Page 39 of The Alpha's Silent Mate

“No,” I tell him in a quiet voice as I take in the treehouse's beauty. “It means you’re the best.”

11

“Do you think it’s over now?” I ask when Shay bends to take my empty bowl from me.

Although we’re on the second day of stew, I’m still not tired of it yet, and I don’t think I ever will. Not when Shay is such a good cook.

“I don’t know, pup.”

“But Daniel said it would take a day.”

Shay picks up his empty bowl from the small wooden dining table we ate our meal before crossing over to the sink. I wrap my arms around my knees as I watch him rinse them out. I’d offer to help, but I know better than to even ask. Shay wouldn’t let me. “He said, maybe. Fights sometimes don’t go the way you expect. People can surprise you.”

His words fill me with a tension that I haven’t felt since before our shared bath earlier that morning. All day we’ve dozed in front of the fire, sometimes napping, sometimes talking, or Shay has just held me.

“So things could go badly?”

He glances at me as if he can feel my rising anxiety. “Things might go badly for a little while, but they won’t stay that way. I have experienced fighters who know what they’re doing and who can recover from surprises quickly.”

But the thought doesn’t ease my mind. I lower my gaze to my knees. The faded blue shirt Shay found for me smelled a little musty, but it drowns me completely. I have no idea who it belongs to, but it isn’t Ewan.

“I think you should go back. They might need you.”

“And what will you be doing while I run back?” Shay asks in an expressionless voice.

I shrug, still keeping my gaze on my t-shirt-covered knees. “I could stay here.”

“And would you?”

No.

But because Shay would know that I was lying if I said anything else, I say nothing at all.

The silence stretches on and on and I have no idea what to say to fill it.

When Shay crosses over to me and sinks beside my chair, he doesn’t need to say a word. I lift my head and meet his eyes. “It would stop all the fighting.”

I’d expected anger, or… something. Just not the calmness I read on his face.

“There were some lessons I didn’t want to tell you that my father made me learn,” he says. “Maybe it was a mistake that I didn’t.”

I search his eyes and I shake my head. “You don’t need to tell me. I think I know what you’re hinting at.”

Now the anger he must’ve been hiding creeps into his eyes. “And what is that?”

“That even if I go to them, it might not be enough to stop the fighting.”

His hand snakes around my nape, under my hair, and he gently shakes me. “Then why,” he bites out, “would you still want to do it?”

“Because when you mess up, you make things right. No matter what.” I swallow back my tears. “That’s what my dad taught me.”

“And how have you messed up?”

“I came to your pack.”

“You didn’t come here, Lexa. I brought you here.”

“But I stayed when I knew what would happen.”

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