Chapter 7 - Silas
The banging on the door came earlier than expected. Silas had not even emptied his first cup of coffee and was still in the kitchen when he heard it. He had requested Margaret to visit him sometime during the day to check on Elle.
He had reckoned she would come later in the day. He put aside his mug and walked to the door.
Margaret was on the porch, carrying her usual healer bag. She looked up at his face and said, “Hello, Alpha. Don’t worry. I’m not staying long.”
“You’re early.”
“I know.”
Silas stepped aside and gestured for her to come in.
“I only noticed it last night. I didn’t want to wait.”
He closed the door. “Noticed what?”
Margaret dropped her bag and looked at him with concern. Margaret had worked as the pack healer for years. She was not a woman who wore her heart on her sleeve. When she looked serious or concerned, it meant something.
“When you came home with her, I was at the back of the crowd. I didn’t speak to the girl. She didn’t see me. But I smelt her.” She paused. “Alpha. Elle is not who this pack thinks she is.”
Silas furrowed his brows and waited for her to continue.
“I have been the healer of this pack before you were born. I have evaluated every child, followed each designation, analyzed each teenager that passed through that stage.” Her voice turned cautious.
“That girl is not human. Neither is she a Beta or a Delta like your brothers. What I smelt was something I had only ever smelt once. Centuries ago.” She met his eyes.
“The last recorded Omega in the Weston line was three generations back. Before your grandfather’s time. ”
The kitchen went very still, and Silas quietly placed his coffee down.
“I think there was a secondary designation that did not go off,” Margaret continued, “which Elle now is carrying. Comatose-like. Maybe since birth. In the years it ought to have manifested itself, it never did. She would not have known, anyway. She had no guideline for what she had been going through.”
His wolf had gone still. He had never treated Elle in the way the bond expected him to.
He had been telling himself that it was desire, and guilt, the specific burden of having been cruel to someone and having to live with it.
He never once asked himself why the bond felt like this.
Why it rendered him helpless at her sight.
“She doesn’t know,” he said.
“No.”
“When this gets out—” He stopped. He was already managing it: the old traditional wolves, his father’s doctrine, the way an Omega Luna would be either an object to be manipulated or an object to be positioned for their selfish desires. “She would become a target.”
“She already is,” Margaret said. “The question is what kind.” She picked up her bag. “I’ll come back to check her injuries.” She walked to the door and stopped with her hand on the doorknob. “It’s up to you what you do with it. But do not take it too long, Silas. She deserves to know.”
Then she left.
After closing the door, Silas stood still in the kitchen. It had been three generations since his pack had seen an Omega. Omegas were rare. He thought of Elle, who had built herself up from nothing in the human world, without a pack.
He wondered how he should tell her or when.
He was still turning it over when he heard his brother's car pull into the drive. What words could there even be.
***
Silas sat at the head of the dining table in the company of his brothers and August. Road maps of the neighboring lands marked with red circles were on the table.
“Tell me you have something,” Silas said, looking at Rael.
His brother shook his head. “I have been following all the financial transactions I could find from the auctions. They are making use of shell companies, cryptocurrency, and offshore accounts. The person behind this knows how to cover their tracks.”
“What about the buyers?” Silas turned to Javi. “Heard word from your contacts?”
“Blind streets,” Javi replied, his voice tinged with frustration. “The few I was able to locate said that they were only there to watch. One of them threatened to send me to the Council for harassment.”
The ruling council was the body that ruled all the shifter packs in North America. And if they were brought in before Silas had evidence that his pack was innocent, the situation would become unpleasant.
“August?” Silas glanced at his closest friend.
“Well, you know Sally and I spent some time at the Clearwater pack. I asked their Alpha whether anything suspicious had taken place in their pack. He has heard rumors of the trafficking ring, but nothing specific. No sign whatsoever as to who’s running it.”
Silas slammed his fist on the table, making the map roll down. “Six months and we’re no closer to answers than when we started.”
“We were close,” Javi said pointedly. “At the auction. The mission you left.”
Silas’s eyes flashed. “We’ve been over this.”
“Have we? Because I do not think you realized everything you were giving up.” Javi leaned forward.
“You were inside, following the tracks. You had access to the members. Had you not been so careless, you could have followed the handlers and traced them to their destinations. We could have had sufficient evidence by now.”
“I couldn’t leave Elle there.”
“But you had no problem leaving the mission.” Javi’s tone got higher and sharper. “And now the auction’s gone. It’s a moving operation, Silas. They never use the same place twice. We’ve lost our best lead.”
“I made a choice.”
“You made the wrong choice.”
“Enough.” Rael grabbed the map. “It is of no use fighting now about what Silas should have done. We must move on.”
Silence fell over the table. Silas looked at the map; the burden of being a failure gripped his throat like a vice.
He had let them down. He turned his back.
For Elle.
He’d do it again, though. He would make the same choice despite knowing the cost. But that did not make the guilt any lighter.
“What if we use Elle?” Javi asked suddenly.
Silas’s head snapped up. “What?”
“Elle. She was there. She was in the thick of it. She may recollect details, faces, things, which may assist us to figure out the next auction.”
“Fuck no.”
“Are you insane?”
Silas and August said at the same time.
“Think about it,” Javi continued. “She was held captive for days. She saw the handlers, the location where they detained the women, the path they used. That is more than the last six months of research have given us.”
“She’s fucking traumatized,” Silas recoiled. “I am not going to make her experience that nightmare again in order to collect some intelligence.”
“We need answers, Silas. Our reputation is shit, and other Alphas are pulling out from the trade agreements. The council is asking questions. If we don’t clear our name soon—”
“I don’t care.” Silas stood, his chair scraping over the floor. “Find another way.”
“There is no other way!” Javi got to his feet and glared at his brother on the opposite side of the table. “The next lead we had was the auction, which you lost. Elle is the only option left.”
“She is my woman, not an object to play with.”
“It is also because of her that we lost our chance to get answers.”
The words hung in the air, sharp and cutting. Silas felt his wolf surge forward, ready to defend Elle even against his own brother.
“Both of you, calm down.” August cut through the tense atmosphere. “Elle didn’t ask to be abducted. She sure as hell didn’t ask to be dragged into this mess. And she owes this pack nothing. Especially when she was treated so poorly.”
“I do not mean that she owes us something,” Javi pointed out. “I mean, we need the information that she has. Something to rescue other women who didn’t get the chance to escape.”
Silas was about to protest when a voice came from the door.
“What’s going on?”
Everyone turned. Elle stood in the doorway in an oversized shirt. She looked so little and helpless.
“Nothing,” Silas said quickly. “We are just discussing strategy.”
Elle’s eyes narrowed. “You’re discussing me. I heard my name.”
“Elle.”
“Tell me what’s going on.” She walked into the room, her eyes glancing in the direction of the men at the table. “What do you want from me?”
Javi addressed her before Silas could stop him. “We need to know some details about your kidnapping. Information on the places they kept you, what you observed, anything which could possibly help in locating the next auction.”
Elle went pale. “You want me to help you.”
“We just have a few questions—”
“No,” Silas interrupted. “Absolutely not. You do not have to do anything, Elle. You will not be doing anything, in fact. This is the last thing you need.”
Silas saw something flash in her eyes. Was it apprehension? Fear? But the moment that he
reassured her, it was replaced with the defiant look he was now becoming accustomed to.
“What if I want to help?” She asked, crossing her arms.
Silas blinked. “What?”
“You said I don’t have to help. But what if I want to?”
“No, you don’t. You just want to go against me.”
“Don’t tell me what I want.”
“Elle, you’ve been through hell. The last thing you need is to—”
“The last thing I need is for you to make my decision for me. Again.”
Javi covered his mouth with his palm, but not before Silas saw a little grin forming at the corner of his lips. He knew that if Silas said no, it would make Elle do it. Just to spite him.
Manipulative bastard.
“Don’t you want to help?” Javi asked in a deceitfully soft voice. “Help save the women who are in the position you once were?”
Silas rounded on his brother. “That’s a low blow, even for you.”
“It’s the truth,” Javi shot back. “Elle is aware of what those women are going through. If she has something that may be of use to us—”
“She doesn’t owe us anything!”
“Maybe not. But she does for the women stuck there.” Javi turned back to Elle. “We are not asking you to do anything dangerous. Only to answer some questions. To share what you remember.”
Silas’ gaze zeroed in on Elle’s fingers, which were trembling.
“Stop,” Silas demanded. “You’re scaring her.”