“Yeah. I get it.”
Kenny shook his head. “No, I don’t think you do. She’s fuckingwoundedaround you. You don’t hurt her. You fuck her and send her away. She needs the connection between sadist and masochist, and don’t tell me you don’t understand that.”
“I don’t feel the connection anymore.”
Kenny could feel Silas’s pain through the pack’s bonds, and he shook his head, sighed, and said a truth he hadn’t wanted to voice. “Then you and your wolf need to decide if this remains a foursome. If you need to move out.”
Silas’s scent was sour. Acrid. Kenny’s second was hurting and wasn’t sure how to get past the lies, past what his wolf saw as unforgivable betrayal.
While they were all more than their wolves, for the truly emotional hurts, their inner animals sometimes couldn’t be logicked with.
“I know,” Silas said. “Started to walk out right away, but I wanted to try to get past it. Still want to, but I can’t see a path.”
“Look harder. We all want you here. I get that the wolf is hurt, so figure out what he needs.”
They finished the section they were working on and went inside. None had gotten sweaty, so no need for showers. Probably didn’t matter though, because Kenny didn’t think this was going to be a moment that required sex to end it properly.
The three sat in the conference room chairs on one side of the table, Kenny in the middle, and he told her, “Come stand at inspection pose in front of me, little hawk.”
Her scent wasn’t quite relief. She didn’t trust that him calling her little hawk meant everything was okay, but she hoped.
If he was reading her right, anyway.
“Is there anything you need to happen in order to feel as if the slate has been wiped clean?”
She nodded. “Permission to come around the table, Sir?”
He wasn’t sure what she wanted to do, but he said, “Granted.”
He’d assumed she’d beg for everything to go back to the way it was, but she kneeled beside Silas and met his gaze. “You have to do whatever it takes to either forgive me, or let me prove to you how much I understand how badly I hurt you. A way to show youhow sorry I am. Even if it takes a month for me to heal from it, and you don’t let mechange.” Her eyes watered. “Three months! I don’t care. I can’t fix this. Please, Sir. Silas, please. I love you!”
Kenny held his breath. Some things an Alpha can fix, some things he can only stand by and watch. Silas swiveled the chair to face her, looked down at her for thirty seconds, and leaned forward. His face six inches from hers.
“The Story of O, when she wants to stay with Rene, doesn’t want to go with Stephen? When he beats her all over? Large purple welts covering her skin? Oozing blood all over?”
She nodded.
“I need you to hold onto a bar over your head and take it. No safeword. No words. Screams are fine. Tears. But no words. If it’s too much, you can let go and walk out. A horsewhip and a rubber sap. All over except your face, but I might decide to slap you.” Silence. “I’m going to let the wolf surface, Willow. He’s the one who can’t forgive you. It won’t be me in charge part of the time.”
Kenny saw her swallow, and knew what she was going to say before she said it.
“Whatever it takes, Silas, to make you my Sir again.”
Kenny telepathed Silas.My wolf is telling me Boone and I need to go back outside to work on the deck. The human part of me wants to supervise. Tell me whether the wolf or the human is right?
She’ll walk out if it’s too much. I won’t stop her.
If she’d been human, Kenny would’ve supervised, but hawks can heal from a lot. He wasn’t worried about Silas not allowing her to leave, but about Willow letting him go too far.
But his wolf insisted they needed to do this alone, so he and Boone went back outside.
Chapter 4
Willow rushed to put her dress on and follow him up the steps, stopped at the top to take it off. Shoes, too. She hurried to the red medallion and stood in inspection pose while he clipped a spreader bar on the winch. Lowered it.
“Enter. Stand under it and hold the bar.”
She did, and he lifted it until she nearly had to stand on tiptoe.
