Chapter 17
Silas
“Fran.” I knock on Fran’s door over and over. “Fran. If you don’t open this door in five seconds, so help me god, I’m going to kick it down.”
My fist connects with the door again, and it swings wide open, revealing an angry Fran on the other side. She’s half-awake, wearing a ruby red robe and matching slippers.
“What the fuck, Silas? It’s not even seven in the morning. Why didn’t you mind-link me? You had to come over here?”
I ignore all her questions and walk into her house, pushing her to the side.
“Sure, Silas, come on in,” Fran says, her tone flat.
Cooper runs to me as soon as I enter, and I tell him we’ll be home soon. When I stand and turn to Fran, she’s elevated from angry to furious.
“What?” I ask, taking a seat on her couch.
She pinches her brows and makes a show of her hands. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be… I don’t know, snuggled up with a certain human?”
“I might have a problem.”
“Clearly. You’re bothering me before the sun is up.” Fran grumbles and walks into her kitchen.
All of our cabins are built similarly, so her front room is half kitchen, half living room. She throws open cabinets, grabbing two packets of instant coffee. When she holds one up to me, I nod. A minute later, give or take, she hands me a cup and takes a seat next to me.
“Okay, now that I’ve had a sip of coffee, can you please tell me why you’re here? Is it a problem with the rogue wolves?”
I chuckle, taking my own sip. “I wish that’s all it was, but unfortunately, it’s not that. There haven’t been any signs of them since everything that happened with Kyrian.”
Fran nods.
“It has to do with Junie.”
“I swear to god, Silas, if you hurt a hair on her head—”
“Whoa, Fran, you have a soft spot for humans now?”
She growls. “Just because you’re the Alpha, doesn’t mean I can’t kick your ass.”
“Oh, I know you can kick my ass. And I haven’t hurt her, Fran. I would never hurt her.” I don’t mean for it to happen, but a low growl of my own escapes. My wolf isn’t happy we left Junie alone in the cabin.
“Silas. Is she…” Fran’s eyes widen at the realization.
“Yes.”
“Fuck. But how?”
“How is she my fated mate?” I ask. “Well, you see, it turns out her tiny necklace had some witch properties I was unaware of.”
“Her necklace?”
I groan, running a palm down my face. “Fran. Yes. Keep up. Her necklace. We had sex last night and—”
“Oh, finally.”
“Don’t interrupt me.” I send a loose command to Fran, and she zips her lips, a smirk displaying on her face.
“This morning I was making breakfast.” Fran’s lips open.
I continue before she can get a word out.
“Don’t make me regret coming to you over Jake.
She came out of the room, and something was different.
But also the same? It was like I always sensed it, but it was just being revealed to me. ”
Fran raises her hand, and I roll my eyes. “Yes, Fran, you may speak now.”
“Thank you, Alpha,” she teases. “So, you’re saying you rescued your fated mate, but you didn’t know she was your fated because of the necklace? But now the necklace is gone, the secret is spilled, and you left her?”
“I didn’t leave her,” I growl, my hand grips the side of the couch to avoid shifting out of pure anger. “I can’t have a mate, Fran.”
“You want to, though?”
It’s barely perceptible, but I nod. “It doesn’t matter what I want. It can’t happen, remember?”
“You haven’t told her?”
“About Stella? Yeah, I did.”
“No, Silas.” She throws a pillow at me, and I’m not fast enough to grab it before it hits me in my face. “The spell.”
“No. It wasn’t relevant.” I shrug.
“It wasn’t relevant?!” Fran shrieks. “You are spellbound, Silas. You know there’s a chance humans can feel the mate bond, too.”
“It wouldn’t be the same.” I shake my head. “Not as strong.”
“You don’t know that!”
“Fran, lower your voice.” I don’t need the wind carrying our conversation to anyone.
It’s not that Junie would hear, though, because the odds of her leaving the cabin after I left her are slim.
Or at least, I hope so. “It doesn’t matter.
You know I can’t. The pack… There’s too much happening with the pack, Fran.
I don’t want to subject anyone to the violence that’s been happening. ”
“You can’t decide that for her, you know. She deserves a choice.”
“Not if that choice means her death. Fran, I can’t protect her here. I can barely protect my own fucking pack. My brother nearly died because of them.”
“Silas, it’s not your fault.”
“It’s my fault, Fran. I’m the Alpha. If anything happens to our pack, it’s on me.
It doesn’t matter if I had a hand in the matter or not.
I knew we were being watched, and it was just a matter of time until we were ambushed.
Fuck.” I scream and slam the now-empty cup down on the end table next to me.
Fran stays still. My breathing is heavy, my chest rising and falling rapidly. Fran doesn’t get it. Junie might be my fated mate, and it might be killing me to be away from her right now, but she doesn’t need to be chained to this life. I could see it in her eyes that she’d want to try.
But she can’t. Not with her business, not with her life. I don’t want to make her choose between her own dream job and me. If that makes me an asshole for making the choice for her, so be it. What’s new?
“I’m not worth it, Fran. She deserves better than me. And please, don’t argue with me. This decision has been made. I’m not looking for advice.”
“Why are you here, then? This is bullshit, and you know it. You’re spellbound, Silas, not fucking dead. You can still accept the mate bond, all you have to do is get her to—”
“No.”
“But Silas, it’s not—”
“No. It’s not. The best thing I can do for Junie is not tell her she’s my fated mate and let her go back to her normal fucking life in Starview.”
Two things happen after I speak my truth to Fran. The first is Cooper barks toward the front of the cabin. The second is the door swings open, followed by the sassy human I can’t seem to stop thinking about.
Junie.
“You asshole.” Junie stalks forward, ignoring Fran. She heads straight to me, stopping a foot away. Cooper is at her feet, and she glances his way, but she’s not backing away from this. “Did you think I wouldn’t follow you?”
“Yes.”
Junie is silent as she waits for more from me. Thirty seconds later when she realizes I have nothing else to say, she explodes.
“Yes? That’s it? What was your plan, Silas? I can fucking feel you.” Junie’s voice breaks, and I have to grip the couch to prevent myself from standing and pulling her into my arms.
My wolf needs to calm the fuck down. He’s simmering close to the surface. I’m sure my eyes reflect as much, but we aren’t sealing this bond. We can’t seal this bond.
“You don’t know what you’re feeling.”
“I don’t know?” Junie isn’t holding back now.
She throws her hands in the air and paces around the living room.
Her gaze bounces between the floor and me.
“You don’t know, Silas. Fuck. It makes so much sense that we are fated, and instead of talking to me about it, you run away like a goddamn coward. ”
I snarl and stand. Before I know it, I’m standing in front of her, fighting every internal instinct not to touch her.
“You don’t talk to an Alpha that way.”
“Oh, save it.” She shoves at my chest, but I don’t move. She tries again, and again, the frustration building in her. I grip her hands, letting our bonds interact from our touch. “You…”
“I don’t want a mate, Junie. You know this.”
It’s a lie.
A lie that has my heart breaking into two. Even with this stupid spell in place, which is meant to reduce the heartbreak, it can never get rid of it. Not when Junie exists in my world.
“You’re serious.” She looks at me, her eyes glossy and red.
“Yes.”
I drop her hands and turn toward the couch, walking back to my seat.
“What if I want…”
“I don’t care what you want, human.”
Once I sit down on the couch, I look at Junie.
Her eyes are brimming with tears. She holds them back, still, even though I know I’m breaking her.
I’m doing this to her, causing her pain, but I have to believe it’s for the best. Maybe in a different lifetime, this would work.
If this is what Stella felt like when she found her fated mate, it all makes sense to me.
The pull you feel toward your fated mate is unlike anything else.
Even without our bond sealed, the string between us is taut, alive, forever changed.
The heartbreak, the lust, the sadness, every emotion she’s feeling…
I can feel it too. It’s not as strong as a sealed bond, but it’s there.
As she stares at me, I can sense her sadness morphing into anger.
“Fine,” she says, then turns to leave. Before she exits Fran’s cabin, she turns to me one last time and says, “I guess this is goodbye.”
The door slams shut, and I choke back a sob.
“Silas…” Fran says. I forgot she was there, and now she witnessed the entire thing. “You didn’t have to be so harsh.”
“Yes, I did.”
“You could have told her there’s a possibility you’ll be more open to the idea once the packs are united, at least.”
“That would have been a lie, Fran. There will always be another problem, another threat to deal with.”
I stand and move to the front window, watching as Junie walks away.
She doesn’t go back toward my cabin, but into the forest instead.
I’m not surprised she wants to cool down and not visit the place where everything changed between us.
Fuck, I might need to get a new cabin. I don’t need to walk in there and smell her, smell us.
“She just went into the forest,” I grumble.
“There haven’t been any sightings. She’ll be fine,” Fran says, and I nod.
“I’ll go check with Jake on the snow, I guess, see when we can get her home.”
I walk to the door, twisting the handle, when Fran says, “Think about telling her? Okay? She should know about the spell. It’s still new, and you might change your mind.”
“I won’t. You still good to watch Coop?”
“You might, Silas. And yes, always. He’s practically my dog at this point.”
I lightly chuckle. She’s right. Cooper stays with her most of the time, more so now that my Alpha duties have increased.
“Thanks, Fran.”
“Anytime, Alpha.”
I shut the door behind me and pause to inhale the scent of Junie, whatever I can scrounge up from the outdoor air. I take two steps toward Jake’s cabin before I come to a halt.
There’s a sudden, sharp sound coming from the forest. The same forest where Junie went for a walk. It slices through the air, the sound turning loud and agonizing.
My face pales and my stomach knots when I realize what the noise is; it’s Junie.
And she’s screaming.