Free Web NovelChapter 245: Chapter 245: Home
He pulled her in briefly. The hug of an alpha releasing someone he trusted into something good.
Damon was off the sofa before Damian had fully stepped back, He was less formal about it, He put his arms around Elena with the energy of someone who expressed everything through contact rather than words.
"Don’t let him be too serious," Damon said into her hair. "He needs someone to make him drink his tea and occasionally laugh at himself."
Elena laughed and said "I know."
"That’s good then." He stepped back. Looked at her face. "Take care of him and take care of yourself."
"I’ll do both," she said.
Eve crossed the room and took Elena’s hands. She didn’t say anythink. she Just held them. Felt the warmth coming from her hand.
"Thank you," Eve said. "For everything you were this week. And before this week."
Elena squeezed her hands.
"Go home," she said. "Go home and rest and let them take care of you for a while."
"Working on it," Eve said.
Elena smiled.
It was a good smile. The kind that meant she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
***
Raphael was in the corridor.
He’d known...of course he’d known, she could see it in his face when they came out. Hore the expression of someone who had been hoping for a particular outcome and had not let themselves assume it.
Elena walked to him.
He looked at her and then past her at Damian and Damon.
Damian nodded once.
Something in Raphael released. Barely visible. Just....there and then settled.
He looked at Eve.
"Ready," she said.
He raised an eyebrow slightly. "Are you."
She understood what he was asking.
The portal.
She’d done it twice in practice. Both times in the warded training room with Raphael present and nothing at stake. This was different....the real thing, the actual distance, taking her mates home to an estate she’d been away from for weeks.
"Yes," she said.
He looked at her for a moment.
Then he stepped back.
Giving her the space to do it herself. That Raphael thing....present, available, not intervening.
She turned to face the corridor.
Felt for the thing Raphael had taught her. Not the same as the Conclave opening....different muscle, different reach. The sense of space and distance and the place she was trying to get to.
She thought about the estate.
She thought about the estate.
Silas’s study in late evening. The light through those windows. The bond pulling her toward him like a compass needle.
She reached.
Found the thread of it.
Pulled.
The portal opened.
Not the way Raphael’s opened....his were clean and immediate, centuries of practice making them look effortless. This one took four seconds and her hands were shaking slightly and the edges of it weren’t perfectly even.
But it was open.
The estate on the other side of it....she could see the corridor, the familiar stone, the light exactly as she’d imagined it.
Damon made a sound beside her.
"You actually did it," he said.
"Did you think I wouldn’t," she said.
"Fifty fifty," he said honestly.
Damian was already moving toward it....extending his hand back to her without looking, the gesture that meant come on, I’ve got you.
She took his hand.
Looked back at Raphael.
He was standing in the corridor with Elena beside him and his hands in his pockets and his face doing the thing it did when he was feeling something he wasn’t going to perform.
"Well done," he said. Quietly. Just for her.
She held his gaze for one second.
Felt everything that lived in that second....her parents, twenty years, a hall where nine people had knelt, a small room where they’d both said the things that mattered to them.
"I’ll be back," she said.
"I know," he said.
She stepped through the portal and the portal closed behind them.
***
The corridor of the Blackwood estate was exactly as she’d imagined it, familiar stone, familiar light, the smell of home that she hadn’t realized she’d been missing until it hit her all at once.
Damian released her hand.
Damon was already moving...restless energy finally allowed to be what it was, no more held-in-check stillness, just Damon at full volume moving through his own home.
Eve stood still for a moment.
Felt the estate around her.
Felt the bond.
And then she felt Silas....not through the bond but actually, physically, his presence in the building. Close and getting closer.
She turned and saw him. He was standing at the end of the corridor.
Standing still the way he stood still.....completely, entirely, all of him present and looking at her with the expression of someone who’d been steady for weeks and was now allowing himself to feel what the steadiness had been in service of.
She walked to him.
He met her halfway.
His arms came around her without words....just that, the warmth that comes off Silas that she’d reached for through the bond across weeks of distance and was now standing inside.
She put her face against his shoulder, then she took a deep breath.
She was home.
***
Silas’s POV
He’d told himself he was fine.
For three weeks he’d told himself that and mostly believed it.
The estate ran. The pack held. Correspondence got answered, disputes got settled, the three hundred small daily decisions that kept a household this size functioning got made without friction. He was good at that. Always had been. The one who stayed. The one who managed. The one who held the shape of things while his brothers moved through the world doing the louder work. freёwebnovel.com
He was fine.
And then the bond shifted at 4 a.m. two nights ago....Eve’s presence in it changing quality, something settling in her that he felt in his sternum like a key turning....and he’d stood in the dark of his study for ten minutes with his hands flat on the desk because he didn’t trust his legs.
He’d been tracking her all morning.
Not obviously. Just aware. The way you were aware of a window in a room, the light it let in, whether it was open or closed. The bond told him things without words. Distance. Direction. The texture of her emotional state.
She’d been moving since early.
Getting closer.
He’d made himself stay in the study. Made himself finish the correspondence he’d been working through. Made himself not stand in the corridor like someone who couldn’t hold themselves together for one more hour.
He lasted until he felt the portal open.
Then he was moving.
