Milo flinched when Keon touched a hand to his waist. He managed a smile and leaned into Keon for support. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it and felt awful for intruding upon something Weston found personal, but he needed to know what Haley was thinking. If she wouldn’t tell him, wouldn’t even speak civilly to him, this may be his own chance for an insight into her thoughts.
“I prefer the way Keon and Milo have spent time getting to know each other,” Weston insisted, with a warmth that gave Milo tingles. Grateful for his unwavering support. “They are open and honest about their pasts, their hopes for the future, and their difficulties. They share their burdens, troubles, and their pains. They both have the chance to enter this mating with their eyes and hearts open, which is a rare gift.”
“Whatever.” The sneer was obvious in Haley’s tone, and it filled Milo with shame and disappointment. “It’s not the same thing. Milo sold himself, exchanging one cage for another. For what? For me? To drag me from a life of freedom to slavery, just so he didn’t have to suffer alone?” While Milo’s hope sank to his boots, Haley snorted. “Well, thanks very much, but I have no interest in living my life as a victim.”
A scrape of a chair had Milo about to step forward, but it was Keon who held him back this time, one arm wrapped around his waist in support.
Weston cut the awkward silence. “If you believe that, then you have no concept of true slavery or freedom. And you have clearlyneverbeen a victim,” he said, words sharp in warning Haley had pushed a button. “Perhaps you have been privileged enough never to know oppression or pain, but trust me when I say you arebettercared for, betterprotected, than you would have been in your father’s pack.
“Perhaps you need to consider how lucky you are to be away from a man who thought your only worth was in how much you could be sold for. Milo’s actions have always put your health, safety, and future first…even at the expense of his own. He has sacrificed his health, freedom, and his life foryourbenefit, yet you are ungrateful enough to pretend you don’t know it.”
Footsteps said Weston was approaching, but before Milo could be caught spying, he stopped and spun to face the room, now clearly visible from their vantage point. “Despite your continued entitled attitude, I have never been disappointed in you. You are young, learning your place in a new pack, and the world has changed around you quite drastically in a short space of time,” he said, with the moderation and consideration Milo had always respected him for.
“But today I am deeply disappointed in you. You are cared for more deeply than your behaviour warrants, and your brother is far more loyal to you than he should be, considering how you have treated him. Yet he continues to fight for you. He prays for you to find strength, freedom, and joy in this new life, but all you can do is remain the same petty girl who cannot see the gift she had been given. Until you open your eyes, you will never find happiness or true freedom. You will remain locked in the cage your father created for you, trapped by privilege and ego.”
Weston shook his head, while Milo’s heart squeezed with a confusing blend of grief for the honesty of his words, agreement, and affection for the man who braved telling Haley the hard, awful truth. “Know this, Haley…if you never learn to love and respect yourself, you will never find peace, and it can be terribly lonely to live with hate in your heart for someone who only wishes to love you.”
He turned abruptly and almost walked into Keon, but before he could speak the shock that had his mouth dropping open and eyes wide, Keon released Milo and dragged Weston into a tight hug.
“You are a bloody beautiful man, West,” he murmured, sending sparks of deeply rooted affection straight to Milo’s heart.
He was right. Weston was the most wonderful person, and it made him proud to call him family and to know Keon loved him just as dearly.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Keon
“I’M AFRAID WE’VEhad no word from the team,” Weston explained, laying a platter of meat skewers into the centre of the dining table, politely moving Keon’s paperback aside. “I imagine Eliseo will be in touch once he has a progress report. It would be wasteful to return to let us know they arrived safely.”
Keon lifted three skewers onto his plate, added a generous dribble of sauce Weston had made. He grabbed a hot roll and sweet potato fries Milo had made to fill the rest of his plate. “I suppose.” He didn’t like it, but he had a point.
Across the table, Milo’s attention focused on the medical book Robell had left, an adorable scrunch to his brow as he mimed unfamiliar words.
“No other reports?” he asked Weston, who had finalised the last of the paperwork regarding Farley’s last visit.
“Nothing I’ve been made aware of.”
Keon picked a couple sweet potatoes to munch on, pleasantly surprised by the taste, a sprinkle of salt on top. “These are good.”
“Yes, and a much healthier option I can sneak past you,” Weston agreed, teasing him for his terrible human-influenced diet.
Milo smirked and acknowledged the compliment, returning to his reading. The meal was his idea, a deviation from the either/or option of whether to eat Vihaan or human. This combined the best of Vihaan meat and human influence, and Keon loved it. He also loved the way Milo had hummed and been in his element, while sitting at the dining table to prepare the food.
Which reminded him how unsuitable the house was, long term. If Milo needed to use the wheelchair inside the house, he was trapped. The doorways were big enough, but the hallway was tight, and furniture would need to be moved or rearranged to accommodate him. The kitchen was pokey, lacking room for a wheelchair, a table or suitable working space at the right height for a wheelchair. The house was incapable of accommodating the wheelchair without major renovations.
Maybe it was time to admit defeat and move into the Pack-House? Every room was larger, the doors wider, and the kitchen would be big enough to place a lowered island, where Milo could prepare food comfortably. He’d sizzled hotter than the skewers when he asked Keon to cook the meat. What if he’d been alone? Milo would be forced to build his day around what he could, and couldn’t, manage alone.
The door opened and shut in the distance, leaving Keon with another problem.
“Hey.”
Milo tensed, closed his book, and placed it onto the window ledge beside his seat. “Where have you been?” he asked his sister, the only one to brave her fiery temper.
Haley waltzed into the room and rolled her eyes, taking the empty seat at the table. She didn’t speak, but filled her plate and set to eating, as uncooperative as any fifteen-year-old Keon had met.
“Remember the rules,” Keon warned, having been through them three times. Space was limited, but he and Weston had busted their butts emptying the study to make Haley feel welcome and give her privacy. Adding another tally in favour of moving into the Pack-House. Watching the effect Haley’s attitude had on Milo, who clenched his jaw and picked at his food, killed him. “I won’t warn you again.” He refused to let her get away with ignoring them. Not when they’d done everything to accommodate her.
He’d made the rules straightforward: be respectful, civil, and kind; respond when spoken to; and remember her place in the pack. While believing she was above the rules, because her brother was mating the Alpha, she forgot it made itmoreimportant for her to behave. She was a representative of the Linwood name and his position, now.
