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“Emin, wait—”

The moment I hear my father’s voice, I want to snap at him, tell him to shut up. Veva and Sarina are in front of me, walking to my SUV so I can take them back to my place.

It feels right, to have them there with me. And maybe it will give Veva and I an opportunity to really talk.

I turn and face my father. He’s slightly out of breath from following me out, and blinks, wiping the back of his hand over his forehead.

“I don’t want to hear it, Dad,” I say, quickly, feeling the weight of Veva’s stare on my back. I know what this looks like to her.

Dad’s brow wrinkles, his head rearing back. “Emin, I know I’ve made a lot of mistakes.” His eyes slide behind me, and I imagine he’s looking at Veva now, before returning his gaze to me. “I just wanted—”

He’s going to warn me away from this, say that offering a Marone a spot in my house is a huge mistake. Never mind the fact that I’m already the right-hand man for the alpha leader. That, realistically, there’s no higher I can climb.

And never mind the fact that it was his wife—my mother—who betrayed our family and dragged our name through the mud, not me.

“We can talk later,” I say it with finality, turn around, and lengthen my strides to catch back up with the girls. Veva helps Sarina boost into the backseat, closes the door behind her, then turns to me.

When her hand lands on my chest, I feel that heat through my shirt, and have to suck in a breath, shocked by the instant, sticky lust that rolls through me.

Of course, I’ve had Veva Marone before, but not like this.

We were together as teenagers—when we were both fumbling and confused, trying to figure out what we liked.

Her body was different then, a straight line from top to bottom. As a teenager, she was so, so skinny—enough that I could run the tip of my finger over her ribs. Shame prickles the back of my neck at the realization—I should have been inviting her to dinner, not hiding her away.

But now she has curves. Hips and thighs. Lines that I would like to trace, relearn.

“Listen,” Veva says, lowering her voice and glancing quickly back at the SUV, as though to make sure Sarina can’t hear her.

“This does not mean I forgive you, do you understand? I’m grateful that you’re letting us stay with you, and I can admit that we need the extra protection, but you and I?

” she pauses, her eyes flicking back and forth between mine, like she’s trying to make sure I’m hearing her loud and clear. “We are not friends, Emin.”

The sound of my name on her tongue makes my skin flush. I open my mouth, wanting to tell her that I’ve never wanted to be her friend —but she’s already turning away, grabbing the passenger door handle and hauling herself up into the SUV without my help.

Sighing, I circle the vehicle and hop into the driver’s side, turning over the ignition and getting the air conditioning going, unable to keep the smile from my face when I hear Sarina let out a sigh of relief from the back seat.

“That’s nice,” she says, and when I glance back at her, see the way she’s looking at the vents, I realize that she’s not used to air conditioning.

Veva runs her hands over her arms and leans back in her chair, and when I adjust the vent so it’s not blowing at her, she glares at me like I’ve slapped her, then turns promptly toward the window.

We ride the rest of the way to my place in silence, the town passing us by quietly through the windows. A pop song plays muted, just under the sound of the air conditioner.

When we pull up to the house and into the driveway, I lead the two of them up to the front, pull my keys out, and unlock the door, suddenly self-conscious of my home.

It’s the same as many of the other houses around here—a hacienda style home, with tan stone and flat roofs, designed to let the heat out and keep the inside nice and cool. It’s clean, simple—I don’t own much, and spend a lot of the day out, anyway.

I bought the house after finishing up a two-year degree at the local community college, with my own savings for the down payment.

Really, I just wanted to get out of my parents’ house.

My mom was excited about me buying my own house, thought it meant I would settle down soon, find a nice girl and start making grandchildren for her.

What she didn’t know was that I’ve been hung up on one woman, and unable to really look at others. Makes it pretty hard to start a family.

“Your house is really nice,” Sarina says when I open the door and let them both step inside. It lights something up inside me, and I resist the urge to say something stupid, like, it could be your house, too .

Instead, I thank her, then clear my throat and climb the stairs, showing them to the first guest room.

“There are two,” I say, “so you could each have one, if you want, but this one has the attached bathroom—”

“We’ll stay together,” Veva says, putting her hands on Sarina’s shoulders and tugging her backward into the room. “If you don’t mind, we’re both very tired.”

Just before she closes the door, she catches my eye.

She may think we don’t know each other anymore, but I know her. I know that look in her eye, know exactly what she’s doing.

Veva might be tired, but she’s closing this door right now because she’s scared .

She’s scared that if we talk to each other, she might accidentally let her guard down.

Let me in. I open my mouth, but before I can say anything to stop her, she’s already shut and locked the door, effectively keeping me out.

***

“Emin,” Kira says, the moment she answers the phone. “Dorian said Veva and Sarina are staying with you—I can’t believe she agreed to that.”

“She barely did,” I say. I’m on the couch, hand over my eyes, feet over the arm. “And the second we got here, she marched right into the bedroom and closed the door on me.”

Kira is quiet for a long moment; then, finally, she says, “There’s something between you two, isn’t there?”

I want to tell her the truth. I want to say, Veva is my mate.

But I don’t. For some reason, it’s impossible for me to scoop the words up, to push them through this phone line and back toward my sister. It feels like they’re buried inside me, half under the space between the Veva in my guest room and the Veva of ten years ago.

I know it was callous of me to break things off with her the way I did, so suddenly, but when she came to our house, I was afraid like I had never been before.

I’m not sure what my father would have done if he’d found her in that closet, and for the first time during our affair, I thought about Veva, instead of thinking about myself.

Too long has gone by since Kira asked the question, but she is nothing if not patient.

Finally, I say, “Yes. There is something.”

“Were you mean to her in high school?” Kira asks, voice quiet. “Like how you were mean to me?”

I could never be mean to someone else like I was with Kira—it was a million times worse with her, because she was my sister.

I was supposed to protect her, but my parents’ fucked up view of the world made me think it was better to shut her out, make sure I wasn’t attached to her, than to stand by her side.

“Something like that,” I manage, throat getting clogged up when I even think about trying to explain what’s happened between Veva and me.

I only managed to get Kira to forgive me last year, when Dorian brought her back home.

The last thing I want to do is remind her of how much I sucked.

“And now she won’t come out of that guest room.

I tried asking if they wanted to order a pizza or something, but there was nothing.

No response. They should eat, but I don’t even know how to get them out of there. ”

“You know what?” Kira says, sounding suddenly giddy. “Give me an hour. I know exactly what will get them out of that room.”

She gives me a set of instructions, and when I hang up, I follow them, moving through the house and getting things ready. I’d do anything to get Veva out of that room, anything to open her up to the idea of talking to me again.