Chapter 2 - Rami

Rami set a stack of used paperbacks to the side and glanced at the clock. Half past six, and the sun was low in the sky, sinking beneath the horizon. It’d be dark soon.

His bookshop, Stranger Fiction, was officially closed for the day, but lately, he’d found himself making any excuse to work past regular hours, anything to keep busy. Because as long as he kept busy, he couldn’t be thinking about her.

Vera.

In the quiet moments, the ones not filled with inventory lists and budgets, her face filled his mind. Specifically, the face she’d made when he’d broken up with her, changing in a flash from shock and hurt to closed-off and cold, as if she’d shuttered herself against him. A wall had come down and he was on the outside of it.

Where I wanted to be, he reminded himself for what must have been the hundredth time. Somehow, the reminders hadn’t made moving on any easier. At least he’d managed to avoid her since then. He couldn’t imagine how awkward it would be when the inevitable meeting happened.

A knock at the door startled him from his thoughts, and he looked up to see Jonah, Alpha of his pack, the Silversands, standing outside. Rami waved and hurried over to unlock it for him.

“I’m not late, am I?” Rami asked, letting Jonah inside.

Fatherhood suited Jonah. He’d lost the nervous energy that had clung to him when he’d first arrived at Silversand a little over a year ago, stepping fully into the role of Alpha with Moira, his mate, at his side. Now, he seemed settled and calm, ready to lead the Silversands through anything the world might throw at them. Rami envied that calm.

“Not at all, I’m early.” Jonah grabbed a paperback off the top of the pile and flipped through it, reading the back with the speed of an avid reader. “Moira said no more, she says the lighthouse is too small to hold my books, but I wanted to come by and see what you got it in today before anyone else scooped it up. I would’ve been here before closing, but Cora wanted a story before I left and who am I to say no?”

Rami laughed. “You’d never say no to her, and you’ll regret that when she hits her teens.”

Jonah grinned and rubbed the back of his head, mussing his hair. “Yeah, probably.” He tossed another book onto his stack of potential purchases. “But there’s nothing like watching her face light up. I’m a sucker for it.”

The kid was precious, Rami had to agree. She had the sort of gooey smile that could make the most cold-hearted melt, and the few times Rami had held her, he’d felt his own hardened heart soften.

“And what’s Moira’s face going to do when you bring all this home?” Rami gestured at the growing stack of books.

A regular customer at the store, Jonah knew exactly when Rami got his shipments of used and new books and liked to browse before they went officially onto the shelves. Before Moira intervened, Rami had set aside a monthly pile for Jonah. Now, he stayed out of it. No good could come from getting in the middle of that mate battle.

The bookstore had survived the worst of Silversands dark years, when Jonah’s father, the old Silversand Alpha, had run the town to the brink of ruin by shipping books out to customers across the country. With Jonah at the helm, the town was beginning to spring back to life, and most of Rami's sales came from locals and tourists, visiting the seaside town for its beaches or historical sites. It was still a far cry from the busy city Rami had grown up in, and that suited him just fine. He’d left home for a reason. Many reasons.

“Damn, you’re right.” Jonah agonized over the selection before placing two books back in the sale pile. “I’ll bring them out one at a time, and maybe she won’t even notice they’re there. What do you think?”

“I think you’d better have a backup plan ready,” Rami said, ringing Jonah up with the friends discount. “I’ll just close up, and we can head out. Are we taking the same route tonight?”

Jonah shook his head, dropping the books into his backpack and setting the bag against the counter. “I’ve got a new one planned based on a tip from Vera—shit, sorry, man. I know you don’t want to think about her.”

Rami shrugged it off. He wanted to ask Jonah how Vera had seemed, if she was okay, if she was still furious at him, but he bit the questions off before they could spill out. “She’s the best tracker, I know. It’s okay.”

Something in his tone must have been off. Jonah’s brow creased with concern.

“What happened with you two? The way she tells it, you got sick of her and ghosted. She went around spitting mad for weeks, and now she acts like you don’t exist.” Jonah grimaced, probably remembering the terror of a spitting mad Vera. That woman had a fiery temper. “And you over here,” Jonah said, waving broadly at Rami, “have looked like your dog just died ever since then, which isn’t exactly the attitude of a dude who wanted out of a relationship he seemed pretty happy in.”

The bookshop, his place of solace, suddenly felt too small, too warm. Jonah’s words pinned him to the spot, dragging up emotions he’d been working so hard to bury. How could he sum it up in a way Jonah would understand?

He tried for nonchalance. “I’m just not a commitment sort of guy, and I could tell she was getting to the stage where the questions would start. You know the ones. ‘What are we?’ ‘Where do you see us in five years?’ ‘Should we move in together?’ And I just thought it’d be better if I let her off easy.”

It was the truth, mostly. He wasn’t the sort to settle down. But Vera had never pushed him, never asked him the kinds of questions that all his previous girlfriends had. Still, he’d been in enough of those situations to see the signs.

“Right,” Jonah said, drawing out the word skeptically. “Vera sure seems like the white dress, drag-you-down-the-aisle type.”

Drawing down the blinds, Rami shut out the dwindling sunlight and drowned the shop in darkness. His vision adjusted quickly, a perk of the wolf blood. Jonah’s eyes glowed faintly in the dark. It was easier to answer when he wasn’t looking at Jonah, when the lies he was crafting wouldn’t be so clear on his face.

“They never seem like the type until they’re screaming and crying because you don’t want to move in and spend every waking minute together,” Rami drawled.

“What’s so bad about living with someone you care about?” Jonah followed Rami out the front door, waiting for him to lock it.

Rami fumbled with the key ring. “It’s all rosy at first. Then the fighting starts, and you’re stuck together until you’re at each other’s throats every day, miserable and hating the person you thought you loved.”

Jonah’s eyes widened, and Rami hurried to backpedal.

“I mean, that’s not the case with you and Moira, obviously. You two are made for each other. Fated mates and all that. Plus, look at you three, the perfect family. Nothing is going to mess that up.”

And Rami believed that. Jonah and Moira were made to be, and he’d defend them to the death if anything tried to harm them. But what they had was special. Unique. Nothing like anything Rami had ever had before.

“Just a hunch,” Jonah said, leading the way to the start of the patrol route they’d be taking that evening, “but I’m going to wager you didn’t have a happy childhood.”

Rami snorted. “Did anyone? Come on. It’s too cold to be out here without fur.”

He shifted, feeling the rush of power as his body morphed into that of a wolf. Long, mottled grey fur covered his muscular form. His height carried into his wolf form, and he stood taller than Jonah, but leaner, almost rangy, with more legs than anything else. Swiveling his black-tipped ears, he heard the gulls cry as they circled out of sight, a group of children laughing, the creak of a swing’s chain.

Unlike many of the wolves in the Silversand pack, Rami hadn’t been born a wolf. He’d been bitten. What had started as a boys’ night out, a camping trip to get out of the city, had turned into a nightmare. Now, he couldn’t imagine life any other way. It was the only time he could truly let loose and let his impulses rule him.

Jonah took the lead with a burst of speed. The landscape blurred past them, houses and shops and trees blending together until there was nothing but the chase, nothing but keeping Jonah only a pace ahead.

They followed the coast south to a stretch of woods. Jonah turned into the tree cover, and the temperature dropped, their breath puffing in front of them in billowing clouds. Running the boundary of the Silversands' territory, they moved deeper into the forest, where the trees grew closer together, slowing their pace. Roots reached for paws, and low-slung vines threatened to tangle them.

It took some time for Rami to realize what felt so wrong about the place. He and Jonah had pushed their way through the densest growth when he connected the uneasy feeling to the environment—it was silent. No birds sang in the branches. No voles scurried in the underbrush. Rami’s ruff stood on end.

“What was that?” Rami asked Jonah when they returned to the bookshop, shaking off their wolf forms. He retrieved Jonah’s backpack, heavy with books, and tossed it to him.

“I don’t know, but I don’t like it. It wasn’t so eerie last month when we ran it. It’s changed.” Jonah caught the bag and slung it over his shoulder. He looked troubled, his eyes distant. “I need to head home and let Moira know. We’ll have a pack meeting tomorrow.”

“See you then,” Rami said, shivering more from the lingering unease than the cold.

He made his own way home, unable to resist looking over his shoulder. Whatever wrongness had been in that woods seemed to cling to him now. In a way, he’d gotten his wish. Thoughts of Vera had been pushed to the back of his mind for the moment, a tangled knot of emotion he was only too happy to bury under the worries of whatever threat lurked in the woods.

Rami was eager to be home in his beachside cottage, eager to kick off his shoes and forget the day. But someone stood on his doorstep, lit by the glow of his porch light. A woman. He hesitated, still on edge, then laughed at himself. She was probably just a tourist mistaking his house for her rental. It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened, and he could make out the lumpy, shadowed shapes of bags beside her, slumped against the railing.

“Hey there,” he called, not wanting to startle her. “I think you might have the wrong house. This is my home. Are you renting somewhere nearby?”

She turned, a lump of blankets in her arms. “No, I’m not renting.”

Climbing the steps to his house, Rami froze. He recognized the woman, barely. Her face was a blur from a one-night stand he’d had before getting involved with Vera, and he couldn’t even remember her name. Ashley? Allison? Something with an A, he thought.

“Why are you here?” And how did she remember where he lived when he couldn’t even remember her name? “I’m not interested in sleeping with you again.”

The woman rolled her eyes, and now that he was closer, he could see the strain on her face. Deep, purple shadows ringed her eyes. “Yeah, well, I’m not interested in that either. You’ve done enough already.”

“What?” Rami asked, bewildered. “Look, it was a fun night.” He thought he remembered it being fun, at least. He knew enough to not let on how little he remembered about her. Women didn’t like being forgotten. “But it was just one night. It’s a little… weird to have you showing up at my place late at night.”

In her arms, the bundle shifted. He drew back and scented the air, wishing he’d been in wolf form. Had he misjudged? Was she somehow related to the wrongness in the forest, and did she have some sort of weapon on her?

The bundle let out a squeal. She pushed it toward him, and the blankets fell back, revealing a baby’s face, which was scrunched in displeasure. He had no choice but to take the baby before she dropped it, and he reflexively grabbed for it, holding it gently in his arms. Jostled by the movement, it squealed again, louder.

“What?” He said again, stupidly. “Who—“

“She’s yours. Her name is Jessa, and I’ve had enough. I can’t take care of her anymore, and you know what? It’s your turn.” The woman nudged one of the bags with her toe. “This is all of her stuff. Good luck.”

She turned to go, but Rami reached out and caught her by the arm. “Wait a minute, I can’t take care of a baby. You’re her mom!”

“And you’re her dad.” She wrenched her arm out of his grasp, and he let her go when the baby, Jessa, he corrected himself, started to cry in earnest. “Look,” she said, softening. “I’m not in a good place. I need help. I’m checking myself into a hospital after this, and I just need you to take care of her. Okay? I can’t do it.”

The woman’s face was crumpled in pain, her voice tinged with desperation. She had the gaunt, hollow look of someone who had been struggling with her demons for a long, long time.

“Okay,” Rami breathed. He looked down at the baby in his arms. She was his?

There was no denying it. He didn’t need a DNA test to know the baby was his when her scent told him everything. The baby girl’s smell was half Rami’s, and he’d know her anywhere. That didn’t make it any less surreal to be holding her.

He heard the woman leave, unable to tear his eyes away from Jessa’s. She had stopped crying, looking up at him with wonder in her light brown eyes, so like his own. His daughter.

Rami didn’t know how long he stood there, holding his daughter for the first time. All he knew was everything had changed the moment she’d come into his life.

“Did you hear that, baby girl? I’m your dad.” He gathered up the bags and carried Jessa inside, tears streaking down his cheeks.