Chapter 32 #2
He pulled back just enough to look at me—this man who'd survived hell and somehow found his way to my doorstep. "How do you do it?" The question came out raw, his pale eyes searching mine. "How do you keep going?"
"Spite, mostly." I let my lips quirk into a half-smile. "And stubbornness. And the fact that giving up would mean letting the bastards win." A sound scraped out of his throat that might have been a laugh. Or another sob. Hard to tell.
"Marguerite used to say that grief is just love with nowhere to go." I reached up, tracing the line of his jaw where dark stubble had grown in rough. "You loved them. Your unit. That's why it hurts so much. That's why it'll always hurt."
"Does it ever stop?" The question came out raw, desperate, his pale eyes searching my face for an answer he wasn't sure he wanted.
"No." I wouldn't lie to him, even when the truth hurt.
He deserved better than that. "But it gets easier to carry.
Especially when you have people to help.
" He was quiet for a long moment, and I could see him thinking about Harper, about Remy, about me.
About this strange, unlikely pack we'd built together.
Four broken people who somehow fit together like puzzle pieces.
"Can I—" He stopped, his throat working, his fingers tightening on my arms. "I need to scent you. Please. I need—"
"Yes." No hesitation, no questions. He needed to ground himself, needed an anchor to hold onto. I understood that better than most.
He buried his face in my neck and breathed, his whole body trembling with the effort of holding himself together.
I felt him inhale—deep, shuddering breaths that pulled my scent into his lungs.
Then he started to mark me—rubbing his jaw along my throat, my collarbone, the soft skin behind my ear.
Hard. Desperate. Like he was trying to anchor himself to me, to this moment, to a reality that wouldn't disappear when he closed his eyes.
I tilted my head back, baring my throat completely.
Letting him take what he needed. His stubble scraped against my sensitive skin, rough and grounding, and I felt his scent sinking into me—ozone and river water and cold steel—layering over my own apple cider sweetness until I smelled like him, like us, like pack.
He marked my wrists next, his scarred fingers wrapped around them as he rubbed his jaw over my pulse points. Then my temples, my hairline, the spot behind my ears. By the time he finished, I was covered in his scent and my skin was flushed and sensitive from the attention.
"Better?" I asked softly, my fingers still carding through his hair, feeling the tension finally ease from his scalp.
"Yeah." The word came out hoarse, his breath warm against my collarbone. "Yeah, I think so."
Gumbo made a sound from his corner—a low rumble that drew both our attention. He uncurled himself from his spot and lumbered over, his massive body moving with that strange grace he had. Nine feet of prehistoric predator, crossing the room like he owned it.
He stopped at the edge of the nest, those yellow eyes fixed on Silas's face. I held my breath, not sure what he was going to do. Gumbo had accepted the Alphas, yes—had even slow-blinked at them, which was huge. But he'd never initiated contact. Never sought them out.
Then Gumbo pressed his snout gently against Silas's arm and held it there.
"Oh." My breath caught, my eyes welling as I watched them. "Oh, Silas. He's never—"
Never done that. Never offered comfort to anyone but me. In all the years I'd known him, Gumbo had tolerated the other Alphas, had eventually accepted them, but he'd never reached out like this. Never offered comfort unprompted.
Silas sat frozen, barely breathing, while a nine-foot apex predator nuzzled against him like a dog offering comfort to a grieving owner. His hand lifted slowly—so slowly—and came to rest on Gumbo's massive head. Just resting there. Not petting, not moving. Just... connecting.
After a long moment, Gumbo pulled back and slow-blinked at Silas. Then he turned and lumbered back to his corner, settling down with his tail curled around himself like nothing had happened.
"He knows." I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, my heart full to bursting. "Animals always know."
Silas looked at me—really looked, like he was seeing me for the first time. "Thank you." His voice was rough, stripped bare. "For not... for just being here."
"Always." I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead, soft and simple, letting all my love pour through the gesture. "You're pack, Silas. You're mine. And I don't let go of what's mine."
Something shifted in his expression. Not healed—that would take time, maybe forever—but lighter. Like he'd set down a weight he'd been carrying alone for too long.
I glanced toward the shelf where Marguerite's tarot cards sat beside Harper's moonshine. "Do you want me to do a reading? Marguerite always said the cards could offer guidance, even when the path was unclear."
He hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah. Okay." I untangled myself from him long enough to grab the worn deck, then settled back into the nest with my legs crossed. He watched as I shuffled, the familiar motion soothing to us both.
"Just one card," I said softly. "For clarity."
I drew, and turned it over.
The Star. A naked woman kneeling by a pool, pouring water from two vessels—one into the pool, one onto the land. Above her, eight stars shone in a dark sky.
"Hope." I breathed, tracing the image with my fingertip. "Healing. Renewal. It's one of the most positive cards in the deck."
"What does it mean?" His voice was rough, but curious.
"It means..." I looked up at him, at this scarred, beautiful man who'd carried so much for so long.
"It means that healing is possible. That the worst is behind you.
That there's hope for the future, even when you can't see it yet.
" I set the card down between us. "Marguerite would say the universe is telling you to have faith. To trust that things can get better."
He stared at the card for a long moment, his jaw working. Then he reached out and touched it, his scarred fingers gentle on the worn paper.
"I don't know if I believe in that stuff," he said finally. "But I want to."
"That's enough." I covered his hand with mine.
"Wanting to believe is the first step." We stayed in the nest for another hour, tangled together in the morning light.
I kept up a soft croon whenever I felt him tense, whenever the memories threatened to pull him back under.
Gumbo watched from his corner, ancient and patient, his yellow eyes never leaving us.
Silas told me more about them—his unit. Martinez's terrible jokes. Rodriguez's obsession with hot sauce. Peters's dream of opening a bar when he got home. Jenkins's daughter, who was seven now and would never remember her father's voice.
And I listened. Didn't try to fix it, didn't offer empty platitudes.
Just held him and listened and let him grieve for the first time in four years.
By the time the sun had shifted to late morning, something had changed.
Not fixed—grief like his didn't fix. But acknowledged.
Shared. Carried by more than just one person.
For the first time since I'd met him, Silas looked like he believed he might deserve to be here. And slowly, slowly, I felt him start to believe that maybe surviving wasn't the same as betraying the people he'd lost.