The Alpha's Silent Vow

Chapter 6

I find him standing in the hallway, his phone gripped so tightly in one hand that I genuinely worry it might c***k under the pressure. He hangs up the moment he spots me and immediately asks what Wren had told me.

"Cream," I say, holding up the small pot for him to see. "Three times a day, she said."

He takes it from me without another word and leads me back into his office once more. "Show me," he says again, and it clearly is not a request this time either.

I lift the hem of my shirt while he crouches down low in front of me, and he smooths the cool cream over the wound with a gentleness I honestly did not know a man his size was even capable of showing. One large hand rests steady against my lower back to keep me balanced, while the other works careful, slow circles around the broken skin.

"I do not want you lying to me, Rhea," he says quietly, without ever looking up from his task. "Not ever, not about anything. If you genuinely do not remember something clearly, that is exactly what you tell me instead. Do you understand me? I do not want to have to constantly guess what you actually mean whenever you say the word fine."

"Okay," I manage to say, though it is honestly hard to focus on anything at all except the steady warmth of his hands against my skin. No one has ever touched me quite like this before in my life. Not once, not gently, not like I was something genuinely worth being careful with.

"Stop holding your breath like that," he says, straightening back up to his full height. "I am not going to hurt you, Rhea."

I want so badly to believe him. Everything about my life up until this exact point has taught me not to trust words like that so easily. But something about the steady, certain way he says it, like it is not even really a promise so much as it is simply a plain fact he already knows to be true, makes me wonder, just for one brief moment, if maybe, just this once, it might actually turn out to be true after all.

He buttons the front of my shirt back into place himself, his large fingers surprisingly careful with each small button, and then he steps back to give me room to breathe. I fold my arms across my stomach anyway, an old habit, one that has kept me small and unnoticed for years.

"You will need proper food," he says, glancing toward the door. "Real meals, not scraps. Wren tells me your body has been running on almost nothing for a long time. That changes today."

I do not know how to respond to that, so I simply nod, the way I always have, even though nodding here feels different somehow. Nobody has ever framed food as something owed to me before. It was always a reward, or a bribe, or something withheld to teach me a lesson I never fully understood.

He leads me out of the office and down toward the dining hall, the same long table I saw earlier that could easily seat twenty people. Only a handful of seats are filled tonight. A young man with an easy grin looks up as we enter, his eyes flicking curiously between Silas and me.

"So this is her," he says, leaning back in his chair. "Cole," he adds, nodding at me like that alone should explain everything. "I would shake your hand, but my brother already looks ready to bite mine off if I so much as breathe near you wrong."

"Cole," Silas says, a warning buried low in the single word.

"I am only saying hello," Cole says, holding both hands up in surrender, though the grin never quite leaves his face. "Sit, please. You look like you have not had a hot meal in years."

I lower myself into the chair Silas pulls out for me, my whole body stiff, waiting for someone to tell me I am not allowed to sit at this table after all. No one does. A plate is set in front of me, piled with more food than I have seen at one time in longer than I can remember, and for a moment I simply stare at it, unsure where to even begin.

"Eat slowly," Silas says quietly, taking the seat beside me. "Your body is not used to this much at once. Small bites, or you will make yourself sick."

I do as he says, picking at the edges first, tasting everything like it might disappear if I look away. No one reaches over to take my plate. No one tells me to hurry up or save the rest for someone more deserving. The strangeness of simply being allowed to eat in peace sits heavier in my chest than any of the bruises Wren tended earlier.

Across the table, Cole watches me with open curiosity, though he keeps whatever questions he has behind his teeth, glancing every so often at his brother as if checking for permission he already knows he will not get tonight. The quiet settles around us, broken only by the soft clink of forks and the low murmur of a conversation somewhere else in the house.

When the meal finally ends, Silas walks me back through the hallway himself, pointing out a room near the end as mine for now, until arrangements are properly settled between us. The bed inside is larger than any I have ever slept in, piled with blankets that look impossibly soft.

"If you need anything in the night," he says, pausing at the door, "my room is just down the hall. Someone will hear you if you call out."

I nod again, still not trusting my voice completely.

He lingers a moment longer than he needs to, his grey eyes moving over my face like he is trying to read something written there that I have not said out loud. Then he simply nods once, turns, and leaves me alone with the door shut softly behind him.

I sit on the edge of that impossibly soft bed for a long time after he leaves, running my thumb over the smooth cotton blanket, listening to the unfamiliar quiet of a house that does not smell like fear. Somewhere down that hallway, a man I barely know has promised not to hurt me, and for the first time in longer than I can remember, some small, cautious part of me almost lets itself believe it.