Page 101 of Resisted

His hand slipped from my grasp. Gage reached down, already having been pulled up by Roth, and grabbed onto Boyce’s jeans, hefting him upward as I pulled on his arm. With Gage’s help, Boyce came up easily, until his body lay sprawled out on the deck. For a few moments, he didn’t move, and I just stood there, watching, not sure what exactly happened or what was going on in his head. Then his chest started moving rapidly, his body shaking, and if it weren’t for the sudden gasp of air as he laughed, I would have worried that something was truly wrong.

His laugh went on alone for a while, until suddenly, Vince joined in, both men laughing hysterically at a joke that I couldn’t understand, until finally, Silas’ soft laughter filled the boat. The sound of their joy together made my stomach flip as butterflies danced about. It was a harmony that would never get old, a sound so sweet, it could have been made from pure, untouched sugar cane.

“You motherfucker almost got us all killed.” Vincent laughed harder.

“You needed the adventure,” Silas said with a gasp, though I suspected the gasp had nothing to do with how hard he was laughing and everything to do with the damage to his lung.

“I could go the rest of my life without another adventure like this,” Vincent stated as he grabbed on to the rail before pulling his body upward. When he was standing fully upright, his chest heaved as he struggled to catch his breath from the exertion. “I feel so damn old right now. This must be what Roth feels like daily.”

I heard Roth growl, but he said nothing as I moved closer, falling to my knees in front of Silas. There was so much I wanted to say, so much I absolutely needed to say, but I struggled to get it out, too overwhelmed with both affection and the sudden nerves as adrenaline crashed. I wanted to scream at them all, beg them never to do that to me again, but it wouldn’t be fair. This had been their life way before I was ever in it. This was the danger they lived for. But as I glimpsed Silas, I couldn’t help but feel guilt. This was my fault. I’d asked this of him. I had asked for something that was near impossible and made him promise to fulfill it.

“I had to try,” he said, breaking into my thoughts.

If he weren’t already so fucking broken, I would’ve punched him right now. Had to try? He’d nearly gotten himself killed. He didn’t have to try, he chose to. Promise be damn, he could have asked for someone to go with him, could have prevented this whole disaster if he weren’t so fucking stubborn. But I wouldn’t expect anything less than stubborn from Silas.

“I…” I paused, not knowing what to say. He could have died. Hell, I wasn’t even convinced he still wouldn’t keel over at any moment. But he did this for me, for what he thought would make me happy. “It wasn’t fair of me.”

“Stop,” he mumbled, his eyes dropping closed, his lashes fanning over his dirty and grimy cheek. “I did what I wanted.”

“That may be right, but it wasn’t fair to make you promise.” I licked my lips, unsure what to say or what I could possibly add. “I shouldn’t have made you do that.”

His soft chuckle filled the night. “You wear a kid, Bella. Hell, you’re still a kid.” Before I could argue this fact, he continued, “At least compared to all of us. Still, you did good, Belladonna. You did so fucking good, and your wolf… Fates, she was glorious.”

I felt like a peacock, flashing my feathers. Praise from Silas was like receiving the finest gold pendant. It was rare, a treasure to holds onto until your dying breath. How did I take the praise? I wasn’t sure, not when I knew I hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary. I’d helped protect my mates, and wasn’t that what anyone would do?

The slight scrap of the remote as it slid against the deck interrupted my thoughts, and my eyes followed it until it stopped against Silas’ leg. His eyes fell to the device, but he didn’t make a move to reach it. He just stared, and I guessed I understood that. That single remote had helped to cause him harm and control his actions. It had helped hold him prisoner on an island in the middle of nowhere.

“Are you going to press the button?” Boyce finally asked. “We’re getting closer to the shore by the second. The reception range won’t stretch on forever.”

“Press the button?” Silas muttered, and for a moment, I didn’t understand either. What good did pressing the button do when we were already off the island and all were safe? But then I remembered just where Boyce had left that collar. My eyes grew wide, and Silas must have realized at the same time too, because he shook his head. “What’s the point? He’s already suffering.”

“The point?” Boyce had gotten up at some point, his body standing tall over us. “The point is he gathered a lot from this meeting—our weakness, our mate, our abilities. He made it known there are a lot of people looking for us, wanting members of our pack dead, and he might just be able to hand over the info to make that happen. Today, we all left alive, but next time, we might not be so lucky.”

I bit my lip as I let Boyce’s words absorb. He wasn’t wrong. In fact, what he said made so much sense that I reached for the detonator myself, only to be beaten by Silas. “He’s right.”

His fingers wrapped around the device as a look of determination plastered onto his face. Taking the device in one hand, he reached up for the rail with the other, using the solid fixture to heave himself upward. He barely made it, but barely didn’t cancel out the fact that he did, and that was reassuring. His strength was coming back, and although it was slow, he was still healing.

I stepped forward to help him, but he waved me away before resting his torso against the bars. “I don’t want you to get the idea that we take pride in killing, Bella, because we don’t. We take pride in protecting what’s ours and what we love the most.”

He turned his head away from the island so his eyes could lock with mine, and I saw the raw emotion of this whole event suffocating him, right there on the surface, ready to break him open at any given moment. But he was stronger than the urge to break, as I’d always known he was. That was why he was subpack alpha. It wasn’t from physical strength, because in truth, Vincent was probably an equal or greater match. It was because of his ability to stay strong and not crumble in the most intense situations.

Without taking his eyes off mine, his fingers found the button and he pushed. For a long moment, not a single thing happened, and oddly, I felt slightly relieved at that. Then the sound of fire and stone exploding outward into the silent early dawn broke the stillness. I dared to look as fire began to rise and streams of smoke billowed in the air. Even from this distance, the air began to fill with the acidic smell of burning rubble, and my eyes began to burn. I swallowed past the lump in my throat, trying to forget that the explosion was attached to a once living and breathing being. He’d deserved it, there was no doubt about that, but to be blown to pieces… Well, what a way to go.

“I think you singlehandedly destroyed the summer tour schedule,” Vince mumbled as he leaned against the rail.

“I’ve had more than my share of touring that place,” Gage added as he leaned next to Vince.

“You haven’t seen anything until you’ve been waterboarded in the communal bathrooms,” Silas added, and though I know he was making light of the situation, the truth of it still hurt.

“Always has to be superior,” Boyce said as he took up the rail next to me.

We all watched as our boat drifted farther away from the danger that once was, farther away from a memory I wanted nothing more than to put behind us. We watched until the fire that blazed became a pinprick of light in the distance, until it disappeared altogether. As the sun finally rose, cresting the horizon, the boat pulled into a private dock, far away from the mess we’d left back on that island.

Chapter 46

SILAS

“Say it,”Bella demanded as she leaned over me, and I would say anything she wanted as long as her eyes kept looking at me with that spark of lust and the hint of secrets.

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