Page 2 of Save Me Enemy

The blood drains from his otherwise warm complexion. “Richard was your father too?” Both hands are in his hair now, and he takes a step backward, and then back to me again. Shock seems to have rattled him.

“Was? What do you mean, was? And too?” Part of me had wondered if this man was somehow Richard, but he doesn't look old enough… But he said Richard was my fathertoo. That makes this man my brother, that means the sister in the bar is my sister…

Except he saidwas…

“Richard Ashcroft died quite some time ago,” Ryder says, mounting his motorcycle behind me and swinging my legs over his lap.

I open my mouth, only to find there’s nothing there. I’ve never ridden a motorcycle, but now I’m riding side-saddle on my brand-new brother’s lap. And my father’s dead.

“I should get you to my sister. Just hold on to me, okay?”

His motorcycle roars to life and I scream, clinging to him. Ryder smells like salty sweat, motor oil, and Irish spring soap. Sitting with my face pressed to his chest, all I can see is the tattoo of a wolf’s head on his chest. There’s a scar over his heart, scars from what look like wolf claws and bites.

The wind whips my hair out of my French braid and the ride to the bar takes less than five minutes when it would have taken me a half hour on foot. I haven't so much as caught my breath when Ryder picks me up and gets off his bike, carrying me through the swinging doors of the bar.

“What the fuck, Ryder?” a woman shouts.

I blow my hair out of my face just as a woman with fire-engine red hair floods my line of sight. She has my eyes too, our eyes.

Richard’s eyes.

“I think you mean, ‘who the fuck’, sis. Her name’s Cricket.” Ryder arches a brow. “She’s one of the old Alpha’s kids.”

Rachel's eyes grow wide as saucers and her plump lips shrink into a thin line of worry as Ryder sits me on a table of a booth in the middle of the bar.

“She was walking down the highway and my bike scared the shit out of her. She fell into the ditch and her foot is all swollen. Shit! Fuck! I left her shoe back there…”

“You left my shoe?” Seems like a silly thing to focus on right now, but my brain clings to it.

“I’ll go get it!” another woman says, grabbing a set of keys and running past us.

Was that Tinkerbell? I blink, rubbing my eyes, as the small pixie-like woman jogs out of the bar and hops in a little Prius before driving away.

“Ryder, you better go tell Cookie where to look or she’ll be driving around for hours…” Rachel smirks, winking at me.

Ryder sighs and walks out of the bar after the much smaller woman. Rachel watches him go, then bites her bottom lip and looks back at me. She looks like she slept in last night's makeup, the dark shadows and eyeliner around her eyes are heavy and smudged and her red lips have faded to nearly her natural color. She yawns, and then looks me over.

“So… I guess we’re sisters then,” she says simply, dropping to a crouch and wrapping cold hands around my ankle. A tingling runs up my body, momentarily distracting me from what she just said.

“Sisters…” I echo. The pain is fading fast, her cool hands seem to smooth the swelling away with just a stroke. As she rotates my ankle, I barely feel any pain. I almost smile at the welcome relief.

Except shock sparks across Rachel’s face. She focuses harder, her brows knitting together. I wait, breath held, as she stands and puts her hands on my face.

When her eyes meet mine again, they’re misty. A single tear drops, tracking mascara down her cheek.

“You’re sick…” is all she says before Ryder pushes through the door.

“She’s not sick, Rach, she’s got a twisted ankle. Don’t be so dramatic,” he says, waving at the bartender who hands him an icy cold beer.

My heart skips a beat. How can she possibly know? But her eyes won't leave mine, tears falling one after the other. There’s a desperation in her as she touches my face, my arms, squeezes my hands. She’s muttering in another language, focusing hard, clenching her jaw.

It’s inevitable that her shoulders slowly fall in defeat.

“She’s right,” I say quietly, glancing at Ryder. “I came here to find Richard, to find answers, before I die.”

* * *

Itell them everything over the next few hours. The sickness that wouldn’t go away. The final diagnosis that never made sense. The reality that none of it matters. There is no cure.

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