A keening sound slips from my throat. My omega whimpers, a sharp ache in my heart. Grayson’s eyes shoot to me, but he doesn’t know what’s wrong. Silas rubs the back of his neck uncomfortably. To me, he says, “He’s following. He’ll meet us there. This thing isn’t over yet.”
If I were a weaker person, I might hope for a double meaning in those words. But I’ve been through too much to think that he meansus.
This thing was over before it began.
I just… I really fucking hope they let me say goodbye.
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Chapter 12: Silas
The drive is as excruciating as I anticipated.
My skin is crawling. I flex my fingers out, let them shift into claws, then pull them back in. Again and again I do this, to keep me from shifting fully, from stealing my mate and escaping out the back window.
She sits between Grayson and Orion in the back seat. It’s less awkward in front, with Eli. We weren’t friends, exactly. He always disapproved of my behavior—shocker, everyone did—but we were friendly. I appreciate his militant intensity.
He nodded once, said something to the effect of, “Glad you’re back,” then started driving.
Grayson and Orion pepper Mona with questions. Can’t they see she’s overwhelmed? She needs space. Okay, maybe not space. Quiet, at least.
Eventually, her short answers—not clipped, exactly, but weary—say more than her words, and they stick to squeezing her arms, like they’re pulling a doll between them.
Not for the first time in the last few days, I wonder what their dynamic is like. I feel like she and I shared something deeper than a biological heat—we went through a lot together, and the guys can’t take that away from us.
I hate this. I don’t know how to fucking act around her.
She heard me, I know she did. Back at the cabin, when I said I just wanted to get her home to her mates. That I wanted to be as far from her as possible, that I didn’t want to mate with her.
Even when I said the words, I knew it wasn’t true. But Iwantedit to be true.
She looks at me like I’m someone. And I’m not. I’m nothing.
Less than nothing.
And at some point, she’ll figure that out. Especially once we’re back in Silent Peak. All the people who knew me once, they’ll see me again and remember the fucking degenerate I was, and she won’t want to have anything to do with me.
I won’t make her choose. When it gets that far, I’ll let her go.
Until then…
I soak up all her omega energy. I’ve stopped pushing it away, it’s too much effort. She’s too strong. I let it seep inside me. My alpha drinks her scent up, basking in her warmth and closeness. Jasmine and honey. So perfect.
I never wanted to let her go, but I knew I’d have to, and it’s easier to push her away. But I didn’t expect her to overhear me. I thought she was out, from her heat. I hadn’t noticed the shift in her breathing.
I can’t even do that right. I’m such a fucking idiot.
“So… are we going to talk about your bond?” Grayson asks of me and Mona with an edge in his tone.
I grit my teeth. Looking out the windshield ahead of us, without turning around, I lie. “It was necessary to keep her safe since you fucking assholes didn’t bother.”
Mona flinches, visibly and through the bond.
She changes the subject, telling them about the house she was taken to by the witch, then the cabin in the woods, leaving out her heat. She tells them what it felt like when Deidre commanded her, what it felt like to be forced to obey. I tune it out. I don’t need to relive that again. I see enough of it when I close my eyes.
I watch them in the mirror. Between nudges, rubbing her temple with his chin, Gray stays in alpha-mode, quietly making a plan. I don’t know how to help. If anything, when it comes to Deidre, I’m a liability. So I stay quiet.
Until Mona asks me a question, pulling me from my misery, and I sigh. “What?”
