Book 1: Chapter 95

I didn’t even bother to pretend like I was working. Sam hadn’t given me any work anyways. The whole pack seemed at a standstill. Either they had come to know Aelia as the plucky fun bartender who they liked or, like my warriors, learned just how much of a badass she was. Was. Past tense. My sister was gone, again. Again she slipped through my fingers. Again she protected us. Again she gave everything up for us. But this time, there was no room for hope. She was gone for good this time. Again I couldn’t save her.

The Alpha King had been called and was already marching out here to provide her with a proper funeral. Finn just about lost it when the Alpha King tried to take her body back to the castle. Finn was right though. She came here for a reason and stayed here for a reason. My lips thinned. She stayed here for us. We were the reason and now her soul would be given to the Moon Goddess from her favorite place. The place that I had originally found out that she was my sister.

My messages were open on my phone, the last messages Aelia sent to me were staring back up at me. We had been discussing the book she was reading. Basically debating all the things wrong with how they portrayed werewolves. I couldn’t imagine if we were like what was written in those smut books. Aelia would send me quotes that even made Eros snicker. If that’s how society viewed us, maybe we were better off not integrating with humans.

Chuckling, I shook my head. She was so against it. For a rogue who helped other rogues blend into human society with business, she sure detested the idea of humans being on Pack territories.

*‘Many rogues choose to still be rogues. They are request sanctuary from the Alpha King. They choose not to because of the freedom it allows. Living free of the pack life that lives in their own bubble. The flip side is that the pack is a bubble. A safe haven for us. A place where we can be wolves. Why would we taint that by adding humans to the mix? Why not just remove the territory line because that is what exactly we were doing.’*

My chuckle was hollow and bitter. I’d felt it the moment she died. The moment Nate touched my back to give me strength. Every time he came close, every time he had touched me, every time we looked at each other. Absently, I touched my lips but as soon as I realized what I was doing, my hand dropped into a fist.

I hadn’t seen Nate for the last two days but I felt the pull. Eros was quiet. He stepped away the moment we started walking into the woods and had yet to step forward. He refused to take over, even when I tried to coax him to take over for a run. I’d thought, at the very least, he’d be up in arms but he was mourning Aelia just as much as I am. Snorting, I shook my head.

If this was what it took for me to have a mate bond, I didn’t want it. It felt tainted and cursed. I leaned forward, my arms resting on my thighs as I closed my eyes. This was ridiculous. I’d already lost my sister. Now I was supposed to lose my brother and my Beta? For what? A mate bond? A bond that I’d somehow have to explain that just showed up out of nowhere? I’d told Aelia I’d be open to love my mate no matter who it was but this was going too far. A shiver ran down my spin. Fucking Nate? Having him sleep next to me sometimes was one thing but having him sleep next to me as my mate? As my other half? As my Luna? What cruel fucking joke was the Moon Goddess playing at? What was Aelia playing at? She knew. She fucking knew and she left it there.

Yeah, our connection was special. He was keeping me sane and I was keeping him sane. Not sexually, not as a lover. Aelia wanted me to just accept him and literally uproot everything in my entire life? Everything we had built together? It all would crumble. Who would be Beta? Who would take over? Would he just be Luna? Would he still do Beta duties? Would the pack accept him? Would he become an Omega? I groaned. He’d have to drop out as the head warrior. He’s be as useless as Sam was already when it came to fighting. Goddess be damned, this whole situation was fucked up.

Goddess, my mind was a jumbled mess. Closing my eyes, I focused on my breathing trying to clear my head of all the thoughts that were just mulling about. A knock made me open my eyes and the door swung open. Charles popped his head in. He was getting run by Sam who was forcing him to help get things ready for the Alpha King as to not bother Nate. Charles didn’t seem to mind but he was getting a crash course in some of our customs he ran around.

“Hey. I wanted to check on you.”

I snorted. “Whatever Sam wants, tell him it can wait.”

Charles stepped in and closed the door quietly behind him. “We are waiting on a few things to be delivered and others to call so I’m currently a free man. For at least the next five minutes.”

“Thanks…for helping out. It shouldn’t fall to you…”

Sitting next to me on the couch, he leaned back and slapped me on the shoulder a couple times. “What are friends for? Not to mention, I’m mated to your Gamma. So you’re kind of stuck with me.”

My whole body involuntarily flinched when he said mate. I’d hoped Charles didn’t catch it but he sat up.

“Everything okay?”

“It’s fine. I’m just struggling to sort the thoughts in my head.”

He hummed for a moment. “Alright. Hit me. Spew it all out. At least if it’s out in the open you can organize it and file it away with what’s important and what isn’t.”

I sighed and leaned back, my head falling to the back of the couch as I looked up at the ceiling. “Eros is gone. I can’t even reach out to him. He’s just locked himself away. I can’t even catch a break. After so many years of being able to have moments where I don’t have to be in my own body, it’s like when I need it the most, he’s…”

“Forcing you to face everything so you can’t just run away from your feelings?”

I glared at him. “Abandoned me is what I was going to say.”

Charles chuckled. “Sure.”

“Part of me is still trying to process that she isn’t here. That I can’t send her a text message because she will never read it. I can’t call her to hear her voice. It hurts so much and sometimes I just forget that she’s gone.”

He sighed. “You’re not forgetting. It’s more like denial and disbelief.”

“You telling me I’m in stage one of grief?” I expected him to chuckle but he didn’t.

Lacing his hands together, he stared down at the blue oval carpet on the floor. “Over the past year, she became such a staple in all our lives. She inserted herself in like she was there all along. It’s like when you think about her, you can’t image that she wasn’t always with us in our lives. It was such a short about of time but I don’t know anyone who could make a bigger impact than she did.”

I covered my eyes with my arm, willing myself not to break out in tears again. “Then I remember she is gone. That she died and I carried her in my arms. That we are going to burn her body tomorrow. How…how am I supposed to move forward? How do I continue my life without her in it?” Barking out a laugh, I sniffled right after it. “I mean hell, I found out she’s been watching us and working in the background after all these years. Now…there is this huge fucking hole in my soul and I don’t know how to fill it.”

“Silas…”

“No! And you know what! Fuck her!” I rolled forward into a standing position and started to pace the room. “Charles, the secrets she’s kept. Already some of them are coming out and why do I have to deal with them? She throws her baggage onto me and now I have to deal with it?”

Charles raised an eyebrow. “There is stage two.”

“How could she just abandon us to this, Charles? How could she fucking do that to us? To Nate and I? We are supposed to mates? Are you shitting me? She wants me to fuck my brother? She wants me to…” I stopped mid-sentence as I realized what I was spewing out.

Turning to Charles, his eyes were wide and he was staring at me with his mouth slightly open. “Silas…”

“Look…don’t…don’t tell anyone. I just…there is too much going on and I don’t know if I can even deal with this right now. It’s just always fucking there. Like an itch that I can’t scratch. I know he’s close. I know he’s in pain. I can feel everything but I don’t want to. My own feelings are fucked up enough as is it. I don’t want double the anguish, double the confusion, double everything. It’s a struggle to keep my head on straight and I’m Alpha. I can’t lose myself to this, Charles. I can’t…can’t be this emotional when I have a pack to run.”

Charles took a moment as he watched me before he spoke. “Look Silas…I think right now is not a good time to be making big decisions. I think right now it is okay to be emotional. No one in the pack expects you to be stoic. If you were, they would be more worries since it came out that she was your sister. If anything, I think the pack all feels some level of guilt because while they, like you, believed your father, they all stopped looking for her as well. They also feel remorse over giving Nate shit all these years.”

“Well…I mean…sure. But…”

“No. I’m serious Silas. Right now, there is a lot of pain going around. You’re not alone. And as for Nate…” I watched him chew on the inside of his cheek. “I think you need to not just throw away a bond because it’s inconvenient.”

I snorted. “Inconvenient? Charles, this goes far past inconvenient. It’s downright…downright…” It took a couple seconds to try and find the word. “…disgusting.”

Charles stood immediately and stepped in front of me. His face was pure rage and he was inches away from my face. I felt the challenge flare up and I tried to stamp it down.

“Shut your fucking mouth, Silas. That is your mate. Whether or not you agree with who it is, doesn’t mean he doesn’t. You’ve been lamenting all these fucking years that you had that empty hole but it’s always been filled, you just never fucking knew it. Nate was always there for you. Always making sure you were good and pulled the fuck together. You would not be the Alpha you were today. For you to call your bond disgusting…”

“Our bond as brothers is different than…”

Charles growled. “It’s not. You don’t need to turn around right now and fuck him in the ass. What you need to do is just navigate these feelings. You told me that the mate bond doesn’t force love. All it does is physically pull you to the other person. So give yourself a chance to get used to a connection that is just a little deeper than what you had before. Not giving it a chance is doing a disservice to you, to Nate, to Solaris, and most of all to the Moon Goddess. So, you shut that fucking damn mouth of yours and scrub the idea out of your head that a connection with Nate is anything other than a fucking blessing.”

I opened my mouth but nothing came out. Charles glared at me before turning and leaving my office, slamming the door behind him. The shock I felt overwrote anything I had been feeling or thinking about.

*'He’s right.'*

Sighing, I ran my hands down my face.* 'Of course you’d come forward now, Eros.'*