Chapter 372: Yes, Alpha
Graeme arrived back at the pack house, a renewed determination to his presence as he bristled with the urgency to formulate a plan. Anyone who may have been aware of the precarious situation of his memory the past several hours would be assured now just by sensing his presence that their Alpha was fully back.
Greta and Sam were still standing outside on the lawn where Graeme had left them, but now they were also joined by Graeme’s newly chosen elders, Sylvia and Charlotte. His lips twitched with the pride of having chosen so well the two to help lead this pack with their wisdom.
All three females turned to greet him as he approached while Sam continued staring at the second floor, apparently consumed by the riddle of how one would have gotten up there to peer in. He didn’t believe Graeme would have imagined something like that—not unless his mind was somehow further manipulated by the vampire or by someone else... maybe even Violet. Who honestly knew at this point? Anything seemed possible.
Greta, Sylvia, and Charlotte all gaped in stunned silence at their Alpha.
"Graeme..." Greta started, taking a small step forward with her hand tentatively outstretched toward him, pointing at his face, but she seemed unable to find the next words. They died in her mouth.
"So did you come up with an idea for how we are going to catch the golden eyes lurker?" Sam asked before turning to the others who were strangely quiet.
Sylvia and Charlotte both glanced at Sam in surprise. Greta chuckled before silencing herself with a hand slapped over her mouth.
"What is wrong with everyone?" Graeme asked gruffly, unaware of what could be so damned shocking.
"O-oh," Sam uttered, shuffling his feet to fully turn toward the Alpha who had walked the rest of the way to where they were standing.
"Your eyes," Greta said, dropping her fingers from her lips. "You remember everything?" she asked, but that wasn’t the question she was truly asking. Her gaze dropped to the talisman that hung around his neck.
"My eyes?" Graeme screwed his face up. "Is that what you all are staring at? What about them?"
Charlotte hummed from the side of the group, walking to get a closer look at him. "Your mate marked you, I gather?"
"She did," he replied, his chest inflatedly proudly.
Marking by females was not terribly common, and it was completely unheard of when the female in question was not lycan. But then, the identifier that probably fit his mate the best was fae. And... as far as he was aware, fae did not have mates—at least not in the sense that lycans did. Admittedly, the knowledge he had about the fae was very little. He didn’t even believe they existed prior to all of this.
Goddess, it was such a relief to have all of his memories back. Who could have ever explained the complexity of this situation to him?
"Your eyes are a similar gold," Charlotte smiled, reaching up to squeeze his muscled bicep in reassurance in case he needed it.
"You’re kidding," he chuckled. What in the world did that mean?
"Do you feel... different?" Greta asked, curious as to what this change could mean as well.
"I feel determined to get my mate back," he replied, seeking to bring the conversation back to that topic rather than what color his eyes were, as if that mattered. "I remembered what happened before you found me last night," a muscle feathered in his jaw.
"She healed you, didn’t she?" Greta asked, suspecting this since they found him in that unreachable state. It reminded her so much of how both August and Graeme had been when they disappeared into that healing place of August’s before.
"Yes," he said gruffly. "We cannot face the vampire in a traditional fight. There is no comparison in strength. He will win, hand’s down."
"Then what do we do?" Greta asked, the amused shock at her brother’s appearance now replaced with genuine worry.
Graeme sighed. "She convinced me to let her go—to trust her with this. Penelope believes August is the key to finding a way to kill him."
"Penelope Winter?" Greta interrupted. "How does August know that?"
"It doesn’t matter. I believe that it may be true as well, and the important thing is that August believes it. She knew that if we fought the vampire to keep him from taking her, it would be too bloody. Much of the pack may very well have been eliminated before he went ahead and took her anyway," he explained.
"Well that sounds awfully defeatist," Greta scoffed. "So we were just supposed to let her go? Let him take her?"
Graeme’s eyes narrowed at his sister. Was she truly not listening?
"It is going to take something other than strength to defeat him," he repeated. "We need to be smart. We can’t just go running to her rescue even if we do know where his hideout is."
"This sounds wise," Sylvia said, nodding her head. "As awful as it is to be parted from her, perhaps this is one of the primary reasons for August’s unique status and abilities—she has been called to defeat him."
"Yes, I want to talk again with Selah and Neoma right away," Graeme replied. "Perhaps we can help August in a more indirect way while she is figuring out what to do. How much time do we have until the entire pack arrives?" He asked, looking around and attuning his ears to the increased bustling noise around the pack house that indicated several members were already here.
"There is a little time," Greta said, looking at her wrist as if there would be a watch there.
In reality, she should have been looking at the position of the sun. But pretending she had a wrist watch was something she had been doing since they were pups. It started out as a joke—a goofy imitation of humans, because no lycan ever wore a watch. Now she did it out of habit.
Graeme hummed in thought. "Let’s talk with Neoma and Selah afterward. I want to make sure we have enough time with them to brainstorm."
"Are we still concerned about golden eyes?" Sam asked, thrusting a thumb back toward the outer wall of the pack house. "The other golden eyes, I mean," his lips twitching into a cautious smile.
"We are not going to worry about that right now. It is the lesser threat," Graeme replied, his voice dropping as he tried to restrain a growl. He was angry at himself for entertaining Violet’s conspiracy theory. "Sylvia, if you could make sure that Violet feels secure where she is, that would be very helpful. Perhaps we can station some guards at her door to put her at ease. Please encourage her to call her mother as well."
"Yes, Alpha."
