Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 43373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 217(@200wpm)___ 173(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 217(@200wpm)___ 173(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
They’d not killed a single person, but they had been cleaning up the mess, or at least Rose had been cleaning it up. Alpha hadn’t wanted to bring her in, but they started to wonder if they were not thorough enough in cleaning away the blood, it might be infected, and they didn’t know the ramifications of that.
He stepped outside the cages, needing some air as his wolf was getting impatient. Fighting these urges was next to impossible, with Rose so close. Even now, although she had left, he smelled her, and he wanted her. That feeling wasn’t going away anytime soon.
He gripped the back of his neck and tried to focus. He tried to do anything but think about the blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty that had filled his world.
“Are you okay?” Draco asked, surprising him.
Spinning around, he looked at the other man. He was used to the overgrown beard, hair pulled back into a ponytail, and his clothes seeming to be several days old.
“Yeah, man, I’m fine.”
“Look, I know you want to kill them to show a kindness, but this could be something else. There might be hope.”
“How can you talk about hope when the humans did what they did to your mate?”
Draco shrugged. “My mate was hunted down by humans. Not all humans are hunters, Rocco. Not everyone is the same, and I’d hate for someone to view us all as such, wouldn’t you?”
Rocco shook his head. “I think this is a mistake.”
“Do you want to turn your back on all of this? Is that it?”
“I don’t want to turn my back, but I don’t want to keep seeing the look in their eyes when they know it’s not going well.”
“Then do what I do,” Draco said.
“And what is that?”
“Look away. Then, you don’t see their fear, and they don’t see that you know it’s the end for them.”
With that, Draco walked back into the cages, but Rocco felt that was some morbid kind of shit. He let out a puff of air, and then made his way back toward the cages, waiting for whatever would happen next.
All the time, he couldn’t get Rose out of his mind.
****
Rose curled up in the armchair, and the small glow from the lamp cast enough light for her to read. It was dark outside, and she knew it was about time she went to bed. She was exhausted and couldn’t help but wonder if she was going to get a call to come and clean up messes.
Graham was not an unusual case, at least not to her. The guys had been happy with the progress with other humans, and she’d left for the day, only to be called back hours later when it had taken a sudden turn. It was one of the reasons she tried not to get close to anyone. Graham was the first one she had spoken to. He’d looked so calm in that cage, and yet she had known he was trying to keep it together so he wouldn’t lose his shit.
She couldn’t help but feel for him, for all of them.
Rose’s eyes started to close, and only a sudden knock at her door brought her out of her sleep. This had happened a few times, and once again she felt overwhelmed. Had Graham died?
She closed her book, placing it on the coffee table in front of her, bundling up the blanket, and making her way toward the main front door. Pulling it open, she saw Rocco on the front step, but he didn’t look grim. Instead, he carried a bouquet of flowers in his hand.
“Rocco?”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She opened the door a little wider, and she frowned as she looked at the flowers. They looked wild, as if he had picked them himself, not gone to Chantel, the florist in town.
“What’s going on?”
“The florist was … closed, but what do you expect, it’s late, and I wanted to give you these so I could apologize. I don’t know what flowers you liked, but then I saw the wildflowers growing in your garden, I put two and two together, and you know, figured you might like that.”
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He held out the flowers but she didn’t take them.
Rose needed answers.
“I … I shouldn’t have spoken to you that way today. I’m sorry. I’m just … I’m so fed up with this shit, you know. It’s hard. They all come, and when they find us and we understand what is going on with them, it’s like we’re their miracle cure, only we’re the furthest from that.” He released a breath. “And then we have to see it through until the end, and that’s hard.”
She looked at him and the flowers. Part of her knew she should tell him to get lost, but she didn’t want to in that moment. Instead, she reached out and took them. “Thank you.”