22. Silver
22
SILVER
L ucas stays curled up in my lap all day. After lunch, he takes my hand and places it on his belly where the pups are kicking. While they pitter patter against my hand, he tucks his head under my chin, and God. It’s just as good as lying at the bottom of the hammock when I was growing up, and letting my brothers pile on top of me in their fuzzy raccoon forms. Lucas and these pups are my family. I can feel it in my bones.
“What if Daryll figures out where I am?” he whispers.
“Do you think he will?”
Lucas nods against my chest.
I close my arms around him and hold him tight. “If he shows up here, I’ll tell him to get lost.”
“But he’ll be angry,” Lucas says, his voice still soft and scared.
“I can hold my own, baby. It will be okay.”
He tenses in my arms. “No. If he hurt you…”
“Better me than an omega who’s six months pregnant and a lot smaller than he is.”
“But you don’t deserve…” he trails off, and I hope it’s because he can see how illogical that sentence is.
“And you do deserve it?” I ask, trying to keep my voice calm and not completely succeeding.
“Daryll is the mate Fate chose for me.”
The utter finality of that hits me. Fate gave Lucas an alpha father who hit him, and then She chose Daryll, another violent man, for his mate. I can see how Lucas might conclude that he deserves what Daryll did to him.
“Do you think your pups deserve Daryll?” I ask.
He shakes his head rapidly. “They’re innocent. They haven’t done anything.”
Does that mean Lucas thinks he did something worthy of all this violence? My heart aches for him.
“You didn’t do anything either, baby.”
He moves on my lap, pulling away from my body ever so slightly. The inch between his arm and my chest feels like a huge chasm after hours of cuddling him close. “I did.”
“Whatever you think you did, it isn’t bad enough to justify what Daryll did to you. No one deserves violence, okay? Absolutely no one.”
“But Fate chose?—”
“Fate isn’t fair. She plays favorites. That’s what my omega mom said. Back when we were kids, she explained that parents aren’t supposed to have favorites. They’re supposed to love all of their children equally. She said we were Fate’s favorites because we got to choose our mates, but that didn’t make us better than anyone else. It just made Fate unfair. Because good parents don’t have favorites.”
Lucas covers my mouth with his hand. “No, Silver. Don’t say that about Fate. She could curse you.”
I gently tug his hand away from my face. “Then let Her curse me. I will never agree with what She’s done to you. I will never think it’s fair or that you deserve it. Not ever.”
Lucas’s eyes well with tears. “She gave me you, too, didn’t She?”
“Yes, but?—”
“Then She isn’t that heartless.” Lucas leans in to kiss me. “She gave my pups to you, too, didn’t She?”
“Yes—”
He kisses me again. “She gave you paws to claim me, right?” He takes one of my hands and places it on his chest. “She put me in the same trailer park as you. She gave me Christmases with your family and cinnamon rolls baked by your mom. She gave me guitar lessons with Coin and laughter with Link. She gave me all those nights of cuddling with your raccoon.”
I hug him tightly because I don’t know what to say. Sure, Fate has given him plenty of good with the bad, but that still doesn’t make Her fair. It isn’t my place to say, though. Because Lucas is allowed to believe whatever he wants about Fate. He’s allowed to worship Her the way most gray wolf shifters do, and he’s allowed to fear Her, too. I’m just grateful he thinks of me and my family as gifts from his deity.
“Does this mean you’ll let me put my paws on you?” I ask.
He shrugs. It’s not a yes, but it’s not a no either. Other than the temporary trial run I got him to agree to, this is as far as I’ve gotten with him.
“Okay. I choose to interpret that as progress,” I say.
He smiles shyly. God, that smile. He’s so beautiful.
“Could I cook for you tonight?” Lucas asks. “Maybe I could make one of your omega mom’s recipes?”
He’s perfectly still as he waits for me to respond. This is important to him.
“Yeah, that would be great.”
He stands up. “Okay. I’ll get started, then. Is there anything you want?”
“If you’re using my mom’s recipes, I’m sure I’ll like whatever you make. I don’t cook for myself that often. Thank you, baby.”
He beams at that. Maybe he wants to be useful. I guess he hasn’t had the chance to do much besides rest and shop during the last few days. When we were growing up, he helped my omega mom cook whenever he could. I remember how much he’d light up every time she praised or thanked him.
He opens my pantry and scans the contents. I know it’s old-fashioned, but the idea of Lucas cooking for me fills my heart with warmth. It reminds me of my omega mom cooking for our family growing up. She wasn’t a traditional omega, of course. She ran her own business, swore like a sailor, and had plenty of tattoos. But the kitchen was her domain, and she could cook better than anyone I knew. Even when we were struggling financially, we ate well because of her.
I’ve always secretly hoped I’d bond to an omega like that.
“Can you make my mom’s beef stew? I think I have all the ingredients, but I can run to the store if you need anything,” I say.
I’ve had plenty of beef stew since leaving home, and none of it holds a candle to hers. She adds just the right amount of spices and uses potatoes and rice instead of noodles. The recipe takes hours to make, or I’d cook it myself more often.
He smiles. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“Thank you, baby. That means a lot.”
Over the next few hours, I watch him cooking out the corner of my eye. He slices the carrots exactly the way my omega mom does and even holds the salt-shaker over the pot at the same angle, sipping at the broth to check the flavor as he sprinkles it.
The best part is how the cooking calms him. He gets lost in chopping, sprinkling, and stirring, barely noticing me or where he is. I don’t remember him getting this absorbed in cooking when we were younger.
Is this how he coped with the last five years of being bonded to Daryll? It’s strange to think of my cuddly Lucas finding solace in something other than human contact. He used to remain terrified for hours after altercations with his dad unless we cuddled.
He really has changed.