I bolted up from bed, drenched in sweat. Taking deep gasping breaths, I tried to slow my heart rate back down. Swinging my legs over the edge off the bed, I put my head in my hands. 'Just a dream, Silas. Nothing more.' 'It’s not a fucking dream, Eros. It’s the memory of them taking my sister. Of watching her get hauled off on the shoulder of some rogues.' I took a deep breath and shook my head. There was no way I was going back to sleep tonight. Getting up, I threw on a shirt and headed out of my room. The house was dark and quiet. Finally looking at the clock, it was 3 a.m. Heading out the back door, I shifted and took off into the forest. I needed to run some of this feeling off. Nate had dredged up memories I would rather forget and thus the nightmares plagued me. Heading south, I ran and realized I was headed towards the pools that we used to go to as kids. They were off the territory but the three of us used to sneak off and go swimming during the summer. I passed the territor
Sam found me first. He didn’t quite seem to know what to make of me, sitting in the very back of our underground dungeon. I don’t know how long I had been there but it was sure as hell at least for a day. There was no light, no windows and it smelled like death but it was a comfort. I knew this place. It was somewhere I was familiar with. My hands shook as I continuously replayed the conversation with Solaris in my head. Eros had already backed off after I screamed at him multiple times. He told me he didn’t tell me just for this reason but he didn’t think that she would tell me. Not after we learned she was dying. Solaris was dying and supposedly she was my dead sister. No matter what, she would go from my dead sister to my dying sister and back to my dead sister. I cackled and shook my head, burying it between my knees. Everything in my life felt wrong. My body was exhausted and vibrated at the same time. I felt manic and completely unhinged while I hyper focused on every detail of
I didn’t want to do this. Everything in me screamed to turn my ass around and go the fuck home. Nate was standing next to me, shifting his weight back and forth nervously. The second to last thing I wanted was to be stand here. The very last thing was to even step foot on the crumbing mass of wooden slabs and the plants that were reclaiming.Nate was right. I took after my father with zero handyman skills. Hell, Aelia learned how to fix everything when she was four because no one else would. Clogged pipe? Aelia took care of it. Hole in the wall? She took care of it. Lights not working? She took care of it. Even one day when the AC broke she managed to crawl up into the attic and fix the issue.The dilapidated cabin now before us was proof that not a single thing had been fixed over all these years. Part of me wondered if it was still inhabited. Maybe my father died years ago and we just ever knew.'You would have felt the connect break.'I hushed Eros. I was not in the mood for his sa
*** Solaris POV *** I stood outside outside the pack house, cigarette between my fingers. Numbly, I placed it up to my lips. My hands were shaking and as I exhaled, I worked the nerves out of my hands.“You okay?”My body reacted and I nearly jumped as Finn touched my shoulder. He sighed.“I’ll take that as a no.”“I’m fine, I’m fine. I just don’t like being here.”He eyed me up and down before crushing me into a hug. “I’m proud of you today.”I wiggled my head out of his pecks and took a drag from my cigarette. “You really shouldn’t be.”“I mean, you could have toasted and roasted his ass right there. You’ve wanted revenge on your father for years. But you turned your back on him and prioritized Silas and Nate.”“That man back there…that was not the man I wanted revenge on. Maybe ten years earlier I may have gotten the revenge on the man that I needed to move forward. But that man? If you can even call him that? Is a stark raving mad lunatic who’s already in his own hell. Alone, for
I sat across from Silas in silence. The place he had chosen wasn’t fancy, but it wouldn’t be my usual go to. Luckily, I had the sense to forgo the ripped jeans and tank top but I still got looks with my leather jacket. It was nice, it just definitely wasn’t my scene but Silas fit right in. He was wearing slacks and a button up shirt. Not tie but he had cuff links for fucks sake. I’d never felt like the disappointment of a little sister before but here we were. We had ordered drinks, they came. We ordered our food and were waiting on it but he still hadn’t said a word to me. I wasn’t about to break the silence. Not after the yelling match we had in the forest and not after holding him back from killing our father. I knew who I was. The issue was that Silas didn’t. Noah asked me about how much I would tell Silas and I told him that I would give Silas the truth but only if he asked. My life hadn’t been what his was. Sure, he had to watch his father get exiled and take over as Alpha but
“There was a hand-off. I woke up at one point in the back of an SUV. There was no sense of time and they started to drug me as well. Then, next thing I knew, I was in a lab surrounded by Hunters. Some in lab coats, other just normally dressed. I was put into a cage and that became my only thing I found comfort in, at least when I was little. As I grew bigger, they could reach me past the bars but for a few years, they couldn’t.At first, they kept their experiments and torture relatively mundane. Taking blood samples, trying to force me to shift, checking pain tolerances, checking anatomy differences; things like that were their go to for a year or so. One of the days, they did actually force me to shift. It was beyond painful and Bellum tried help get me out, tried to escape. She had been making plans this whole time while I just mostly was too exhausted to even move. She did her best, but in the end, it wasn’t enough. A few of the Hunters ended up dying and that was the turning poin
I poured a full glass of bourbon and chugged the whole thing. Setting the glass down gently on the table, I looked at Silas for the first time since I started talking. My eyes widened as his eyes met mine, tears streaming down his face. He was rigid, except that the glass in his hand trembled slightly. Panic started to set in and I scooted closer to him on the couch. Gently taking the glass out of his hand and setting it on the table, I brushed some of the tears from his cheeks.“Hey…hey…there is no reason to cry. It’s all in the past.”Silas shook his head for a quick moment before more tears spilled from his eyes. I hushed him, wiping them away with my left hand. His hands came up and wrapped around my shoulders, pulling me against him. My forehead ended up resting against his shoulder and I slowly wrapped my arms around him as well.“It’s okay, Sil. It’s okay.” It came out more of a whisper than anything.It seemed to break the dam though. His face buried in the side of my head and
*** Silas POV *** “Alpha, I was hoping to get you to take care of these before the end of the day.”Sam walked into my office. He wasn’t paying attention but pulling out a few pages from the bunches he had in his hands. When he looked up, he froze. Eros was the one sitting at the desk, pen in hand, doing paperwork.“I…um…Alpha…”“Yes, Gamma?” Eros voice came through low as he smiled at Sam.Sam stuttered. “I…I just…we were…is…”“Gamma, spit it out if you want me to do any work by the end of the day.”He cleared his throat. “A few of the guys would like to trade positions from morning patrol to night and vise versa. I’ve made the list of names but there is an odd man out for the switch so someone would either not get it or someone from the night would need to switch in the mornings.”“Understood. Place it here and I’ll take a look at it.” Eros tapped the top of the pile of papers to his right. “Anything else?”“Um…I…yes. Is everything okay?”Eros raised an eyebrow. “Everything is fine