“No one thinks you’re lying.I believe you think you saw Nickelova.It just doesn’t seem probable,” Jason said.
“There’s only one way to know for sure,” Silas said.“We go back to the mountain and see if she’s still there.And if she is, we wake her up.”
“Ryker gave you the heart,” Jason said incredulously.
Silas shook his head.“Ryker gave Soleil the heart.Soleil gave it to me.”
“You have Nickelova’s heart?”Laina’s mouth popped open.“By the goddess, Silas.”
“Did you forget the portal is gone?How do you plan to get to her mountain?”
“That is a job for one of our witchy friends, and in this case, I think the Smuggler’s Notch witch, Polina, is the one for the job.”He trusted Polina as much as he trusted Logan, and considering he’d recently embraced accepting the help of others, now was the time to ask for this favor.
“After the shift, right?”Laina said.“You’re going to wait until after the shift when I’m stronger.”
Silas looked at her sympathetically.“You’re pregnant.You and your baby barely made it through this stabbing ordeal.Don’t you think you should keep yourself safe?Think of the baby.”
“I’m going,” she said.“Believe me, if Kyle can’t keep me in this bed, you won’t either.”
Silas snorted.“Where is the doting husband?”
“Sleeping for the first time since I was stabbed.I had to threaten his life to get him to go home.”Laina sat up straighter in bed.“So we’re in agreement then?We go after the shift.”
Silas darted a glance between Jason and Meredith.“After the shift.”
“There’ssomething I need to talk to you about,” Meredith said to Silas as they made their way back to the car.
“Sounds serious.Is this about my overprotective nature or something else?”
“No.”Meredith snorted.“You are way overprotective, but that’s not what this is about.”
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t want to shift with you at Rivergate.”
He turned to her.“Is it because you shifted at my place the other night?”
“No.I can shift more than once a month.I can shift whenever I want, although too many times a day is dangerous.No.I’m simply not comfortable going there.The last time I was at Rivergate, my father was with me.”
Silas gave an understanding grunt.“Does it hold bad memories for you?”
“That and I’m not ready for what it might mean for us to be seen together.You’re pack royalty, and I’m a pack orphan.I don’t want sympathy.I don’t want sideways glances.And when push comes to shove, I am different.I change into a fox, not a wolf.”
“No one cares about that.”
“You don’t care about that.Others will care, especially if said fox is dating their alpha.I’m not ready to open myself up to formal pack society.You know how it is.You know how people treat anyone who dates royalty.I’ll be front-page news.”
Silas’s face said it all.He knew she was right.
“Out of curiosity, did you ever tell the Lycanthropic Society about Soleil when you were dating?”
“No,” he said quickly.“They would never have accepted her.”
Meredith nodded.Perhaps his relationship with Soleil was less serious than she’d assumed.
“If she had changed, I would have,” Silas said.“I wouldn’t have let tradition stop me from being with her.”
“But your plan was to wait until things were serious.Together forever serious.”
