Finn guffawed. “You absolutely did pry into my business. You pried so far into my business, you started giving me dick anatomy lessons.”
Silas groaned. “Please, Finny. I thought we’d agreed to never bring that up again.”
He smiled at his brother. “Well? Are you two… getting to know each other?”
Silas refused to look at him. “There’s a decapitated wolf in the house, and you’re asking me about my love life?”
Finn nearly choked. “Lovelife? You’ve literally never called it that before. It’s always been whoever you’re currently fucking. Oh, Silas, have you thought this through? His brother is my mate. We will have to see him. Regularly. You can’t just drop this guy forever when you get tired of him.”
Silas did turn to him then, fire in his eyes. “Yes, I’ve fucking thought it through. No, I won’t tell you any more than that. Back off.”
Finn took a step back, hands held up. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to… sorry.”
Silas shook his head, clapping Finn on the back. “Me too. It’s been a tough couple of days. I’ve been worried sick about you all. Let’s just go inside, and figure out how we are going to deal with this mess, yeah?”
Finn nodded, and followed him into the cabin.
He couldn’t shake the conversation, though. Silas had never balked at being teased about his occasional flings before. Something about this was different.
The sight of Sheppard heaving Bishop’s decapitated head off the floor to inspect it brought him back to the situation at hand, however.
“Jesus, Finn.” Silas whistled.
He wasn’t proud of what he had done, but he wouldn’t apologize for it either. “He had Jaime cornered. He was going to kill him. I did what I had to do.”
“How did he get a jump on you?” Leave it to Sheppard to analyze every detail, and assess how to improve their training moving forward.
“I stepped out first thing this morning to use the outhouse and split some kindling. He got me when I was leaving the outhouse, hit me upside the head with something. When I woke up, I was gagged and bound. In the goddamn outhouse. I couldn’t hear specific words, but I could hear his voice, and Jaime’s, speaking to each other in the cabin. I could feel Jaime’s fear.”
He shivered, refusing to go back down that road right now. He’d have nightmares about this day for years, he knew.
“That sounds eerily similar to what he did to Jaime,” Silas said, inspecting the places that Finn’s claws had dug into Bishop’s body to hold him down.
Finn had thought the same thing when he was frantically clawing and ripping at the ties around his arms, struggling to free himself. An all new sense of respect and pride came over him that Jaime had come so far after experiencing something so terrifying. “It didn’t take me all that long to get out of the bindings once I woke up, but I’m not sure how long I was knocked out.”
“The phone call was less than ten minutes,” Silas answered roughly.
Ten minutes. It was such a narrow window of time, if he had woken up just a few minutes later… Another tremor passed through him.
Silas clapped him on the shoulder, sensing the direction of his thoughts. “You got there in time. Your mate is strong, and smart. Jaime walked Bishop into spilling all of his secrets like a fucking dog, and made him believe that he was in control the entire time. Don’t dwell on what-if’s, Finn. Not now that you’re here, on the other side of it.”
Finn nodded, grateful for the pep talk.
“Right,” Sheppard said. “There’s no sense in you two staying out here once we get this cleaned up, and it would be too difficult to come up with a convincing enough lie to explain to Gabriel why you’re suddenly both back in Silver Rapids, walking around like Bishop isn’t running around on the loose somewhere. I think we have to tell him.”
Silas raised his eyebrows at Finn, mouthing,“Gabriel?”
Finn shrugged his shoulders—Damn Sheppard and his secretive ways. “Do you mean that we tell the DA that Bishop is dead, or thatThe X-Filesis a documentary?” he asked.
Silas snorted.
Finn smiled—Jaime had made that joke a few nights ago, when he’d told him about all of the paranormal beings he knew of.
Sheppard looked at him flatly. “Both.”
“Woah, boss. The DA? Really?”
Sheppard gave a single nod. “It will make our interactions with Monroe PD so much easier. There’s already several shifters on the force, not including the Salt Creek wolves. I don’t see a way around it.”
