Stronger

Simon POV:

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We had made it out alive and shockingly I wasn’t killed on sight. I did earn a black eye for a day or two but I would take that if it meant my head stayed attached to my shoulders.

After we arrived in Montana Ashely forced me to explain everything. I told her how I had concocted a silver acetate that could cut a wolf off from its person and that we had used this to kidnap Annette and the only reason I had gone along was to save her from Marcus.

She hadn’t spoken to me since. We were told we could have a plot of land on the edge of the pack but if I wanted a house I would have to build it. I would have been lost if it weren’t for Annette’s brothers they came by to help me move the wood and soon enough others did too, some of them begrudgingly, and others said thank you to me for helping save

their Luna.

I had never experienced a pack like this, they helped even when they didn’t want to because I was now a part of them. Eventually, our house was built in the water for a week. It was different from the splendor that the Bane Crescent pack

had coveted wood houses and trees all around.

Miraculously I was even permitted to run tests on Annette, Grayson wanted me to find a way to reverse the silver acetate

but that was risky I told him the best thing to do was to let it leave her system I didn’t know what it would react with.

Still daily I saw her and saw how her health was. Slowly but surely she was regaining her strength leaving the house

after a week of holing up inside. Her people flocked to her ever thankful she’d been returned to them and I saw her as

the great Luna she was handling the farming and the rearing of the children. She saw to the cellar for winter even

though it had gone she still sat there preparing again for the next and readying the fields for the crops.

All the while her baby was on her hip, or wrapped to her chest. I did not yet see them separate and guilt always swam in my stomach when I saw the innocent little eyes looking at me. I had been ordered once to capture him, and I had captured his mother and taken her from him when needed her most.

I would live with what I had done for the rest of my life I could see that now, all the good I did from here would be because of the evil I had wrought.

After two weeks of being in the Northern Eclipse pack I sat in our new home it was bare, but it was ours away from Marcus, and from the sadness we carried. I sat down in front of our new fire place and I burned the testing notebooks that carried all of the information on my Silver acetate. I watched the fire keep my dark deeds from the greedy hands

that would misuse it.

I sat there watching all of the knowledge and hard work be stripped away forcing myself to watch it, making sure the hungry part of myself remembered that even with knowledge there is danger. I

wouldn’t be that reckless again, or that

selfish.

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“You’re up late,” Ashley snipped behind me it was the first words she’d said to me since we arrived and it was not in a caring tone. Her words were short and clipped, her face sour.

“Sit down we need to talk-,”

“I don’t have anything to say to you!” she crossed her arms and her eyebrows knit together.

“This isn’t a request,” I asserted not in the voice of a loving older brother, but with the stern aggravation of a father. I didn’t ever raise my voice so she physically stepped back before pouting slightly and sitting down beside the fire away from me.

“I know what I did was wrong,” I confessed. “Not just wrong, but evil. I was a selfish man and I did use your protection to hide my wrongdoing,” I looked at the ground I had done so much to protect my little sister that much was true but what good was my protection if it led her to become a person who didn’t know the right in the world. I had to accept the fact that I could no longer be half a brother half a parent, only doing the bare minimum and patting myself on the ba

back. She

was my responsibility not just for her physical well–being but for her outcome in life who she was, was in my hands.

“I hurt Annette and Is good by while she was hurt, I created something that could do great harm to wolves anywhere in the world and I did without hesitation because I wanted to, I wanted to prove I could, I wanted to be the one to create something like that to see what my mind could do….and when I was done I didn’t feel any remorse,”

I saw her shift from the corner of my eye it was a gross confession to admit I hadn’t cared until I saw Annette unconscious in the cell. I didn’t think of a living being when I experimented I thought of specimens, test subjects. “I was

proud of my creation and then I saw that it was actual life I was subjecting this to, a real person who I had torn apart from the inside out. Even then I tried to detach myself from the guilt and say I was protecting you, and serving my Alpha,” I clenched my hands so frustrated with how far I had let it get before I acted, how small yet how large Annette’s son was it was all my fault.

“In the end, I couldn’t live with it and I did what I should have done the second Marcus asked me to make the poison,” I looked up and my sister finally wasn’t glaring at me as if I disgusted her. “I took you and Annette and we came here. I burned the notebooks with the formula for the silver acetate,” I explained and she looked over staring at the flames some

pride showing up in her eyes.

“I won’t say I did the right thing and it doesn’t excuse my actions, but I made a mistake Ashley, and love me or hate me I am still the family you have left I will always look out for you,” I looked back down resting my arms on my legs so defeated. ” I know I broke your trust in me and I’m sorry,” I couldn’t believe it but my voice cracked when I apologized.

Her hand came over and held mine. “You got us out,” she said a lot of wisdom in her very young face and I didn’t realize how mature she had gotten. “But Simon…” she stood up. “I’m not the one you have to apologize to,”

She was right of course.

The next morning I went out to the keep I did my best not to be too nervous I had spent months in her company, but I had had the upper hand, and though I knew her to be kind I also knew admitting my faults to her was a way to infuriate her and I wouldn’t blame her for remembering all the pain I had caused and hating me from then on.

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46% 14:27

I found her in the clinic going over supplies once again her baby on her hip so content in his mother’s presence.

“Annette,” I called from behind her and she turned I bowed my head in formal greeting but she just smiled softly.

“Don’t be so serious all the time Simon,” She laughed at me and continued her task.

“Annette I wanted to say- I just… well,” I fumbled my words getting the overwhelming feeling no groveling would be enough.

“What’s wrong?” she looked so terrified for a second and it only made me feel worse, how I had made the strongest woman so weak with the pain I had put her through.

“I am so sorry for everything I have done to you,” I finally managed. My hands fell to my sides and I bowed my head in shame. “I cannot ever express the regret I have for making the tranquilizer and keeping you locked up when I should have helped you escape,”

She was quiet and I expected some anger, some indignation, something visceral to come out of her but it didn’t. Instead, her voice came out soft, tender, and full of concern.

“We all should have done a lot of somethings. I regret not staying in the house like I should have that night, and I regret not marrying Grayson right away like he wanted, some of us have bigger regrets than others but the good thing is we learn from them,” She walked over and hugged me. “Even the smartest people still need an important lesson now and then,”

She let me go and I’m sure I looked like a fish out of water my mouth open and unable to close. “Come on help me figure out what we need,”