Page 14 of Snarl First, Kiss Later (Alpha’s Prophecy #2)

FOURTEEN

SILAS

S ilas had spent the last three days clawing his way back into court life.

The hours blurred—strategy meetings, recon reports, split-second sparring sessions with Landon and Caz in the back barracks.

Nothing ceremonial about it. The court had no time for decorum when the Silent Sons were breathing down their necks, and no one trusted a returning ghost with blood on his past.

He didn’t blame them. Hell, he didn’t trust himself either.

Still, Landon had kept him close, pushing hard in every fight, testing boundaries—not just with fists but with words. “You think you’ve paid enough for the shit Roman built?” he’d asked yesterday, sweat dripping from his brow as they circled. “Then prove it.”

So Silas had proved it. By showing up. By staying. By not bolting into the woods every time someone looked at Ava sideways.

Ava.

He’d seen her a few times in passing since they arrived.

Usually shadowing Sonya, who moved with surprising grace for someone nearly full-term.

Ava stayed quiet, but she watched everything.

Always watching. That sharp green gaze of hers swept corridors, guards, even him—assessing, calculating.

Silas had caught her eyes once while crossing the main walkway between training blocks. She didn’t smile. Neither did he.

He didn’t know what the hell they were.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t simple. And it sure as hell wasn’t safe.

On the third morning, Silas found himself just outside the eastern garden clearing, where the outer compound gave way to the wooded ridges.

Ava stood near one of the training platforms, her boots scuffed with dirt, her braid unraveling down her back.

She was laughing at something Sonya had said, tension slipping from her frame in rare surrender.

Then came the sound—subtle, too clean for a twig snap, too sharp for an animal shuffle.

Silas straightened instantly, jaw locking. The hairs on his arms stood up.

Behind the laughter, deeper in the trees, there was movement. Controlled. Coordinated.

He caught Sonya’s eye across the space. Her hand instinctively went to her belly. Then everything shattered.

A single shot cracked the air.

The peacekeeper guarding the rear post dropped. Two more followed in a spray of blood. Screams erupted across the courtyard. Smoke billowed from the west flank. Alarms blared.

“Down!” Silas barked, lunging toward Ava just as she turned, wide-eyed.

They hit the ground together. Sonya scrambled behind a planter, shielding her stomach as guards poured into the clearing from every direction.

“Fuck me,” Ava growled. She rolled off him, shotgun in hand before he could blink. “They’re inside the outer wall.”

Silas scanned the chaos. “Sons. They planned this.”

Ava didn’t answer. She was already sprinting toward a downed soldier, pulling a med kit from the pack on her hip. He caught up and dropped beside her, covering her six.

A second wave of bullets tore through the space above their heads.

“Ava!” he yelled, pointing to the stream that cut behind the training field. A flash of fur, small and black, was being dragged under the muddy current. “Kid—pup in the water!”

She froze for a heartbeat. Then she was running.

Silas covered her, his rifle barking out two sharp bursts. One attacker went down near the fenceline. Another bolted back toward the trees. He didn’t wait to chase. Ava had reached the bank, skidding on wet grass as she dropped to her knees and plunged her arms in.

The pup thrashed, eyes wide, waterlogged. She caught him around the middle, heaved hard, and rolled backward as the current gave way.

The child coughed, then wailed.

Silas’s heart caught.

Ava shielded the pup, who shifted back, with her own body, hissing as a bullet nicked her arm. “Got him!” she called. “We’re exposed!”

He reached them in three strides, yanked her and the kid to their feet, and threw up a shield behind them in the form of a rusted trash bin and a collapsed workbench. Not much, but it bought time.

Ava grunted, cradling the child tighter. “He’s breathing. Just scared.”

Silas met her eyes. “Like you?”

She huffed. “I’m too mad to be scared.”

He smiled, grim and fleeting. “Good.”

More shots rang out from the garden’s north corner. Guards were pushing them back now, but the Sons had done damage. Civilians screamed from the inner court, some shifted mid-panic, half-formed wolves and trembling humans alike.

Silas dragged Ava and the kid behind a transport truck, setting the boy gently in her arms. “Stay with him,” he said, glancing around. “I’m gonna sweep east and make sure no one’s flanking.”

Ava’s face was flushed, dirt smearing her temple. “Don’t be a hero, wolf.”

He paused. “I won’t. Got something to come back for.”

Their eyes locked and it was too late to take it back. Before he could read too much into her eyes, he was gone.

Later, when the gunfire died down and the silence thickened like fog, Silas returned to find Ava still crouched with the pup in her arms. The boy was asleep, cheek pressed to her shoulder. She looked like hell smeared in blood and mud, shirt torn, but her eyes were steel.

“You good?” he asked.

She nodded slowly. “He’s okay. Shock’s wearing off. Might’ve cracked a rib.”

Silas crouched beside her. “You moved fast.”

She glanced sideways. “I wasn’t gonna let him drown.”

“I know.” He studied her. “Neither would I.”

The truth sat heavy between them. Not just about the pup. About everything. About what they weren’t saying.

Still, neither of them spoke it.

Instead, Ava reached up, brushed hair from her face, and said, “We should get him to one of the healers.”

Silas nodded. “I’ll carry him.”

She handed the pup over carefully, her hands lingering.

They walked toward the medical wing in silence, the war still buzzing in their bones.

Silas didn’t look back, but he felt her beside him.

And for now, that was enough.