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"By that time, both of them were gone." Dylan's voice sounded very quiet, more pained than at any time when she'd been reliving her father's betrayal. "I was only seven when Morrison died in a car accident. He'd just gotten his license that week, just turned sixteen. My father took him out to celebrate. He got Morrie drunk, and evidently my father was in even worse shape, so he gave the keys to Morrie to drive them home. He missed a turn and ran the car into a telephone pole. My father walked away with a concussion and a broken collarbone, but Morrie...he never came out of his coma. He died three days later."
Rio couldn't contain the growl that boiled up from his throat. The urge to kill, to avenge and protect this woman in his arms was savage, a seething fire in his veins. "I really need to find this so-called man and give him a taste of true pain," he muttered. "Tell me your other brother beat your father to within an inch of his useless life."
"No," Dylan said. "Lennon was older than Morrie by a year and a half, but where Morrie was loud and outgoing, Len was quiet and reserved. I remember the look on his face when Mom came home and told us Morrie had died and our father would be spending a couple days in jail once he got out of the hospital. Len just...dissolved. I saw something in him die that day too. He walked out of the house and straight into a military recruiter's office. He couldn't wait to get away...from us, from all of it. He never looked back. Some friends of his said he'd been shipped out to Beirut, but I don't know for sure. He never wrote or called. He just...disappeared. I just hope he's happy, wherever his life took him. He deserves that."
"You deserve it too, Dylan. Jesus, you and your mother both deserve more than what life has given you so far."
She lifted her head and pivoted to face him, her eyes glistening and moist. Rio cupped her beautiful face and brought her to him, kissing her with only the lightest brush of his lips across hers. She wrapped her arms around him, and as he held her there, he wondered if maybe there was a way that he could give Dylan some hope...some piece of happiness for her and the mother she loved so dearly.
He thought of Tess - Dante's Breedmate - and the incredible skill she had to heal with her touch. Tess had helped Rio mend from some of his injuries, and more than once he'd witnessed firsthand how she could take away battle wounds and knit broken bones back together again.
She'd said the ability had diminished now that she was pregnant, but what if there was a chance...even a slim one?
As his mind started chugging away on the possibilities, his cell phone went off. He grabbed it from out of the pocket of his discarded jacket and flipped it open.
"Shit. It's Niko." He hit the talk button. "Yeah."
"Where the fuck are you, man?"
He glanced at Dylan, looking so delectably naked in the soft glow of the candles. "I'm in the city - Midtown. I'm with Dylan."
"Midtown with Dylan," Niko repeated, a sardonic edge to his voice. "I guess that explains why the Rover's sitting at the curb and there's no one here at her place. You two decide to take in a show or something? What the hell's going on with you and that female, amigo?"
Rio didn't feel like explaining at the moment. "Everything's cool here. Did you and Kade run into any problems?"
"Nope. Located all four inpiduals and did a gentle little soft-shoe on their memories from the cave." He chuckled. "Okay, maybe we weren't so gentle on that asshole she works for at the paper. Guy was a first-class dick. The only one left to do is the female's mother. Tried her home address and the shelter where she works, but no luck either place. You got any idea where she is?"
"Ah...yeah," Rio said. "Don't worry about it, though. It's under control. I'm going to handle that situation myself."
There was a beat of silence on the other end. "Okay. While you're, ah, handling the situation, you want Kade and I to run the Rover out and pick you up? Time's gonna be getting tight soon if we want to make it back to Boston before the sun comes up."
"Yeah, I need pickup," Rio said. He rattled off the cross-streets of the hospital complex. "See you in twenty."
"Hey, amigo?"
"Yeah?"
"Are we picking you up solo, or should we expect company for the ride back?"
Rio glanced at Dylan, watching as she began putting her clothes back on. He didn't want to say good-bye to her, but bringing her back to the compound with him didn't seem like the kindest thing for him to do either. He'd already dragged her far enough into his problems tonight, first by drinking from her, then by seducing her. If he brought her back with him now, what might he be tempted to do for an encore?
But yet there was a part of him that wanted to hold her close, despite the knowledge that she could - and should - do better than him. He had so little to offer Dylan, yet that didn't keep him from wishing he could give her the world.
"Just call me when you get here," he told Niko. "I'll be waiting for you."
Chapter Twenty-seven
Dylan finished getting dressed while Rio made his plans with Nikolai on the phone. He was going back to Boston tonight. From the sound of it, he'd be taking off as soon as the other warriors came to get him. Twenty minutes, he'd said. Not long at all.
And no mention whatsoever of where that left the two of them now.
Dylan tried not to let that sting, but it did. She wanted some indication that what happened between them tonight had meant something to him too. But he was silent behind her in the little back room of the church as he snapped his cell phone closed and started putting his clothes on.
"Are Nancy and the others all right?"
"Yes," he said from somewhere behind her. "They're all fine. Niko and Kade didn't harm them, and the process of erasing their memories is painless."
"That's good." She leaned over the two half-melted candles and blew them out. In the darkness, she found the courage to ask him the question that had been hanging between them all night. "So, what now, Rio? When are you going to scrub my memory?"
