"Then I came along."
He smiled. "Then you came along." He lifted her hand and kissed her palm, then the pulse point at her wrist. "You have been so very unexpected, Dylan. You bring me a happiness I've never known either."
"Never? Not even...before, with Eva?" Dylan hated asking him to compare them, yet she really needed to know the answer. When Rio was quiet for a moment, her heart began to sink. "I'm sorry. You don't have to tell me. I don't mean to make this awkward for you."
He shook his head, brows pinched together. "Eva was sultry and flirtatious. She was a very beautiful woman. Every male who saw her wanted her - Breed and human alike. I was astonished that she noticed me. Even more so when she made it clear that she wanted to be my mate. She pursued me like she did anything else she set her sights on, and my ego knew no bounds. Things cooled between us a bit after I joined the Order. Eva resented sharing me with my calling as a warrior."
Dylan listened, awash in a very unpleasant state of jealousy for what she was hearing, and regret that she had brought this feeling on herself by forcing him to talk about the woman he'd loved before.
"After the disaster of what happened with Eva, I wasn't looking to open myself up to another woman. But you, Dylan..." He picked up a strand of her hair, following the golden-red light in it as the silky wave curled around his finger. "You are pure flame. I touch you and I ignite. I kiss you and I burn to have more. You consume me...like no other woman before you, and, I am certain, like no other ever could again."
She rose up and kissed him, holding his face in her hands. When she drew back, she couldn't keep from blurting out just how much he meant to her. "I love you, Rio. It scares me to death to say it out loud, but I do. I love you."
"Ah, Dios, " he whispered roughly. "Dylan...I have been falling in love with you since the very beginning. How you could love me, the way I am now, I don't know..."
"The way you are now," Dylan said, slowly shaking her head in wonder, "the way you look at me, the way you touch me, how could I not love you? You, Rio. Just as you are now."
She caressed him with all the emotion she felt for him, letting her fingers skate gently down the rugged left side of the handsome face she would never tire of seeing.
She hardly noticed the scars now. Oh, tragically, there was no reversing what he'd been through. The evidence of the hell he'd survived would always be there, on his face and on his body. But when Dylan looked at Rio, she saw his courage, his strength.
She saw his honor, and to her eyes, he was the most beautiful man she'd ever seen.
"I love you, Eleuterio de la Noche Atanacio. With all my heart."
Something fiercely tender flashed across his features. With a tight sound caught in his throat, he crushed her against him and simply held her there.
"More than anything, I want your happiness," he murmured beside her ear. "I know that your family - your mother's well-being - means the world to you. I know that you need to be with her."
"Yes," Dylan whispered. She drew out of his embrace and met his gaze. "I can't leave her now, Rio. I just...I can't."
He nodded. "I know. I understand that you need to be there for her, Dylan. But there is a selfish part of me that would try to convince you that this is where you belong now. With me, bonded in blood, as my mate."
Oh, she liked the sound of that. She recalled quite vividly how incredible it had been to have Rio feed from her vein. She wanted that again...now, when the love she felt for him was overflowing her heart.
But she couldn't stay.
"I won't ask it of you now, Dylan. But I want you to know that's what I want, to be with you, always. It's what I'm willing to wait for."
Joy erupted inside her at the tenderness of his words. "You'll wait..."
"For as long as it takes, I will wait for you, Dylan." He smoothed a strand of hair from her cheek, and hooked it behind her ear. "You remember I told you I would try to find a way to help your mother once we came back here to the compound?"
"Yes."
"That's why I needed to speak with Tess. She is Dante's Breedmate."
Dylan nodded. "She helped me clean and bandage my cheek the other day."
"Right. She's a healer. Before her pregnancy, Tess was gifted with the ability to heal open wounds with her touch alone. She's healed internal ailments as well. There's an ugly little terrier running around the compound that's alive only because Tess was able to cure about half a dozen things that were killing it. Including cancer, Dylan. I didn't want to say anything to you about this until I had a chance to talk with Tess and Dante first."
Dylan wasn't breathing. She stared at Rio in astonishment, not sure she could trust her ears. "Tess can cure cancer? But only in animals, right? I mean, you're not saying that she could possibly help..."
"Her gift doesn't appear to be limited to animals, but there is a complication. Since her pregnancy, her skills are diminished. She's not sure it could work for your mother, but she told me that she'd be willing to try - "
Dylan didn't let him finish. A hope so bright it was a blinding burst to life inside her as she launched herself at Rio and threw her arms around him in a fierce hug. "Oh, my God! Rio, thank you."
He peeled her off him with gentle hands. "It's not a guarantee. It's only the slimmest possibility, and even that is being optimistic. The odds are very good that Tess won't be able to help."
Dylan nodded, accepting the idea that it was a long shot, yet elated that there might be even a glimmer of a chance to save her mother.