Chapter 33 Silas
I hurl the chair against the wall with an unsatisfying crack as one leg splinters off. “Where the fuck is she!”
“Don’t put holes in the wall, Mona won’t like it,” Orion growls.
I grab another chair and chuck it harder. “I would love to have her standing in front of me, bitching about a fucking hole in the wall!” I roar.
Ghost materializes in the kitchen, Kendrick at his back. “Any news?”
I shake my head, swallowing against the knot forming in my throat. I reach out in the bond again, plucking the thread tying me to her. It’s quiet. She’s deliberately shut me out, just like I did to her once before.
What I wouldn’t give to go back.
All those times I pushed her away. Fucking wasting time. The silence in my head is too fucking loud.
Ghost’s voice is infuriatingly calm. “No one’s seen her since the diner.” His gaze shifts to Kendrick, who absently lifts one of the chairs to sit in beside Orion, before noticing its splintered leg and drops it back to the floor.
“Tell me again what happened at the diner.” Andrea texted to say Mona was speaking privately with Kendrick. Between that and all her nightmares, I chalked all her strange tension up to stress. Now I’m not so sure.
Kendrick shakes his head. “We spoke. Briefly. I…” he trails off.
My voice drops to a demonic growl. “Cut the cryptic bullshit, Máni.” My forearm ripples with fur, my wolf stretching his power, sharpening my vision. He doesn’t care that we don’t stand a chance against the ancient wolf. Neither do I.
Kendrick’s brows lift curtly. He probably doesn’t hear people talk back often. I don’t fucking care.
“She was with Andrea. No one noticed when they left.”
“You didn’t?” I snarl. “You didn’t happen to notice when your long-lost fucking daughter left the building after this heart-to-heart?”
“Silas,” Orion starts, but Kendrick holds up his hand to silence him.
“No, Silas is right. I was trying to give her space. She was upset. I—” His head jerks sideways, eyes drifting off as he thinks through their conversation.
“I told her I’d like to have dinner with her.
And you all. Bring Lily over. She was upset before that, I’d just told her about her mother.
But then… then I mentioned dinner, and she clammed up. ”
“Maybe she didn’t want to fucking eat with you,” I mutter as I pace the kitchen, wearing a path in the old wooden floor.
Orion sighs, “Not helpful, Silas.” Diplomatic as always, my patient pack mate internalizes all his shit, which makes the rest of us look like assholes.
Usually I appreciate it—god knows someone needs to balance out me and my brother.
But right now, watching him stand there all fucking reasonable, I want to grab those ears and rip his head clean off his shoulders.
I turn to him and stab my finger into his chest. “Hey, remember that time I didn’t come home for dinner and you all just fucking assumed I was off being a degenerate for five years?”
Orion’s expression falls. “Silas, I’m not saying Mona just took off, she wouldn’t do that. I’m just saying… we need to hear what Kendrick has to say, so we can put the pieces together.”
The door bangs open as Grayson charges in, bringing a wave of tension with him.
I turn back to Kendrick, “So, she clammed up. Then what?”
Kendrick rubs the back of his neck. “Then nothing. I could tell she wanted to be alone. She seemed receptive to the idea of spending some time together, but when I suggested tonight specifically, she froze. Her scent changed… I assumed at the time she was just overwhelmed. But now I’m wondering if there was more to it than that. ”
Grayson cuts in, voice tight. “I just saw Doc. Turns out Mona and Andrea stopped at the hospital before heading to the diner. When Doc heard they were missing, he checked a room he’d caught Mona sneaking out of earlier.
Didn’t think much of it at the time, but now.
..” He pauses, jaw tightening. “There’s medicine missing.
Healing accelerants, calming herbs. That kind of thing. ”
Andrea and Mona disappear for the entire day all the time, but Mona never misses dinner. But I became suspicious hours before anyone was concerned about her absence. Something felt wrong in the bond, in my gut. Each time I reached for her through it, she seemed to slip further away.
I started looking for her hours ago. Mona can’t hide her scent. And yet, she was nowhere. It’s now almost midnight, and the last time someone saw or spoke to her was over twelve hours ago.
Orion turns to Kendrick and asks cautiously, “Was she injured when you saw her?”
Kendrick shakes his head, but Grayson answers, “Doc said she seemed and smelled perfectly fine. No injuries, he’d have noticed. But she was sneaking around the room and behaving… oddly.”
Kendrick nods. “Yes, oddly. I’d agree with that.”
Ghost crosses his arms over his chest as he fixes his gaze on me. “Did you check the cabin?”
“Yes, of course,” I snap.
“I don’t mean for her. I mean, for clues. Are any of her things missing?”
My eyes meet Orion’s—his pupils dilate—then we’re both bounding up the stairs, taking them two at a time. I scour the nest, tearing sheets and pillows off the massive bed, feeling a hurtful pang when I find some of my clothes hidden amongst the fabric. She was nesting. With my things.
“Some of her clothes are missing,” Orion calls from her room, the sound of drawers yanking open, all her things clattering about.
I slip into the bathroom and notice her toothbrush is gone.
My stomach twists further. Something tugs in my chest. An errant thought.
I head down the hall and into my bedroom.
I almost wish I hadn’t known where to look.
But the backpack, with the things we traveled in to get here, is gone.
Ghost stands beside me, shoulder to shoulder.
“She left,” I croak.
He nods succinctly, then exits the room. Orion’s footsteps thunder down the stairs after Ghost. Kendrick’s voice rises from below, urgent, panicked, and planning. But I’m rooted in place.
Stuck, as if someone’s driven a stake through my heart, pinning me to this spot.
Grayson brushes past me. The mattress dips as he sits on its edge. He’s calmer than I am, which is miraculous in itself.
“I heard what you said to Orion,” he breaks the silence. “Earlier. About the five years you went missing.”
I say nothing.
“Silas, I…”
I raise my eyes. Still stuck in place, my muscles coiled tight. “You what?”
“I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
Something raw escapes me, a half-laugh, half-snarl. “I don’t need your fucking apologies, Gray. Besides, we’ve got more important shit to deal with right now.”
“I’m sorry. For letting you down, for not finding you. For believing you’d just leave us.”
“Well, I wasn’t exactly a saint.”
“Don’t. Don’t belittle yourself or justify my actions. I failed you. I should have searched until I found you. I should have never stopped.” He shakes his head, dragging his fingers through his dark hair, catching on the small braid Mona wove into it days ago.
I change the subject. “Mona left, Gray. She took her things, packed her bag, and left us. Left me.” My fist clenches so tight my nails shift into claws, breaking skin.
The pain helps ground me, like always. “Why would she do that? Was she—” I can’t get the words out.
My chest feels like it’s being crushed by concrete.
Of course she’d reject me—I’m fucking poison.
I’m filth. She finally saw through me, saw what a broken, pathetic mess I am on the inside.
The monster hiding under my skin. And she ran.
Like anyone with a working brain cell would.
Gray’s eyes snap up. “You think she left you? Silas, Mona is—”
I shake my head, my feet suddenly uprooted. I stumble toward the window, catching myself against the sill. “Don’t gaslight me, brother. Let’s not pretend like I’m the gold fucking star of this pack.”
Gray’s reaction catches me off guard. He throws his head back, a harsh laugh bursting from his throat, forcing me back a step.
“Christ,” he exhales, dragging a palm down his face. “And here I thought I was dense. But you—you take the fucking cake. What’s your theory exactly? That she’s with you out of pity? That Mona’s just tolerating you?”
Gray strides over, his large hands landing heavily on my shoulders.
I flinch and try to step back, but his grip tightens, anchoring me in place until I have no choice but to look him in the eye.
“Are you blind to how she watches you? Can’t you hear her pulse quicken when you walk into a room?
Can’t you scent her perfume every time you touch her—even the slightest touch—at the fucking breakfast table?
Brother, I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through.
Nothing I say or do could ever erase it, and god I fucking wish there was.
But I’ll spend my life showing you what you mean to this pack, to our clan.
You’re my best friend, my brother, the one who’s been beside me longer than anyone. ”
I try to pull away, my chest constricting with each word, but his grip only tightens.
“But, you must see, Silas… the way Mona looks at you isn’t with pity or disappointment.
You aren’t some goddamn albatross. You’ve got that girl’s fucking heart in your hands.
You know this is true, you can feel it in the bond.
Same as I can feel her love for me. I piss that girl off like nobody’s business, but it only makes her love grow deeper, stronger.
She’s fucking fire, and you know that. So, you know that she would never leave you, not unless… ”
A beat passes, the moment heavy and silent. His eyes widen with sudden realization.
“What is it?” I rasp.
Before he can answer, voices erupt from below. Gray and I exchange glances, then run out of the room, down the stairs.
We find Orion, the level-headed one, with his face contorted in rage. “You’re telling me she went after them alone?” he roars.