Reflected (Silver Series) (19 page)

“Enough.” Silver left Portland to interpose herself between the sisters. Nothing good could come of anything else said with voices twisted with such emotion. “You’ve relayed your concern.” She gave Eliza an alpha’s stare. “Now is the time to give her solitude to think.”

Silence stretched, charged. Silver smelled the same from both sisters: pain twisting into anger, not true rage. Pain born from love. She presumed they’d both lost babies and were dealing with it in their individual ways, unable to understand how the other could find healing through a process so different.

Eliza pressed her lips together until they went white. Silver silently begged her to know when to retreat from cornered prey, but she could tell Eliza wouldn’t. “But Shelly needs to—”

“She doesn’t need to do anything.” Silver felt Portland marshaling a retort behind her and held up her hand to forestall the woman. Eliza had a better chance of listening if the explanation came from an outsider, not family.

“Go hunt the void, Eliza. I’m not stepping down!” Portland snarled. “A woman
can
be alpha.”

Of course, that strategy required Portland to actually listen to her alpha. Silver twisted to glare her down in turn, which released Eliza.

Eliza stepped around Silver to jab a finger at her sister. “I knew you’d make it some kind of talking point, an
issue,
when it’s your baby’s life we’re talking about. This is about doing what’s best for your child. Please.” Her tone softened, grew strained. “If
one
of us could just have a baby…”

Portland’s face crumpled. She whirled away from them both and stormed out of the den. Eliza bit her lip, but her scent spoke of satisfaction with having gotten her point through.

Silver smacked the back of her head, swallowing down enough of her own frustration to keep her voice steady. “Next time your alpha says enough, listen. Step back. You’ve hurt your sister enough.”

Eliza squeaked at the blow and finally seemed to take in her surroundings. She dropped her head low. Silver didn’t have time to drive home her point, however, as Craig slipped into the room and tried to follow Portland.

Silver held out her arm to block his path. “No. I know someone who wants to be alone when I see it.” She speared Craig with a more direct look. “And I doubt you would be particularly welcomed even if she did want company.”

Craig growled under his breath. “I’ll wait for her where we stayed the night.” He stalked out of the den.

Eliza slipped after him and stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Thank you for bringing this into the open. Michelle can be so stubborn sometimes. She needs someone to bite her in the tail. I knew this alpha thing would never be good for her.”

Craig turned an incredulous look on the woman. “I supported her when she challenged for alpha.”

Eliza waved that away. “I know how Michelle gets, trust me. I think she’s been alpha more than long enough to prove that she can do it, so now she can get on with her life.”

Craig’s wild self snapped at the air, but his tame remained expressionless. “Ah.” He pulled away from her and strode off without further comment. Eliza looked taken aback but left in her own direction a moment later.

Silver stood in the den’s entrance for a few moments after they were both out of sight. She should have acted faster to keep Eliza silent, but if a Were was truly set on stupidity, she’d find some way around her alpha’s orders to the contrary. Perhaps the conversation would have been even worse if Silver hadn’t done as much as she had.

“If you’re curious, I’m sure you could find out in the second round,” Death said. He stretched and padded into the kitchen.

Silver winced. There wouldn’t be a second round, not if she could help it. The longer she kept everyone apart, the longer they’d have to cool down and think about their words again. Hopefully. She followed Death inside.

Some while later, when the sun was past its height, Silver left the den and stood outside at the start of Portland’s trail. It began in the same place hers had, when she’d stalked off in anger recently. She’d told the others to leave Portland alone, but her instincts urged her to do otherwise herself, now time had passed.

Death didn’t even bother setting his nose to the trail, just stared along it like he could see Portland all the way at its end from where he stood. “It is an alpha’s prerogative to inflict her advice on her pack members, even they want to be alone,” he said mockingly.

Silver snorted. “Oh, shut up.” She followed the trail, as Death had undoubtedly known she would. This time, with Portland’s pain to focus on, her voice felt steadier. Her inability to have cubs was immutable. She could deal with it now, or set it aside to come to terms with later. Portland had to sort out her emotions much sooner.

Eventually she found Portland seated, curled around her knees, wild self pressed against her side. Her hair had tumbled down all over her arms and shoulders. The sun had mustered heat by now, and Silver could imagine the delicious warmth her hair’s dark color collected and fed to her skin.

“Roanoke,” Portland said finally, without looking up. Silver stood in silence and waited to see if more words would come, given space. “When I left the house, I wanted so badly to run. On four feet. It helps me straighten out my thoughts. In the last full, it was different. I knew I’d want to. I expected it. This took me by surprise.” She jerked her head up, suddenly fierce. “I wanted to, but I wasn’t
tempted.
Not even for a minute. I just thought about how nice it would have been.”

Silver nodded. She believed Portland. She knew all about wanting to shift but not letting herself
want
it, lest she hurt herself permanently trying to touch a wild self that was gone.

Portland dropped her head again, reassured, and was silent for another few beats. “My sister and mother always hated that I challenged for alpha. They didn’t understand … why I would even want to, I guess. They called me defiant a lot.”

“A good alpha has to understand how her pack might think, how they might fear responsibility. But those pack members don’t have to understand anything; they just have to be as they are. Sometimes they are curious and make an effort to figure it out, but sometimes they don’t.” Silver settled her bad hand more comfortably in her pocket and then mirrored it with her good. “
They’ve
never felt the drive to lead, so obviously no one else would.”

Portland gave a pained little laugh. When she didn’t lift her head again, Silver sat down beside her.

“But maybe this time she’s right.” Pain and self-doubt had a death grip on each of Portland’s words. “Maybe I am making a political issue of my baby’s life.”

Silver winced and looked up at the sky, bright with clouds like scattered fur, searching for the right words. “May I tell you a story?” Portland didn’t answer in words, but her small noise sounded positive, so Silver began.

“Once, after the Lady retired from the world and left Her children alone, there was a Were woman who wished for a child with every tone of her voice. She prayed, and she played chase with many different men, and still she couldn’t conceive. The years passed, and where others might have turned to finding joy in the pack’s cubs, she refused to give up. Finally it happened. She conceived. She praised the Lady every moment.

“And she lost it at the first full.”

Portland tightened her arms and ducked her head lower as if she could block out the very idea. Silver didn’t pause, because that wasn’t the point of the story. She didn’t want to lose Portland there.

“Grief stricken, she ran, away from her pack, away from the Lady she felt had betrayed her. From the deep forest, she heard the cry of a baby, and she followed the wails without quite knowing why. Humans lived nearby, she knew it would be a human child, but still she could not pass without discovering what had made it sound so desolate, as desolate as she felt.

“She found a human man there, weeping silently at the grave of his wife, while their infant cried from hunger. The woman saw the baby and her voice sang with longing. It was not her child, no, but it was a child who needed her. She prayed to the Lady, that She, having given the woman nothing else, would at least give the woman her milk, and She did.

“The woman spun a tale of mischance and a dead family, and offered her services to the man. He accepted gratefully, and the woman made a human life. That life came with a son, and in time she grew close to the human man and so had a lover. She was happy.”

Portland lifted her head enough her eyes were visible, dark brown filled with suspicion. She knew how these stories went, just as Silver did.

“For a while, at least. At first, she thought she would not shift at all. But if she had been able to spend each full in human, she might have kept her child. So she told the man of crippling headaches and that she must lock herself alone in a room and not be disturbed for an entire night, or an entire day. She let her wild self pace the room as often as she needed, and that was enough.

“For a while, at least. For years she lived that way, with her son and the human man. She even agreed to become his wife, because the human ritual pleased him. But she missed the trees. She missed running, she missed hunting, she missed feeling more than the packed dirt of a house floor beneath her paws. She began to think: what would it hurt to sneak away and go running in the trees?

“The third full when she ran, her husband found her. He followed her footprints in the snow and watched from downwind as she shifted back. He had such betrayal in his face, it broke her voice.

“He had only his knife with him, but he lifted it so it caught the Lady’s light. ‘I have no doubt one such as you can run long before I reach you,’ he said. ‘So run.’ Tears streamed down his face, and she ran.

“She ran until she collapsed with grief. What of her son? She had to say good-bye to him, at least. She circled back. Surely she could slip into the house undetected in the darkness, see her son one last time. Or even take him with her. He wasn’t Were, but he was her son, and her pack would understand that.

“But another darkness found her first. She looked back and discovered Death following patiently at her heels. She knew what that meant. ‘I’ve made my decision,’ she told him. ‘You cannot dissuade me by looming there. I would give my life for my son.’

“‘And what would your son do with your life? He cannot use it. He does not want it. The only thing he wants is a mother who is not dead,’ Death said.

“The woman growled. ‘That is not what I mean! I would do anything for him. Anything and everything in the world, until there’s nothing left of me.’

“‘I know,’ Death said and stalked her in silence for a while. ‘And if you think that is the way you must raise a child, you should give thanks the Lady never gave you two.’”

Silver let silence settle over them both and turned over small pebbles near her hip with her fingertips. One was so unevenly shaped it could not balance and it rolled back over.

Portland raised her head completely, and Silver felt the intensity of her gaze like the heat of the sunlight. “What happened to her?”

Silver rolled the stubborn pebble back and held it there, wobbling on its tip. “She went back, of course. And the other humans her husband had told killed her.”

Portland used her fingers to comb her hair into some sort of order and settle it behind her shoulders. “It’s easy to say it’s not healthy to subsume yourself for your child, but letting yourself be completely driven by your own wishes is selfishness. Where’s the line?”

“That time, the line was when the woman tried to do something so against her fundamental nature she couldn’t sustain it.” Silver moved to kneel in front of Portland and take her chin in a gentle grip. Stories slipped in and taught from underneath, but sometimes advice had to be direct too. “Only you know what your fundamental nature is.”

Portland tipped her head enough to get her chin out of Silver’s grip, and she looked to the sky, far away. “If
she’d
stayed true to her fundamental nature, she wouldn’t have had a child.”

Silver huffed in frustration. “Maybe, maybe not. What was based on lies to herself failed. What is based in truth may also fail—sometimes. But what is based on lies is
sure
to. Seek truth and see what happens. The Lady provides more often than you might think.”

Portland didn’t answer, but that was understandable. She needed time to think. Silver returned to her seat beside Portland and this time she leaned against the shorter woman. Together, they listened to the background rushing-water sound of all the humans around them.

“Alli—Sacramento—told me about what she said to you, about being unable to understand because you can’t have cubs,” Portland said at length. “I’m sorry, Roano—”

Silver murmured a forestalling syllable. This wasn’t a conversation to have between alpha and sub-alpha, if they must have it. She supposed it was only fair that they did.

“Silver,” Portland finished. “You’re usually so at peace with—” She sat up to touch Silver’s useless arm, then settled back again. “I think all of us forget.”

Silver smiled thinly at the sky. “I need to listen to my own stories. That woman’s son was no less her son because she had not carried him in her own body. I’d have a daughter, if only she wanted me.” And was that pure selfishness? Silver wondered. Wanting a daughter for herself, rather than wanting Felicia to have a mother only if she wanted it?

Portland huffed a ragged laugh. “I think she’ll be an alpha someday. You probably can’t remember what it was like growing up, but I remember when I was just reaching my adult dominance. You want something so badly, but you don’t understand that it’s responsibility and respect you want, or how to earn it. You just
want,
and you keep doing stupid shit, which of course gets you the opposite of more responsibility and respect.”

“I think my brother … channeled me,” Silver said. The memories hovered near the point of causing pain, but she found if she spoke without thinking, the words came anyway. “He got into a lot of trouble when I was younger, but by the time I got restless, he kept suggesting things for me to do.”