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As I opened my mouth to, I didn’t even know, maybe scream, he said, “The Santa Cruz pack is on a No Hunt Order. They have been for over thirty years, ever since the turf war with the vampires in the eighties. A tourist will go missing every now and then, but they don’t usually mess with the locals.”

They don’t usually? My fingers dug into the leather seat. I couldn’t decide what freaked me out more, another blood-lusting species—vampires, really!?—or Ryder’s nonchalance about it.

“Yeah, well one of their pack members broke that streak tonight and attacked me.” The same opportunistic prick who’d cornered me at Grad Night. And did even worse before that. “And by some crazy twist of fate I made it out alive.” I kept the whole controlling-the-ocean thing on the DL. At this point, it was a tidbit he didn’t deserve to get. And I still didn’t even understand exactly what had happened myself. “No thanks to you.”

He went silent before he asked, “Are you…okay?”

“I’m fine. Thanks for asking. But—” Despite being unsettled enough to check the area in case I needed help after he literally threw me to the wolves, he what, ignored the screams? Blew off the dozens of people fleeing the scene? In his words, he was a hunter; he should’ve been able to sense the chaos, even from the road. I shook my head, my thoughts and emotions tangling my words. “Your timing is just weird,” I finally muttered.

“Funny, I thought it was just right.” His tone was flat.

“Didn’t your parents ever teach you that vanity isn’t a virtue?” I snapped.

“My parents died when I was four, so my priority was learning how to survive.” His throat bobbed, like the words stuck there. “Virtues don’t make the top of the list in survival skills.”

Well, now I was the asshole. “I’m sorry. I-I didn’t know.”

“But instincts do.” His green eyes flared as they met mine. He spoke as if he hadn’t heard me. “And my gut keeps leading me back to you.”

My spine straightened at his admission.

The wall he’d built around his emotions had held up so well I’d doubted it’d ever break. For days I had chiseled at his stony exterior and hadn’t even made a dent. In this moment outside the city limits, heated from our perpetual bickering and raw from unexpected truths, I’d finally gotten through.

What now? I reached for his hand atop the stick shift in the cheesiest, most cliché move possible, and yet it couldn’t have felt more perfect.

In an instant, the unsolvable riddle of Ryder became so easy to read. His dark humor, his arrogance, his self-importance: it all had that touch of grief. We shared an identity most were lucky enough not to. Left. Lonely. Incomplete. With my other hand I clutched the lapis between my collarbones, longing for its familiar comfort.

“I lost my mom.” I was surprised to hear the words coming out of my mouth. “It…was a tragic accident that happened when I was eight. We were at the beach and”—I held my eyes shut for a moment as a rush of words tangled my tongue—“I got pulled out to sea. She drowned trying to save me.”

“Death isn’t something most people are comfortable with, but it’s all Leif and I know.” Ryder’s thumb stroked my pinky, and I went rigid at the slow movement. “You start talking to me about the meaning of life? That’s when I make a run for it.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“And-I’m-sorry-too.” He rushed through each syllable like it might curse him, the apology clearly not a common phrase in his vocabulary. “About your mom. And…that I left you.”

I accepted with a subdued “thanks,” not wanting to overplay my gratitude and have him retreat again. Because this, having someone to talk and relate to for no other reason than it just seemed natural, felt good. And the more we talked, the more I wanted to know about him.

After a moment I asked, “Are you and your brother close?”

“He raised me after our parents passed.” Ryder gripped the steering wheel tighter. “We don’t play pranks on each other or have video game nights or even regularly eat dinner together. But he taught me how to hunt and how to shoot an arrow, how to thrive in the forest.”

Life skills that, sure, maybe someone learns in Cub Scouts, but survival skills starting at four years old? What about blueberry pancake breakfasts and building forts and learning how to surf? Even if Ryder had wanted to experience that, he’d never had the chance to. It was kind of sad.

“I owe Leif everything. He’s more than a brother; he’s the closest to a father I’ve ever had.” Despite the praise, Ryder’s voice rang cold, no hint of the warmth that I’d expect to hear from someone sharing stories about a loved one.

I found myself staring down at my pendant, my fingers worrying the stone. “His opinion must be really important to you then.” Without my consent, a memory popped into my head: Just some girl, he’d reassured Leif.

“It’s more than that.” His gaze remained fixed on the road. “Without him I’d be dead.”

A deafening quiet settled between us, the air heavy and charged. I didn’t press further, partly because the echo of what he’d said to his brother started to sink in again. If I was just some girl, then why hadn’t his thumb stopped tracing the side of my hand? Why did it arc wider, with a hint of pressure? And why did my pinky flutter in response? Why did it rub back with a mind of its own?

Soon the middle of nowhere led into outskirts and outskirts became boulevards. The night sky, once dotted with stars, now washed out by the city’s glow.

We slowed to stop at a red light, the streetlamps illuminating our path like an airstrip.

“Well, here we are, just two lost souls.” Ryder toggled the gear shift, the jerky movement causing my hand to slip from his. “What do you want to do?”

I glanced at him suddenly, taken aback by the question and the low drawl to his voice.