Chapter 24

Rowena & Eric

Rowena

I dried myself by the poolside. In the stone fire pit on the patio, a crackling fire flickered beneath the night sky. It warmed my skin—soothing after nearly half an hour spent in the water.

Eric, who was sitting in one of the chairs by the fire with his feet up and his hands clasped behind his head, smirked at me.

“You did a good job tonight, Rowena,” he said.

I raised my eyebrows as I looked at him. “You think so?”

He nodded. “Mhm. I’m proud of you.” His words elicited an involuntary blush from me, but his next words just made me roll my eyes. “In fact, maybe with some more lessons, you’ll even be able to doggy paddle in the kiddie pool.”

A huff escaped my lips at his teasing. “Don’t make fun of me,” I chided. “You know it’s hard enough just for me to get in the water.”

Eric sighed. “Yeah. I know.”

…

Eric

I still remembered that day clearly.

We were just kids. In fact, it was only a couple of years after I had found Rowena; she had only just turned four, and I was eight.

I should have been old enough to know better at that point. I should have known well enough to follow very basic instructions, but I never listened.

You see, I was… not the best-behaved kid. I was stubborn and headstrong, and

I didn’t like to follow orders. I was selfish, too.

And that day, it was so hot. So, so hot.

I wiped the sweat from my brow beneath the beating July sun. Already, even after generously applying sunscreen, my face and arms were already beet red. The cool water of the pool was refreshing, but it wasn’t quite enough to handle the heat.

No, I needed to cool my insides, too.

Beside me, Rowena was playing in the shallow end of the pool. I remembered that Dad had set up a barrier for her so she could play safely without getting into the deep end. She was splashing around with her floaties on, her gleeful giggles rising into the air as she tossed a rubber duckie around.

“Watch me, Ewic!” she called out. She still couldn’t pronounce her r’s yet, but I didn’t mind—when I had found her in that snowstorm, she couldn’t speak at all.

Or, it wasn’t so much that she couldn’t speak, but rather that she wouldn’t. A two-year-old of Rowena’s intelligence should at least know some basic sentences, but Rowena…

She hadn’t spoken for almost a year after I found her. So even though she couldn’t pronounce her r’s, we were all just happy that she talked to us now. And even at eight, I was proud of her. Of my little sister. How could I not be proud, as her big brother?

“I’m watching, Ro.”

Rowena giggled and tossed her rubber ducky high into the air. It fell into the water with a splash, eliciting another giggle from her. I clapped and praised her, but damn, that heat…

Dad had told me he needed to run out of the house for just ten minutes.

“Don’t let Rowena out of her sight, young man,” he had told me. “She’s too little to be by herself in the pool. Keep an eye on her.”

“I will, Dad.”

“Okay.” He had grabbed his car keys off of the counter. “I’ll be back in ten minutes. Remember, she’s your baby sister. It’s your job to keep her safe when Mom and I aren’t around.”

That had been hours ago. Or at least, that was how it felt; now, looking back, it hadn’t even been ten minutes. God, I couldn’t even stop thinking about myself for a few minutes.

Finally, as another blisteringly hot breeze blew across the back patio, bringing with it the sound of droning cicadas and distant music, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Hey, Ro, I need to get something from inside,” I called out. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Okay, Ewic.”

I stood up from the edge of the pool. Rowena was fine, I figured; she had her arm floaties and her waist floatie, and she was trapped in the shallow end. Surely I could just run inside and get a popsicle out of the freezer…

Yes, it would be fine. I was sure of it.

I quickly turned and ran inside. The air conditioning felt like an instant balm to my sunburnt skin, and I stood there for a moment, reveling in the sensation of the pool water turning cold beneath the air.

Then, I walked over to the freezer. I had to drag one of the dining chairs over to reach, which took me a minute; but when I climbed back down, I had a deliciously sweet popsicle in hand. Raspberry flavor, my favorite.

I ripped open the packaging and started sucking on the popsicle, then walked back over to the door—and that was when I heard it.

Screaming and splashing.

Panic overtook me. I burst out of the back door, calling out my sister’s name. “Rowena?”

The popsicle fell from my hand when I saw my father standing on the poolside, his Armani suit drenched in water, with Rowena sputtering and gasping in his arms. When his hunter-like eyes found me, they were filled with a fury I had never seen before.

“Ten minutes, Eric,” he growled. “I was gone for ten minutes, and you couldn’t even watch your sister for that long?”

“Dad, I—”

“You should have been here!” His voice boomed across the patio. In that instant, the cicadas and the distant music seemed to go dead silent, like a lively forest when a predator is sensed.

That day, Rowena had somehow managed to climb over the barrier. In doing so, her floaties had slipped off, catching on the guard. That day, she had fallen into the deep end of the pool. That day, my dad had found her thrashing under the water and had jumped in, pulling her out himself.

And that day, I had almost let my sister drown over a popsicle that melted on the patio tiles.

My dad never let me live it down. Neither did I. If only I had been less selfish; if only I had waited for just ten minutes, then none of it never would have happened.

And if only I had just stayed by her side, she wouldn’t have spent fourteen years terrified of the water.

Now, as I looked at her from across the fire pit all these years later, she wasn’t a little four-year-old with a speech impediment anymore. She was a young woman, intelligent and…

I swallowed as my eyes swept over her body in her bikini. She was slender, still on the skinny side without her wolf but she had the proportions of an adult woman, with a curvy waist and delicate arms and hips. She had never grown past five-foot-two, but I always thought that was cute.

She wasn’t my little sister anymore. She was my mate.

But maybe, still, I saw her as that little foundling I had picked up from the snow, the little girl who wouldn’t utter a word for a year, the little girl who couldn’t pronounce her r’s. And in a way, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever stop seeing her like that.

“I want to protect her,” I thought to my wolf, Leo. “Forever.”

Suddenly, as if sensing my gaze on her, Rowena snapped her head up and blinked at me.

“What are you staring at, Eric?”