Book 1: Chapter 30

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 he sobbed, holding me tight against him. A tear or two did fall out of my left eye but I just closed them, holding him tighter as he cried. I was glad I still had my crystal on. It probably would have only made things worse. There is something in the scent that you can tell who is your family. He was so strongly my brother that the first time I pulled up with him trying to threaten Noah and Finn, I almost pulled him into a hug right there. Instead, I decided to cling to the anger I had of him turning out so much like our father. Silas was, without a doubt, my brother but to him I wouldn’t smell like anything. Even if there was something to physical touch.

“I’m so sorry.” If his face wasn’t right next to me ear, I probably would have never heard him.

“I already said it was okay. It’s not for you to feel sorry for, Sil. None of it was you. None of it was your fault. We were young. Literally everything was out of our control.”

Leaning back, I put my hands on either side of his face and forced him to look me in the eyes. His were red and absolutely drenched. Sighing, I smiled softly.

“You can’t blame yourself for what happened. If anything, we can blame our father. It was also me deciding to go instead of Nate. It was such a multitude of decisions but not a single one of them was yours to make. Therefore there is nothing for you to be sorry for. Not now, not in the past, and certainly not in the future.”

“Aelia…”

Leaning my head against his chest, I laid down on the couch. Looking out of the windows of the night time sky of the town. There were some clouds coming in and I knew it was supposed to rain late tomorrow. That never did me any good when the weather dropped but I would just have to suck it up and stay at the bar until it let up. Silas’ hand came around and rested on my arm. Looking up at him, he was also looking out of the windows. The lights though showed he was still struggling to keep the tears in. Every so often one would come trickling down and I could hear it fall somewhere on his shirt. Nuzzling into him further, I turned my attention back to the window.

We were quiet for a long time, maybe even a few hours. At one point, I felt myself falling asleep. The alcohol had made me more and loose tongued enough to word vomit my life but now it was just lulling me to sleep. Silas didn’t seem to notice or care. His arm still holding mine even though it was my metal one. I thought I felt someones phone vibrate once or twice but neither of us moved to check it. The clouds had already rolled in and I wondered if we were going to get the storm earlier than predicted.

“What about Nate?” His words seemed loud after such a long time of neither of us speaking but I knew they were fairly hushed.

Sighing, I closed my eyes for a minute. “I’m not going to mate him. I can’t. I’m not going to be the reason he loses all sense of himself. I’m dying. Even if I went to him tomorrow and told him, I would still be dying within the year. He would lose himself and as much as I would hope he would be able to live through it, I’m not going to chance it.”

“So what, you’re not going to tell him?”

“I…don’t know. If I could ensure that he wouldn’t throw a complete fit when I tell him I’m not about to mate him. If I could make him understand…”

Silas looked me in the eyes. “I can’t keep this from him, Aelia. You are his mate. But he my best friend, my brother. He’s been by my side this whole time. You expect me to just keep on going like I don’t know anything?”

“Sil, you can’t…”

“Aelia, you’re asking too much of me. He’s the one who held out hope. He’s the one who believed in you this entire time. You think he isn’t going to notice that I don’t hate you anymore?”

I chuckled. “I mean, you stopped hating me a while ago. Someone must have gotten through to you.”

“Sure, it was a few people, but I can’t just…please…”

“So what are you going to say, Sil? Oh hey, I found Aelia and it turns out it’s Solaris, you should talk to her? It’s not going to go well. No matter what you say or even what I say.”

A huge sigh escaped Silas as he ran his hand through his hair. “Why are you even here then? Why bother with us? With this?”

“I told you. I have some final things that I need to be here for.”

“I don’t understand why you need to be so vague.”

I chuckled. “Because you and Nate are stubborn assholes. My job is to protect you. That’s it. That’s what I’m doing. I promise. Any other information will be provided to you when the time is right. But right now? It’s not. I’m not going to be able to tell Nate either. That’s what makes this so hard.”

“Then just explain in, Aelia! Stop…”

This time I sighed heavily. Getting up from the couch, I walked over to the windows. “I get it, Sil. I do. It would make things so much easier for me if I could tell you, if I could explain. But that would have repercussions that coude put lives in danger. Yours, Nate’s, the packs, Noah’s, Finn’s…so many people. I know you never understood the power I was born with and truthfully, our father didn’t explore it past his own agenda. It’s like seeing into the future and actually having control over it. It’s a scary thing.”

I turned to look at him, smiling but lost in my thoughts. “Altering a future by telling them specific details can have catastrophic repercussions, Sil. Trust me. I’ve seen enough death, witnessed enough, enabled enough to know that. I know it’s hard not understanding, but I assure you it’s far worse seeing it.” My eyes misted over for a moment. “Seeing it and knowing that I won’t be there to help guide you through it.”

Silas stood up and came over to me, pulling me into another hug. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I don’t understand. I couldn’t understand the burden that was on you back then and I don’t quite understand it now. I just…I want Nate to experience the joy that I have right now. Of holding you in my arms, knowing I got to see you. Be proud of my little sister and her accomplishments. The woman she has become despite the shit you had to go through.”

Scoffing, I leaned back with an eyebrow raised. “Proud? I’m literally every parents worst nightmare for their child.”

He chuckled though. “One, I’m not your parent. Two, if anyone was the parent, it was you. You could have actually succeeded and never turned your life around to help other wolves. You could have drowned in all that. But you didn’t. You became you. Someone that not only has the trust of the rogue population to be called their king, but also of our Alpha King who named you First Prince.”

“I…” The words caught in my throat. I’d been told that someone was proud of me before. My old man had said it, my mother, even on occasion the boys or my Gamma Keri. But there was something when Silas said it. Something about him that made me break down. He held me tighter, kissing the top of my head. Arms snaking around, I held the back of his shirt tight as I broke down.

“I won’t tell him, Aelia. But you need to. At some point, sometime soon. Figure out. Otherwise I will tell him. Because I can’t just pretend like none of this happened.”

I nodded. “I’m not asking you to. I just…I need…time.”

“To come up with a better excuse than ‘I can see the future and you could die’?” His impression of me made me snort.

“Something like that.”

He loosened his hold on me, his eyes narrowed a couple times but he looked like he was struggling for the right words.

“What, Sil?”

“You’re dying.”

I nodded. “I am.”

“I don’t…” His brow furrowed. “Isn’t there anything we can do? Something…anything?”

Smiling, I ran my hand through his hair, fixing the mess he made earlier. “No. Not four years ago and not now. Inevitability creeps up on us sometimes. We don’t have control over it, we just have to accept it.”

“And have you? Accepted it, I mean?”

Stepping away from him, I smiled sadly. “I have. I won’t say it’s easy. Some days are better than others. It’s hard to watch the ones that I love have to go through with the pain of that knowledge as well. But at their point, all I can do is live out the rest of the time I have left with the ones I love.”

“And you were willing to just let me be angry at you? Let out petty fights escalate?”

Smiling wide, I chuckled. “If anything, that’s what I’m going to miss. Oh the ideas I had.”

“You aren’t the only one.”

We were smiling at each other and brushed his cheek. “I was angry. Angry and petty and I said some mean things. While there are some parts of you that do remind me of Father, it’s the memories I have of us as a family. You remind me of the superhero I used to see in our father as Alpha.”

His chest rose and fell multiple times before he said anything. “How am I supposed to go on without you, Aelia? With you in front of me now, I feel like I can breathe. The darkness is gone. I feel like I can’t be angry anymore with you here, knowing that those who harmed you are dead. But…I don’t know how to continue now.”

“Lighter, Sil. Able to put a smile on your face and enjoy being alive. Enjoy being Alpha. Having a family within the pack. You’ve locked your emotions behind anger and now, you’re free to feel.”

“I don’t want to feel your death.”

I stepped a few steps away from him. “Then enjoy what’s left of my life.”