4

Silas Vance did not like humans.

Scratch that. He didn't necessarily dislike them—they were just fragile, loud, and blissfully unaware, so he tolerated them. The simple truth was that if he had to choose between humans and his pack, he would choose his pack without a second thought. The pack was his anchor. His family. They had been his family since he was seventeen—a terrified kid who had shifted for the first time and inadvertently slaughtered his foster family in a haze of fur and gore.

As a child, Silas had passed through the foster system. Two families had taken him in, only to return him within months like defective goods, and honestly, now when he thought about it, he couldn't even blame them. He’d not been easy to handle. He was hot-tempered and prone to violent outbursts he couldn't explain. By ten, he’d learned the hard way that a bad attitude meant another cold car ride to another social worker’s office, so he tried to suppress it. He choked down his rage, fighting his own wild instincts while enduring the physical and verbal abuse of his final foster father.

With no one to guide him, no one to explain the fire burning in his veins, puberty hit like a freight train. On a full moon when he was seventeen, the beast in him was unleashed. The shift was agonizing, brutal, and uncontrollable. When it was over, his foster family was dead, and Silas was covered in blood.

Terrified and confused, Silas fled. The authorities eventually ruled the incident a horrific, freak animal attack, writing off the missing boy as a victim who was never found. Silas was sure he'd have died, alone and afraid. Probably put down like a rabid dog if Logan, the pack’s Alpha at the time, hadn't found and brought him home to Oakhaven. And that was how Silas found his purpose. His family.

He wasn't the alpha, but he took his job of protecting the pack very seriously. Gideon Hale was the alpha, and when he gave orders, Silas took them, even times when he disagreed.

His job as a firefighter gave him access to police scanners, emergency comms, and first-responder networks. When rogue wolves killed or caused chaos in the town and tried to cover their tracks or their attacks as wild animal maulings, Silas got the drop on them before the press and the general public, letting him hunt down the rogues before people started asking questions about the pack's secluded territory, the creepy mansion and its weird inhabitants who liked to keep to themselves.

It was a win-win situation for him. The high adrenaline and intensity of his job gave his restless wolf a controlled outlet for his aggressive, protective instincts and helped him keep his family protected from human interference and any other wolves who dared to attack them.

Unfortunately, being too good at the hero gig came with a massive drawback: visibility. Silas preferred to keep a low profile, and saving the Senator had blown his cover completely. Now he was Oakhaven’s favorite poster boy, parade-marched in front of local media and forced into tailored suits for high-society photo ops.

He had been sitting at the bar, nursing a drink, and hoping to have a few moments to himself when his evening took a weird turn. A sharp scent of jasmine and warm skin hit him before a woman wrapped a hand around his neck, and forced her lips onto his.

The woman, who Silas now knew as Amara Rhodes, was now glaring at him, as if he was the one who'd come up to her and stuck his tongue down her throat. Okay, so there was not much tongue involved, but it was still pretty crazy.

Silas didn't know why he was toying with her. But then, no strange woman had ever just kissed him out of the blue. Even with his little patience for humans and their shenanigans, he was a hot-blooded male, and when a woman as sexy as this one kissed you, you wanted more. But given the look on her face right now, it was clear that the last thing on her mind was kissing him again.

Those beautiful lips had parted, and indignation was flashing on her face.

“Excuse me?”

Tyler knew he should retract his statement, but even her anger was incredibly sexy. “Maybe kissing me had nothing to do with your ex.”

“You must be out of your mind.” Amara's eyes blazed. “Of course I wasn’t coming up with an excuse to kiss you. I was desperate, and you were there.”

“Ouch,” Silas said. For someone who didn't care about the opinion of other people, her words stung more than he expected.

“Sorry,” Amara said immediately. Closing her eyes, she exhaled sharply. “I didn’t mean to sound so callous.”

“I’m not sure I’ve ever been kissed—then insulted,” Silas said, still trying to keep the mood light. He wanted her at ease, because he still wanted her around.

“I didn't mean that.” Amara groaned. “I’m sure women enjoy kissing you. Just not me.”

“Double ouch.”

“Can we please stop talking about this? I keep saying the wrong thing.”

Her chest rose and fell with another sigh, something that made Silas' groin tighten. Amara was wearing a black form fitting dress with a low scoop neck that revealed the beautiful mounds of her breasts. She had creamy, smooth brown skin, and thanks to whatever body oil she'd applied to her chest and collar bone, it seemed to shimmer in the lighting when she moved. Her hair was braided, and all the braids had beads attached to them. It framed her face perfectly, giving her this Cleopatra look. She was beautiful. Somehow managing to look innocent and fierce at the same time. Did she have any clue how delectable she was?

“It’s just,” she went on, sounding frazzled, “Seeing Tyler tonight has thrown me for a loop. I really don’t want to talk about him anymore.”

Silas had no interest in talking about Tyler, either, but he wasn’t ready to be done with Amara. She was stunning, and her kiss had stirred a desire in his gut that had long since been repressed. Oh, he definitely wasn’t ready to be done with her, and what the hell was a woman like her doing dating an idiot like Tyler? He hated that guy.

Tyler Cross was a stray. A wolf without a pack who turned a few months ago. Gideon had said that Conor Sterling had turned him, and for what reason, they had no idea. Conor was two years older than Silas and had been a member of the pack up until Logan died. He wanted to be alpha, but the pack had backed Gideon instead, so Conor left. Turning Tyler had left them wondering if he was trying to form a pack of strays.