Grae didn’t have the heart to move Violet off of him where she had tucked herself into his side, finally calming down in her sleep. She was unconsciously seeking comfort—a safe haven from the monsters that hunted her—and after all that she had been through, he just couldn’t bring himself to push her away like he knew he probably should.
Wolves were pack animals. They instinctually sought out each other’s physical presence for comfort. That is all that Violet was doing. Anyone in the pack who could sense the trauma that she had been through would stay and allow here this innocent comfort as she slept. And it seed as though she badly needed the rest.
So Grae stayed perched on the bed with one leg extended and one leg hanging off, his arms tucked behind his head as he lay against the headboard staring at the ceiling, thinking about everything that had transpired.
How had he ended up here? With a mate but without a mory... stuck lending his warmth to Violet for the rest of the night like a mama wolf with a pup while his mate was off trying to figure out how to kill a vampire and save the rest of the alyko. It should be the reverse. She should be here.
When he rembered that Greta said his mate was pregnant, he had to force down the protective growl that wanted to rise in his throat. He felt the connection to them—to his mate and his pup, even to his pack—in a way that he had never felt connected to anyone. But he also felt more lost than ever, and being on this bed in this room proved that it was truly the case.
"Violet," he said in a low gravel, shaking her gently.
Her eyebrows pinched together, and she clutched his shirt like a lifeline that she was unwilling to give up.
"Violet, I have to get up," he said more firmly, peeling her off of him and finally easing off of the bed.
"Don’t leave," she whimpered, eyelids opening from sleep to reveal the fear that had not left her.
"I will find soone else to sit with you. This is not appropriate," he told her.
When he glanced up, he saw two golden orbs glaring into the room from the darkness. Every hair on his body prickled to attention, and he quickly hopped over the bed without a second thought, lunging toward the closed glass of the window. But the eyes were gone. They had just... vanished. Not even a dark form could be seen down below slipping away into the night.
"What is it? What is it? What did you see?" Violet’s voice climbed in panic as she clutched the blanket, pulling it up to her chin.
"I’m sorry. It was nothing," he replied, bracing himself against the window and squeezing his eyes shut. Was he hallucinating now? Was he truly seeing things that were not there?
"It was him, wasn’t it?" she asked, growing hysterical. "It was him. I knew it. I knew it. He ca for , Grae. He is going to take with him. Goddess, he is going to make go with him and I don’t want to go! They hurt . Please don’t make go with them!"
He traced his way back through the room to the bed, sitting back down next to her to try to calm her down.
"Shh, Violet calm down. It’s nothing. I just have not gotten much sleep," he told her, "I am sorry I frightened you. There was nothing there."
"You saw him," her eyes were wild, staring at the window, waiting for him to reappear as her whole body shook with tremors. She started whimpering, bottom lip trembling. "What do I do?" she mumbled to herself. "What do I do? Maybe you can lock in the dungeon. Maybe he can’t get to if I’m locked in the dungeon. Do you think that will work? Do you think a dungeon door can stop him? What can stop him? What could stop your mate? Should I leave the pack? Should I go sowhere else? He’s found !"
Grae put his hands on her shoulders, shaking her gently to bring her eyes to him.
"We are not going to let anyone take you, Violet," he insisted.
She stopped rambling hysterically, but she just stared at him with those sa haunted, wild eyes before her eyes darted back to the window.
"Should I block the window with sothing so you aren’t worried about soone seeing inside?" he asked, eyebrows raised in question.
No one should be able to see inside this far up. That’s why Grae was convinced that he imagined what he saw. If those eyes were real, the person they belonged to would have been hovering roughly twenty feet in the air.
"Violet?" he shook her gently again, and her brown eyes snapped back to him.
"Will that help?" she asked, convinced that whoever the male was that she was terrified of was here.
Grae got up and grabbed a sheet from the closet, draping it the best he could over the windows. "I am going to check the periter," he told her.
"No, no no no no. Please, Grae. Please don’t leave . I’m sorry for everything I have done, but I don’t want to be alone here. I don’t want to..." she clutched the blanket up to her chin again.
"I will be right back," he assured her.
She shook her head in objection, but she didn’t try to stop him any more with her words.
"Lock the door when I leave, okay?" he suggested, getting the sense that he was talking to a small pup that he was leaving ho alone. "I will knock when I co back."
Violet nodded uneasily, fear-filled eyes watching him as he left.
Grae walked down a few doors and knocked on the room where Neoma and Lucas had been. Hopefully Lucas was still here.
The male didn’t disappoint, opening the door and squinting at Grae like he had just been pulled out of sleep.
"I need you to do a periter run with ," he told him.
"A periter run?" Lucas rubbed his eyes, and then they were wide open, aware that this ant there may be another threat.
"Just around the pack house," Grae explained and waited for Lucas who disappeared for a mont before coming back to the door, now wide awake.
"Let’s do it."
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