Sydney
I pull my truck through the gates of Silverhide thirty minutes after leaving my own territory. Tall pines rise up all around me as the road leading out of the city center, and the NZ, narrows, and turns to finely packed gravel dusted with snow.
Ryan’s house is the first building visible in the dense forest. It rises above the trees, stately and modern despite being a log home. The windows reflect the snow as I drive past his private driveway and dip down into the village.
Silverhide is a small, exclusive pack. After the war twenty-two years ago, several of the rogue villages along the base of the mountains that border Eastonia moved inward, trying to integrate into the packs in Crescent Falls. When Ryan and I came of age and started our own packs, he chose this old, undeveloped territory and opened his gates to whoever wanted to follow his lead then promptly shut them again.
His numbers are small even compared to mine. A hundred or so pack members, mostly young adults and a scattering of young children, live and work here.
I pass through the village square. It’s quiet and mostly empty save for the diner connected to the bar, which is busy with people stopping in to grab breakfast and coffee before heading to work.
No one even looks in my direction, not until I roll onto another narrow road and turn into a wide, gravel parking lot where a huge warehouse rises before me, two of its five bay doors open.
Sports cars are being lifted. A few men walk inside, carrying toolboxes. A third bay door cracks open to reveal several more fine, exotic vehicles.
And then there’s Ryan, sitting in a worn out swivel chair drinking from a huge thermos.
He cocks a brow as I bring my truck to a stop and step out.
“Well, well, well,” he says, swiveling in my direction. He’s wearing thick work pants, gray and splattered with oil and grease, and a Henley shirt in cobalt blue. His hair–longer than mine–touches his shoulders. I walk up to him, nodding in hello to his employees.
“Ryan,” I say in greeting.
“I thought you were dead. It’s been almost two weeks since I saw you last.”
I smirk, but Ryan narrows his eyes at me. At my neck. I reach up to adjust the color of my jacket, but the damage is done.
“You filthy dog,” he grins. “I guess congratulations are in order. Who’s the lucky lady?”
“Is there somewhere we can talk privately?” I ask, tilting my head toward the metal stairs leading to his office on the second floor.
He sips low and slow from his thermos while keeping his eyes on mine. “Sure.”
I sigh as he makes a show of moving as slowly as possible, standing up to stretch, to dig something out of his pocket, giving some of his employees claps on the shoulders and asking what their mates packed them for lunch.
Finally, I’m following him up the stairs into the loft that overlooks the massive garage. Two-way windows give a full view of the events happening below as Ryan shuts the door behind us and saunters over to his desk, which is untidy and covered in folders and oil smeared work orders.
“Sarah is your mate, I’m guessing,” he says, sitting down. I notice his busted knuckles, mostly healed, but still dusted with green and yellow bruises.
“Yeah, she is.”
“Well, can’t say I’m all that surprised. I wouldn’t expect you to take someone in like you did if she wasn’t someone special.”
I sit on a worn leather couch across from him, glancing at the magazines lining the surface. Cars, trucks, catalogs. The usual mechanic fare. “Her son is mine.”
“Yeah, of course.” He reaches behind him to turn on a coffee pot. “I’m sure Dad’ll allow Blake some territory of his own when he comes of age. I don’t know about succession, though, given that he’s your stepson–”
“He’s my son, Ryan. By blood.”
Ryan stares at me for a moment, unblinking.
I lick my lips and continue, “Sarah and I met at the ball last summer. She’s the woman I brought back to your house and had a one-night-stand with.”
“Okay…” He slowly pours fresh coffee into his thermos. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
He drums his fingers on the desk. I can feel his gaze boring into my face as my eyes drop to my lap, to my hands.
“Why do I feel like there’s more to this? You’re acting weird.”
“I’m not sure how to begin, honestly,” I say with a laugh.
“What’s going on, Sydney? I called you several times, you know. Hadley’s been up my ass about seeing Sarah, and Cosette said she was sick, that you were both sick, but you’ve never been sick a day in your life–”
“Sarah is Sasha, Ryan.”
He exhales long and slow. “Fuck, man.”
“I know.”
“How’d you find out?”
I knew Ryan wouldn’t question me on this. He wouldn’t cast doubt. If I’m sure of something, he’s along for the ride–always.
“I found out about Blake first. He looks like me–like us.” I meet his eyes again, motioning to his face. “He has the eyes we share with Mom, a little bit of red in his hair like we do. But his eyes gave it away. When I confronted her about it, the truth came out.”
I tell him everything. I paint him a mental picture of that night, how Sarah begged me to take care of Blake before sending her fractured childhood memories spiraling into my mind. I tell him about my newly restored memories of the night after the ball, though not in detail, when I slept with her for the first time, and we realized we were mates, and how she took those memories away to remain a faceless figment of my imagination.
Ryan listens with rapt attention, barely blinking. When I tell him that Kenna and Evander know the truth, and that Mom found out about Blake’s true parentage, he raises his brows.
“Well, shit. This family dinner is about to be way more fun than I thought it would be.”
“Is that what you took from this? That this will cause some drama and excitement when our entire family gathers in one place? You forget that I was tasked with finding Sasha and turning her in to our dad and our uncle.”
“Well, you can’t do that now, obviously.” He pours me a cup of strong, bitter black coffee, sliding it to the edge of his desk. “I knew she looked familiar, man.”
“You introduced us,” I tell him, then I realize it’s likely Sasha wiped his memories that day they saw each other in that atrium.
He frowns, scratching his head as I lean forward and grab the coffee mug with a nod in thanks. “So, what exactly is the plan?”
I close my eyes for a moment, taking a drink. Caffeine blooms through my system, but it’s not enough to totally clear my mind.
I didn’t sleep much last night. I finally had a good reason to stay up at odd hours, and I don’t regret spending a night exploring every inch of Sarah, getting to know her as my mate.
Marking her.
Her mark on my neck still stings with pain, but it’s fresh, and bright, and fills me with a kind of peace I’m not familiar with.
“Sarah hasn’t lived a normal life, not at all. I want that for her.”
Ryan leans back in his chair and stares blankly out the windows behind me in thought.
I continue, “She can shift. She’s a strong, agile wolf. A fucking beautiful one, if I’m being honest. All white with some silver mixed in. No issues there. Her other abilities… she never had training. She’s a mystic, but she’s the only one in Crescent Falls.”
“Beside you and Dad,” he cuts in.
“It’s never been confirmed whether Dad is a mystic.”
“But you both read the stars in the orrery, or whatever. Can Sarah?”
I haven’t asked her that. I actually haven’t given the orrery a single thought since I used it to call Kenna. “I don’t know, but I’ll take her to see when we’re at the castle tomorrow for dinner.”
He nods, pursing his lips. “So you’re not telling anyone who she really is?”
“No, and it’s going to stay that way.”
“Dad might not react the way you think he will.”
“I can’t take that risk. He’s Dad, yeah, but he’s the Alpha King first. Same with Uncle Ryatt. They have a duty to their kingdoms, to their people.” I wave my hand in dismissal as a tightness winds its way through my chest. “I understand why they need her now. They can’t get to Gabriel without her. They’d put her on trial, too, letting their elder councils decide her fate, whether she’s an enemy to the kingdoms or an innocent bystander.” The words tumble out. I haven’t pondered any of this out loud yet.
“I guess I agree, but the truth will come out eventually. Hell, Aunt Ella can sniff this shit out with their powers, just like Kenna.”
“I know,” I grumble over the rim of my mug before taking another sip. Horrible coffee. The kind that comes in a can, pre-ground. “I’m just not taking any risks now. She has a shot at having a normal life, a safe one, for both her and Blake. I’m going to marry her.”
Ryan grins.
“Soon too, no fancy wedding.”
“You really want Mom to cry?”
I close my eyes. “She’ll forgive us eventually. She already has a secret grandchild. That should be enough for now.”
“You’re not giving our family enough credit. Hell, Dad and Uncle Ryatt forgave each other, and they went to war against each other once, technically.”
“I’m not going to give Sarah up. I refuse to separate her from Blake to go stand trial in Eastonia for what could be months, even years. This remains a secret.”
“All right, if you say so.”
I roll my eyes to the ceiling.
Ryan shifts his weight and rises, walking to one of the windows behind me. “Hadley wants to see her. She asks me about her every single day, you know. You gotta let her go up to your house.”
I turn on the couch to face him. “That would be fine. Has Hadley given you any inclination that she knows the truth about Sarah?” I honestly don’t know Hadley well enough to know the answer myself. All I know is that Hadley is Sarah’s best friend, her only friend, and the only person who stuck around when everyone else in Sarah’s life faded into the past when she got pregnant.
“No, I don’t think so.” Ryan is suddenly gruff, his tone dropping to something more serious. I watch him flex his injured hand.
“What happened to your hand?”
“A little tiff with the Alpha of Raven Hall, nothing major.” He slides his hand in his pocket and turns to look at me over his shoulder. “I’ll tell Hadley she can go see Sarah this afternoon. That okay?”
“That’s fine, I have some work to do anyway.”
There’s a look in his eyes as he turns back to the window that has unease rippling over my skin. “Is there something going on between you and Hadley?”
He chuckles. “Goddess, no. There’s just a little drama between her and James.”
“What’s going on?”
He turns around and leans his leg against the back of the couch. With a shrug, he says, “He wants to send Hadley back to Eastonia, to their familial pack, where their parents are from. He said it was because Hadley has been hanging out with some people he’s worried about, a bad group, but he won’t elaborate.”
“Hadley’s an adult. That shouldn’t be his decision.”
“Barely,” he says with a sigh. “She just turned twenty. I don’t really have much room to talk given we stood with our parents when they chose to send Misty to Maatua instead of letting her go to Wellington.”
“Misty was in danger, that's the difference.”
“Yeah, well–” He sits down with a soft groan. “Doesn’t really matter, does it? James is her brother. He’s my Beta. I have no say.”
“But you’re her Alpha.”
His eyes go slightly glossy for a moment before he shakes his head with a soft smile. “Anyway, I have an idea to help launch Sarah into her new, normal life.”
“And what is that?”
His eyes light up again, banishing whatever emotion he was fighting to hide. “Does she know how to drive?”