Chapter 19 Mo
Mo
I’m on my hands and knees on my bedroom floor, arranging the rocks Silas and I gathered into patterns.
The smooth, cool stones feel good against my skin as I position each one, turning it until the angle is right, until the striped one sits beside the speckled one and the little round grey one anchors the bottom row.
I sit back on my heels and survey my work. Charly and Rocky now have a whole village of friends. I’ve given them names I won’t repeat to anyone because they’re embarrassing.
“Look, guys,” I say. “You’ve got new friends now.”
Charly is arguing with Rocky about the merits of staying. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself they’re doing. Charly’s main argument is the bed.
I fucking love this bed.
A small smile pulls at my mouth as I adjust a quartz piece so it catches the light from the window.
Fuck.
I’m smiling.
Motherfucker.
My time in the woods with Silas, these rocks, the comforter I’m kneeling on that I secretly love so much I’d fight anyone who tried to take it. Something has shifted, and I can’t quite shift it back.
I groan and flop onto the carpet. “Goddammit.”
Darius’s voice carries down the hall before I can wallow any further. “Dinner’s ready!”
My stomach growls on command. I haul myself up and make my way to the dining room.
Darius is wearing a “Kiss the alpha” apron over his bare chest. The domesticity of it, coming from the male who chained me to a wall, is so absurd I almost laugh. He grunts and slides a heaping plate of mashed potatoes in front of my chair. There’s a Diet Coke beside it, just like I asked for.
I eye him as I sit down. “Thanks. I guess.”
He nods stiffly and moves on. He’s been like this lately. Less aggressive, more distant. Not cold exactly, but careful. Like he’s afraid of saying the wrong thing. Which is new for an alpha whose default setting used to be “bark orders and glare.”
Something feels different tonight. Archer keeps glancing at Darius. Elias is oddly quiet. Even Silas seems stiffer than usual, his jaw working as he stares at his plate.
I catch Silas’s eye across the table, and he gives me a small smile. Quick, barely there, and I smile back.
“What’s got you smilin’ like that, Blueberry?”
“None of your damn business,” I say, stabbing a Brussels sprout with more force than it deserves. “Just reminiscing about better times. You know, when a pack of overgrown knot-for-brains didn’t surround me.”
Elias leans back, grinning. “Better times, huh? Let me guess. Back in the woods, talking to your rock friends?”
“Leave my friends out of this, you overgrown fur-ball.”
His eyes narrow, fork aimed at me. “You’re lucky I’m a gentlemale, or I’d be putting you over my knee right about now.”
I snort. “Please. You couldn’t catch me if you tried. You’re like a dandelion.”
“Dandelion? Really?” He gestures at himself. “Do I look like a dandelion to you?”
“Yeah,” I say. “All fluffy and soft, and you completely fall apart the second someone breathes on you.”
Archer lets out a bark of laughter so loud it startles me. Then he doubles over, clutching his stomach. “Oh, shit. That was good. Dandelion. Damn, I’m using that one.”
“Thanks for the support, asshole,” Elias mutters, but his face is all smiles.
The corner of my mouth twitches, and then I’m laughing too. A real laugh, the kind that catches you off guard and doesn’t stop when you tell it to.
The others join in. Even Darius’s scowl softens, though he tries to hide it by studying his plate.
I drop my fork and groan. “Goddammit.”
Elias raises an eyebrow. “What now, Blueberry?”
“I just realized I was having fun. With you all.”
He clutches his chest. “Having fun? With us? Careful, sweetheart. Keep that up, and I’ll start thinking you like us.”
I huff. “Don’t push your luck.”
His grin widens. Damn it.
I shovel potatoes into my mouth and try to regain some dignity. Then, because my mouth apparently operates independently from my brain, I hear myself say something I’ve been wondering about for days.
“So. Where are all your parents?”
The table goes quiet. Darius’s knuckles go white around his fork. Elias’s grin vanishes, replaced by something hollow. Silas’s grip on his own fork tightens enough to bend it, a muscle jumping under his scar.
I almost take it back… Almost. But I’m tired of dancing around things nobody wants to talk about.
Archer clears his throat. His grey eyes find mine, steady and hard. “That’s a complicated story, Blue.”
“I’m listening.”
He searches my face for a moment, like he’s deciding how much I can handle. Whatever he sees there makes him nod.
“Alright. It goes like this.” He takes a breath. “My old man was second-in-command to Darius’s father. They ran this pack together. Silas and Elias were from a different pack entirely. Silas’s dad was their alpha. Elias’s father was his second.”
I glance at Silas, hunched over his plate, a muscle jumping under his scar.
“There was a coup,” Archer continues, his voice low and stripped bare. No embellishment. No softening. “Some power-hungry fucks decided they wanted to run things. So they slaughtered the leaders. All of them.”
My stomach drops. “Jesus.”
“They killed Silas’s entire family right in front of him. When he tried to fight back, they made him watch.”
I look at Silas again. His eyes are closed. Every tendon in his neck stands out like rope. The scar on his face seems deeper in this light, and I wonder for the first time if that’s where it came from. If someone gave him that scar the same night they took everything else.
“We had to get smart and fast,” Archer says. “We were just kids. Elias was only eleven. Darius, sixteen. Silas and I, barely eighteen.”
“Fuck,” I breathe. Because what else do you say to that?
“The bastards took over. Terrorized the females, tortured some of the betas. We were outnumbered and outgunned, but we outsmarted them. Darius—” Archer hesitates, glancing at the head of the table.
Darius stands abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor. Without a word, he stalks out. The door slams behind him, and the sound reverberates through the room like a punctuation mark. Nobody goes after him.
Archer’s voice drops even lower. “Darius took care of most of them. Killed some and exiled the rest. He was sixteen years old, and he had to make calls that would have broken most grown men. He did what had to be done to protect what was left of our people.”
The room is silent for a moment. Then Archer continues.
“We merged what was left of both packs. Became one. Built this.” He gestures vaguely at the cabin, the compound, the life beyond the walls. “But the scars run deep, Blue. We had to do terrible things to protect what family we had left. All of us.”
I swallow hard. My appetite is gone.
“I get it,” I say softly. “More than you know.”
Silas opens his eyes. They find mine across the table, and what I see in them is something I recognize. Pain. The same kind I carry. Different circumstances, different nightmares, but the same heavy, permanent weight of having lost the people who were supposed to keep you safe.
We look at each other for a long time. Nobody speaks. The silence isn’t uncomfortable. It’s the opposite—the silence of people who’ve said the hard thing and are sitting with it together.
I don’t know when it happened. Somewhere between the dandelion joke and this moment, something changed.
I pick up my fork and resume eating. The potatoes are cold now, but I eat them anyway. Because leaving the table right now feels wrong. And for the first time since I got here, staying doesn’t feel wrong either.