The Wolves and the Vipers

Chapter 41 - Fallen Apart

I stayed beside Danny for longer than I should have. And Jace let me. He waited nearby, organising a watch on Riverside's land and the transportation of the injured wolves. He always had one eye on me — I was very much aware of that.

I was also aware of my guards, who were standing in a solid line to shield me from view. They were barely a metre away, but they were silent ... almost eerily so. I could hear the faint sounds of their breathing, and that was all. The rest of the noise around me was strangely muffled, like I was underwater.

But the strangest part was when Riverside's medics turned up. They had a contingent of fighters with them, not to start a fight, but simply to protect them while they worked. But Jace asked them to come across the river, very calmly and politely, and they did. Their protectors were left on Riverside's land, and they worked alongside the New Dawn medical team without making a fuss about it.

Within a minute of that, Jace came and knelt down in front of me.

"I can't let them see you here," he told me. "Get up. Please."

I desperately wanted to ignore him. But I did understand that if I was seen, it might invite another attack. That was the very last thing we needed with all our wounded lying in the open. So when he took hold of my arm, gently guiding me to my feet, I let him.

Before we had gone three steps, the guards fell in around me. Most of them were not on my usual rota, but when I got into the car, it was Luke who took the seat beside me.

"You must be freezing," he told me. The next thing I knew, he had draped something soft and heavy over my shoulders. I pulled it tighter around me. The coat smelt like Luke, but it was easy enough to ignore that. The smell of blood on my own clothing was much, much stronger.

I hadn't even noticed, but now that I looked, there wasn't a square inch of my skin that wasn't covered in Goosebumps. My bare feet were white and almost without feeling.

"You're supposed to be on leave," I told him.

He shrugged at me. "And Paul is supposed to be retired. It's hard to ignore that siren."

***

Jace came home later in the day. I must have spent hours sitting on that sofa. Dinner time had long since passed, and my guards had quietly made themselves sandwiches. I'd refused every offer of food and drink and comfort so far. I didn't want to talk to them, but confusingly, I also didn't want to be alone.

"I'm really sorry, Emma," Jace said. "Is there anything you need?"

I didn't reply to that. No, I didn't need anything. With some coaxing from Zoe, I'd managed to change clothes and stand in the shower for a minute or two, so I was warm and clean. Nothing else seemed to matter at the moment.

"I'm moving Kallie into one of the spare rooms for now," he continued, undeterred. "I'm hoping you two can help each other through this."

Except that I didn't really know her. And she hadn't really known Danny. She had lost her soulmate very early in their relationship — it was a different kind of grief. I felt for her. It brought back memories of Angie, because I had only known her for a year. There was a special kind of pain when time had been stolen from you. Kallie had waited decades for a mate, only to lose him a week later.

"How is she taking it?" I asked quietly.

Jace blinked at me, and I knew he hadn't been expecting that. He hadn't been expecting me to say anything, by the look of it. Maybe he had forgotten that I had lost both my parents and Angie in the space of a day. I knew grief. I knew how to take that pain and keep moving because I'd had no choice but to keep moving.