Page 16 of Redeemed Wolf (Grim Wilds #4)

Chapter 16

Carter

A faint buzzing sound woke me. Opening my eyes, my gaze was drawn straight to where my phone was lying on the bedside table, the screen lit up with an incoming call. I didn’t remember putting it there, so I assumed Silas had. I could barely lift my head to see who was calling, but I didn’t need to. I knew it was my dad, just like I knew this wasn’t the first time he’d called.

I blinked in the gloom, the sun’s rays doing their level best to force their way around the curtain. I had no idea what time it was, but it felt late. The light had that warmer filter to it, like afternoon was approaching. How long had I slept?

I was grateful when my phone stopped ringing, and my eyes drifted shut again. I sank a little deeper into the pillow, tugging the blanket up to my chin. The fabric was drenched in Silas’s scent, and I buried my nose into it, breathing deep.

I had a vague recollection of him sleeping beside me, his body curled protectively around mine. The bed had gone long cold, though, and the apartment was quiet.

When the phone rang again, I decided it would probably be best if I answered it. He would just keep calling, and the last thing I needed was him calling the cops to report me missing. He would probably force me into moving back home.

I groaned as I reached for the phone, then answered it and tucked it under my ear against the pillow so I didn’t have to hold it. “Hey, Dad,” I managed to say, though my throat was so dry that it came out like a croak.

“Carter! Where the hell are you? What happened?” He sounded frantic, and I felt bad for making him worry. “Silas said he saw you at work yesterday and that you were sick, but your car is still in the parking lot. All the worst-case scenarios flashed through my head.”

“I didn’t mean to make you worry. I’m fine, Dad. Well, no, I’m not exactly fine. Silas was right, I got super sick at work. But don’t worry, he made sure I got home okay. I was too sick to drive, so he gave me a ride.” No need to tell him whose home he took me to.

Right on cue, Dad slipped into scientist mode, with a side of overprotective father. “What are your symptoms? Is it the new medication? Do you need me to come over?”

Sighing, I outlined what I’d been feeling last night, as best as I could remember, but it was all a bit of blur now. “Fever and chills, foggy brain. I doubt it was the meds. I probably just have the flu. It’s okay, though. After I essentially slipped into a coma, I feel much better.”

“A coma ?!” he screeched through the phone, and I suppressed a chuckle. “I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not.”

“I’m kidding,” I assured him, before a yawn had my jaw popping. “I just feel like I need to sleep another day or two and I’ll be all better.”

He paused for a second, and I could so easily picture the look on his face as he tried to stuff down his smothering tendencies. “Are you sure? I can stop by on the way home tonight with dinner if you’d like.”

“No, don’t bother. I might be contagious. I’ll just order some takeout whenever I get hungry.”

“Okay, if you’re sure…”

“I am. Go back to work. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

We said a quick goodbye, and then as I swore I was going to get out of bed to empty my bladder, I found myself falling back to sleep instead. I must’ve been fighting off a doozy of a bug if I was this tired. I hoped I didn’t get Silas sick…

When I woke up again, it was getting dark outside. I could hear movement inside the apartment, and there was this amazing smell that had my stomach growling in complaint. Had I really not eaten for a full 24 hours?

I threw back the blanket and pushed myself up shakily to a sitting position. The room swam around me, but I desperately needed to pee. When I went to get up, though, I looked down at my body. “Oh.” I was naked. Had I slept beside Silas like this all night?

Opening the top drawer of his dresser, I grabbed the first article of clothing I touched. It turned out to be a flannel button-up pajama shirt, and though it smelled like clean laundry, I swore I could still detect the faintest whiff of Silas’s scent lingering in the fabric. I slid my arms into the sleeves and lifted it to my face, breathing him in. It was the strangest thing, but I swore it cleared my head a little.

Buttoning it up quickly, I cracked the bedroom door open, squinting in the bright light coming from the rest of the apartment. I tiptoed across to the bathroom and quickly peed. As I was washing my hands, my eyes drifted to the bathtub behind me in the reflection. Wait… did he give me a bath last night? That was… intimate. The thought brought heat to my cheeks, but this time it wasn’t a fever but a good, old-fashioned swoon.

When I left the bathroom, Silas called to me. “Hungry?”

Creeping down the hall, I peeked around the corner into the kitchen to find Silas standing in front of the stove still wearing his guard’s uniform, stirring something in a pot.

“That smells amazing,” I whispered. Why did I feel shy around him? We’d had sex, for gods’ sakes, not to mention him taking care of me.

Silas shrugged. “It’s nothing fancy, just leftover soup. I made it last night, but by the time it was ready, you were fast asleep, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

I smiled softly. “Thank you, by the way. For bringing me home, for… the bath.”

“It was nothing.” He couldn’t meet my eyes, and I had to think it was more than nothing to both of us. It was decidedly something . “Come have a seat at the table and I’ll bring you a bowl of soup.”

As I left the safety of the hallway and headed for the table, I could feel the moment Silas registered what I was wearing. His gaze left a path of heated flesh as he raked down my body to where my ass was just barely covered. “My shirt looks good on you,” he said, his voice gravelly as he followed behind me, bowl in hand.

I lowered into a seat and accepted the bowl and spoon he offered me. “Sorry I borrowed it without asking. I didn’t know where my clothes had disappeared to.”

“I put them through the wash. You sweated straight through them.” He went back to the kitchen for his own bowl, then returned to join me, sitting beside me instead of the chair across. “And for the record, you can borrow my clothes anytime you want.”

My body warmed when I thought about the way he was taking care of me. He watched, waiting to take his first bite until I’d dipped my spoon into the soup. Once I’d tasted that first spoonful, I couldn’t stop myself from moaning. “Oh gods, what did you put in this? It’s amazing!” I quickly went back for more, slowing only as my empty stomach twisted slightly at the sudden intake of food.

“It’s my mom’s recipe,” he said. Silas’s eyes lit up at my praise, and while he tried his best to hide how chuffed he was, it was obvious enough that I vowed to compliment him more often. I liked making him feel good.

“You shouldn’t have gone to all the trouble, though I admit, I’m glad you did. But you could’ve just fed me soup from a can,” I said, slurping up the warm broth. “Now that I’ve been spoiled with the homemade stuff, I’ll never be able to eat the canned stuff again.”

“You deserve the best,” he said. “Everything in a can is filled with preservatives. Just wait until I make you dinner using vegetables from the garden and meat I’ve caught myself.”

He could do all that? I was in total awe. And now I had a mental image of him bent over with his hands in the soil as he gardened, naked of course. Would he hunt naked too?

“Why are you helping me?” I asked, feeling oddly delicate.

He stared at me across the table, an intensity to his eyes that made it so I couldn’t look away. “Because I care about you,” he said raggedly. It seemed so simple yet insubstantial to explain the storm of wild emotions I felt swirling inside of me.

There was something going on between us, but nothing in the textbooks I’d studied could explain it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it extended beyond the natural world…

My stomach seemed to have shrunk in the past day, and I could barely manage to eat half the bowl. “Sorry,” I muttered, setting my spoon aside. “It’s delicious, I just can’t stomach much.”

“Give it time. Your body’s been through a lot.” He pushed back from the table before I could ask what he meant by that. Silas carried both our bowls to the kitchen, leaving me sitting at the table awkwardly.

“I’m just going to change out of my uniform,” he said, and I watched as he made his way back to the bedroom. He left the door open, and I wondered if it was in invitation for me to join him. He came out a few minutes later wearing nothing but a pair of pajama pants. For a second, I was distracted by all the skin and taut muscles, but then my eyes trailed lower.

“Hey, those match the shirt I’m wearing,” I said, grinning wide before I could even think of trying to mask my reaction. Wasn’t I supposed to try to play it cool around my crush?

“Oh, really? I hadn’t noticed.” He was smiling too, fully aware of what he’d done.

“Can I…” I paused, wondering if it was rude to ask about his scars, but he obvious wasn’t self-conscious about them, the way he’d put them on display. So instead of second-guessing myself, I just asked. “Your scars. What caused them?”

There was no sign that he minded the question, though he seemed to pause, deciding how to answer. “It was a wolf.” His voice was flat, guarded, and goosebumps rose along my arms.

“A wolf?” I whispered.

“Yes. I turned my back on him and paid the price, but I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.” That statement raised a whole slew of questions.

He was about to say something else, but then he froze, cocking his head as though listening to something. Then I heard a set of keys jingling out in the hallway, and the lock on the door turned. A second later, Silas’s roommate stepped in.

“Hey, Pacey, right?” I said in greeting. Under the table, I tugged on the hem of the shirt, making sure all the important bits were covered. I’d kind of forgotten that Silas didn’t live alone. He tended to take up all the space in my brain when he was around.

“Yeah. Hi.” Pacey spared me a brief glance, but his focus shifted quickly to Silas. His gaze was pretty intense to be just his roommate, and I found myself feeling a little jealous about whatever was going on between these two. Even as Silas came to stand beside my chair, Pacey seemed to move in coordination with him, as though his world gravitated around Silas.

I frowned, glaring at Pacey. I might not have known a single thing about him, but I suddenly didn’t like him very much. I had the strangest urge to rub myself all over Silas, to make him smell like me.

“Did you talk to Grandma?” Silas asked, setting a possessive hand on my shoulder, tilting his body to put himself between me and his roommate.

“Yeah, and she sent this,” he replied, holding out a paper bag.

As Silas grabbed the bag and opened it, a peppery, earthy scent snuck out. “Herbs?” he asked.

“Yeah, chop and steep them to make a tea. Said it should help with the detox, and that it would be safe for him if he’s…” Pacey trailed off, his eyes flicking once to me. “You know,” he added, arching an eyebrow, trying to convey some wordless message.

Silas stared at him for a moment before turning to look down at me, his eyes roving lower on my torso. I couldn’t decipher what he was thinking, but he took a long, deep breath through his nose before his eyes seemed to flash with something. “Right. Okay. Wow.”

“Wow what?” I asked. “What does he mean, safe for him ? Is he talking about me?” I didn’t like feeling like I was missing something important.

“Um, nothing. These are just some herbs from our grandmother. She’s a bit of a healer, sort of. Mostly a midwife. She’ll know better than most how to make you feel better.”

There was a lot to unpack in that sentence. Foremost, that these two men shared a grandmother. Were they cousins? They didn’t look much alike, and it did little to assuage the foreign surge of jealousy.

“I’ll just… make you that tea,” Silas said, pivoting quickly toward the kitchen.

“I can help,” Pacey offered, looking far too eager for my liking, but I was already out of my seat, following Silas.

“No, I’ve got it,” I snapped, shocked by the wave of irrational anger that rolled through me. I was not normally someone who could be described as aggressive, but damn, if I wasn’t ready to tear his head from his shoulders. It didn’t seem to matter than he was almost twice my size, I was sure I could somehow take him.

Lucky for me, he backed down, dipping his chin in a strange kind of deference I didn’t understand as he headed for the living room. It made me feel… powerful.

It wasn’t until Silas growled under his breath and reached under my shirt to grab my bare ass cheek that I remembered I wasn’t exactly dressed. He tightened his grip and used it to pull me to him, flush so that I could feel his thickening shaft beneath his pajama pants. I gasped and braced my hands on his chest. “As much as I am enjoying the quick access, I don’t love the possibility of my Beta catching an eyeful. This ass is mine .”

The independent omega in me should’ve bristled at his caveman attitude, but I found myself preening for him instead, a smirk curling the corner of my lips up. “If my ass belongs to you, then what part of you is mine?” I danced my fingers up his flexing pectorals and over his shoulders, enjoying the glide of his smooth skin.

I’d expected a sassy reply, probably offering me his dick, but instead, it took a turn toward the sentimental. “Any part you want,” he said, resting his forehead on mine and closing his eyes, breathing deeply. “ Every part. I am entirely at your mercy.”

I threaded my fingers through his hair, melting into him. I might not have felt my best when I woke up, but I was suddenly feeling much, much better. Drawn to get impossibly closer to him, I brought my nose to the curve of his neck, tracing my nose along the arch. My mouth flooded with saliva, and I had the strangest urge to bite him, hard enough to draw blood.

Instead, I merely grazed my teeth along his flesh. “Should I go put some pants on?” I asked. Goosebumps prickled his skin, and with a final squeeze, Silas reluctantly pried his hands off my ass. With a final pat, he drew away, leaving me cold.

“Pacey, make yourself scarce,” he called toward the living room, before turning to grab a cutting board.

I heard the squeak of springs, and then without a single word or moment of hesitation, Pacey walked out of the apartment. The door closed behind him with a click, and I was left blinking.

“There. Now you don’t have to put on pants,” Silas said, flashing a smirk over his shoulder at me before he pulled herbs from the bag and laid them out on the cutting board.

“He left just because you told him to? Is it because he’s your Beta?” I asked.

“What?” he said, his shoulders stiffening for a moment.

“You said Pacey was your Beta. What’s that mean? Does he work for you?”

The aroma of the herbs grew sharper as Silas worked the knife through the leaves, chopping them finely. “Sort of.” He didn’t add anything to that, dropping a handful of the herbs into a pot and adding water.

“That’s it, that’s all you’re going to give me? Sort of?” I huffed, crossing my arms over my chest as frustration niggled at me.

“What more do you want me to say?” He kept his back to me as he turned the stove on low.

I gritted my teeth hard enough that my jaw ached. “Silas, I don’t get you. First, you act all sweet and caring, feeding me, bathing me when I’m sick. But then whenever I ask you a question, you get all evasive. I know nothing about you!”

He braced his hands on the counter, his shoulders bowing. “It’s not because I don’t want to tell you,” he said. Finally, he rubbed his hands over his face and turned, and I was surprised by the anguish so plainly visible in his expression. “Will you take a walk with me?”

“Right now?” I frowned. “I… I guess. Sure.”

Silas turned off the stove. “The tea can wait until we get back.” He took me back to the bedroom where he found some loose-fitting clothes for me, then with our fingers interlaced, he led the way outside. The whole time, he didn’t say a word.

For a moment, I worried that this was his way of breaking up with me, though I wasn’t even sure we were dating in the first place. Had I pried too deeply into his personal life, so now he was done with me? Maybe I wasn’t worth the trouble of opening up. But as I watched him in my peripheral, he didn’t seem so much closed off as he did lost in thought. His entire body was tight with tension, and he kept looking over his shoulder, but there was a determined set to his jaw as we walked down the block.

I had a feeling I was about to get my answers.