Page 22 of Snarl First, Kiss Later (Alpha’s Prophecy #2)

TWENTY-TWO

SILAS

L ater that night, the court had gone mostly quiet.

Shadows pooled in the hallways, flickering with the low hum of soft firelight and the occasional patrol’s boots echoing along stone.

Silas walked the east passage slow, avoiding the common rooms, avoiding people.

He didn’t want questions. Didn’t want anyone asking how he felt about almost dying again.

He didn’t want to admit the only thing that rattled him more than the blade to his ribs was the woman who’d buried hers to save him.

And the fact that he had held some truth from her.

He found her exactly where he figured she’d be.

Ava was outside the training ring, her hands braced on the wooden fence, staring into the dark like it owed her answers.

Her braid had come mostly loose, strands curled wild around her face.

She’d cleaned up, but she still wore the same jacket—her father’s.

That damn thing that held more weight now than either of them knew how to carry.

He stopped a few feet behind her. Cleared his throat. “You breathing out here, or just freezing in place and pretending you’re not?”

She didn’t turn around. “Little of both.”

He moved closer. “You should be inside.”

“I know.”

She didn’t move.

He stepped beside her, resting his forearms against the fence. “You’ve been quiet.”

“Yeah, well. Kinda hard to put words to shit you didn’t see coming.”

He stayed silent, letting her have it.

Ava’s voice was low. “My whole life, I thought I knew who I was. Not some grand version, just... me. A girl from Shadowfall whose dad died.” She fell silent. Silas let her have the moment, knowing she needed to say more.

“I keep trying to remember his voice,” she said after a while. “I remember his hands. His laugh. But his voice… it’s like trying to catch smoke.”

Silas didn’t speak. The weight in her words didn’t need to be answered yet.

Ava let out a breath, slow and sharp. “I spent most of my life thinking I was just like him. Brave. Committed. The kind of man who stood for something even if it killed him.”

Silas heard the shift in her tone—how it dipped, twisted.

“But now,” she went on, “I don’t know what he was. He worked with Roman. Embedded. Lied to my mother. Lied to me. And if he survived…” Her voice cracked, but only a hair. “Why didn’t he come home?”

He moved then, crouched down across from her until their knees nearly touched. Her eyes found his—those storm-green irises full of questions neither of them had answers to.

“Sometimes survival costs more than it saves,” he said quietly. “Sometimes coming back feels worse than staying lost.”

Her brows furrowed. “That supposed to comfort me?”

“No.” His voice stayed low. “It’s supposed to be honest.”

They sat in silence. The court murmured faintly in the background—distant voices, clinking dishes, someone’s soft laughter echoing from one of the upper halls. But here, in this sliver of shadow and moonlight, there was only the jagged shape of grief curling between them.

“He might be dead,” she whispered. “Or worse. Still alive and chose not to come back.”

Silas nodded once. “Both suck.”

Her laugh was watery and bitter. “Yeah. They do.”

She looked away again, jaw tight. “I spent so long blaming myself. Thinking if I’d just been braver or smarter, he might’ve stayed. Might’ve found his way back.”

Silas’s fingers twitched, and before he could talk himself out of it, he reached over and took her hand. She didn’t pull away. Her grip was firm—steady, even as her shoulders trembled beneath her jacket.

“You didn’t lose him,” he said. “He got lost.”

They stayed like that for a while—just holding on.

“What about you?”

He blinked. “What about me?”

“What’re you scared of, Silas?”

The question knocked him off balance more than any blade could have.

He thought of the battles he’d fought. The orders he’d carried out. The blood under his nails and the names he hadn’t been able to forget. And her—standing over him with a knife that once belonged to a man who’d tried to make peace with war and paid for it with silence.

“I’m scared of losing this,” he said, voice almost gravel. “Of getting too close and fucking it all up. Of waking up one day and realizing I dragged you down with me.”

Ava looked at him, not blinking. “That’s not your call to make.”

“No,” he agreed. “But it still eats me.”

They were too close now. Too exposed.

He meant to back away. To leave before the next moment spiraled into something bigger.

But Ava leaned forward. Her hand rose and curled against his cheek, rough palm brushing the scar that cut across the back of his jaw. He froze.

“You think I don’t know what you’re doing?” she said. “You’ve been breaking apart to keep me whole.”

His throat went tight, and not from guilt this time. From how damn seen he felt.

“You’re not a weight, Ava,” he said. “You’re the only thing keeping me tethered.”

She kissed him. Slow. Firm. No fanfare, no hesitation.

Silas kissed her back—like breathing, like anchoring himself to something that mattered more than guilt or ghosts or whatever hell waited outside this fragile peace.