Page 50 of Tiger Bitten

“Yep, and territorial,” he said without hesitation as he loaded up another marshmallow on the metal rod to heat up over the flames.

She laughed.

“What?” he asked.

“That’s the hottest thing anyone has ever said to me, but it’s so hard to take you seriously with a facemask with little purple squids printed on it.”

His shoulders shook with his laugh. “You did this to us.”

She bit into the gooey sweet goodness. She hadn’t eaten a s’more in years, and she’d forgotten how delicious and savory they were.

“I like your hair like that,” Mars said.

“Messy?” she asked. Oh, she knew a few curls were probably sticking straight out of her messy bun.

“Yeah, it looks wild. Goes with your eyes.”

She pursed her lips, but Mars shook his head. “I’m not bringing them up. Just telling you I think they’re really sexy on you.”

Oh. Her defensiveness eased and was immediately replaced with this mushy feeling of butterflies in her stomach. “Remember how we were talking about things that are a benefit of traveling together early in the relationship?” she asked.

“Yeah?”

“Maybe figuring out how sensitive touchy subjects are right out the gate is important too.”

“My touchy subject would be the night we were Turned by my stepdad.”

“Gah, I can’t even imagine what you went through, Mars.” To Turn a Cat, the Maker had to nearly kill a human. That’s what she’d heard. And that had been the intention of his stepfather—to kill all three of the Ledger triplets. And then his mother had stayed with that man as her sons fought to figure out an entirely new existence, born of pain. She couldn’t imagine the betrayal. “I won’t ask about it if it is your touchy subject, but if you ever want to talk about it, I’ll listen.”

“Same for you. I won’t ask about your Cat anymore. Tell me if you want, and when you’re ready.” His marshmallow was on fire, and he blew out the flame, and built another s’more. “You’re safe to talk about whatever you want, whenever you want.”

“Thank you,” she said thickly. He didn’t understand how much that meant to her. She didn’t even talk about it with her mom if she could avoid it. The Cat was her touchy subject and always would be.

“All you’re doing is making me more interested in you, mystery girl.”

“In that case, I won’t be answering any more of your questions, ever,” she joked. “Stay obsessed.”

“Fine, we’ll just fuck all the time.”

“Deal.”

He chuckled and reached down, plucked a powdered donut from the opened bag, and pressed it into the burned marshmallow, then topped it with a graham cracker.

“Oh my gosh,” she whispered in awe as he handed it over to her. “Are you a genius?”

“Probably,” he said.

“Abe liked my eyes because of the color,” she blurted out as he began loading another marshmallow. “I mean after he stopped begging me to take the colored contacts out, they became this big thing to—”

Stellan appeared suddenly around the corner of the porch and hesitated on the edge of the firelight glow.

Ren and Mars both sat there startled and frozen.

“Do you want to hang out with us?” she asked.

“Why would I?” Stellan snapped, and then turned and walked to the RV.

“Okay,” Mars said, watching his brother disappear around the side of the RV. “That was normal.”