“I metlostagain half a dozen years later. I had managed to get hired on as a farm hand in another town, and I had worked my way up into the good graces of another lord. I managed several grain houses for him, and he invited me to accompany him to see about more land and a mill he was wanting to purchase. I was in a strange city, and I enjoyed the food and drink a little too much. I went outside to relieve myself, and that’s when a creature attacked me. It felt like it was tearing my throat open. I was choking on my own blood and couldn’t even shout an alarm. When I woke up, I couldn’t understand how I was still alive, but then I quickly realized that I wasn’t, or at least not in the same way as before.
“I felt lost for years until I met Sorik, and then it slowly began to recede. Sorik felt lost until he found your mother, and then he felt lost again after he lost her and his compeer. You see, we all go through it at different stages and in different ways. It doesn’t make us weak, and it’s nothing to apologize for. It just is.”
“Do you feel lost now?” I ask, realizing that Tierit and everything that’s happening here isn’t just overwhelming for me. My Chosen are all here hoping for answers too.
Shame ripples inside of me as I once again recall thatI’mthe reason we don’t have the answers we’re all looking for.
“Right now, with you in my arms while I’m still buried inside of you? No, I don’t feel lost. But that night with Sorik in wolf territory, when you first walked through the trees and the moon lit up your face? I felt lost in that moment. Like somehow I was connected to you, but I couldn’t understand how. When our eyes met for the first time, you felt inevitable to me, but that made no sense.”
Siah brushes hair back from my face and cradles my neck, his intense gaze locked onto mine. “When Sorik explained who you were to him, I thought that my purpose was finally clear. I would help him protect you. That felt right to me in a way I had been missing since my life was stolen from me in a piss covered alley.
“But then you walked through the door after that caster had been working on me and offered me your wrist...your blood. Right then and there, I felt lost again, because I couldn’t just protect you from afar like I thought, I needed more. But you were mated, and I didn’t see how I could fit into any of that.”
Siah looks away, and I can feel the pain radiating off of him.
“I’ve been alone for so long. I’ve had Sorik, and his friendship has been a lifeline for me more times than I can count, but I’ve felt homeless and adrift since I was seventeen. I’m terrified I always will.”
His confession wraps around me like a familiar blanket, because he’s just spoken into existence feelings I’ve been trying not to look at.
“Every time I settle into something good in my life, it’s taken away. I’ve fought mywholelife to be safe, to be strong, to be secure...to be worthy. And yet I feel like it all slips through my fingers like sand just when I think I have a hold of it. You would think, after everything, I would learn not to hope or think that maybethis timeif I can just hold on tight enough, then I can keep the safety and the love and the belonging in my grip...but I never can,” I confess.
My eyes sting with emotion, and I lean into Siah’s palm when he moves it to cradle my face. “I get so close, but it’s never enough. Beth got Laiken killed. Talon lied to me. My uncle was too broken to love me. The elders fucked with me. Adriel...he killed my mother. He shattered my father. And now, here I am surrounded by Sentinels. I’m not the last. I don’t have to be alone. But they don’t want me. I’m filth. I’m unworthy.”
Tears stream down my face, and sobs bubble up in my throat.
“I’ve tried so hard to be the best, to be the strongest, to find my place, but I never can. I’m everything to these people that Beth always told me I was, nothing, and it fucking kills me.”
Siah lets me sob. He holds me as I fracture, and hugs me until I’m ready to figure out how the fuck I move forward now. He pulls my lips to his and kisses me softly, and then he kisses each of my cheeks and once again dries them with his thumbs.
“I don’t know about the why of things, but I do know this... You areeverythingto me and your other mates. I have no doubt about that.”
I try to shake my head, to remind him of all the times in my life that prove I’m unworthy of safety and love and goodness, but Siah cuts me off.
“Can I make you a deal?” he asks, his eyes searching mine. I hesitate for a minute and then nod.
“I’ll be your home if you’ll be mine,” he tells me, and the simple request makes me swallow any argument I held waiting on my tongue.
He’s not force-feeding me lies about who I am and what I can be. He’s just asking for something he should have always had and that I could never deny him. I stare at Siah for a beat, overwhelmed by his quiet and steadfast offer.I’ll be your home if you’ll be mine.
“Okay,” I answer simply, and just like that, I see a ray of light in all this darkness.
I may not have been good enough for Beth not to torture or for Talon to be honest with. Lachlan couldn’t love me, and neither the casters nor the Sentinels could accept me. But despite all of that, somehow, I fit with Siah, Sabin, Valen and Bastien. I fit with Ryker, Knox, and Torrez. Maybe I’m not worthy, but they want me all the same.
And it’s not just them. The sisters are waiting for me back home, so are Aydin and Evrin. Mave and Cyndol were blowing up my phone before we lost service on the hike here. And I’ve found Sorik, Enoch, Kallan, Nash and Becket. I have more than I’ve been acknowledging, worthy or not, and it’s time for me to see that and Sentinel the fuck up.
“You’re pretty good at this mate shit,” I tell him with a smile.
“I am, aren’t I,” he teases, and I grin.
I release a deep breath and lean in to kiss Siah softly. “Thank you,” I whisper against his lips.
He smiles and runs a hand down my spine. “Like I said, I’ve got you.”
My grin is blinding, and I move my lips to his ear. “Now fuck me again, mate, and then let’s go relieve the others from guard duty.”
Siah growls and then palms my ass. “Don’t have to tell me twice. Let’s see how many times I make you scream my name.”
And with that, the fucker bites me.
