“You have siblings?”
“Just one. An older brother, Joaquin. He’s mated, with a passel of kids. Unhappily mated, for the most part, however. I don’t see him or my parents as often as I should, if I’m honest.” Tao softened his voice as he asked, “Do you remember much about your parents?” She was quiet for so long that he thought she wouldn’t answer.
“I remember some things,” she finally said. Somehow it was easier to talk about them in the dark. “I remember my mom’s laugh. She had one of those really contagious laughs that made you want to laugh with her. She used to take lots and lots of pictures of me, like she was collecting memories. My dad . . . he loved sketching and painting and sculpting. He would shut himself in the spare room for days while he worked. And sometimes he’d leave origami animals on my pillow.” Her freshest memories were of him dying in a bed, refusing to talk to or even look at her, no matter what she did.
Sensing her mood begin to plummet, Tao said, “I once saw my dad in a dress, eating low-fat yogurt.”
She blinked. “What?”
“It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? I thought it couldn’t possibly be a real memory. But I have this image in my head of me looking out my bedroom window and seeing him that way and thinking . . . Dad hates yogurt, and what’s with the dress? I mentioned it to my mom once and she laughed so hard I was worried she’d pee herself. Apparently there was one New Year’s Eve party when everyone had been drunk out of their minds, daring each other to do weird stuff.”
Riley smiled. “Your parents sound like fun people.”
“They are.”
“Ethan said my mom was a fun person. Social and positive and full of mischief. Everybody loved her. My dad was an artist and had a big personality. Very emotional. When he was happy, he was ecstatic. But when he was sad . . . when he was sad, you’d think Armageddon had come calling. That’s what others tell me, anyway.”
“Were they true mates?”
“No. Daniel came to our flock to visit a friend. He saw my mom . . . and he never left. They were apparently inseparable from day one and it didn’t take long for imprinting to start. They were good to me, from what I remember, and I refer to them as my parents”—she bit her lip—“but I think of my uncles as my parents, really. Do you think that’s bad?”
“No, not at all.” He kissed her shoulder. “Jesus, baby, your uncles have raised you since you were four. They have been parents to you. There’s nothing bad about you feeling that way. I’ll bet if you asked them, they’d say they think of you as a daughter. I like them. I like how good they are to you.” Tao combed his fingers through her hair, loving the silky feel of it. “How did you spend your years away from the flock?”
“I did a lot of traveling, saw a lot of cool places. New York. Shanghai. London. I never stayed anywhere longer than a few months. Ethan and Max came out to see me a couple of times and we always had a blast. They even came to the shelter.”
“Really?”
“They didn’t like the idea of me staying in a shelter and wanted to be sure it was as nice and safe as I described it to be. They love Makenna and Madisyn.” Madisyn was a cat shifter who worked at the shelter with Makenna.
“I’m surprised they didn’t come to our territory to check it out when you moved there.”
“They were going to, but Makenna assured them it was a great place and that I was safe there.”
“And you were trying to keep your past a secret from the pack.” He nipped her shoulder punishingly.
She flinched and gave him a mock scowl. “It wasn’t so much about keeping it a secret. It was just that some of you were inclined not to trust me when I first got there—you yourself insisted I was trouble and cunning. If you’d known I was accused of manipulating someone into shooting nine people, you might have believed it, especially since you were convinced I was banished. Greta would have used it against me, not just to sway Trey and Taryn into making me leave, but to hurt me.”
He couldn’t deny that. “And later? Why not tell us later?”
“Because confiding in people about deep stuff like that—”
“Is bonding,” he finished. “And you were afraid to bond with us. You needed to keep a nice healthy distance between yourself and the pack . . . only it didn’t work so well,” he added with a smug smile. “You might not have come to the pack looking for a place, but you found one. Would you really leave Savannah and Dexter?”
Her chest panged at the idea. “Taryn and Trey would let me visit them.”
“Why visit them when you can stay with them? Tell me you aren’t missing them like crazy. Tell me it doesn’t hurt just a little to be away from them. You’re their mom, for all intents and purposes.”
“More like the fun aunt.”
“Ethan and Max are your uncles. Does it detract from how much you care for them? Why do you think none of the couples in the pack adopted Savannah and Dexter? They’re yours. You stood guard over them the way your uncles did over you. They’ll adore you for that forever. And no matter where in the world you are, they’ll think of you as their protector and they’ll wish you were with them. But why love them from afar when you don’t have to?” He trailed kisses from her shoulder up to her neck. “You wouldn’t be happy living among humans, Riley.”
Her brows snapped together at the confident remark. “And you’re so sure of this why?”
“Living a life where you had to hide half of what you are would leave you feeling like a fake. You’d hate that. Besides, you’d miss me.”
Laughter bubbled up out of nowhere. “Miss you?”
“Admit it, things wouldn’t be the same without me around.”
“No, they’d be a hell of a lot better.” She flinched as he bit her earlobe hard. “Ow. That hurt, asshole.”
“I’ve tried not to be an asshole, but I find it pretty exhausting to pretend to be anything other than who I am. I don’t want to be fake.”
“You’d rather people hate you for who you are—how admirable of you.”
He chuckled. “Isn’t it, though?” Combing his fingers through her hair again, he held it up toward the ceiling. “I used to prefer blonde hair, and I have no idea why. But your hair . . . the way the light hits it, making it look any color from blue to black to purple . . . perfect.” His wolf was in complete agreement, wanted to roll around in it. Tao spoke into her ear. “Know where I want to see it? Spread over my thighs while you suck me off.”