When the Wolves Cry (Twin Flames Duet #1)

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

TALA

Sweet blackberry fizzes over my tongue, sliding tepid down my throat and flushing my cheeks.

Plush snow is falling and melting against my hot face. It’s freezing outside, but for some reason the smell of Thanksgiving cooking in my parents’ kitchen is nauseating.

I’m usually a menace to my mom, constantly creeping over her shoulder and stealing tastes that continuously edge me until my plate is sitting before me. But, knowing that five women are somewhere other than with their families for the holiday of thanks—is twisting my stomach and lighting a fire under my ass to find them.

I just don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. And Jax is trying his best. I know he’s exhausted and growing more aggravated with each passing day.

But how can you find someone that doesn’t exist?

Brutus is under our nose somewhere. And the trepidation of something terrible happening has been wiggling under my skin and clawing my chest open.

Gerald and Beth have been doing fine. Nothing crazy has happened outside of one of their dogs doing literalbackflips. I’m not sure why she called to tell me that yesterday. It honestly freaked us out seeing her name pop up, and Jax picked me up like a doll and started sprinting out the door.

“Honey,” Mom says sweetly from the back door. “Why don’t you come in from the cold? Dad called. He and Jax are heading back with the meat.”

I take another gulp of wine, unable to handle the mental image of Jax doing something manly such as hunting for food and bringing it back home. “Are Leon and Maverick bothering you?” I ask with a light laugh, attempting to redirect the conversation.

Despite Jax’s mixed feelings about it, I invited Leon to spend Thanksgiving with us. He doesn’t have family or friends outside of Jax here. I’d never knowingly leave someone to be alone on a holiday that’s supposed to be about coming together—blood or not. And Maverick, he’s been family for nine years and hasn’t missed a single holiday in the Huxley house.

Mom smiles, her overlapped front teeth shining out.

A light golden face appears above her head, his thin eyes targeting me with heartbreak. “Mija,” he whines. “I thought we were buddies?”

I snort over my wine glass, the sweet notes blowing warm up my frozen nose.

He slips past my mom and starts heading towards the egg chair I’m in.“It is so on,” he says impishly.

I raise my brow, reaching over to set my wine glass down on a log table. “Are you trying to fight, Leon?” I stand up, making sure myoversizedsweater doesn’t get hung up on my ass.

“Oh, you kids,” Mom croons, backing away and getting replaced with Maverick’s interested face.

Stopping in front of me, Leon weaves his torso left and right, trying to fake me out and mess me up.

I train with the Devil though.

“Ah,” he smiles, waving a hand through the air. “I’m justplayin’ with you. You throw down with the wolves. You’d probably snap my spine.”

“She also has the nimbleness of a cat,” Maverick chimes. “I’ve seen her turn into liquid and effortlessly squeeze through the slats on the fence in front of the Visitor Center.”

I shake my head, not understanding his infatuation with that, and claw around my wine glass to raise it to my lips.

Leon heads for the door with chattering teeth. I couldn’t tell you what he said though. The fiery embers tingling my back deplete my cognitive skills.

Taking a big drink of sweet bubbles, I look over my shoulder and damn near choke, gaping at the six foot-eight man in camouflage. I whimper, the sound of my distress echoing in my glass.

His black eyes are locked on me, hauling a buck to the shed my dad cleans the animals in. Dad’s smiling, talking away to him, but nothing innocent is circulating in Satan’s unholy mind.

I need to go inside before I start humping the fucking air like a dog in heat.

I rip my sight away from the embodiment of sex, and flash towards the empty door. If I wouldn’t have guzzled down the last of my wine, it would’ve splashed out of the glass and ruined my favorite sweater.

Cheers to gluttony.

I close the door behind me, taking in a big inhale of the warm spices that knot my stomach. “Oh, my God,” I breathe squeamishly, tongue rapidly growing wet with the urge to vomit.

Mom spins around, a half-peeled potato in hand, and scrunches her forehead quizzically. “Are you okay, honey?”

I set my glass down on the table in between Maverick and Leon who are both staring at me in concern. “Mm-hmm,” I hum, quickly departing from the kitchen.

I rush down the hall, head spinning and stomach churning. The plum walls pulse as I graze my hand across them, seeking stability out of fear of passing out while I scamper into the bathroom.

I kick my foot back, slamming the door closed with my boot, and barrel towards the toilet right as the purple liquid comes up. It splashes in the water, burning my throat like fucking butane and scorching the lining of my stomach.

Gripping the toilet seat and falling to my knees, I continue retching up the wine that has never steered me wrong.

It’s not the wine that’s making me sick.

It’s the fact that we live among vile monsters who are getting away with inhumane shit on a daily basis. And here we are, in the comfort of home, about to enjoy a meal that the women and dogs are not receiving.

I wipe the acidic stream from my bottom lip, flushing the murky water down and standing up. Mom always has extra toothbrushes in the second drawer under the sink. It started when Nadia and Maverick would stay the night all the time but would forget oral hygiene.

Mom used to be a dental assistant, so you can understand how frightening that was for her.

I brush my teeth and scrub my tongue, tossing the disposable toothbrush in the trash can next to the toilet.

My stomach is still queasy, but my mouth is fresh with mint and subsiding the urge to get on my knees again.

A soft knock comes from the bathroom door. I run my fingers through the hairs framing my face, smoothing them down and hiding the terror that just unfolded in here, and open the door.

“You okay, sweetheart?” Dad asks, looking behind me as if my vomit will explode from the toilet like the bathroom scene from IT .

“Yep,” I smile, sliding past him. “Is Jax still outside?”

“Yeah. My old man hands needed a break. He’s out there cuttin’ the big guy up.” He gestures with his thumb, then fades into the bathroom and closes the door.

I walk away and into the kitchen, side eyeing my mom spoon feeding both the guys a mystery liquid, and I hold my breath until I make it back outside.

The crisp, clean air dissolves the insistent nausea. I trill my lips and cross my fingers that the smell is off my breath, following the blood droplets that trail to the shed.

The headless buck is strung up by its hind legs, large hands holding it steady and flaying its skin. Yet the sight of the demon skinning a carcass doesn’t turn my stomach the way the smells in the kitchen have been.

I mosey over to the side table I used to always sit and watch my dad from and hop up onto it.

He tracks me from the corner of his eye, making the last cut that drops the hide in one piece. “Why was Leon close enough to kiss you?” he asks, jealousy edged in his stern tone.

I stifle my grin by biting my lip. But my cheeks tense up and broadcast my amusement anyway. “We were about to fight. He got scared though and backed down.”

He sizes me up, and stalks over to me with the knife in his hand. “Hmm. Do you think that’s appropriate?” He pushes himself in between my parted legs, widening them around his size and flattening a hand next to my ass.

I look up through my lashes, hooking my fingers into his belt to pull him closer. “I wasn’t on my knees about to suck his dick. So yeah, I think it was appropriate.”

His lip twitches, hunter eyes sharpening to swords. He bends down to my face, blatantly smelling my breath and gripping my hip with ferocious force. “Why’d you brush your teeth?” he questions gruffly.

I’m not telling him I got sick. I started the pill after my Pap smear on the twenty-eighth of October. It’s messing with my usual cycle and he’s freaking the hell out about it.

“Because my mom reminded me how much sugar would be sitting on them from the wine,” I lie, swallowing thickly as I remember he’s a human lie detector.

The knife moves to my throat, a snarl forming with the fast twitch in his lip. I try retreating from the blade infested with bacteria, but the sharp point follows and tacks to my flesh under his collar. “Whythe fuckare you lying to me?”

“How do you know I’m lying?” I snip. His hand moves from my hip and into my hair, cruellyfistingit and jerking my head back. “Ow, asshole!”

He gets nose to nose with me, inching the blade over the charm and up my throat. “Your eyes. They tell me the truth as the lie spills from your tongue. The only time I’ve witnessed you lie flawlessly was when you whipped your pretty tits out for the guard.”

He’s such a psychopath.

It’s always made my pussy throb with need. And right now, it’s thrumming through my sheer tights and against hiscamo pants.

Hooking my calves behind his tight ass, I grind into the thick fabric that’s doing nothing to disguise his monster cock. “I’m not going to tell you the truth,” I whisper, worried the blade will slice open my skin if I talk too loudly.

Darkness afflicts his impatient eyes, the sharp blade scratching over my lips. “Tala, I will pull your goddamn teeth right the fuck out if you don’t tell me.”

“No, you won’t,” I challenge.

He cocks a brow, lowering the knife and letting it clatter to the table. “I don’t bluff, baby.” My eyes widen as his hand latches around my jaw, his fingers driving through my cheeks and into my teeth.

Pain circulates heavily in the thick tissue, prompting a whine of agony to start in my throat. It belts off my tongue as I stretch my mouth open, relieving the pressure that’s bringing tears to my eyes.

Two of his fingers slide over and hook into my bottom teeth, instituting straight fucking terror to seize my muscles. “Okay!” I panic.

His fingers ignore my plea and creep farther in, sliding the gamy germs over my taste buds, and his jaw tics, waiting to receive what he wants.

You know what? Fuck you.

I snap my teeth together, biting down on the tattooed skin encasing bone. My head jerks past my shoulders, strands of my hair breaking off at the scalp, and I maintain my bite to shred his fingers as he rips them from my mouth.

A startling growl thunders deep in his throat and chest, and he gets in my face, guiding my ass all the way back until I’m lying on the table like a scared rabbit caught by a wolf.

“I don’t tolerate being lied to, Tala,” he grinds out darkly.

The alcohol is clouding my judgment.

Tightening my thighs around him, I strain my neck muscles from his iron vice-grip, and hungrily crash my lips to his. Butterflies flutter in my sensitive stomach, causing my skin to tingle witharousement.

He opens his mouth against me, a hot pant fanning my parting lips. I welcome his desperate tongue, sliding mine along the natural sweetness that slicks it over, and I roll my hips to catch friction on the hard length that’s rapidly growing in his pants.

“So fuckin’ manipulative,” he growls, and aggressively locks his lips back with mine.

I smile while nipping at his full lip, then circle my arms around his neck, latching my hands into his hair and tilting my head to reach the back of his tongue.

The sexual tension is making the air humid. Our skin mists over with the glow of ravenous desire, consuming each other’s mouths and panting for oxygen that neither of us want to break away for.

He roughly rolls his hips into me, grinding his inhumane erection into my pulsing clit. I whimper, wanting more, wanting all of him, and get steady friction from him that instantly sparks the build of an orgasm.

“Fuck, Jax,” I whine, clenching my teeth and pinching my brows from the wildfire taking off through my thighs.

He tears away, letting my legs fall over the edge of the table. And the aggravation of losing a fucking orgasm kicks in.

His chest heaves, lips plump and blood kissed, and I shoot up, flip him off, and jump off the table. “Fuck you,” I bite out, and walk away from the sexiest goddamn man that wants to edge me as punishment.

That’s kind of hot of him though.

My skin steams as I stomp through the snow and back to the house. My vagina is soaked and I’m highly considering going into my old bedroom, locking myself in there, and finishing myself off before I have a stroke.

“Tala!” he calls out gruffly. I stop halfway across the yard, fixing my annoyed eyes on Satan standing in the door of the shed. “Come here.”

“Nope,” I dramatically pop the P, and turn around, forcing back a laugh over how mad he gets when I disobey him.

My dad steps outside with a bottle of beer, almost closing the door behind him. He sees the vexation hardening my face and he cringes, pushing the door back open and stepping out of my way. “Mom can give you a little snack plate, sweetheart,” he says cautiously.

I don’t want a snack plate, Dad. I want Satan’s cock climbing up my throat until I see stars.

I nod, storming past him and entering the house that should smell like comfort.

All it does is eat my insides and make my skin crawl.

Maverick’s hand darts out, snatching my hand and yanking my arm back painfully so I can’t skip past him. “What’s going on, killer?” he asks placidly, roaming my flushed cheeks.

Leon’s eyes widen the farthest I’ve ever seen them go, locking in on the way Maverick is holding my hand. I don’t care if he tattles. Mav has been around a lot longer than the fuckingPunisher.

“I don’t know,” I sigh. “I’m not feeling good.”

He grins lightheartedly, raising my hand to his chocolate waves. “You used to always ask to play with my hair. You never said anything, but I always knew you were upset about something, and it seemed to take your mind off it.”

I frown, reflecting on little us and how time changes everything way too quickly. I coil my forefinger around the one wave on the top of his head that holds more structure than the others. “You do realize this curl is tighter because of how often I’d play with this one spot, right?”

He laughs, throwing his hand to his chest and showing off the tiny dimples that hug close to the outer corner of his lips.

“Man, I’d fall asleep and wake up twenty minutes later to my scalp raw and throbbing because of how aggressively she’d tug at that one spot,” he says to Leon—who is still panicking.

“Honey, can Sirohi have some of these carrot tips?”

“That’s fine, Mom,” I say over my shoulder, smoothing Maverick’s hair back out.

Leon curls his hand to his mouth, propping his elbows on the table and volleying Maverick and I. “W-were you guys… You know…”

I slowly blink at his accusation and take my hand back before he starts crying or some shit. “No, Leon. There’s such a thing as platonic affection,” I answer tonelessly.

“I was hammered, I mean, on the precipice of blacking out one night when Tala and Nadia were at a party with me, and I tried kissing her,” Maverick admits with a big ass smile.

“And what happened?” I ask, grinning over the answer and the pure horror overtaking Leon’s face.

“My balls were bruised for like two fucking weeks from how hard she kicked me in them with her big ass boots.”

Mom’s sweet laugh radiates around the kitchen, lowering the anxiety emanating from Leon.

Was there a point I considered exploring further between Maverick and me? Sure. But only because our connection was stronger than magnets growing up.

I never did, though. I wasn’t willing to jeopardize a friendship over a kiss that could’ve made me cringe. Plus, he and Nadia have always had that love/hate relationship that screams “we’re in love but won’t admit it.”

That’s why I kicked him in the dick. And then drove his and Nadia’s drunk asses back to my house, tucked them into my bed, and went and slept on the couch.

“I can attest to their platonic love, Leon,” Mom chimes, a sweet smile on her blushing face. “I never once caught them making out or locking her bedroom door.”

Maverick’s big smile turns sly. “A door doesn’t need to be locked, Evelyn.”

“You asshole!” I smack his hard shoulder.

He cowers back, laughing over his self-satisfaction for boiling the damn pot that Leon is about to spill. “A lot can happen under a shared blanket,” he laughs, instantly bolting from the chair. It screeches heinously, wobbling onto two legs before slamming back down.

I dart around it, brows drawn taut and chasing after the shithead trying to make Leon keel over in paranoia.

Using his basketball skills, he swerves around me and sprints out of the kitchen and into the living room. Hot on his heels, I round the handrail and thunder up the stairs after him. “You’re a shit starter!”

His disconnected laugh echoes off the gallery wall, swiftly running straight and barreling through my old door—right into my childhood bedroom.

He leaps onto the fur covered bed I haven’t seen in four years and rolls onto his back, shooting me a smile that has broken a lot of hearts. “You love it, killer. We used to be the shit starting duo.”

My steps falter lazily, taking in the room that looks like I still live here. “Yeah,” I drone, anxiety weighing my chest down and sending me into a spiral that plays high school memories.

I’ve refrained from coming in here for this exact reason. My anxiety is a bitch, always looking for a reason to sink its claws into me.

“Are you happy?” he asks, inspecting me as I open my old jewelryarmoire.

“That’s a loaded question, Mav,” I say softly, plucking out a wire wrapped obsidian necklace that I used to wear every day. “Happiness is fleeting. As is everything that we feel… It all comes and goes. Sometimes as a tide, sometimes as a ripple in the vast ocean of emotion.”

He gets up from my bed, walking over to the vintage frames sitting on the dresser my grandma broke someone’s nose over. Picking up our graduation photo, he says, “I miss you. You know you can call or text, or come see me anytime, right?”

Oh, well that’s just fucking incredible. Now my eyes are stinging, and a lump is lodging in my throat.

I swallow and clear the knot, hanging the necklace back up. “I miss you too. Again, I’m sorry I didn’t listen to your warnings about Liam,” I say mutely, and he sets the photo down, turning back to me with glassy eyes. “I… I don’t know what happened. I somehow let him dictate my life and strip me away from the people that matter. I’m so, so sorry, Mav. Thank you for always being there, for always coming to my rescue regardless of how long it’s been since we talked.”

He tips his chin, stretching his arms out to beckon me for a hug. He meets me halfway, and I reluctantly wrap around his waist, not wanting Jax to come up here and stab him in the head or something. “You were ready to go to war for me when you didn’t even know my name. I will always be ready to go to war for you, even if my death is guaranteed.”

The dam breaks, releasing the tears that hold grief, memories, love, friendship, heartbreak, pain—and the guilt for throwing him away because Liam was insecure, and it caused too many problems that left me with a bruised lip.

“Killer, I know what domestic abuse looks like. I know the crazy that takes over their eyes and blows out their pupils. I know what a toxic and possessive, manhandling grip looks like. He’s bad fucking news and I can’t watch you go through what my mom did.”

“Whatever, Maverick.”

“No, don’t “whatever” me! This is anything but a goddamn whatever! He was a piece of shit in school and he’s a piece of shit now. Just because he brought you flowers, does not mean he flipped a switch. Please, please just fucking listen to me!”

“Go. Home. Maverick.”

“Fine. Just know, I’ll be here to wipe your tears and pick up the pieces he fucking shattered.”

I pull away, wiping my face and blubbering over the mascara and eyeliner on his white button up. “I guess we’re never too old for me to ruin your shirts.”

He laughs quietly, a few droplets streaming down his cheeks. “They’ve never been ruined, Tala. I still have them all. I pull them out of the vacuumed sealed bag to reflect on the only person that didn’t take pity on me… Just showed me what family and love felt like.”