seconds ago.

He stands a few feet from me; I use the pillar of concrete as my support to try to stand.

I barely make it past two seconds before my legs start to shake and I’m about to fall back to the dirt when large muscular hands pull me off the ground.

“I don’t think I can stand”

He laughs.

A full blown laugh that rocks my insides and washes away the trauma.

Connor Kincaid laughs.

“Yeah I got that, baby. Let’s get you out of here first. Hold tight”

My hands swing around his neck, my face lays on his chest right where his heart is beating.

I smell all of him, I hide my eyes, my shame, my guilt on this man as we walk out of Xandar’s hell of a place. Away from the violence, from the lies Xandar told me, from all the blood that makes me sick to the stomach.

Cold night air slaps my thighs and at the same time fresh air mixed with Connor’s scent helps me breathe better than I did inside.

I lift my head up and peek at the black car already waiting in front of us.

“Put me down”, I order.

“No”, comes Connor’s hard voice.

“Put me down now!”

“No”

“Put.Me.Down, Connor”

This time, he listens.

This time, I don’t fall as I stand on barely functional heels sober as a lumberjack.

I stare behind me, behind the building then back to the car where Connor is standing.

“Where is Neo? And Shane? They are not inside the car, where are they?”

He stays silent, I don’t miss the twitch in his eyebrows.

“You left them? You left them inside to fight all alone? How could you…we have to get Shane and Neo out of there. We have to- “

“River”

“Don’t River me”, I sob, “we have to go back for them. Neo…Neo he…he was bleeding, his wound didn’t heal, he’s going to- “

“He is going to be fine. Get in the car”

The Connor that was smiling is gone and right now this Connor is pissed off and I’m beyond pissed off.

“They are your brothers and you are just going to leave them to die!”

Two things happen at once, Connor angrily takes a step towards me and I take a step back on instinct.

You are not going to strangle me today, Connor Kincaid.

He catches my movement fast, stopping in his steps too to assess me with cold, slightly pained eyes.

“Listen up, you little brat. I’m here with you because Shane is too pissed off to let any man in there live to tell the tale. Neo has wolfbane inside his blood stream because he said yes to a freaking agni-kai instead of killing X first.

We are all a mess because you are stubborn, infuriating and like a little kid who’ll take candy from just anybody to destroy us.

What did X offer you, River? What was so precious to you that Shane is in there covering his fur with blood just for you?

Did he promise he’d take you back to Landon? That you’d be Landon’s Luna and you’d have a ton of pups calling you moms and pops?”

I’d never allow my kids to call me ‘moms’ or have kids with Landon in the first place but Connor’s not wrong.

I trusted Xandar and Neo is at the brink of death with wolfsbane of all things and Shane…is fighting all the betas in there.

“I’m sorry…and I’m not a brat”

He sighs into the night. Like I’m exhausting him.

“Don’t need your sorry, all I need is you in the car in the next two minutes or I’ll have to put you in it and chain you to the seats with the seatbelts if I’m forced to”

I start moving, shivering at the cold night air, at his words and at leaving Neo and Shane behind.

What I don’t see coming is him approaching me, meeting me halfway to where the car is parked.

My instincts tell me to run but his height is already towering in front of me, his scent pricking my skin in a good way, his breath fanning my skin and his body so close to mine I want to touch it and cry in his shoulders.

“When I choked you, where did I hurt you?”

My eyes grow an inch wider.

“I’m fine”

I lie.

“You are scared of me”

He points out like it’s hurting him when he is all two hundred pounds of merciless muscles and a heart made of stone.

“I should be. You guys kidnapped me, Shane said he’d kill my family if I didn’t come with you, you choked me, you threatened me a few seconds ago to chain me to the car”

“What did Greta tell you about us, River?”

He’s too close. Too close to kiss me. Too close that I’m getting delirious.

“T—That you guys are my mates. Which sounds absurd- “

“I’d kidnap my mate a hundred times just to have her by my side. Shouldn’t have choked you and for that I’m sorry. What should I do for you not to be scared…of me?”

Oh Goddess.

“I don’t know”, I whisper.

Connor stares at the hollow of my neck for far too long and before my mind registers what he is about to do, he buries his face at the crook of my neck.

Like the world has stopped, like I’ve gone mad and travelled to another universe, he kisses my neck saying,

“I’m sorry”