Wild Tiger Chase | Book #2 (Complete)

20: ready to be juiced

This chapter has two different POVs. I hope you'll enjoy it! 

— Rafaela —

"Chill, partner. I only said he'd need more than your sorry excuses if you want him to believe you." Phillip bit a piece of his grilled cassava and offered Rob a wide, cruel, ugly smile.

Rob wore an indifferent expression, but his white-knuckled grip on the backpack's straps showed a different story. "And I just asked you to stay out of matters that don't concern you, mate. We're trying to have a conversation here."

The walk back to Caidara's cottage had been stressful, tense, and quiet. As they sat around the old Druid and explained who they were to each other, Rafaela could sense the bad blood between Phillip and Rob. Léon squirmed between them, probably trying to stop Rob's discomfort from becoming a full-blown fight.

Phillip, though, acted as a perfect piece of shite, and while Rafaela didn't like to make assumptions about people, she thought there was only one reasonable explanation for the way he was behaving. Phillip must have strong feelings for Rob's boyfriend... which made the fact Léon and Phillip were alone in the forest that much more intriguing.

"I'll speak for myself, Phillip," Léon said. "But I'll speak later. Right now, all I want is to talk to Rafaela." He looked at her. Léon placed a hand on his brother's shoulder and pulled him closer, which only made her like Léon even more. "You're a cosmic trace wielder, aren't you? Pipo is one too. Like us. But I don't have any idea of how to help him—nobody really taught me much about it. But you can help Pipo, can't you? You can find out what's his sickness, right?"

Rafaela clasped a hand on her lips to stop the torrent of foul swearing that came tumbling through. "So..." Her voice raised half an octave, and she turned around, setting her widened, incredulous eyes on Rob. "It seems little Pietro is also a cosmic trace wielder." She crossed her arms and contorted her face, muscles tugging and pulling her expression into something so angry, she saw Rob's adam's pomme bob. "Did you know that, brother?"

Rob cleared his throat. "I had no idea about that, sis. I swear."

Léon narrowed his eyes. "So you were helping my mother, but she didn't tell you about it? That's difficult to believe." He crossed his arms too, and there went Rob's adam's pomme again, up and down.

"Wait. Leo... I would've asked my sister to help Pipo if I knew about his powers. And I'm pretty sure your mother would've told me about him if she knew about Rafa's powers." Rob reached for Léon's hand. "Your mom was just trying to protect Pipo, I'm sure. The fewer people know about his powers, the better."

A heartbeat of silence shouldn't take this long.

With a sigh, Léon finally nodded. In a narrow bed somewhere in the small cottage, Modraniht snored, cutting the silence between them. Caidara crossed her arms. She had been only listening up until then, but the more they danced around their problems, the more finicky she seemed.

"You're doing this all wrong," she blared, crossing her arms. "Can't you kids focus?"

Rafaela looked at Pipo. "When did you start to develop these powers?" She wasn't sure if she should lean down to talk to him or if she needed to make that voice an adult usually make when talking to children, so she smiled instead. Rafaela was never really good with children. Or people. Or animals. She preferred plants.

"Oh, we're not sure," León answered in Pipo's place.

Rafaela sighed. "How old were you when your powers started to develop?"