Sovereign (Silenced Part 2)

Part 17

Silas took a deep breath and shook his head as he turned to look at me. 

I raised an eye brow at him and he grimaced.

"There's still a bruise." He said quietly. He reached over and traced along the faded yellow mark on my shoulder. I looked away from him and smoothed the wavy sleeve back down to conceal the bruise. Silas caught my hand stilling my movement and sending a light wave of tingles across the back of my fingers.

"Tell me..." He pleaded. I could hear in his tone that he didn't just want to know; he needed to know. My eyes burned and I blinked quickly to force the tears back. No matter how much he needed to know I couldn't do it. I shook my head.

"Ok...leannan." He raised my hand to his lips and kissed my fingers. The tingles erupted into tiny explosions.

"Get your gorgeous ass out of my truck before Emily kills us for being late." He sighed.

I gave Silas a small smile. I hadn't missed his compliment and it helped my nerves tremendously. 

I hoped out of the truck and jogged over to where Emily had told us to meet. She, Aaron, and several others were already there moving around and getting ready.

"Uhhh Ry...?" Em paused mid conversation and looked pointedly down. I followed her glance and bit my lip.

'I'm sorry.' I signed. 'Silas thought they would help since I was really nervous and I can take them off for the ceremony if you don't like them.'

"Not the leggings, those are cute, but you're kind of missing something..." Emily laughed.

My brow furrowed and I shook my head glancing down at my outfit. I had on everything she had given me. The flower, the ribbon, the dress...

"I've got them." Silas stepped up beside me and help up the strappy heals I had forgotten to put back on. My cheeks heated and I raised my hand to take the shoes. Silas shook his head and leaned into me.

"You don't need them yet." He whispered.

I smiled and dropped my hand. There was no point in putting those stupid things on until I absolutely had to.

Willow Packs mating ceremony was nothing like Wolfsbane's. It reminded me a lot of a human wedding. No one was crying or screaming. No one was begging the alpha to reconsider the match. It was painfully obvious that this was exactly how a mating should be, how real mates were meant to be. Celebrated and rejoiced.

Despite all of Aaron's griping about having to do everything last minute he looked like he was having the best day of his life. Even Emily, who had been a wreck for the past few days, was glowing with happiness. Their excitement and joy was contagious. It made me forget about everything that had been going on the last couple days.

Thanks to Silas I didn't fall on my face once the entire ceremony. He even guided me to our table when it was time for everyone to take their seats and eat. When no one was looking Silas pulled my feet into his lap and slipped the heels off. I expected him to release my feet after but instead he kept them in his lap. I didn't complain. The warmth was nice and helped with the dull ache the heels had caused.

I glanced around nervously. I didn't want our intimate position to start  rumors for Silas. The more I looked around the more I realized that no one was paying attention to us. They probably couldn't even see that I had my feet in his lap because of the way we were positioned at the table. The table cloth concealed everything.