The Haunted Memories (Forgotten Series, #4)

Chapter 6

Reality slipped back into my grasp slowly and with an aching amount of difficulty. My mind was still riding the hypnotic compulsion that Mordecai had placed on it. Dreams clung to me as well. Even the compulsion to have no dreams was not quite enough to keep them out. The chilling warning of death from a man made of stone and the knowledge that one couldn't be warned of what they already knew lingered on the edges of my mind.

My chest hurt slightly, reality coming back just a touch faster with every painful pulse. Maggie knew she would die. She knew it but she stayed anyway. It wasn't something I could begin to understand. She knew she was going to die yet she had done nothing to stop it. It made my head ache and pound. I could not understand Maggie's reasoning but perhaps even she couldn't understand it herself. I knew she had been driven mad by what she had endured, Perhaps she didn't leave because her fractured mind had held her captive to her reality.

I could hear the slight scratching of pen on paper and I gave a faint groan as I tried to open my eyes. "You are supposed to be asleep, mi bella." Cai's voice was rumbling and chiding and I gave another groan, trying to pry my eyes open despite the pounding of my head.

"Fuck you and your verbal roofies." My mouth felt like cotton and my voice was almost slurred with exhaustion as his compulsion drug me down. I was not impressed with him. He had told me he wouldn't do that to me and yet he had. I should have expected Cai to break his word, he always did in some way. However I had shit I needed to do and giving me the verbal equivalent of a roofie was not a good way to make me happy.

"I don't need to roofie people to get them into my bed." There was a touch of offence to his voice, like I had hit a sore spot. "I just gave you a slight hypnotic suggestion to sleep because you haven't been." He sniffed slightly and the sound of pen against paper started once more.

"Hence the verbal equivalent of a roofie." I rolled over on the couch and slid off onto the floor. I needed to get up and be an Alpha. Nap time was over.

"Move any further and I will give you another sleepy time suggestion." The warning was clear and I rolled my tired and aching eyes as I managed to get onto my hands and knees. Mordecai let out a heavy sigh and was suddenly beside me. My wolf and I barely blinked at the action. Super speed was a normal part of being a vampire, them being half-godlings and all. "Sorrel, I am not messing around with you." There was a firm note of disapproval to his tone and I glanced at him and flipped him off as I pushed myself to sitting. His hands grabbed my arms and I gave a warning snap close to his fingers.

Sorrel was agitated and Mordecai would lose fingers if he kept trying to boss her around. I narrowed my eyes at him and he sat down and tilted his head at me before he reached for my face. I snapped my teeth a hair's width from his finger. His eyebrow rose slowly as if to say 'Really?'. I pursed my lips in response to say 'Try me.'. I had no patience for Cai when he decided to dictate what I was and wasn't to do. He was the leader of his bloodcoven but I was an Alpha. I didn't like taking orders from anyone.

"Biting me won't stop the compulsion. I could wait you out. You can fight it for a bit but within a few minutes you will hit the ground again." He said it evenly and I threw him a nasty look. It didn't matter if what he was saying was true or not.

"Need to do paperwork. I have a job to do." My pack came first and the paperwork was necessary. Usually Linnette helped me with it but with the whole Lucas being a complete and total asshat thing that was going on she was too busy with Avery to help.

Cai clapped his hands once with a bright smile that made his dark eyes glint. "I finished it for you." I gave an aggravated sigh at that. I was the Alpha, I had to do my job, as pointless and time consuming as I found it to be. Mordecai doing it was cheating.