His Moonsilver Mate (Abby and Kade) novel Chapter 88

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Chapter 88

Liam

Ndidn’t sleep.

I lay on top of the covers in my clothes for a few hours, staring at the ceiling, while Jasper paced inside me like a dog shut out of the house. Around four, I gave up and went downstairs and de coffee I didn’t drink.

At seven, someone knocked on the front door.

I knew who it was before I opened it. Honey and vanilla, and now, under it, cedar. Kade’s scent was all over her. I decided not to think about that.

Abby stood on the porch in jeans and a heavy sweater with two paper cups in one hand and a bag from the packhouse kitchen in the other. Her hair was loose, the white strand bright against the brown, and the moonstone ring was on her finger.

“You said tomorrow,” she said.

“I said tomorrow. I didn’t say dawn.”

“It’s seven.”

“That’s dawn for anyone who didn’t spend last night being crowned.”

She pushed past me into the house. “Nobody was crowned. There was no crown. Sit down.”

I sat down.

She put a cup in front of me and opened the bag. Cinnamon rolls, still warm. She must have been in

the kitchen before the cooks.

For eight years, I had been the one doing this. Showing up with food. Sitting across a table from her while she pretended she wasn’t upset. Waiting until she was ready.

Now she sat down across from me with her chin propped on her hand and waited.

It was a strange thing, watching her do it.

“Well?” she said.

“Well what?”

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want me.” I drank some coffee. It didn’t help. “She was going to reject me on the steps of the hall.”/

Abby’s face changed. “Was?”

Her wolf stopped her.”

“And you?”

“I told her I wouldn’t stop her. I asked her not to do it while she was angry.”

Abby was quiet for a moment.

“You told her that,” she said slowly. “After everything.”

“Because of everything.”

She looked at me as if she was seeing something she hadn’t expected. Then she reached across the table and put her hand over mine.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what?”

“That it’s like this. You deserved it to be easy.”

I almost laughed. “Nobody in this family gets it easy, Abs.”

“No,” she said. “I suppose not.”

We sat there for a while. She ate half a cinnamon roll. I ate none and drank all my coffee.

Finally she said, “Tiernan asked Kade for a meeting at ten. You, him, Kaia. Kade said I should come

too.”

“Of course he did.”

“I’m Luna now,” she said, with great dignity, and spoiled it by licking icing off her thumb.

***

Kade’s office had never felt small before.

It did now, with five of us in it. Kade sat behind his desk. Abby sat on the edge of it beside him, which Cassandra would have had something to say about. Tiernan stood near the bookshelves with his

arms folded.

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same long braid as last night, and there were shadows under her eyes that told me she hadn’t slept/ either.

She didn’t look at me when I came in.

Jasper looked at her for both of us.

Mate.

I know.

She’s tired.

I know that too.

Tiernan cleared his throat. “Thank you for seeing us. I know it was a late night.”

“Some of us didn’t go to bed at all,” Kaia said to the window.

Tiernan ignored that with the ease of long practice. “I’m going to say what I came to say, and then everyone can shout at me.”

“I’m not going to shout,” Kade said.

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

Kaia’s jaw tightened.

Tiernan looked at me. “My sister doesn’t want this bond. You know that. She made it clear.”

“Very clear,” I said.

“And she hasn’t rejected it.”

Kaia’s head turned sharply. “Because-”

“Because Wren wouldn’t let you,” Tiernan said evenly. “I know. You told me in the car. Several times. Loudly.”

Abby pressed her lips together, and I felt, faintly through the link, that she was trying very hard not to smile. Kade’s hand settled on her back.

Tiernan went on. “A rejection between two wolves who’ve never had a conversation is a cruel thing. For both of them. I’m not going to watch my sister do it because she’s angry, and I’m not going to watch her stay tied to a stranger because she’s too stubborn to decide.”

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The room went quiet.

Kaia stared at her brother. Something passed between them that I didn’t understand and wasn’t meant to. Her face went pale, then flushed. For a second I thought she was going to walk out again.

She didn’t.

“Say it,” she said tightly. “Whatever you came here to say.”

Tiernan looked at Kade, then at me.

“I want her to stay in Moonhaven,” he said. “A few months. Long enough to know who you are, Liam. Not the Beta. Not the name I keep saying at dinner. You.” He paused. “In your house.”

Abby’s eyebrows went up.

Kaia made a sound like something tearing.

“Separate rooms,” Tiernan said, before anyone could say anything else. “Her own space. She comes and goes as she likes. She’s not a prisoner, and she’s not a gift. At the end of it, she decides. Accept or reject. And whatever she decides, Ravenwood stands by it, and I expect Moonhaven will too.”

“You’re sending me away,” Kaia said.

“I’m sending you somewhere you’ll have to look at it.”

“You think three months in a stranger’s spare room will change my mind?”

“I think it might change what you’re afraid of.” Tiernan’s voice softened. “Last time, you made your mind up about a man in one night, Kaia. And it took you two years to-”

“Don’t.”

The word was quiet, but it cut him off like a slammed door.

Tiernan stopped.

Kaia’s hands had curled into fists against her arms. She wasn’t looking at anyone now. Not at her brother. Not at me. She was looking at the floor, and her face was the same face I had seen on the steps last night when I asked who he was.

Jasper went still and cold inside me.

Two years.

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I’m fine.

ou’re about to break the arm off that chair.

I looked down. He was right. I let go.

When I looked up, Kaia was watching me.

She hadn’t looked at me once since I walked in. She was looking right at me now. Whatever she saw on my face made her eyes narrow, as though she was trying to decide whether it was an act

“What do you think?” she asked me.

I took a breath.

“I think it’s your decision,” I said. “Not mine. Not Tiernan’s.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Fine.” I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. “I have a spare room. It was Abby’s until a few weeks ago, and a few of her things are still in it. I’ll clear them out today. It’ll have a lock on the inside. You can keep the key.” I held her gaze. “I won’t touch you. I won’t ask you for anything. You can leave whenever you want, and if you go home after a week, I won’t come after you. If at the end you want to say the words, I’ll accept them.”

Kaia’s lips parted.

“And if Jasper doesn’t like it?” she asked.

“Jasper doesn’t get a vote.”

Jasper had a lot to say about that. I kept it off my face.

Kaia studied me for a long moment.

“Three months,” she said finally. “Not one day more.”

“Three months.”

“My own room. My own key.”

“Done.”

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She looked at her brother.

“Lhate you,” she told him.

“I know,” Tiernan said gently.

She looked at the window again. Her shoulders rose and fell once.

“Fine,” she said through her teeth. “Fine. I’ll come.”

Something in the room loosened. Abby let out a breath. Kade leaned back in his chair. Tieman closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them, he looked ten years younger.

Kaia didn’t look relieved at all.

She pushed off the window. “I need to go back to Ravenwood. Get my things.”

“I’ll drive you,” Tiernan said.

“You’ll drive me back here the day after tomorrow, and then you’ll leave.”

“That’s the plan.”

She walked to the door. At the threshold, she stopped without turning around.

“Liam.”