Chapter 491: Shared Trauma
Violet glared up at Graeme, all of the anger she had harbored all this time coming to a sharp point in her mind. She wanted to end him.
She realized all at once that she was not going to be Luna of Thundering Falls despite the fact that their late Alpha had marked her, she was not going to get Graeme—the love of her life—back, she no longer was going to have the benefit of Graeme’s sympathy, and she was probably not even going to be able to convince these brainwashed pack members that their Luna was an intruder.
In short, none of her suffering was paying off in the way she had hoped. Nothing she had endured was worth anything more than the power she felt running through her limbs at this moment. And if all she could do was use that power to focus her rage and burn everything down around her, then that was what she was going to do.
There was nothing left to try to salvage here. The only unfortunate thing was that August was not the one here to take the brunt of Violet’s power. Because not only would Violet take care of the intruder in their pack, she would make Graeme watch as that female he believed to be his mate was destroyed along with his heir. If Violet had lost his heir, then August should too.
"You asked what happened when I went to Thundering Falls," Violet said, her voice strangely low.
Maggie’s brows pinched together as she saw something brewing in the girl’s aura. There was so much anger and fury, but that wasn’t new. What was new was how it all seemed to be coalescing into a spot in the girl’s center—as if she were bringing it all into her heart to feel it all at once. Maggie had never seen anything like it.
Graeme saw it, too. He frowned and glanced over at Maggie. It must be the result of Violet reliving such a traumatic event in her memory.
Down on the floor, Neoma felt the concentration of so much dense, heavy rage coming from the female being questioned that she stepped back instinctively. Lucas noticed this and mirrored her steps, brows furrowing in concern at the sudden movement that signaled fear or danger in his mind.
He and Neoma had already been through so many intensely threatening moments together that he felt tied to her. His first reaction was for her safety. She had saved him over and over again, and his indebtedness to her and care for her well being felt like second nature. There was no way she was going to be in harm’s way if he could help it, regardless of how powerful she had proven herself to be.
"We are all connected now," Violet smiled menacingly before them all. "We all feel it, yes? That is the gift of having an Alpha and Luna who are so perfect for their people. Perhaps then we can all share in an experience. I will show you what happened when I crossed into our neighbor’s territory."
Violet took all of that concentrated rage in her heart and spun it out as if it were refracted by a prism and angled into beams that targeted each female in the room. A collective gasp rose around the chambers as every female there felt like they were transported into Violet’s memory.
Violet had been sad and lonely and seeking a way to punish herself at the hands of another, and the scent in the woods indicated that she was on another pack’s land. They all walked cautiously with her under the trees there where the leaves had fallen in a golden and red path beneath her feet.
She had not been aware of what was coming. She naively imagined being taken prisoner and locked up in a dungeon until the elders were contacted and arranged for her to be returned at an appropriate time. Maybe she would get roughed up a little bit. Maybe she would endure some physical pain that would make her forget the emotional pain for awhile.
Instead, they all watched in horror as one male after another appeared from behind the trees that she had walked under. The males were silent, their eyes predatory, and Violet’s hackles rose instinctively. Before she was able to shift into her wolf, they pounced on her, holding her down. There were so many of them.
In the chambers, every male in the Hallowell pack watched in confusion and growing concern as the females in their pack appeared stunned and horrified like they were all viewing the same movie reel behind their eyes.
"Greta," Sam called, shaking her arms and then cupping her face in his hands. "Greta! What is it?" She gasped and pushed him away like he was one of those males in the forest in Violet’s mind.
And the same thing was happening all over the chambers. Every last one of the females was stuck in a time in the past that Violet was forcing them to relive with her. They were all in Thundering Falls. They were all surrounded by enemies. They were all prey to those predatory eyes and hands.
But Violet suspended them there—not allowing the reel to move forward. There was a part of her that still couldn’t do it... that couldn’t subject them to the true horror of what she had endured. She thought she could, but her memory stuttered there, holding them hostage just before everything else unfolded that had killed her inside. But the females could feel it... they were held down, they were facing the threat. They could feel what was coming. And they started sobbing.
Lucas wrapped his arms around Neoma who had wilted onto the floor, her chest heaving in desperation to get out of this nightmare she was trapped in. She tried fighting against him, tried pushing him away, but he held her securely against him so that she couldn’t hurt herself.
"It’s me," he said as soothingly as he could. "It’s Lucas. You’re safe. You’re okay. It’s all in your mind."
She stopped fighting as she recognized his voice. It seemed to be able to slice through the shared memory that all of the females were experiencing, and she buried her head in his chest, allowing him to shield her from it.
"It’s so real," she cried against him as the hands in her mind held her down.
"It’s not real. You are right here. You are right here with me. I won’t let anything happen to you," he said, glaring up at Violet as he did.
