Caged

Chapter 30

**| Sang's POV |**

Silas?

Yes, Aggele.

Hi.

Hi. Even in my head I could hear his amusement. Go to sleep. It's late.

I yawned, turning my head to bury it into the pillow. I curled into the blanket. I'm not tired.

I can feel you, Aggele. You're exhausted. Get some rest. Tomorrow, you're going to meet the council.

Goodnight, I said.

Sweet dreams.

I closed my eyes and for the first time, I slept hard. No bad dreams, not haunting memories. Just blissful darkness. I knew it was because I felt closer to Silas. Having him in just the back of my mind made it feel like he was right next to me.

There were moments when we shared a cage. We'd stay in wolf form and slept pressed together. There was a feeling of safeness to having another wolf you trust at your back.

I felt that now and didn't wake up until morning. And for once, when I woke up, I felt hopeful. I wasn't going to start connecting with the others right away. I knew that. After I came out of my inner self, my wolf and I were fine with Silas. We explored the connection with him and Kota even showed me how to block for privacy. I respected him more for showing me that.

But not enough to connect.

When we tried, my wolf fought back. And I hate to admit it, I fought back too. I didn't trust the others, not enough to connect.

At least Kota understood and we took a break. Depending on how it went with the council, we'd try again. And the fact that he was being patient and they weren't pushing me helped a lot to take that next step. For now, my wolf and I were content with Silas. And that seemed to bring us together as a wolf and human even more.

My senses told me everyone was downstairs, in the kitchen. When my stomach growled, I decided to go there, smiling to myself. I liked that my stomach grumbled. It had learned to let me know when it was hungry because it knew I had access to food again.

I was right. They were in the kitchen. All of them.

Gabriel was carrying a massive heap of pancakes to the table with Luke hovering over him with a bottle of syrup.

"Just in time," Kota said, smiling at me. "Silas was just about to check in on you to let you know breakfast is ready."

I smiled and nodded, stealing the spot next to Silas. Luke sat next to me and it took only a couple of minutes before everyone was eating. Luke grinned at me as he reached over to the stack, lifted up the top half and then grabbed one underneath them all, putting it on my plate. He grabbed three and put them on his plate before putting the other pancakes back down.

"Why does it look like this?" I asked, poking at the black spots in the pancakes.

"Chocolate chips," Luke said.

"Dammit," North said and huffed out a breath, closing his eyes briefly. "How the fuck did you even manage that when I was the one who made them?"

Luke just snickered as he created a pond of syrup on his plate, completely covering the pancakes. Once he finished, he passed the syrup to me and I copied him, grinning.

"Baby, not so much," North said. "You're going to get a stomach ache."

"She's not two," Gabriel said and snorted.

I glanced at North and then at my plate. I dipped a finger into the sticky sweetness and then licked my finger. "But it's good," I said.

My eyes met North's. His mouth was open slightly, his dark irises nearly gone thanks to his expanded pupils.