Ivory

TWENTY-THREE*

“Morning,” I said back with a tired smile. “How long was I asleep?”

“About five hours,” he answered, looking a little worried.

Something felt off in the pit of my stomach. “Where’s Brooke? And Josh?” I asked, not knowing why they wouldn’t be here. I thought they would be the first two people who would be here to see me.

His blue eyes darkened with sadness and he pulled me into his chest. “Josh is in the clearing where you woke up and Brooke is there with him,” he answered, but I could feel that he wasn’t telling me something. He sighed and pulled further into his chest. “Brooke told me not to let you out of bed for at least one day.”

“Why?”

“Do you remember anything about what happened to you?” I shook my head and looked up at him. What was there to remember? I ran away from the pack after that rogue attack and somehow made it here, into that gods awful pink thing.

“After you left your pack Brooke and I tracked you down and found you passed out and about to be attacked by a team of rogues. She pretty much killed them all single handed, and then we brought you back here. She did this mag-type thing and put you into a lotus bud that brought some energy into your system.”

I knew that Brooke was powerful, but I really didn’t know to what extent. There was no telling what she could do. “What happened when I was in there?” I asked, genuinely curious and worried about what had happened to Brooke. If all that happened to me, there was no way in hell that she wouldn’t here.

He began to trace circles in the palm of my hand as though to distract himself or me from what was happening. “The first thing was that she found this one girl, Elizabeth, who had taken her job as the packs maid, in the basement with a gaping hole in her abdomen, made by a silver knife. She did the same thing with her that she did with you, only she’s in one of the guest rooms. And when she did that was when Zander, your Alpha, came and found out that she’s his mate.

“The reason why Zander was here, as well as the other two packs on your territory, was because the Council called a meeting here. They wanted her to reveal that she’s Marguerite so that they can use her for something. She didn’t, obviously. Instead she gathered everyone in the back yard and gave them orders for what they needed to do in the next ten days. She then rejected Brettly as her mate, placed a shield over the entire territory and trapped herself in the pod that was beside you.”

When he finished I looked down at my lap and absorbed it. She did that. Why would she put herself into that kind of situation?

“Because she’s completely selfless, and wanted to protect everyone from death,” my wolf said, sounding sad. The four of us, me and my wolf and Brooke and her wolf, had become a family, she was like a sister to us. For her to do something like this wasn’t unnatural, but that meant that I wouldn’t see her any time soon.

“How long did she say that she would be in there?” I asked, beginning to trace circles in his arm. I needed a distraction, and Austin was absolutely the best distraction that I had.

“Ten days,” he answered solemnly, “that was what she told me.”

Ten days. A week and a half without Brooke. One week without her was bad enough, but these next few days were going to be awful.

I settled down further in his arms. He reached over me and grabbed a bowl from the table beside me. He placed it between us and grabbed a fork. When I saw what it was I almost gagged.

“Salad? Really?” I asked, completely dubious to the fact that he would make me eat a salad.

He laughed and started to stab the offensive food with the fork. “If you took basic ecology you would know that producers get the most energy from the sun, and right now energy is exactly what your body needs. You don’t get the option, you need to eat the salad or I’ll strap you to the bed and feed you like a child.”