The Alpha's Forever Mate

CHAPTER: 7

"What is up with you, anyway?" Stuart asked.

"Just tired," Violet told him. "How are things there?"

It was more than just a handy change in the subject; Violet was really worried about leaving her mother and siblings behind. She hated putting all that responsibility on Stuart. When she had first been offered the place at Elite Trinity Academy, she had thrown the letter away. She did not want to go off to some fancy school, she wanted to stay home and work and look after her family. But Stuart had found the letter in the trash and convinced her it was for the best.

"Things here are fine," Stuart said, glancing off to the side, toward their mother's room. He got closer to the screen and spoke quietly. "She has been unsettled since you left. I told her I would call the doctor if she was too distressed."

Violet nodded. "She is probably just testing as to how far she can push you, but call the doctor if you need to. If it is too much, I will return home."

Stuart scowled at her. "You were younger than me when Dad left."

"That does not make it okay, Stuart."

"You just stay at your fancy school and eat your fancy snack foods. You know it is better for everyone in the long run." Stuart looked over to the side and nodded at something off-screen. "I have to go, but we can cope just fine without you, you are not that great, you know," he said.

Violet poked out her tongue at him and hung up. As soon as he was gone, everything felt cold and empty. She curled up on her new bed and gave in to the thoughts that kept crowding over her mind.

After Ryan had died, she had seen him everywhere for a while. It had been all she had thought about, to the point where she was sure she would go mad. She had replayed that night over and over in her mind. But then she had to stop. She had to pull herself together. She could not rely on anyone else, so she had to learn how to live without him. She still missed him, but she could not think about him if she wanted to function. It was like a bruise on her heart, and sometimes she could not help but press it to see if it still hurt. But it always did. It always would. That bruise would never heal.

When Violet woke from her unintentional nap, the room was filled with moonlight, and she could hear Yana softly breathing in the other bed.

Violet had been dreaming of Ryan. She could not remember the details, only the sense of him, the comfort of knowing he was there. And then she saw something representing magic.

She curled up into a tight little ball. She had to forget that feeling of him, of being safe, protected. Once one loses that sense of being secure in the world, of standing on solid ground, you can never get it back. Not completely. Because once it is gone, one knows that it was only an illusion, a dream. Violet wanted to hold onto that safe feeling, to envelope that feeling around her like a blanket, but she had to push it away. It was a weakness and there was no point to it. You could wrap yourself up in dreams as much as you want but at the end of the day, things were what they were. Nobody was looking out for her; nobody was protecting her. She had to look after herself.

Still, her dumb brain had not got the message. She could tell a thousand times that Ryan was dead, but obviously, her brain did not accept that. No matter what she did, it kept coming back to him.

She had tried to block the memory of that night for so long, knowing it would only lead to a spiral of dark thoughts about Ryan and his family suffering, scared and hurt, and dying. Still, even now, she could recall it perfectly. She had replayed it in her head every night for months after that had happened. Years.

A voice had woken her up, then. Violet had thought it was her youngest sibling, her brother, Mac. He had been about a year old then and full of trouble. She got up to see what he was into, but when she looked at him, he had been asleep. Everyone was asleep, and everything was fine, so she headed back to bed.

Ryan's bedroom window was facing Violet's. She never closed her curtains at night because Ryan liked to leave messages for her when he woke up. But there was no message there that night. There was only blood.

Violet had rushed to the window, not sure what she was seeing. Was Ryan playing a joke? If so, it was not fun. Something moved in Ryan's room, but there was just darkness and shadow and she could not make it out.

Then she heard a scream. It sounded like nothing on this earth. Nothing human. It made her blood run cold. Violet stood, unable to move, unable to do anything but look helplessly into the darkness. She felt as if her entire world was fading right before her eyes, and she did not know how or why.

Out of the darkness, something flashed. A light, but no type of light she had ever seen. A light that seemed somehow darker than the shadows. It sucked in the surrounding light, absorbing it. At the center of the light was a person. A massive person. Too big to be real.

Something smashed within the depths of Ryan's house, and it spurred her to action. Violet ran out of her room, out of her house. To Ryan's. She was always running to Ryan, running to get him out of trouble. Running to save him. Running to be saved. But this time it was too late.

Ryan's house had always been so warm, so homely, and welcoming. But that night it was something else, very frightening. The front door seemed to be hanging off its hinges, huge holes cracking the wood. She looked around for a weapon and picked up a garden fork from the porch steps, wondering if that was what had made the marks on the door, the long scratches.

Violet could not forget the way her heart pounded in her throat as she approached the door. It pounded so hard, that it seemed to rise in her throat. She thought she would choke on it. She entered the house, sure that something would jump out and attack her at any moment. But what she found inside was much worse than that.

A/N: To be continued...