In Plain Sight by Hope Anika

Chapter Twelve

Rye stood beside the Zipper,taking in the midway.

The night was winding down, the crowd thinning; across the lot, Fiona was working the duck pond while Mona and Mort took a break, and Selena was serving nachos to a group of rowdy, inebriated women.

He had to give it to the kid. She worked her tail off. She didn’t complain, either, she just got it done.

She seemed to be hanging in, but the quiet, grim aura she wore warned him that her studied calm was only skin deep. She was going to blow; it was only a matter of time. So he would just stay close and keep watch.

Someone had to catch her when she fell.

At least there was no sign of Dolan—yet. And no word from Max since last night, which wasn’t surprising. Max tended to lose himself in the hunt. Always had, probably always would.

Ares was juggling several small, blow-up basketballs and flirting with the girls lingering in front of his game. Tex, who’d finally managed to show his face, was teaching some kid how to shoot.

He’s good with the kids, Fiona had said, and Rye hadn’t argued. Tex was grizzled and lean; deep lines scored his face, scars marked his hands and he wore a cheap plastic prosthetic where his left foot should be.

Barely hanging on. From his bloodshot eyes to the tremors that shook his hands, to the hammered surface of his gaze, Rye knew the look.

So he said nothing.

His job was not to rock the boat but to facilitate its journey. No matter how much he might want to take Tex apart for being an unreliable dick.

Not his circus; not his monkeys.

And Fi wouldn’t thank him for it.

Tex notwithstanding, she ran a surprisingly tight ship. Rye would’ve never imagined how much work went into a show like this; a few rides, some cotton candy, a game or two. How hard could it be?

Turns out, damned hard. Not like training with a hundred-pound pack hard, or running an op hard, and definitely not fighting a war hard, but exhausting as hell, nonetheless.

They were up bright and early with the sun. Running to the store for supplies—sugar, ice, lemons, and apples—unloading new stock and re-flashing the stands, collecting the litter that people left behind. Inflating stock, blowing up balloons, cleaning and testing the .22s. Ensuring the duck pond had enough water, grinding twenty pounds of ice into snow; melting cheese, caramel, and butter. Spinning endless bags of cotton candy and popping a small mountain of popcorn. Elsewhere on the midway, rides were hosed down, cleaned and checked, garbage cans were emptied, belts were tightened and sprayed with lubricant. Bulbs were replaced, fencing was straightened, and breakfast was wolfed down while on the move. And that was just the two hours before they opened.

Once they were open, they were on. Smiling, selling, schmoozing. The energy level was high and constantly maintained, all of the interaction designed to keep people engaged and excited and happy. Happy to participate; happy to spend. They were selling an experience, and everyone took making that experience the best it could be very seriously. It wasn’t a lark or a holiday; it was a job. It paid the bills and filled the table, and they did it with unwavering dedication and determination.

Working a crowd, he’d learned, took both skill and endless energy. It also required the ability to read people, both the individual and the group that formed when a few became many. How to gauge their mood; how to manage their differences. How to ensure that everyone had such a good time that they came back for more—again and again. He was getting better at it. Fiona throwing him to the wolves with the .22 had helped, as had watching the others.

Mona was the best. Rye could tell she’d been working midways for a long time. While Mort sat in his Packers lawn chair and played electronic golf, Mona chatted up everyone: the parents who brought their toddlers to her duck pond, the older children who wanted to win a prize—even if it was just a cheap whoopee cushion. She lured in the teenagers and the college kids, flirted with the young bucks on the prowl, and laughingly goaded the drunken women who wandered the midway into picking three ducks for a dollar.

It really was something to see.

Ares was talented, as well. Tough enough that no one gave him any crap, but approachable enough that he was never without players.

And Fiona…Fiona revealed an entirely different facet of herself when she worked. One that was effervescent and bold and unflinchingly direct. She was charming and disarmingly open, so warm people gathered to bathe in her light.

Rye couldn’t get enough. Not of the rhythm and energy of this strange, seductive world he found himself within.

And not of her.

Destiny.

He hadn’t been kidding. And at some point, she was going to understand that.

He knew it sounded crazy; it felt a little crazy.

He didn’t particularly give a shit.

This wasn’t a place he would’ve chosen, nor one he would’ve imagined welcoming him. But both were true.

It was his now. Another thing he hadn’t expected to be given.

Not bad, considering his current track record.

Talk to you about what—exactly? About our parents, who were absent and addicts? About Max deserting me at the foot of their graves when I was fifteen and never looking back? Or maybe about how today was the first time I’d seen him since that day.

Her laugh had made him flinch.

Do you want me to tell you that it doesn’t matter if he loves me, because I’ll never, ever trust him again? That I’ll never trust anyone?

He’d hurt her, and he regretted it. But her fury and pain were a step forward, one he would take.

Is that what you want to talk about? Because that’s the whole ugly story: beginning, middle, and end. Happy now? Do you understand now? Can we stop talking about this now?

He was a fixer. A mender, mediator, mitigator.

But he had no experience with family; no true understanding of those kinds of relationships. The idea that he could somehow rebuild a bridge that had burned long ago was ludicrous. Arrogant, presumptuous, profoundly stupid.

It was not his place to try and fix what was broken.

But they were going to have to work it the hell out.

Because he wasn’t giving anyone up.

Fi would come to understand that, too.

The wind rose, chilly and damp, making the tent that sat across from the Zipper shiver. It was dark blue; stars and colorful, dense galaxies had been painted across the canvas. The fresh scent of burning sage wafted from the dark interior and teased his nostrils.

A folding wooden sign sat before the tent. Athena the All Knowing, Oracle.

A woman suddenly appeared in the tent’s opening. She hugged the shadows, but the deep, brilliant red of her hair gleamed in the bright white light cast by the Zipper. Her eyes were icy, winter blue, and when they met his, awareness nipped at his skin. “Reading?”

The darkness inside of him stirred uneasily. “No, thank you.”

The woman watched him, her gaze measuring. Opaque. Creepy.

A chill whispered through him, and the hair across his frame bristled, neither of which he ignored.

The world was full of things no human understood; the feral, protective self within him was proof enough of that.

“We should talk,” she told him, her pale eyes glinting.

Rye made himself walk toward her. Although his stride was easy, he was tense. The woman’s presence was palpable, powerful, a striking contrast to the delicate beauty of her build.

“Talk about what?” he wanted to know.

She turned away and walked into the tent, and for a moment he debated whether or not to follow. His nerves were crackling like live wires, and the wild, primitive awareness that’d kept him breathing since he was a kid was agitated as hell.

He didn’t want to go into that tent.

Which was fucking stupid, and yet…

True.

He made himself step into the tent. Colorful golden solar lights wound around the interior framework, casting a soft, gentle glow on the small, round wooden table and chairs that dominated the space. A large, pale pink stone sat in the center of the table like a giant Easter egg cradled in a twisted wooden base. A lit candle sat beside the stone. The interior of the tent had been painted as well; galaxies pulsed with luminescent inner light and asteroids gleamed as they tore through the seeming infinity of space.

The woman sat down at the table and smiled at him. His uneasiness grew.

“Talk about what?” he repeated, arching a brow.

“Hello, Oracle.” She waved a hand. “Didn’t you see the sign?”

“Athena the All Knowing?”

“Thea, please.” Her gaze bored into his as if she was sifting through the contents of him. “And you’re Rye Wilder. You’re very…intense.”

He looked at her impassively. “What is it we need to talk about?”

“The fact that there will be blood before this is all over.” Her tone was matter-of-fact. “And that Fi is my friend—my best friend—and if you hurt her, it will be the last thing you ever do. I want your word, Rye Wilder, that you’ll protect my family like the arrogant jackass who brought you here thinks you will.” Her gaze narrowed on him. “Because I can’t tell. Something very determined to keep me out lives inside you. I can’t even see your aura. I’ve never met a man without an aura.”

Rye only stared at her. “Blood?”

“Blood and screams and a mariachi band.”

“What?”

“No narrative; nothing definitive. Just images. Split-seconds in time.” She shrugged. “Similar to dreams, only real.”

Although her eyes were pale, frozen blue, Rye saw the shadow that shimmered just beneath their icy surface. Within her.

Because like always recognized like.

But what she was saying… Blood and screams and a mariachi band.

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

And why was he listening to someone who called herself an oracle?

“You don’t have to believe me,” she said impatiently. “Just remember.”

He watched her for a long, silent moment. Then he held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Oracle.”

She only snorted. “I doubt that very much. I know you’re his friend.”

He gave her an innocent look. “Whose friend?”

“Please.” She rolled her eyes. “Apex predators can’t do guileless, Mr. Wilder. It isn’t in your wheelhouse.”

Which made him smile. “You know Max, I take it.”

“Once,” she said coolly. “But no longer.”

You don’t go near her, you don’t talk to her, you don’t even think about her. Or I’ll kill you.

Hello, Max’s mystery lady.

“You know him,” Rye said softly. “And I’m pretty sure he knows you.”

Thea only blinked at him.

“Ares is your brother,” he guessed.

“Yes.”

“He threatened to hand Max his ass yesterday,” he told her. “Your boy has some serious stones.”

Alarm flashed across her face. “Ares saw Max?”

Rye shrugged. “They lived.” He stared down at her, aware of time passing, that he needed to get back to Selena. But this felt…important. “Max hurt you.”

Another silent, opaque look.

It hadn’t been just Fiona that Max had walked away from, Rye realized. Thea. Ares.

How many others?

A list of regrets Max was finally trying to make peace with. And the reason they were really here.

Whether Max would admit it, or not.

Rye had tried to outrun his past on more than one occasion, but you couldn’t change skins. A fact his friend was just beginning to accept.

“It all happened a long time ago,” Thea said into the silence. “It’s done now.”

But Rye knew a lie when he heard one. Grief and anger and pain when he saw it.

He wondered who she was trying to convince.

“Blood and screams and a mariachi band.” He nodded. “Should be hard to miss.”

She sighed. “One can only hope.”

A sudden, almost blinding need to escape the tent surged through him. Instinctive; visceral and without hesitation. The untamed part of him exploding into awareness, alert, impatient, agitated as hell.

He needed to go.

He headed for the opening. “Do you want to see him?”

Thea froze, her gaze glued to his.

“I can tell him,” he said. “If you want. He’ll come.”

She stared at him like he’d slapped her with a fish.

He halted in the opening, the wildness within him screaming. “Just let me know. And if you get any more…intelligence.”

“Intelligence,” she echoed faintly. “That’s a new one.”

“I have to go,” he said.

“I know.” Her pale eyes glittered like stones. “Promise you’ll take care of them.”

“I will.”

He stepped from the tent to find everything as he’d left it: Ares juggling, Fiona at the duck pond, Selena busy in the wagon.

But leaving the tent didn’t ease the disquiet surging through him. Adrenaline flooded his veins, and he made himself stop, inhale deeply, and listen. He looked around slowly, his eyes tracing every face, probing every shadow, his ears separating screams from the squeal of brakes, the fifties band in the beer tent from the hard rock emanating from the Zipper. And then—

There.

Another wave of heightened, intense agitation washed through him.

There. Right there.

In the middle of the midway stood a man. Large, belligerent. Drunk.

He was big, at least six-foot-five, and thick with muscle. Wrapped in biker leathers and a red t-shirt, with matching steel-toed boots and a bright yellow bandana. The ring on his right hand would break bone.

His ham-like fist punched the air. “Bunch of gypsy assholes. Bunch of goddamned cons and liars! Liiiaarrrrs!” He staggered toward the duck pond, pointed at Fiona. “You’re gonna regret coming to my town!”

She only blinked at him, her face cold. “Bring it, Barney.”

He stumbled toward her.

Rye focused on him with single-minded intensity. Selena was in the wagon spinning a cone of cotton candy; in his peripheral vision, he could see Mick and his boys headed in the same direction, but they were too far off.

It took only a moment to cross the midway.

“…stealin’ people’s hard-earned money, filthy pieces of shit, and you, too, you rotten, lyin’ bitch!”

Fiona climbed onto the counter of the duck pond, and Rye’s heart stopped in his chest. Mona grabbed her arm; Ares stepped in front of the biker.

“Back off, man,” the boy said. He held his place as the giant lurched toward him. “We don’t want any trouble—”

“Speak for yourself,” Fiona said.

“I’m gonna teach you your fuckin’ place!” the biker crowed. He opened his mouth to say more, but Rye didn’t give him the opportunity.

He didn’t waste time or effort; he just put the man down.

A sharp, powerful blow to the temple, and the drunk crumpled. Rye was on him in the next instant, rolling him over and planting one knee on the guy’s neck, the other in his kidney. When the biker roared and reared up, Rye his forehead into the ground, hard. Once. Twice.

A third time.

“Rye,” Fiona said, and he wrestled with the seething, hungry, violent thing within him.

It wanted blood.

Mick suddenly stood beside him, a hard look on his face.

“Enough,” he said, his voice ringing with authority. He gestured to the two large young men behind him. “Get this garbage out of here.”

Rye didn’t move, every part of him rebelling; he wasn’t done.

“Rye,” Fi said again, and he looked at her.

Her cheeks were flushed; her eyes were glittering. Her agitation, her exhilaration smashed into his, and instantly the need for blood morphed into the need for her.

“Do you want to take a shot, little flower?” he asked roughly.

A wide, warm, beautiful smile curved her mouth. “No, but thanks for the offer.”

“I said enough,” Mick repeated in an annoyed tone.

For a moment, Rye didn’t move. Because it wasn’t enough for him.

But Fi was watching, and he could almost feel the lash of her adrenaline. The surge of her blood; the heat rolling off of her skin. So he pushed himself up and freed his quarry.

Mick’s boys reached down and dragged the man to his unsteady feet. He was blinking from the punch.

He’d still be blinking like that in the morning.

“Next time, I won’t be so welcoming,” Rye told him.

“There won’t be a next time,” Mick replied. He shot Fiona a look, but she ignored him. Then he turned and strode away, his boys dragging the biker behind him.

“That was awesome,” Ares said. “Seriously.”

Rye shook his head. “I should’ve had him before he opened his mouth.”

“We can handle it,” the kid said and shrugged. “We always do. But I like your way. Can you teach me that?”

“Don’t encourage him,” Mona cut in. She dug a cigarette from her pack and lit it with shaking hands. “And you shouldn’t encourage her, either.” She jerked a thumb at Fiona. “We don’t need another incident.”

Rye’s brows rose. “Incident?”

“Not relevant,” Fiona said and climbed nimbly over the counter.

She hurried away, and Rye was torn between waiting for an answer and following her.

“Go,” Mona said and smiled at him. “I’ll fill you in later.”

“Promise?”

“Count on it.”

He turned and strode past Ares and his balloon joint, past Tex—who’d merely watched the show, unmoving, from his metal stool—and caught Fiona just as she moved to disappear behind the line of games.

His hand closed around her arm, and need spiked the blood that pumped through him. He yanked her to a halt just behind the .22 trailer. He could see Selena moving around the popcorn wagon, less than ten feet away.

“What?” Fiona demanded, but she was breathless, and that endorphin-fueled excitement glittered wildly in her eyes. She didn’t pull away.

He claimed her other arm, which was strong, sleek with muscle, and lifted her from her feet.

“Rye—”

“He shouldn’t have gotten that close to you.”

Something in his voice must have gotten through because she went still. “I’m fine.”

A growl caught in his chest.

“It’s okay,” she said, her tone soothing. “I have a bat.”

A bat.

His hands tightened on her. The darkness within him boiled, its appetite untouched by the too-brief scuffle with the biker.

Let go, he told himself. High from the clash; adrenaline and dopamine riding shotgun through his blood. His cock was like stone.

Put her down, and step away.

“Dickheads like that come with the territory,” Fiona continued evenly. “Shit happens.”

We can handle it; we always do.

Jesus Christ, how many times had something like that happened?

For a long, tense moment, Rye simply held her there, because he didn’t trust himself to do anything else.

“You would have gone after him,” he said, so he could be certain.

“Only if he made me,” she replied. “The bat makes people think twice.”

Goddamn it!

But at that moment, Rye understood that she needed him as desperately as he needed her.

He pushed her back against the hard, cold surface of the trailer and trapped her there with his weight. Her breasts pooled against his chest; his cock dug into her belly.

“Rye,” she whispered.

He bent down and rubbed his face against her neck. Nipped her with sharp teeth.

A violent tremor shook her. “What-what are you doing?”

Losing my mind. Stealing yours.

He licked her, and she inhaled sharply, a soft sound working in her throat. “Trying not to lose my temper.”

“Why…why would you lose your temper?”

“A fucking bat,” he ground out and nipped her again. “Goddamn, you.”

He pressed a kiss to the hollow of her throat and lashed her with his tongue.

“It’s a good weapon,” she protested breathlessly and shivered against him. “People run from bats.”

That she knew that made his hold tighten.

“Rye,” she said again, and her voice stroked his cock like it was her hand.

He sank against her; soft, lush, welcoming heat; her legs parted to let him in. He licked her again, and she shuddered, her breath catching. Her t-shirt was askew, and the sensitive curve where her neck and shoulder met beckoned; he leaned down and bit her.

Hard.

Her hips surged against him, and a moan rippled from her throat, and all of the fury and need and wild, unruly hunger he kept so tightly leashed pulled viciously against its hold.

“I’m going to kiss you,” he told her roughly.

“That’s not a good idea.” But her fingers dug deep into his shoulders, holding him to her, and her nipples were hard, burning points against his chest. “This…it’s… Dangerous.”

He couldn’t deny it.

“My tongue in your mouth or my hand paddling your ass,” he told her. “Your choice.”

But he didn’t give her a chance to choose. He just took her mouth.

There was no finesse. No gentle teasing, no hesitant touches. His kiss was a hungry, untamed melding that was aggressive and wet and openly, reverently sexual. His tongue pushed into her mouth and stroked along hers; his hands slid down to cup her ass, to lift her against him so he could grind against her.

He swallowed the moan she made, and when her hands slid into his hair and clenched there, tugging against his scalp, his cock throbbed exquisitely in response. He wanted to touch her, to stroke her breasts, to rub her nipples; to thrust his tongue into the sweet, slick flesh between her legs.

Everything.He wanted—

“A-hem,” coughed a voice loudly. “I hate to interrupt your mating call, but I need to drain the main vein.”

Fiona tore her mouth from his, her eyes wide, hazy, the beat of her heart wild against him. Her mouth was wet.

Rye didn’t want to let her go.

“I mean, if you can spare a second.”

She was shaking against him; air shuddered in and out of her lungs. Her fingers still gripped his hair.

Everything in him rejected violently the idea of pushing her away.

But now was not the time.Or the place.

What happened between them would be private.

His.

Rye gritted his teeth and forced himself to lower her gently to the ground.

To steady her when she faltered.

“Dangerous,” she whispered and closed her eyes.

“Fated,” he told her and ran a gentle hand over her hair.

“I can whiz in the trees,” Tex continued, “but—”

“One of us will be right there.” Rye turned to give him a flat look.

Tex returned the look, unmoved. Fiona went to step away, and Rye put a hand against the trailer, halting her.

They weren’t done yet.

But Tex didn’t move. His gaze moved to Fi and waited, and while that irritated the crap out of Rye, he appreciated that the man wasn’t willing to leave her with someone who was—as far as he and everyone else was concerned—a stranger.

“Give me a minute,” she muttered.

Tex nodded and shot Rye a glare of warning before turning and walking away. Beyond him, Selena was cleaning the windows in the wagon.

Rye looked down at Fiona, who watched him with a tense, closed expression.

“No more bats,” he told her.

“You don’t get to decide.”

The steel in her voice matched the cold set of her mouth.

Running away.

But he’d expected as much. Nothing about her was easy. Because when she gave herself, she would give everything, and it would be forever.

He couldn’t blame her for making him work for it.

“We decide,” he told her softly. “Us, in tandem, together. No more bats, baby. I’m all the weapon you need.”

She stared at him, her eyes glittering and dark. “It’s just sex. Sex isn’t kismet. It’s biology.”

He smiled. Lifted his hand and stroked her soft mouth with his thumb. Felt her gasp against his skin.

He loved her mouth. Wide and full, petal-soft. He wanted to stroke it with his cock, too.

“The smaller you try to make us,” he murmured, “the bigger we grow.”

“This isn’t normal!” She jerked away from his touch. “Nothing about this is normal. Don’t you see that? We’re strangers!”

“Honey, we’ve never been strangers.”

“See? Not normal. Do you understand how you sound? We’re ‘fated.’ It’s ‘destiny.’ ‘I’m all in.’ It’s insane.”

“Yep.”

She blinked. “You agree?”

“I knew it was crazy the first time I saw your picture,” he told her. “That’s her, I thought. She’s the one.”

“That’s not—that’s obsession.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t make it any less true.”

She stared at him, her pulse a panicked beat in her throat. And he couldn’t help himself; he leaned down and flicked it with his tongue.

A raw sound escaped her, and he licked her, taking the time to taste.

“Please,” she said.

“If you tell me no, I’ll listen,” he told her because it needed to be said. “I’ll go. You have a choice in this, honey. I don’t have to like it.”

“You…you really think we’re…”

Her words fell away as she watched him, and he knew she was afraid of speaking them.

Of making them real.

“Soul mates,” he whispered.

She shook her head. “That’s foolishness.”

Which might have wounded him, if he didn’t understand how terrified she was of believing in someone. Anyone. The sole person she’d counted on—her only family in the whole, wide world—had abandoned her. And the last thing she wanted to do was open herself to that kind of risk again.

Rye understood that better than anyone else ever could.

“It’s okay, sweetness,” he murmured. “You’ll see.”

“I don’t want to see!” she yelled.

Her hands slammed into his chest, and she shoved against him, but he didn’t move, and she snarled at him low in her throat.

“I don’t want anything!” she cried. “Can’t you see that? It’s impossible. A lie. It’s always a lie! You have to let me go! You have to stop…stop calling me baby, stop telling me you care, stop being so… I won’t do this. Do you hear me? You have to go. You said you would go. So just go!”

He stared at her, his heart too big, painful in his chest.

He knew she didn’t mean it; it was just her fear talking. He’d pushed too hard, too soon.

Everything with Max, with Selena; the biker, the adrenaline.

The powerful, confusing, consuming pull between them.

That kiss.

But goddamn.

It hurt.

In the end, though, he’d told her the truth: it was her choice.

She had the right to make it.

And he didn’t have to like it.

So he stepped back until she was out of reach.

And she stared at him, tears glittering in her eyes, her hands curled into fists.

“As you wish,” he told her.

Then he turned and walked away.