Chapter 25

After waking her up three times, she finally opened her eyes and they weren’t glazed over. The medication had finally worked its way through her system. When she smiled at him so sleepily, Devin’s stern resolutions faltered. “Hey, we need to get you up and moving and some food into you.” He watched her stretch and felt his body take notice of her every movement.

“Is there coffee in there somewhere?”

He tried not to smile at her playful tone, but failed. “If that’s what you’d like, there can be.”

She smiled again. “I’d like.” Pulling the robe tightly around her, she wiggled her way up on the bed. A frown appeared on her beautiful face. “I have good news.” She flipped the covers back and moved her legs slowly towards the side. “I think the painkiller has worn off, my foot is really throbbing.”

Devin knelt beside the bed and gently took her foot in his hands. She hissed when he pulled the gauze from it. It took all his willpower to keep his hands and eyes on only her foot. Yep, I am some kind of sick puppy.

“Is it bad?” Her voice squeaked in pain.

He studied it. It wasn’t pretty, but it didn’t look like there was any infection around it. “It’s not infected, just as I said before, inconveniently located.” The inconvenience part being that he needed her mobile and ready to move and she wasn’t going to be for a few days, at least.

“I suppose it could be worse then.” Rayne bent her knee and pulled her leg up to take a look for herself. She made a female sound that told him she was annoyed with herself. “I will never go in a boat again without my shoes on.”

He didn’t bother to tell her that hadn’t been the lesson she should have learned, but that could wait until later. “I’m going to wrap it again lightly, so you don’t get any dirt in it and then we’ll go find some food.” She nodded and kept looking at her foot.

“Bring back my clothes, please. I’d like to get dressed.”

Devin curbed any comment his mind came up with, because no matter what he attempted to say his brain locked in on her changing and wasn’t going to budge from there.

He waited for her to wash up and change and waited through two cups of coffee and a light lunch. Devin waited while she went through the pictures on her camera, constantly having to stick to light conversation was wearing his patience down. He had no idea how to begin to work any of this into a conversation. Unless she outright said ‘hey, I think I’m a wolf’, there was no way to lead into this. Setting the juice on the table, he took the chair opposite her and sat down. “Rayne, I didn’t get a chance to tell you about your camp site.”

Her head popped up and she grimaced. “Is it bad? Did everything blow away?”

He shook his head quickly. “No, surprisingly enough it didn’t.” He clasped his hands together on the table, trying to look relaxed. “A few branches scuffed up your car, but nothing a little touch up won’t fix.”

“Oh.” She started to fidget with the camera in her hand. “That’s okay, if it’s nothing serious it doesn’t really matter.”

Devin watched her sit there and knew she was avoiding talking about the car. “Are you sure? I can have someone come and take a look at it.”

Her head popped back up and she looked at him, eyes huge, panic obvious. “No.” She cleared her throat, “it’s fine.”

Leaning back in the chair he made sure to keep eye contact with her. “What aren’t you telling me, Rayne?” He knew already, but wanted this talk to start with her.

She bit her bottom lip and looked down at the camera a few times. Finally, she set it down and flicked her eyes from it to him. “It’s technically not my car.”

He waited.

“It was bought for me, but isn’t mine.”

“Who does it belong to?”

Several emotions crossed her face and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could just sit here and pretend to know none of it.

“I told you...” She dropped her head down for a few seconds and then looked back up at him, the pain evident on her face. “I told you I was engaged.”

Devin nodded.

“I found out some things that I couldn’t live with and I...” she lifted her hands in hesitant gesture. “I left.”

“What things?” He had to clench his teeth together to stop from blurting that he knew everything, or at least nearly everything.

“Um, my fiancé wasn’t the man I thought him to be.”

He leaned back and crossed his arms, showing her he had all the time in the world for her to explain, they didn’t, but she didn’t need to know that just yet.

“He—I think, well, know, he did some things that are...” she took a shaky breath. “When my parents died so suddenly, I was on my own and too young to really be on my own...” She rolled her eyes. “Maybe not in age, but my parents had kept me very sheltered and although I was almost twenty, I didn’t know much about living...” She rubbed twitching fingers over her eyes and cheeks before she looked back at him. “Mister Tomas took me in, it was his son I was engaged to...” she swallowed slowly, the emotions so plain in her eyes. Fear and hurt and it were those emotions that broke his silence.

“Alberto Tomas?”

Her eyes widened with surprise. “You knew him?”

Devin shook his head and hoped the distain for the man mentioned wasn’t completely obvious. “Not personally, of him and his family business, yes.”

She opened her mouth and then closed it again, frowning. “How?”

“He was not a nice man, Rayne...”

“I know that, now.” The vulnerability was plain on her face.

He leaned forward slowly and watched her reaction. “Did Alberto or his son hurt you?”

She shook her head quickly. “No, never.” Looking down, she began to wring her fingers together. “I think I always knew something wasn’t right, but I didn’t know what until five days ago...” she hugged herself tightly. “I went to the office, I can’t even remember why exactly, to see Aiden and I overheard...” Her eyes looked down at the camera and then back to him. “I overheard things that I couldn’t possibly misconstrue the meaning of.” She swallowed again. “I left, went home and packed and started driving.”

“Until you ended up here.” He wasn’t sure how long they sat there in the silence just looking at each other. She was working out the fact that he knew the people she was hiding from and Devin was still completely puzzled as to how he was going to tell her everything without her thinking he was insane. “Let’s go sit somewhere comfortable, I need to tell you some things.”

She didn’t move, the confusion showing clearly on her face. “About Aiden and his father?”

Devin nodded slowly. “That’s part of it.” She started to stand up and then remembered the cane. He moved over quickly and took her arm to help steady her. “We’ll go sit outside.”

He helped her walk to the deck around the back of the house, it overlooked the hills and was the most peaceful view a person could ask for. He’d need the serenity on his side in a few minutes’ time, when he took everything Rayne had ever thought she knew and tossed it aside, only to replace it with shifters, hierarchy and villains.

He let her sit there for a few minutes and take in the hills, trees and fluffy summer clouds, not sure exactly how he should begin. Devin sighed loudly and she turned to look at him, curiosity in her eyes. He offered a tentative smile. “I’m not sure where to begin,” he shrugged. “I could dive right in and have you think I’m a lunatic or start slow and let you fit the pieces together.”

“I’ve had a lot of shock to deal with recently, so I’d appreciate a bit of tact, for now.”

Devin closed his eyes long enough to find the words to begin and when he opened them he watched her closely. “I know people that knew your parents, Rayne, my father being one of them.”

She opened her mouth.

“I’ll get to those details in a few.”

She sat back and although she appeared to be exercising patience, but he could see the questions in her eyes.

“My father is the leader in an Alliance, a group that protects people like you and I...”

“A law enforcement agency?”

Devin tossed that around inside his head. He supposed it could be called that, with a special purpose. “Sort of. Anyways they’ve been aware of the Tomas family for twenty years now, they blackmail or take those indebted to them and force repayment by servitude. I don’t know what you overheard, but believe me, it’s definitely worse than you can imagine.” He studied her eyes and waited for questions that didn’t come. “Your parents were two of those indebted to Alberto Tomas, or very likely your father was. They left Canada and the protection of the Alliance before you were born, when you were barely conceived and I don’t know the details, we may never know them, but they ended up in the clutches of Alberto.” This part she seemed to be digesting without too much difficulty, so he pushed further. “Do you know anything about your parent’s families or heritage?”

She shook her head and then looked a little lost and forlorn. “Nothing really. Mom always wanted me to meet her family, but it seemed like each time we planned it something happened.”

Devin was pretty sure he knew what happened, but wasn’t cruel enough to say it out loud. He’d let her love for her parents and the memories stay untarnished, for now. “Now, for the part you may have trouble swallowing.”

She raised an eyebrow.

Unable to just sit there and play like he was relaxed and cool with all of this, he got up and paced across the deck. He looked out over the trees in every shade of green and tried to find the right words to begin. Turning, he leaned back against the railing. “You and I are not like everyone else, Rayne.” Both eyebrows rose as she looked at him. “I know this is going to sound ridiculous but your parents, you and I are not just normal people.”

She hissed out a breath and then scowled at him. “My parents were quite normal, thank you very much!”

“I wasn’t trying to insult them, honestly. I just have no idea how to explain this. It’s not something I’ve told many people and I never thought I’d have to tell someone else they were like me, most know already.”

She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest, and not in a nonchalant way, her patience was at the end. “What are you trying to say, Devin? I’d prefer complete honesty, please.”

Devin let out a slow breath and debated for two seconds on shifting in front of her, but then realized that the second he started striping off his clothes she was going to leave and he might get injured. “I can shift into another form.” He thought momentarily he’d found a tactful way to say it, until she laughed.

“I think the painkillers have affected my mind.” She laughed quietly for a few more seconds and then looked back at him. “I thought you said you could shift into something.” She tried to stop laughing and ended up gasping quietly and holding her hand over her mouth.

For any other reason, he would have enjoyed seeing her laugh to the point of her eyes tearing up, not over this though. “I did.” Devin grasped the railing beside him and squeezed it, trying not to feel offended that she was laughing at him.

“Oh, really? And what other form can you take?” She snorted, trying to not laugh again.

“A wolf.”

This time she didn’t try to laugh quietly, she leaned back in her chair and laughed so hard she was gasping to catch her breath.

Crossing his arms, he stood there and waited until she got herself under control again. He’d tried to tell her, the least shocking way he could think of, and she was laughing. “I’m going to get a drink. Do you want anything?”

She gasped a few times and tried to stop laughing to answer. Between the breaths she took, she managed to say water.