Letting him off the hook, she said, “You don’t have to give me the tour. I have to go to work soon, anyway.” Candace pulled the sleeves of her sweater down over her hands and forced a smile as he turned toward her in the kitchen. “It was really weird eating with you and your crew. But…it was a good weird. You have something special here, Torren. Protect it.” She gave him a little wave, and turned for the door.
“Wait.” Torren scrubbed his hand down his short, dark beard. “My sister. She’s why I don’t share my money. Or much of it anyway. She’s the reason I’m not bankrolling us here.”
Candace fidgeted with a loose thread on her sweater. “What do you mean?”
He twitched his head to the side. “I’ll show you.” Turning, he led her down a hallway to the last door on the left. Torren pushed open the door and watched her face—for what, she didn’t know.
The bedroom was done in dark colors. Dark brown walls and a navy-blue comforter on a queen-sized mattress on the ground. There was no end table or even a bed frame. There was no dresser, only four piles of clothes stacked neatly against the wall. On the wall hung a single picture. It was a black and white of four people. Torren was younger in it, twenty perhaps and lankier than he was now. He had his arm slung around a dark-haired girl with a pixie cut. She had the biggest grin on her face as she looked right at the camera. Torren was smiling down at her, and beside them, a giant, short-haired man stood behind a petite blond woman with his arms around her shoulders. They were both looking at Torren and the girl.
“Your sister?” Candace guessed.
Torren lifted his hands and began to sign something, shocking her that he knew American Sign Language. She couldn’t do more than sign the simple alphabet, but he was speaking without words, and his hands were poetry.
When he was finished, she asked, “What did you say?”
“I said this is my sister, Genevieve, and she was born deaf. She’s smart, brave, and loyal, and she’s my favorite person. And when she got old enough, she wanted to be a part of a family group. Her gorilla wanted the big family. But her silverback alpha was awful and so were the females. They took her life savings away from her. She was supposed to get cochlear implants. They have a good chance of working for her, making it so she can hear. Not like you and me, but it would still be something very important to her. She would be able to hear her mate tell her ‘I love you.’ She wants to hear his voice so badly. So, a lot of Damon’s Mountains and her Red Havoc Crew have been working to save money for her, but it’s really expensive.”
“How expensive?”
“Shifters don’t get insurance because we aren’t supposed to get sick. She has to pay forty thousand dollars out of pocket.”
“Oh my gosh,” Candace murmured, dropping down to sit on the edge of Torren’s mattress.
Torren joined her and pulled out a metal ammo box from beside his bed. He glanced at her once, his eyes churning that bright inhuman green, before he opened it and showed her what was inside. There were neat stacks of money, mostly fives and tens.
“You’re a stripper. You can’t judge. You have issues just like me so we’re safe.”
Candace nodded. Safe. That felt right.
“I have to fight. The gorilla is fucked up. Nox and Vyr think it’s because I don’t have a family group under me, but that’s not it. I was always fucked up, even when I was a kid. I can’t control the Changes. I’m getting worse. The only thing that steadies me is fighting. I have to fight all the time. I hide it from Vyr because we’re supposed to be perfectly behaved right now. We can’t draw any attention. But I can’t be perfect because I never was. I can’t even pretend. I’m a monster.”
“You’re not,” Candace said, shaking her head.
“I am. Best you understand that right away if you want to be friends. You dance for money. I fight. I don’t judge you. I like to give you shit because you have funny reactions, but who am I to say you live your life wrong? Mine is a disaster.”
“You have more going for you than you realize, HavoK.”
“Everything I tell you stays in here. Swear it.”
“I swear. I’m good at keeping secrets.”
Torren drew his knees up to his chest and rested his arms on them. He searched her eyes before he said low, “I’m trying to stay sane long enough to help my sister get those cochlear implants. I want her to hear my voice before Vyr has to put me down. She’s what keeps me going.”
Ooooh, so Torren was much deeper than she thought at first glance. He wasn’t just being silly with Nox with his fighting and jokes. He wasn’t just this big, tattooed gym rat. He had layers, and the ones he’d just exposed were kind of beautiful. Still, he believed he would be put down. Only shifters who were really bad off were put down by their alphas, but Torren seemed strong, steady, and capable. “But you seem fine.”
“I’ve Changed six times today.”
“Oh my goodness,” she murmured, feeling sick to her stomach. Changes hurt. They hurt badly. Torren seemed in control now, but clearly, he wasn’t. His gorilla forced a Change that often? She couldn’t even imagine her tiger betraying her like that. She Changed once a week, and it was on her terms, when she wanted to. “How can I help?”
“You can’t. No one can.” Suddenly, Torren yanked his shirt over his head and bunched it tightly in his hands. He swallowed hard and turned so she could see his back. The top of his shoulders and the back of his neck were tattooed, but the rest of his back was free of ink. There was a massive birthmark that stretched like the milky way from his left hip up his back to the edge of his tattoos. “I’m marked, like my father was. It’s called the Mark of the Kong. I’m supposed to be the silverback leading the biggest family group with the best genetics. I’m supposed to be Kong now, but my dad gave me the choice. I could take my place with my people and rule them, or I could be like him. I could buck tradition and live the life I chose.”
“What would you have to do as Kong?”
Torren squeezed the shirt until his knuckles turned white. “Breed a bunch of females. My dad was supposed to sire this generation of monsters like me. But he chose my mom, and they only had me and my sister. As soon as the gorillas figured out I was marked, the pressure was on. I’m supposed to make the monster gorillas for the next generation. An army. That’s how they work. Family groups aren’t these big loving crews. They have their intentions on child rearing for the sake of numbers. I always wanted a baby… Fuck. Let’s go. I don’t want to talk anymore.” Torren stood suddenly and walked to the door where he turned. “It’s just I wanted what my dad found, and I chose wrong. I went all in, thinking I would find a single mate like my parents, but it never happened and now I’m messed up.” He held her for a few more seconds with eyes that had muddied to a forest green and were begging her understanding. “I’m going crazy, and I chose wrong. I can’t be your friend. Relationships make me unstable, and I have to make it to my sister’s surgery. You understand? I have to keep steady enough until then. I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”