Chapter 2

Most everyone was gone. The forest had cleared out, and no one was standing in the same place during the ceremony. Some mulled around the forest still, but most scattered a while ago. Nate left my side, but it wasn’t far enough to not feel his emotions. The distance helped dull them and help me pick them apart from my own feelings. It was hard to do when he was close.

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the pouch that I grabbed from the safe. I don’t know why I kept this after all these years. Father gave it to me. It was his ‘gift’ when I turned fifteen. As he explained to me what it did, I didn’t understand. When I became Alpha, after I watched him get exiled to the shack, Nate and I went through and burned just about everything. This was one of the few things I held back.

Opening the purse, I pulled out a thick coin made of a blood-red ruby. However, the coin had an inscription in writing that I couldn’t read. The coin was perfectly balanced as I flipped it up and let it fall back into my hand. It felt heavier than it looked, but it was imbued with magic so the properties could have been altered.

‘Whatever you’re thinking, Silas, don’t. It’s not worth it. Magic comes at a price. There is no guarantee of the outcome. You know that.’ Eros sounded worried, almost scared.

I held the coin up and for a moment I looked past it at the flames lapping up at the sky. ‘Unless I deem it worth the price and the risks.’

‘You know that’s not how magic works! Silas, please! That should have been destroyed years ago! Don’t do this. It will not end like you think it will. I doubt your father explained it to you back then, correctly.’

‘This is the only way I can continue forward, Eros.’

Eros growled, but it was desperate. ‘Silas. Don’t. I am begging you. There are other ways. We can figure this out. We are a family. We can work through this.’

‘No. I’m done listening to everyone telling me I need to give it time. Aelia was wrong. The Moon Goddess was wrong. Charles is wrong. Nate is wrong. You are wrong.’

Bringing up the coin, I helped it in the palm of my hands. According to my father, there was a time when an Alpha reached a plateau. That their strength would reach a limit. I felt mine. It hurt, knowing that I wasn’t enough to keep my pack safe. That as Alpha, if I hadn’t had the Rogue King, the First Prince, my little sister’s power, I would have lost everything. This coin, this magic, would fix that.

I would eliminate my weaknesses. The plateau I’d found myself could finally be broken through. I could protect my pack. I could be the Alpha I needed to be. I could be everything. All it took was removing everything that brought my strength down. It removed the human out of the equation.

All the emotions and feelings that held us back. Dad said it was something he had done when he realized that his ability to protect the pack against the Hunters was in jeopardy. Yes, he made the wrong choices, but the pack was still standing. Something I nearly lost. Instead, I just lost my only fucking sister.

If I could remove the emotions, then they would no longer be a hindrance. These feelings were my weakness. They brought me to my knees. They made me want to crumble and cry. They made me make decisions I shouldn’t be making as Alpha. Including these feelings for Nate. Including this bond that was going to tear everything apart. It threatened to crumble my entire leadership. Removing this weakness would let me enter the pack house without feeling I needed to abandon everything to be with him.

We could move forward. I would give Nate some time to work through his grief over Aelia. He had known what it was like to have a bond unfulfilled. If I didn’t reciprocate, then eventually the bond would settle. His place was by my side, not in my bed. We would go back to how we were before.

It was that simple. All this grief would disappear. All the anger, resentment, pain, sadness, and longing that was stopping me from being able to breathe would lessen. I could break through this weakness. Being Alpha meant I needed to be strong, stronger than any of my pack. More than that, I needed to be stronger than all the other Alphas. Because if I wasn’t, if I was weak, I could be exploited. That wasn’t a risk. That was a reward. It was the only way.

I continued to stare down at the coin. Eros was whining in my mind, but I shoved him back. He didn’t understand. That instinct ruled him. He would probably always be affected, but I wouldn’t. This seemed like the answer, no matter how I looked at it. The only way I could protect my pack was by moving forward. It might be the easy way, but was that always the bad way?

A small folded piece of paper was inside the pouch, along with the coin. Hand-written words now fading on the page in a writing I didn’t know. They weren’t in a language I knew, but it was how to activate the coin. Swallowing, I held the ruby coin tightly in my hand. My heart pounded as I tried to take a breath to slow it. Only for it to get caught at the apex.

“I have to. I can’t keep going on like this.” I spoke to the fire, hoping Aelia would understand before I snorted. “You wouldn’t understand, though. You would be screaming at me. Calling me a damn idiot. That I was weak.” Chuckling hollowly, I closed my eyes. “You wouldn’t be wrong. But if you were here, I wouldn’t be feeling this pain.”

‘Silas, I am begging you.’ Eros had crept back up. ‘Please. Just wait. Give it some time. That’s all I ask. Don’t do this now. If you want to do it later, fine. But this…this is too much.’

“Stop, Eros. I need this.”

‘You don’t! You are an Alpha! You are stronger than this! Don’t fuck with me, Silas! You’re throwing a tantrum. You’re mad and frustrated. You’re in pain. I get it. I really do. I can feel everything you do, hear your thoughts.’ He growled, finally allowing his own frustration at me to boil over. ‘There is no easy way. This isn’t an easy way, this is the wrong way.’

My mouth turned down. “My father…”

‘Where is he now, Silas? Alone. He killed his own mate. Abused his children. Sold off his pack. You want to become that? You want to agree to whatever fucked up magic is in that coin? It could break you. It could break the bond. You could die. Nate could die. Or worse, you have to fucking live with yourself after this.’

I swallowed hard. There was a chance this would turn me into him. We never really figured out what happened. How or where it all went so wrong. While he owned up to what he did, his reasoning was madness. There was never a real reason why he felt that was okay to make the decisions he had. The worst part was that both Aelia and I confirmed we felt his wolf, but it was nowhere to be seen. Never once coming forward to speak to him or to us.

There was a chance that the magic was something else entirely and this coin could just be a curse. I still felt the need to take that chance. The need to set things straight and put them back where they belonged. If things stayed the same, I could never breathe again.

‘Silas…that’s not true.’

“You don’t know that.”

‘I do. Because you survived Aelia leaving the first time.’

I shook my head. “I shouldn’t have to go through this again.”

‘You aren’t alone.’

“Nate is my brother. It will all crumble. I will crumble. If I let this all take over. I am weak right now. I can’t…I can’t continue like this.”

Eros growled at me. ‘You’re wrong! Now that we have a mate, we can be strong. He can be our strength. He’s our best friend and brother. Who better to make sure we rise above? You aren’t weak, Silas. The bond, these emotions. They aren’t weakness. They are strength! If you let them…’

“You’re wrong, Eros. I’m sorry, but you’re wrong.

Opening up the paper, I inhaled and exhaled before I spoke the words the best I could figure. “Incipe magicae. Congrega. Aedificare. Aufer. Sera. Catena. Abscondere. Sepelire. Magicae consumma.”

The coin in my hand turned from warm to red hot. I opened my hand and watched as the color turned even brighter, the shape melting in my hand. My mouth finally opened and I let out a scream. It burned, but as I tried to let it go, it spread over hands. Falling to my knees, I held my wrist as I watched with tears as it consumed my hand.

The liquid ruby melted into my skin. It brought even more excruciating pain as I watched it seep under my skin and light up beneath. Traveling up my arms, it flowed through my veins. As it made its way through my veins, it hurt more and more as it spread across my chest. Gasping, I curled up with my head almost touching the grass. My fingers dug into my skin as I tried to claw at the burning liquid in my chest.

Once the liquid hit my heart, I felt my soul burn. This pain was nothing I’d ever felt before. It left me foaming at the mouth. My hands shifted to claws as they dug further into my skin, as though more pain would somehow distract me from what was happening. Eros was howling, but I couldn’t even cry out anymore.

My breath was being taken from me. I couldn’t even inhale as the scalding pain overcame my body. As my head swam, I felt cool hands on me. Looking up, Nate was absolutely panicked. He was looking over at me, yelling at me. What was he saying? I couldn’t hear him. Not over the roaring. Was it mine? Was it Eros? There was no way to tell anymore.

Coughing, I tried to gasp, but I couldn’t. I felt things shifting in me. Pain as I felt the bond flare and seemingly try to fight the magic. Nate pulled me to him, his arms wrapping around as he rocked. His cries; those I could hear. Still, there wasn’t anything I could do. My soul felt like it was being torn to shreds or shattered or snapped or burned, all of it made my entire body shake like a leaf in hurricane-force winds.

Finally, I couldn’t take it. My eyes rolled back in my head and I slumped over onto Nate’s shoulder. The darkness took me and I was happy about it. No longer feeling the pain plaguing me.