Last night hadn’t been shameful indulgence in a dirty need, or a guilty binge followed by a morning of regret. Hell, last night had barely been kinky. They’d only skated the boundaries of the sort of dominance games she’d plunged into headfirst dozens of times, but the driving need for more that had always hollowed out her gut and left her listless had been markedly absent.
Julio didn’t have to prove his dominance to be dominant. He simply was. She’d goaded Josh for more, had pushed them both into darker sex and more extreme expressions of dominance, but every act had been hollow because she’d confused needing an alpha shifter with needing a dominant lover.
Not that she didn’t want the dominant lover. She peeked over the rack of chips and bit her lip as she watched Julio studying the drinks, his expression relaxed and easy. She had a feeling that Julio had no intention of rushing that aspect of their relationship, no matter how recklessly she offered. And the need to push him had faded with the warm glow of contentment. She was safe. She was cared for.
She was loved. Maybe. Probably. Even the most cynical, scathing part of her broken human heart was sure he hadn’t dropped those words out of gratitude for a little kinky ass play. No, it felt real enough, which only made her smile goofily as she picked out a bag of chips and a couple packs of bubblegum.
She rounded the corner and slammed straight into the clerk, who’d apparently been hovering at the end of the aisle, watching Julio. He jumped back with a muttered apology and hurried around the counter, and Sera tried to shake off an uncomfortable attack of paranoia as she moved to Julio’s side. When she glanced back, the clerk was still leaning against the edge of the counter, his suspicious gaze fixed on them.
Creepy. She edged closer to Julio. “You almost ready?”
“I think so.” He glanced at the items in her hands. “Got everything?”
“Enough junk food to make it to Tennessee. You?”
A bottled soda dangled from one hand. “I’m not really hungry.”
She took his drink and grabbed one for herself. “Then let’s get out of here.”
His eyes had taken on a glazed, far-off look. It lasted only a moment before he shook it off and held up the keys. “Want to wait in the car?”
A premonition. Her skin prickled, the spot between her shoulder blades beginning to itch as if she could feel the clerk staring a hole through her back. “Is there trouble?”
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
An offer, then, but not an order. If he’d thought for a second she’d be in danger, Sera had no doubt he’d have hustled her out the door without giving her a choice. This was that confusing middle ground between blind obedience and trusting submission.
Her decision. She didn’t want to leave him, not when something in the air felt wrong, so she shook her head. “I’d rather stick with you, if that’s okay.”
“Sure.” He made his way up to the counter, where the clerk had busied himself with straightening a display. They made plenty of noise piling their merchandise beside the register, but the man didn’t acknowledge them.
A snub. A deliberate one, and she had a few seconds to be baffled that it seemed directed at Julio before the truth drove a fist to her gut. They’d spent so much of their trip surrounded by wolves who looked at her and saw other that she’d forgotten that the small-minded bastards in the human world had their own jackassy prejudices.
Her nails scratched across the counter as she struggled to keep her voice even. Julio probably wouldn’t appreciate her tearing out the clerk’s throat. Probably. “Excuse me? Could we pay?”
No answer, but the clerk began to tally their purchases. When he finished, he glanced at Julio with barely veiled contempt. “Anything else?”
Julio pulled in a deep breath, but he couldn’t keep an edge of bite out of his tone. “No, that’s everything.” He had to check the cash register’s digital display for the total, and he handed over a folded bill. “We’re fine without a bag.”
Sera snatched up the purchases and glared at the bastard until he looked away, as if he couldn’t even commit to bigotry when it required some sort of actual confrontation.
Fucking coward.
Julio crossed the lot and unlocked her car door in silence. When he slid into the driver’s seat, he gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white.
The urge to stride back into the gas station to perpetuate some redneck-on-redneck violence ratcheted up another notch. “I’m sorry,” she said instead, dumping the food into the back seat.
He shook his head. “I don’t even—it’s not the stupid shit, not really. Being watched like a hawk in the store or people who assume I don’t speak English. Not even people who tell me to go back to Mexico where I belong. The part that bugs the hell out of me is…there’s nothing to do. I might embarrass someone, but I’m not going to change their minds. At best, I could have made that asshole in there feel like an asshole. But at worst, the whole goddamn thing could have turned ugly.”
It would have turned ugly, but not because of Julio. It would have gone bad because she could shrug off the sneers and the slurs and even the threats when they were directed at her, but the instinct to protect would always rocket to the surface when someone hurt the man she loved.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, reaching for his hand. “Sorry that people suck, and sorry I almost made it worse. If this is how you feel when the wolves talk shit about me, I’m sorry I keep telling you to ignore it.”
He finally met her gaze, turned his hand up to close around hers. “That’s a lot of sorry, especially considering none of it is your fault.”
“Well, the last part kind of is. I want to go back in there and beat the hell out of him for hurting you. That makes me a big dumb hypocrite.”
The clerk was staring out the window at him, the telephone receiver in one hand. Julio snorted and started the car. “Let’s be hypocrites together, then. But not here.”
“Lucky bastard,” she muttered as Julio pulled back onto the highway. “You’ve never seen me issue a righteous beat down. I used to seriously get into it with the female wolves my age in high school.”
“I’m sure your dad was thrilled.”
“Honestly, I kind of think he was. I mean, he didn’t want me punching other girls in the face.”
But Franklin had always fought to instill a sense of independence into her. A backbone and a confidence that she deserved decent treatment and respect, even from shapeshifters who outranked her.
Julio brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. “But he wanted you to be able to take care of yourself?”
His phone rang before she could answer, and Sera freed her hand. “Want me to get that?”
He nodded to the center console. “You can put it on speaker.”
“Unknown number,” she told him as she dragged her thumb across the screen, a sudden chill slithering through her. Unknown calls. She hadn’t thought of Josh—not really thought about him, and worried about the fact that he was still out there—in days.
But the voice that spilled out of the speaker wasn’t Josh. It was a female voice, pitched low and thick with tears. Frantic. “J-Julio?”
A frown creased his brow. “Aunt Teresa?”
She exhaled a shaky sigh and mumbled something unintelligible, followed by words that chilled Sera’s blood. “They killed him. They’ve done it, because of me. What I told them.”
Julio’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “Who, Dad and Uncle Cesar?”