Chapter 28
Aero
I feel sick.
Violently fucking sick.
The look on Silver’s face the moment she appeared in the doorway of Cynthia’s study churns my stomach. The memory of that single tear that stained her cheek threatening to regurgitate the breakfast I ate this morning.
What’s worse is watching Silver drive away with that lost, broken look on her face that she thinks we put there. Telling us she loved us while feeling like we just fucking wrecked her, leaving us behind before we could explain.
“Shit, man. Fuck!” I shout, hands gripping my hair frantically as I watch the taillights of Silver’s car disappear down the stupid fucking gravel driveway I never want to travel again. My heart is frantically beating, damn near right out of my chest at this rate, my scent has long since turned sour with anxiety, fear, and fucking stress, and there’s a deep, cloying panic that’s choking me with an unrelenting grip as I watch her disappear.
Over my pounding heart, I hear Pace mutter under his breath, before an anger I’ve never seen on his face appears. He’s turning and striding right back into the house instead of running to the car to chase Silver, and I’m forced to run after him with frantic confusion.
“What the fuck are we doing right now? We should be going after Silver,” I plead, feeling like I’m on a sinking ship with no lifeboat to save me. Actually, my lifeboat just hightailed it out of here with her broken heart on her sleeve and a look that will haunt me for the rest of my life.
“I’m doing what we came here to do,” Pace snarls, storming through the hallway and right back into the study room that just saw the explosion of my fucking relationship with the only woman I’ve ever loved. Shit, shit, fucking shit .
Following him while I slide my cell from my pocket, I go straight to Silver’s number and press dial, just as Pace slams the door open and alpha-barks at the bitch behind the desk.
“You’re going to leave Silver the fuck alone, we clear? You’re going to pretend like you’re the childless cunt you should have always been. The only reason I’m glad you’re not is because my whole heart rests in the hands of the woman you brought into the world. But from this day forward, you don’t talk to Silver. You don’t look at her. You don’t motherfucking think about her. Are we clear?”
Cynthia sits wide-eyed behind her desk, spine ramrod straight, her teeth gritted while she tries to ignore the pull of an alpha-bark. Pace doesn’t let her. Hell, even I’m feeling the effects, my chest pulling uncomfortably.
“Silver no longer exists to you and your shitty little pack. She’s worth ten of you. A hundred even. You couldn't pay me or her actual pack enough money in the world to walk away from her. We’re here for the long fucking haul. Think twice before you consider forcing yourself into her life again, because we will be there. We’re going to be there long after you're dead and buried in the shitting ground, you understand? When you think about accosting her at an event you’re both at, planning to shove her into the arms of a pack that won’t love her like we do, remember that you’ll have to deal with me,” he snarls, voice deep and rumbling and scary as shit. “I’ll be the nightmare you have to deal with if you don’t make sure you keep the hell away from my fucking omega. Are we clear?”
Slowly, Cynthia nods, trembling now.
“I said, ‘are we clear?’” Pace barks, slamming his hands on the desk, making the woman jump a mile out of her seat.
“We’re clear,” she rasps, fear evident in every aspect of her body language.
Pace stands and steps back, nodding. “Be sure you remember.”
Cynthia swallows hard, but she doesn’t say anything more, and Pace takes that as his cue to leave. He’s storming out of the room without a backward glance, still clutching tightly to the check that vile woman wrote. I don’t even know how much it was, nor do I care, because Pace was right. All the money in the world couldn’t entice me to leave Silver.
“We gonna go get our girl now?” I ask quietly the moment we’re in the grand entrance that makes my head hurt.
“We’re getting our girl,” Pace agrees, stomping to his car like an angry bull, raging and full of fire. I’ve never seen him like it, and it’s all the proof I need to show me that he loves Silver as much as I do.
Climbing into the beat-up Nissan, I barely have my seatbelt strapped over my chest before Pace is flooring it, spitting dust and gravel into the fountain as we speed away from the house I never want to return to.
In silence, my panic palpable around us enough that there’s no need for words, Pace drives like a bat out of hell back to the house. Back to the home we share with the woman we love. All the while, I’m trying to call Silver. Dialing, hanging up when she doesn’t answer, and redialing her number like a pathetic weirdo who won’t leave her alone. I can’t. I need her. More than anything in the world, I need her.
I’m out of the car before it’s fully stopped, running into the house with my heart beating a mile a minute. “Silver? Silver? ”
“She’s not here, Aero. Fuck,” Pace huffs with a groan, running his hand roughly through his hair.
Growling like a damned alpha, I snap, “Where the hell is she?”
Pace pauses, looking around as he thinks, before he says, “Call Alek. See if she’s there. I’ll call—”
Just as he says it, the door swings open, Munro and the twins barging into the house like a tornado through a cornfield. As soon as Munro sees the devastation on my face that I can’t hide, he scowls deeply and snaps, “Where the fuck is she? She’s not answering my calls.”
I sigh, shaking my head. “Pretty sure she’s turned her cell off.”
“Fucking great. What the hell happened?” Rage seethes, his white shirt and cargo pants covered in grease stains. Haze isn’t much better, his dirty hands resting on his waist and leaving dark smudges over the material.
“We went to visit Cynthia like we all spoke about. Warn her away from Silver. I don’t know how she knew, but Silver showed up just as Cynthia tried to pay us off. Handed Pace a fucking check just as Silver appeared in the doorway. Now our omega has the wrong idea, is nursing a broken heart, and we have no idea where she is,” I explain quickly, looking down at my phone to see if I have any missed calls or texts from Silver. It’s stupid, I know I won’t, but I can’t help but check anyway.
“She ran before we could explain what we were doing there,” Pace concludes with a severe tone and expression that would send a shiver down my spine if I wasn’t so stressed about Silver. “We’re about to call around and see if anyone has seen her.”
Munro nods. “I’ll call Juno.”
“I’ve got Alek,” I chime in, and just like that, we’re on a mission to find our omega. The twins are talking to Pace, trying to get the whole story out of the grumbling alpha, and I’m dialing Alek the same time Munro calls Juno.
“Yo,” Silver’s cousin answers, and my body relaxes a little from its tense state.
“Hey, man. Sorry to call, but I was wondering if you’ve seen or heard from Silver?” I ask him without any kind of preamble, getting straight to the point.
Alek sighs before he says, “Can’t say I have, bro. Sorry about that. Anything I can help with?”
Shit the fucking bed.
Gritting my teeth and breathing through my nose, I try to calm myself before answering. “If you hear from her, can you tell her… I don’t know, just ask her to call us or something? Please?”
“I’ll let her know, man,” he says before he ends the call, and I drop my hand as I focus on Munro’s conversation with Juniper.
“Please, Juno. I just want to know that she’s alright,” Munro pleads, and I step close enough to hear Juno’s response from the other end of the line. “She doesn’t want to be found, Ro. I’m not telling you where she is. She’s safe, though. She just needs to get her head on straight. She’s hurt right now.”
“It’s not what she thinks!” Munro snaps, losing his patience with his best friend for the first time since they met. “Juno, we need to talk to her. To explain. Don’t make me go through a whole fucking weekend without her when I only just got her.”
Juno sighs, and I hear the reluctance in her voice, “She asked me not to say anything, Ro. I don’t want to betray that trust. Don’t make me do that to her, too, when she already feels like she’s been betrayed.”
“Fuck!” Munro shouts, hanging up the call before he says something he might regret later. Pressing his cell into his forehead, his jaw clenching tightly, he says, “She knows where Silver is but won’t tell us where. Said she needs space.”
“Will the guys know?” Haze wonders, sneakily suggesting we go around the omega and ask her pack. I mean, I’m sure they would understand if it were them and Juno, right?
Munro destroys the spark of hope that comes with that thought as quickly as it comes. “They won’t tell us. Silver swore them all to secrecy, and Juno doesn’t want to break that trust when she’s already hurting.”
Rage growls. Full on, chest rumbling, growls. He looks as stressed as I feel, and when he turns to face me, he speaks through gritted teeth, “Alek?”
I shake my head, only to pause as my mind runs over the very brief conversation, only to realize the big beefy Viking bastard didn’t ask if everything was okay, didn’t sound in the least bit worried about his cousin.
“That fucker,” I grunt, dialing Alek’s number instead of answering Rage.
“Yo, again,” he greets, and I want to strangle the dick through the phone for being so nonchalant.
“Please, put her on the phone, man,” I blurt, gripping my hair tightly.
Alek pauses for a long moment, and I hear a whisper of a sound. A mere hint of a feminine voice, and that cements it for me. Alek is harboring his cousin and is lying to me about it like the protective big brother she thinks of him as.
“I don’t know what you’re talking—” he begins.
“I know she’s there. I just heard her,” I interrupt, scoffing. “I know how much you love her, and you didn’t sound concerned at all when I asked if you’d seen her. She’s with you, and I want to talk to her.”
Alek sighs long and hard down the phone before muttering, “Hold on.”
My hopes go soaring through the damn ceiling as I wait for him to pass the phone to Silver, only to come crashing right back down to the earth with all of the force of a fallen meteor when Alek’s voice reaches my ears again.
“Look, she doesn’t want to talk right now, okay?” he starts, and I hear the protective steak in his voice, telling me I’m on thin ice, along with my brothers. “She’s hurt, her head is a mess, and I don’t think anything productive will happen while she’s in this state.”
“I just want to explain to her what happened. She thinks we—”
“I know what she thinks. She told me while she sobbed in Lazarus’s arms like I’ve never seen before,” Alek interrupts sternly, and I sigh and hang my head, ignoring the probing looks of my pack. “What the hell were you assholes thinking?”
“We didn’t go there for money,” I sigh again, staring at the floor like it holds all the answers to my problems. “We went to warn Cynthia.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Alek blurts, genuinely sounding confused and shocked enough that he doesn’t sound like he’s about to tear me a new asshole for a miscommunication. “You were warning that bitch? Explain.”
So, I do. I explain every fucking detail to the guy, leaving nothing out, all the while the guys are standing around me with questions in their eyes and a fierce need to get Silver back.
“Do you get it now? We weren’t there for anything other than making sure Cynthia fucked all the way off and left Silver in peace. That’s all,” I urge, voice pleading for him to believe us.
Alek groans before he starts laughing. And laughing, and laughing, and fucking laughing. I’m actually pissed when he gets his shit together enough to say, “Man, what a shit-show.”
“You’re telling me,” I snap.
He chuckles.
Munro curses up a storm.
Pace steals my phone. Good, because I was about to say some shit to the guy I was going to regret later when Silver realized we didn’t betray her.
“Alek, we just want a chance to explain,” Pace says calmly, waiting for an answer. I hear Alek’s voice through the phone as he speaks, right before Pace’s eyes snap to mine and he drops his head back with a shake of his head. “So, if it’s your fault, maybe you can actually help fix this?”
There’s a long pause, and Pace looks like he’s about ready to commit murder.
“You want us to wait the whole weekend before talking to her? You’re not serious,” he grinds. “That’s my omega. My woman. I can’t go a fucking night without her anymore, man. Please don’t make me start now.”
Another pause.
“Of course, we love her,” Pace sighs, right before he curses as colorfully as Munro and drops my cell from his ear. Handing it over to me, seeing it’s disconnected, he says, “Guess we’re going to stew in our stupidity until she comes home with her head on straight. Apparently, we should have told her where we were going instead of keeping her in the dark.”
“I didn’t even think to tell her because it wasn’t meant to be a big deal,” I rush to say, as though it’s him I’m trying to convince.
“It was meant to be a surprise,” Pace agrees, but he shrugs a shoulder. “Doesn’t change the fact that Alek isn’t willing to let us speak to her until she comes home tomorrow.”
“Fuck,” Rage snaps, right before he storms off. I hear the door to Silver’s nest slam shut a moment later, and Haze sighs before following after his brother. Munro disappears next, much quieter than Rage, and Pace clenches his jaw as he watches him go.
“We’ll fix this,” he promises, and I nod, sure we will. I can’t accept any other outcome.
Tired and scared out of my mind that Silver won’t hear us out, I say, “I’m gonna go watch a movie. Distract myself.”
Pace nods and claps my shoulder as I pass, and I drag my sorry ass into the living room, choose the first movie I happen across, and settle into the couch for a miserable night without my girl for the first time since she let me crawl into the caverns of her heart.
***
I know that scent anywhere. I’d know it if I were fucking dead.
Eyes popping open, sleep vacuumed right out of my body the moment I’m flooded with bubblegum, I turn my head to the side and watch as Silver steps into the living room in nothing but an oversized t-shirt and sleep shorts, kicking off her sneakers as she eyes me with a tired, haunted look on her face.
She steps toward me, pausing to reach for the remote on the coffee table, and switches the television off, but not before I see that it’s two o’clock in the morning. Gently discarding the remote once the room is plunged into darkness, I search for her, blinded by the pitch black that now bathes the room.
I stay exactly where I am, afraid to move in case I spook her, only for her to surprise me and say, “I can’t sleep at Alek’s, because you’ve all ruined me. The hour I had, I slept like shit. I can’t sleep without any of you, and it’s making me pissy and ratty and horrible to deal with, so Alek told me I should either hear you all out or take a Xanax and pass out in the guest room.”
Listening intently, I take in every word uttered in the annoyed, sleepy voice of hers, holding my breath just in case my breathing sends her running. That is until there’s a body falling on top of me and my breath leaves me in a rush, a grunt falling from my lips when Silver drops her entire body weight onto me.
I’m frozen for all of two seconds before I’m wrapping her in my arms so fucking tight that she squeaks. I can’t loosen my arms, though, the feel of her against me, the scent I love surrounding me, the way her hair tickles my chin while she tucks her head into my neck, it’s too much for me not to hold her as tight as I possibly can. She’s warm, safe in my arms, and for the first time in hours, I can finally take my first breath that doesn’t feel like scraping my lungs over shards of glass.
Just as I’m opening my mouth, words on the tip of my tongue, ready to spill my guts and explain everything, Silver sighs and mutters, “You’ve ruined me and I need sleep. Please, let me sleep, just for a couple of hours. I’ll hear you all out then. Alek said I was being stupid, and I’m putting my faith in him, so I’ll listen. Just… let me sleep before you… before you tell me why I caught Pace,” she yawns loudly. “Taking money from… from my…”
Silver is asleep before she even finishes her sentence, stunning me into staring down the crazy girl in both awe, relief, and a bone-deep love I can feel filling me up from head to toe.
Swallowing hard, I maneuver her about a little so we’re both comfortable, finding one of the blankets I know she loves to cuddle with and draping it over us both.
With Silver back in my arms, everything feels like it's righting itself, pushing itself back into order. My life feels like it’s supposed to be with her sleeping on top of me, with her bubblegum scent washing over me, her breath warming my neck as she sleeps soundly. My body relaxes slowly the longer she remains asleep, and I close my eyes, inhaling fruity bubblegum that now mingles with my frosted plum, and I finally drift off into sleep with one goal in mind for tomorrow.
I’m telling this girl I love her, and I won’t be letting her go, not ever again.