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We had enough fish to feed us for breakfast, so I shifted back to my human form. I quickly grabbed my pants and pulled them on. He was in no position to be thinking about anything physical, and I worried that if he saw the way my body was reacting to his presence, he might be uncomfortable. He could scent it, sure. But that wasn’t the same.
“I love to fish that way,” he said.
“It’s the only way. One day soon we’ll go together.” I grinned as he nodded in agreement. “You seem to be feeling better this morning. You look better.”
“I feel as if my leg has readjusted a bit.” He rubbed where it had broken. “I can move at least. Can you help me up? Maybe I can walk on it more than a step or two.”
“Sure,” I said.
Helping him up was more difficult than I thought it would be. I was so worried about hurting him that I froze every time he flinched. It wasn’t until he told me that he promised he wasn’t going to break any more than he already was that I managed to get him on both feet. It took nearly a minute for him to be confident on his feet. As I stood by his side, ready to catch him if he needed, Silas limped out of the cave and sat down on a rock next to the fire I built.
“Do you come here often?” he asked. His face was pinched with pain, but it was much better than yesterday. In the sunlight I was sure of that.
“As much as I can,” I said. “When I have days off.” It had been my safe haven for so long. My special private place. I’d always dreamed of sharing it with my mate one day. I never once suspected that it would be where we met.
“From your position with Asilo?”
I nodded. “I am one of the counselors who helps with the omegas that come into our care.” I didn’t want to talk about the heavy stuff, not when everything was so unsettled for him. But holding back from my mate felt wrong, and I’d already done far too much of that already.
“I help them move past their trauma, deal with it, process it, grow, and move on in whatever capacity that looks like. Whether its through art therapy, or meditation, self-defense, or some combination of those things.”
“You will be a good resource for Nathan,” he remarked.
I nodded, not wanting to remind him that Nathan wasn’t out of the woods.
Silas’s gaze focused on the fire.
I asked, “Tell me about you and Nathan. He was your friend and you guys talked about more. That part I know. But tell me about him. What is he like?” Silas had been vulnerable with me, and I felt I owed it to him to express my own concerns. He may have been worried about being too soft of an alpha, while I worried about being too hard of an omega.
Silas looked up, his eyes boring into mine.
“He’s great,” he said. “More than once I’d wished he was my mate because I knew we could make a decent life together. We like the same things, get along, you know, all the stuff humans look for in a mate. It never felt right though, obviously. We weren’t mates. And not wanting to be alone wasn’t a reason to come together.”
A crackle in the fire distracted us momentarily.
“We are friends, have been our whole life. We were very open and honest about everything. When the new Alpha came in and took over as the pride, there was a change in Nathan. It was subtle, and I didn’t really see it until I looked back. Now all the signs were there.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Jerome started showing interest in Nathan. I didn’t realize it, but Nathan agreed to a date. He had been weird about telling me who it was, and dates aren’t really a thing, so I guess I sort of thought maybe it was a human or something… I should’ve seen it.” He took three deep breaths, his eyes closed. “And… I went to Jerome’s on pack business, caught him trying to… just trying, and that was how we ended up here today.”
It was so much worse than I thought it was, and I thought it was bad. Asilo was going to need more information on the attack and how far things may have gone to help him heal better, but I wasn’t going to ask that of Silas now. He was already in distress telling me what little he did.
“I wonder, maybe I should have staked my claim sooner. Then Nathan would be safe.” The torment on his face nearly broke me.
I looked away, contemplating what could have been and not wanting him to see my own struggles with what he’d just admitted. If my mate and Nathan had claimed each other, I would never have met him. We would have been unmated. I didn’t know what to say.
Silas grimaced. “Sorry, mate. That was careless of me to say.”
“I understand,” I replied. “I understand why you feel that way. It just caught me off guard to hear it. I promise you, if I were in a similar position, I’d probably have felt the same.”
“Thank you for understanding. I can’t regret not claiming him. It led me to you, and for that, I’m thankful. But I just wish it was different, that is all,” he admitted. “And then there is some underlying guilt.”
Survivor’s guilt was a bitch. I was far too familiar with it in my work. And true, Nathan was still with us, but whether he would stay that way was still up in the air. Silas’s feelings were valid.
“I understand.”
Silas grinned, one corner of his mouth tipping up. “You might perhaps wish for a different mate once you get to know me.”
