Chapter 17 Silas
“There’s a good boy,” Hilde coos like I’m a pup.
She shoved me down into a chair and began piling food onto a plate after she hugged me within an inch of my life, then slapped me upside the head for not stopping to see her the moment I got to town.
I tried to explain that I’d been here all of a day and a half, but apparently that’s no excuse.
A reluctant smile pulls at my lips, but it feels strange.
Hilde doesn’t seem to care how I’m feeling, one way or another.
She’s always been like that. A mother hen, yes, and she has zero tolerance for bullshit.
But she also doesn’t judge. She might be one of the few who didn’t treat me like I was just some degenerate.
Mona is upstairs showering. I snuck inside like a coward last night. I almost slept in the woods again in wolf form. It still feels too much like freedom to have his form back, but I couldn’t stay away from her. I just needed to see her.
I swear I caught Ghost hovering outside her window in his falcon form just as I arrived, but he was gone in a flash. Bigger coward than I am.
Orion is with her, and while I’m sure with his shiny new bond he doesn’t want to let her out of his sight, apparently Grayson accepted Andrea as Mona’s personal bodyguard and, until Deidre is dealt with, Mona isn’t to be alone for a single moment, and the guys are taking that shit seriously.
Not that I’m not. If anyone knows what Deidre is capable of, it’s me.
I wonder how Mona feels about Gray’s old on-again, off-again flame being her bodyguard. Maybe I’ll ask her in front of Grayson.
I don’t know what it is about him that makes me want to push his buttons. I haven’t seen him in years, and I fucking missed the guy, more than I ever thought possible. But we’ve been needling each other since the first moment we reunited. Since the first moment we were born, too.
It helps, actually. If he were coddling, that would be worse.
“Eat this, too. You’re too skinny,” Hilde pinches my cheek. I grimace and pull away.
“Alright Hilde. That’s enough. I can’t even eat all this,” I complain.
She gives me a scathing look. “That’s enough? You’ve been gone for five years, doing god knows what, and if the rumors are true, you were stuck with the witches—” Hilde huffs, then recomposes. “And you think this is enough? My boy, you’ve forgotten your roots. Now, shut up and eat your lunch.”
She bares her teeth this time, and it’s the strangest thing… I swear I catch a tear in her eye before she turns away from me. So, I shut up and finish eating. When Hilde leaves, she makes me promise I’ll swing by the kitchen later.
It’s more food than I’ve had in years, but I eat every crumb, and my wolf rumbles happily. Last night we ate rabbit we caught, but it wasn’t enough. When I’m finished, I put the plate in the sink, then get up and keep looking around, like I’m a visitor in my own home.
I am, in a way. Grayson, Orion and Mona… they’re building a family here.
Jealousy twists inside me, but it’s more than that. Deeper.
Longing.
Grayson follows as I look around—casually, like he’s not on some sort of mission.
He’s been hovering since Hilde arrived. Longer, actually.
He wants to talk about something, but fuck if I’m going to be the first one to break.
Up the stairs, I wander down the hall toward my old room.
I pause at the entrance, placing my palm flat on the door.
Then I push in.
It’s exactly the same as when I left it. The only thing missing is my scent. The bedroom faces the east side of the house. I never brought women here, so the room is fairly spartan. A low platform bed, a side table. I don’t even have my own bathroom.
There’s a small table by the window and a leather wingback beside it. I sit at the edge of the bed and take it all in. Gray takes a seat in the leather chair.
My twin. He has a hard look about him, more cutting than he used to be.
I wait, throat tight, wondering which of us will crack first. And I take in the smells of the cabin.
My parents’ scents are long gone, but their spirit, their essence, is still in this house.
Their faces beam from picture frames on the walls.
The floorboards still scuffed with the marks of our childhood—when my brother and I were pups, our mother’s footsteps thundering behind us as we fled, shrieking down the hall to my bedroom, our laughter drowning out her scolding for playing so hard indoors.
We broke a lot of furniture when we were little.
I’m sucking in sharp, quick breaths. I gasp for air, but it won’t come, and before I realize what’s happening, Gray’s out of his chair and trapping me in his arms.
My eyes burn, and I try to shove him off, but he only crushes me tighter. I dig my fingers into his shoulders, trying to push him away, to keep the pain locked inside where it belongs. Shove it down deep, where I keep all the dark and dirty shit.
But he doesn’t let go.
When the suffocating tightness in my chest finally eases, he releases me without a word. Returns to his chair like nothing happened.
“We can talk about it, if you want,” he eventually says.
I shake my head. “You don’t want to hear it.”
“I do, Sy. I want to hear it all.”
I shake my head and let out a dark laugh.
I give myself another moment to button it up, suck it all back in.
There’s no way I’m tainting my brother with my darkness.
But I know he won’t let it go. So, I say, “I don’t want to speak of it.
Never again. What she did to me, what they did—it’s in the past.”
“Is it?” Gray sweeps his hand toward the room. Toward the hallway, where Mona’s bedroom is. “You’re bonded, but you look like you can’t get away from her fast enough.”
“That’s different.”
“How? The shit you went through—I can’t even imagine—”
“No, you fucking can’t, so shut your fucking mouth about it!” I snap.
Maybe Gray has changed. Because the Gray I knew would growl and rage when talked back to. This one just… sits. Patiently waiting for me to calm down. I try again, “I’m just saying, what happened has nothing to do with Mona. The bonding… it was a necessity, that’s it.”
He eyes me skeptically. Then smirks. “Nope. Not gonna work for me.”
“Gray—”
“Listen. That girl is my world. And even though you’re keeping her at a distance, your attention still gravitates toward her. She’s your world, too. I’m not gonna let you fuck this up. You want the past to stay buried? Fine. But I’m not gonna let you ruin your future.”
Arguing with Grayson is what I do, so I open my mouth to contradict him, to complain, to bitch. But nothing comes out.
Because I want a future with her. I just don’t know how to… be a good person. Be good for her.
She heard what everyone said about me yesterday. What I’m really like. A slut. A whore. Worthless.
A piece of shit who doesn’t deserve her.
I hated that look of pity on her face, too. I wanted to scrape it off.
But a tiny part of me wanted to prove to her I’m not that guy anymore, either.
Like he can read my indecision, my turmoil, my brother smiles, and it’s the softest I have ever seen Grayson Ashland.
“I will help you, brother. For Mona, because she deserves a mate as good as you. But because you deserve a good life, too. We live way too long to hide from our fears. Just… don’t leave.
Fucking promise me you won’t leave us again. ”
His voice cracks, and I grit my teeth, afraid to look up.
My fingers curl into the mattress, then my nails dig into my palms. My skin is sweating. My heart beats wildly, my eyes sting.
And then her scent… honey and jasmine, though the floral is gentle as it carries through the room, like it’s feeding my soul.
No, I don’t want her seeing me like this. Weak. Pathetic.
Mona deserves so much better than me.
I get up, ready to escape. Out the fucking window if I can. But I make a mistake. I look over. Red hair still dripping like a drowned rat from her shower, her blue eyes shimmering, with Orion standing behind her. Before I can say anything, she’s flying across the room, into my arms.
She topples us onto the bed, but I hold us up, and she wraps her arms and legs around me, squeezing so tight we could be one.
“Please don’t leave me,” Mona cries. “Please, Silas. I won’t pressure you for anything else. I won’t force you to be with me, or even in this pack, but please, please don’t leave.”
Her pleas gut me. Indecision wars inside me, tearing at me, yanking me back and forth between pain and fear. I’m scared. I’m so fucking scared. Terrified.
Because she’s the light. She’s the lotus, just as Ghost said.
I didn’t feel guilty for eavesdropping, because I needed to understand, too.
She thought she bonded me without my consent.
And the piece of trash I am, I let her think it.
The truth is simpler and much more pathetic: I was terrified she’d eventually see all my broken parts and regret being chained to someone so damaged.
So I pushed her away, made her think I resented the bond.
Ghost was right. I am my alpha. His needs and wants are my own.
And I wanted her so badly it scared the fucking shit out of me.
Mona is the flower rising above the filth. But maybe that’s okay. I live in the darkness, but maybe, if I can give her everything left inside me, she can continue to bloom in the light. And if all the shit I went through, and all the stupidity of my youth, if I can escape it, and end up with her?
There’s no question I want her.
There’s no question I’ll take her.
My voice shakes with the weight of my fear, of my sheer fucking need for her, rumbling through every syllable. “What about what everyone said? You heard what I’m like. How could you want me?”
She snarls, looking surprisingly feral for such a sweet thing. “If you think for one second I care what those small-minded elders said about you, true or not, you’re dumber than you are pretty.”
I cough a laugh. Leave it to Mona to insult me while praising me.
I shake my head. “If we do this, Mona, that’s it.
I’m not like your other mates. I’m intense.
Obsessive. You won’t ever be free of me.
Be sure, Mona. Please be sure. Because if you let me have you, you can’t take it back, okay?
You can't take it back.” My voice cracks on the last words.
She sobs into my neck. Like that last time, the end of her heat. Like the desperation between us is as mutual, as aching for her as it is for me.
“I’m yours, Silas. All yours. And you’re fucking mine.”
Gripping her hair, I yank her head back. My teeth elongate, I feel fucking wild. I wasn’t expecting this. Not right now, not yet.
But I don’t think I can let the moment go without claiming her. Truly, without hesitation. Mona’s eyes blaze into mine. Arctic blue, crystal clear—not like the blackout haze of her heat. She’s here, all the way. And with her eyes, she’s pleading with me not to back down or leave.
My lips crash to hers and I swallow her cries. Her tears wipe against my cheeks, and suddenly, her hands are clawing at my shirt. My palms grip her ass cheeks, and I press her into my erection.
She grips my wrist and guides my hand between her legs. Desperate, a little unhinged, she’s acting on pure instinct. I slip my hand down the front of her pajama pants. My fingers graze her clit and she lets out a sharp moan.
But I’m not gentle, and I don’t stop there. My fingers plunge deeper, hooking into her core. Gripping her pussy with my whole palm, I shake her. “Mine,” I growl.
“Ours,” Grayson corrects, and I almost forgot they were still here.
He drops to his knees beside us and begins pulling off her pants.
With some maneuvering, we get Mona naked, but she’s still clinging to me.
Through her bond, I can feel her fear. She’s terrified I’m going to change my mind and leave her.
I’m accustomed to shame, but it hits differently this time.
I release the tight, muted control I had over our bond and let her feel me.
The connection is instant. She lights up with joy, and it washes over everything else. She’s not running scared when I allow her to feel how much I need her.
I keep working her pussy, thrusting my fingers in and out, easier without her pants on. Orion pulls off her shirt and the moment her beautiful tits are free, my mouth descends. I suck on one nipple, then pull my wet fingers from her core and pinch the other.
“Please, alphas. I’m ready. I need you. All of you.” There’s a flicker of something dark along the bond, and I can nearly see Ghost in her mind. She’s projecting.
I grip her chin. “That isn’t about you.”
She tries to pull away, look down, avoid the topic, but I force her to see me, to hear me. “He isn’t like me. His reasons are different. Give him time. But just know that it isn’t about you, okay?”
I can feel Grayson and Orion’s questioning glare, but Mona and I don’t explain.
Her lips pout, and she slowly nods her head. I take her lips with mine, slower, no less graphic. I lick and bite. I devour.
Mona tugs at my shirt. I let her pull it off, then work the button on my jeans. She shoves them down once I get them to my knees, and then she’s on me again. The need for her rides up my spine.
An expert, now, she grips my knot and squeezes tight. I let out a sharp hiss. “Fuuuck.”
“Mine,” she says. Then she tilts her head back and looks at Grayson and Orion. “Show me how to share, mates.”