and hand it to them.”
And who could blame them? “Heard from my uncle lately, Alec?”
“Not a damn peep, which means I’ll be paying him a visit soon enough.” Alec’s expression turned stern. “You leave him to me, Julio. Not because you can’t handle him, but because you shouldn’t have to. For Carmen’s sake, if not your own.”
He’d done that once before, but maybe it was time to learn a lesson from Franklin—take care of your own, good or bad. “We’ll see.”
“We will.” Alec jerked his head toward Sydney. “Our new friend was going to show me the trailer camp he’s got set up for his people. Why don’t we all take a walk and see what we can do to help these folks out?”
“All right.” Eventually, he’d have to rescue Sera from his sister. For now, he had work to do.
Patty, the unbelievable traitor, had abandoned her.
Sera sat in Patty’s well-worn living room and studied the empath sitting across from her. The first time she’d met Julio’s sister had been the night Carmen had called with the news that Franklin had been injured in an explosion. The night Sera had rolled into New Orleans in a stolen truck with her face on fire from the force of Josh’s rage.
Not an empowering start…and now Sera felt every bit of the pressure. Carmen was the family that mattered to Julio, the one who could look at her and judge her unworthy, or even unready. Too young, too battered, too-“Would you like some tea?” Carmen held up a tall glass clinking with ice.
It broke through her brain’s nervous rambling successfully, and Sera laughed and shook her head. “No, I’ve had enough to last me a month. Patty and Syd have been great hosts.”
“Yes, they have.” Carmen set down the glass. “You’re nervous. Don’t be, please.”
It probably hadn’t taken empathy to guess. Sera shrugged and tried to smile. “You probably know how I’m feeling better than most.”
“Perhaps. Or you could tell me.”
“I care about your brother.” That came out almost confrontational. A challenge, as if she was braced for Carmen to try to snarl her into submission, and she tried to moderate her voice. “I want to be with him.”
The woman’s dark gaze softened. “And you expect me, at the least, to think it’s a bad idea.”
There was no sense in lying. “I can come up with a half-dozen reasons why it could be, so I can’t really blame you if you do.”
“That would be hypocritical of me, considering how many wolves think Alec should have known better than to debase his legacy and lineage by marrying me.”
“And you’re at least from an important wolf family. You could have shapeshifter babies. No one knows what sort of children Julio and I could have because it isn’t done. It’s taboo.”
“That’s all true,” Carmen allowed. “But my brother has never been one to stand on tradition.”
Sera swallowed and voiced the fear she hadn’t been able to press with Julio. “And your uncle and father?”
“What about them?”
She stared at her hands and struggled for the right words. Her left hand still had a bit of stubborn dirt wedged under the nails, from when she’d buried her fingers in the grass and sobbed through the pleasure of Julio fucking her. Claiming her.
He’d never let his relatives harm her, but one thing scared her more. “I don’t want him to get hurt, and I don’t want him to have to hurt his family because he’s protecting me.”
Carmen’s sudden expression of sadness lasted only a moment, though it lingered in her eyes. “Sera, if there’s one thing I can tell you with confidence, it’s this. The time may come when Julio has to fight his own blood, but it’s been a long time coming. It wouldn’t be your fault.”
“I’m sorry.” She didn’t even know what she was apologizing for. Maybe just because it felt like the world owed Julio and Carmen and even Miguel an apology for the shit it had dragged them through.
“Don’t be sorry.” Carmen stirred a sprig of mint into her tea. “Be sure.”
How long had it been since she’d been
God, she felt
Ancient, but not confused. She wasn’t sure—not that she and Julio could make it, or that the attempt would be worth the pain it could bring. She wasn’t certain if she was ready to face a relationship with a possessive shifter, if he was ready to live beyond being tortured, or that their combined scars wouldn’t be more than lust or affection or even love could overcome.
But she was confident of one thing—she couldn’t live the rest of her life knowing she’d been too scared to try. “I’m sure.”
Carmen smiled then, slow but bright. “I’m glad. And Sera?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t think it’s a bad idea. Not in the slightest.”
In that moment, Sera loved her a little. “Good. Talk my dad off the ledge, would you? Lily might not be able to handle this one on her own.”
Carmen laughed. “You’d be surprised what Lily can handle, I think. But I’ll work on it.”
“Thank you. I mean it.”
“You’re welcome.” Carmen tapped her fingernails against the side of her glass. “It means a lot that you’ve been with Julio through this trip, you know. Taking care of business. It’s about to become a lot more important.”
Sera couldn’t tell if Carmen wanted her to ask or not, so she settled on a middle ground.
“He’s good at it. He’s honest in a way you can’t fake. It’s not about being nice or loved or telling them what they want to hear, and they know it. The wolves here are starting to trust him.”
She exhaled slowly. “I hope so. We need for them to trust someone. No one came close to being this open with me and Alec when we travelled through last year.”
“They’ll trust him. It’s about…” Sera groped for the perfect moment to sum up the past two days. There had been plenty of awkward interactions as wary men tried to keep Julio away from exhausted women with bruised eyes.
Most had been through too much to trust, even when they hoped so hard it hurt to see. Sera had stared at those same eyes reflected in her own mirror, the tight set and the dark circles and brittle weariness that came with not knowing if you’d ever feel safe again.
One man couldn’t erase that look, not even Julio. Not even for her, and certainly not for a group of strangers. But he hadn’t tried. “Football,” she blurted out, then answered Carmen’s confused look by telling her about the way Julio had perplexed the adults by engaging the fifteen-year-old wolf who’d first approached her in a spirited discussion of football that had turned into an impromptu game all the children had rushed to join.
Most of them hadn’t been any good, but the older children had been gentle with the younger ones. By the time Sydney had waded in to captain the opposing team, it had turned into a jumble of shapeshifter kids laughing so hard their parents managed to smile.
Not trust. Not from one night or one game. But everything they did would build on it, and she found herself telling Carmen that too, unable to completely leash her own excitement. “I’m not making it worse here. The people who need us the most, they’re the ones the Conclave and councils have been hurting. Those people don’t trust the ruling wolves, but no one can look at me and say I’m a part of that world.”
Carmen’s eyes glistened, but she covered the tears with a smile and a quick nod. “Then I hope we can help you and Julio help them.”
The tears weren’t precisely the reaction Sera had been hoping for, but Alec stepped through the front door before she could comment. “Good, you’re both still here. Syd and Patty are introducing Franklin to the wolves who needed a doctor. Carmen, you’re right. It’s time to bring Julio and Andrew into the loop and get this done.”
The cryptic words meant nothing to Sera, but Carmen breathed a sigh of relief as Julio walked inside too. “I don’t like that we had to keep it from them in the first place.”
He dropped to sit beside Sera. “Keep what from us?”
