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"I know Desmond showed you this place before, I had told him to. It was a place he and I always came up to when we had things to get off our chest." Osiris explained peering around a tree he used to cover his naked body as he tugged on by some sweatpants hidden at the base of it.

"You have things to get off your chest?" I had spit out without thought.

Osiris stared at me a a half second longer than usually before shaking his head. "No, not exactly." He rounded the tree coming completely into view. "I more of want to... I'd like to share with you who I really am and who I was. I'm sure you've heard what I am called but that's not what my pack knows me as."

"Is that because you don't allow them to call you the Alpha Slayer?" I questioned trying hard to let my eyes stray south of his chin. He wasn't wearing any shirt and

He shook his head as I sat down on one of the boulders. The snow was higher than the last time I was here and the wind was more violent as the loose strains of my hair whipped me in the face.

"No, honestly I don't care what my pack calls me as long as it's respectful. I never wanted to be an alpha, I still don't really want to be."

Osiris walked closer to the mountains edge looking out into the horizon while he dove deeper into his thoughts. I was bewildered and frankly sitting on the edge of my seat now. The fact that he was openly admitting to me that he never wanted to be an alpha was astounding. If anyone in his pack heard that I wouldn't push it past someone to overthrow him and jump at the opportunity to be an alpha.

Everyone was power hungry, even the most quite. Especially the most silent individual.

"How did you become an alpha then if you never wanted the position. I find it hard to believe that you just woke up one day and tens of other wolves decided to follow your orders."

Osiris chuckled as he turned to face me. There was a slight smirk that lite up his face, his hidden dimple was on full display and I couldn't help but find it hard to feel bubbly.

"You'd be surprised but no, that isn't what happened. It didn't happen over night and it didn't happen without a ton of loose." His face dropped as he recalled.

We had talked before but nothing like this. This felt different, it felt deeper and closer to home.

"You don't have to explain-"

"No, I want to." He insisted coming closer to where I sat. "There's a lot that you don't know about me and that's my fault."

I agreed but I didn't dare voice it. Osiris was closed off and reserved, he never came off as someone that shared much about themselves. I didn't blame him though.

Osiris pulled himself up next to me. His hands rubbed against the tops of his knees as he apprehensively tried to comfort himself.

"Desmond and I had a sister. Her name is Ileana, and when she was seventeen the alpha of our pack and her discovered they were mates. My parents never thought anything of it believing that she was blessed for being mates to an alpha bloodline." He scoffed. "They were wrong, so wrong. He manipulated her, degraded her, and forced her to bare her pups like they were some sort of badge of honor. As if Ileana didn't already have dreams and aspirations of her own that she wished to..." Osiris took a deep sigh, defeat was deep in the flexion of his muscles. "-Ileana was bright and sweet and- he took her away from us, used her, abused her, she became a prisoner in her own home."

He was talking slow the pain from the past still hitting him like it was yesterday. I knew only little bits about Osiris's past from Ivy and now that I think back I all makes sense why she sprinkled in the past of the brothers to me. She had been preparing me for a moment like this.

"My parents- my parents were good parents, kind parents but when it came to us three they were protective. So you can imagine what kind of rage they had when they discovered Ileana was being raped by her mate. They-"

His voice cracked as he searched for the words that felt to heavy to utter. Osiris's face contorted, the urge to say more.

I wanted to tell him not to finish, to not put himself through more. Nobody enjoys reliving the soured and poised memories of their loved ones and from the looks of it Osiris was close to being sucked back into that reality.

I leaned over placing my hand over his. The warm fluttering sensation of our bond erupted up my cold skin. I became instantly warm, it wasn't something I was trying to do but nevertheless I welcomed it.

Training my eyes on our touching hands I rubbed a soothing circle with my thumb against the back of his hand. Giving him reassuring eyes he dove deep into mine with a certain kind of grief. The kind of grief that scars you, tears you apart inside and leaves you finding all the pieces of yourself that shatter in the aftermath.

He had been keeping the scattered parts of himself together, that he could recover, with a single piece of tape.

"You don't have to finish your thoughts Osiris." My voice was meek but purposefully, I meant what I said. "There are things that are too heavy to put into words."

He shook his head. "No, I need to tell you. It's everything that I am. It's the very reason I've become the man I am now and I hate myself for it."

"None of this is your fault. We can't control the actions of others just our own. We can only learn to adapt around others that choose not to see the errors of their own ways."

"I took Desmond and ran the moment my parents left to confront their alpha." Tears brimmed his eyes as they stared out over the cliffs edge. This distant look in his eyes was dissociative. "I didn't even stay to help them." Osiris let out a heavy breath. "I didn't even stay to fight with them."

"But you were young. You were child Osiris don't forget that."

He shook his head, my words bouncing off his ears. "I should have stayed. I let them die Phina; and I never told a soul."

The air around us turned icy then. My breath fogged the view between us but I could still make out the fallen tears that escaped fro maid eyes.

He wasn't trying to hide himself from me. He was being... vulnerable, and all I had to offer was a meek grimace and some reassuring thumb rubs. How was I supposed to unpack such a revelation? I felt stuck, trapped but there was this endearing emotion that kept me pushing further.

I wrapped my arms around his neck pulling him closer. His tears dampened my shoulder but I couldn't be bothered. The tears felt icy against the winter breeze.

"Osiris, I- I know I can't change anything or reverse the past but what you did was the best you could do with the power you had."

"No, Phina.... I ran from my problems I-"

"You survived and you saved you little brother. No one could ask for for from you. You survived, and that's more than some can say."

He pulled back to look down at me. The tears were long gone instead replaced by anguish in his dark gaze. It was clear as day how this memory tore him apart, it still tears him apart and he'd kept it to himself all these years. I couldn't imagine the survivors guilt and all the while doing everything you can at such a young age just to keep your little sibilant alive as well as yourself.

"I vowed never to let another counsel anointed alpha harm or murder another person I cared about." He was looking at me but it was more as if he were looking through me; as if he were speaking out loud but toward himself. "And now I'm an alpha myself or so everyone around here wants to call me that. I hate it. I had turned into the one thing I hated most." He scoffed. "Talk about the hypocrisy in that fact."

Osiris pushed himself off the rock, the snow crushing beneath his feet as he landed.

There was a lot to unpack more than I thought possible. Guilt had ballooned inside me. I was looking at Osiris through a new lens, a lens that showed me the really Osiris, the really person beneath the tough, stoic mask.

My eyes scanned over the cliffs edge and to the valley below. The vast distances that I could see made it easy for me to get lost in the trouble thoughts I tried so hard to push away. I couldn't anymore.

The itch to hear more, the urge to ask question and get as much information about him was relentless. There was this pestering clawing that left me begging the mile high pile of unasked questions. Questions I wasn't completely sure I wanted answers to but I couldn't fend off the underlying need to get closer the need to know everything about him.

"You blame yourself." I started. He looked over his shoulder toward me. "A wise man once told me that I shouldn't be made to feel bad or blame myself for someone else's actions and neither should you."

I hooped down, my uncoordinated legs wobbled to regain balance. Taking small steps I muttered, "You've torn yourself apart for years and-" I was close enough now to grab his hand. My finger twitch as they inched closer. The moment my can't fingers curled around his the vibrant sensation electrified my body. "I'm not going to keep watching you hate yourself for something you couldn't stop and can't change."

Now I was being hypocritical myself. I was giving advice I couldn't even follow myself.

Strong habits die hard.

I rubbed my other hand up his forearm. His skin was flaming hot a drastic contrast to the icy air.

Osiris's body hummed a soft rumble rolled out from his chest like ripples on a quite lake. Each sooth wave washed over me in a captivating way and before I had even noticed Osiris had turned completely to face me.

Our hands were still connected and they weren't being held together with a feeble purpose. His free hand skimmed over the back of my neck as his hand came to rest at the base of my skull. His buzzing touch left my mind a pile of mush.

I should have been pulling back, putting needed space between us, but I didn't need it. I didn't want the distance anymore and it both unnerved me and kept me on the edge of my seat. I wanted to know more, I was tempted to see and tempted to feel the things I've tried endlessly to stray away from.

He stared down with blown out irised and I was plunged into the dark abyss of his existence.

"Please don't tell anyone about... this. I haven't told anyone and I don't want-"

"Shh-" I cut him off with a gentle smile. "We might not be the ideal definition of mates but your secret is safe with me." I pretended to zip my lips and through the key away. "I'll never say a word."

Osiris let out a breathy chuckle tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. He paused rubbing his thumb along my jaw line. My mouth watered and my pulse quickened with his pining gaze.

Rolling his bottom lip into his mouth he released the breath he held in. His face twitched for a half a second and before I could truly make out why he was ducking down and planting a warm kiss to my forehead.