Chapter 83

Chapter 83

The rest of the day went by in a blur. I tried to focus on the things I had to do at home but I could only focus for a few seconds at most. My mind almost always went back to Violet and I couldn’t help but feel like there was an important part of the puzzle that I was missing.

Jaxon and I were in bed when the thought finally hit me and I jerked awake in an instant. He turned to me with concern etched on his face wondering what could possibly have made me react the way that I did. I rushed out of bed and towards the desk where he kept all his files and documents for work. I flipped through until I found what I was looking for a map of the pack. I knew he always kept one so I spread it open on the desk.

“Are you going to let me in on your sudden discovery?” Jaxon asked as he peered over my shoulder. “What are we looking

at?”

“Violet is in the pack, correct?” I began and he nodded as if unsure of where I was going. “Well she has to be staying somewhere. She can’t just be on the roads or someone would have seen her. She is either in an abandoned building or staying with someone.”

The latter option is very unlikely because no one in the pack knows her to the best of my knowledge, sudden understanding dawned on me and he pressed a kiss to my forehead. “You are brilliant. I will ask the guards to start looking into abandoned buildings and-”

“Wait,” I cut him off and he paused mid-sentence. “Este told me something earlier and I wasn’t going to say anything but it’s you and I’ve been thinking about it. I think we should at least listen to her. She sounded very serious when she said it, almost like there was something else she wanted to say but couldn’t.”

“What did she say?”

“She said not to trust anyone with anything,” I gauged his reaction but he remained impassive. “I know that’s going to be hard considering the nature of the job but would it be possible for you to keep the real reason why we’re searching a secret. I don’t want to ask you to lie but that might be more productive. No one except us should know the reason.”

I waited for him to say something, for him to agree or say I was overreacting but he remained quiet.

I began to fiddle with my fingers because Jaxon’s silence always had a way of making me feel uncomfortable. I hated it and I tried to avoid it as much as I could.

“You want me to lie to my men because of something the witch said,” he began after the long silence and I nodded. “Okay. They will work faster if they knew what they were looking for but I will figure something out. In the meantime, you need rest. This has been an extremely long day.”

ΠΕ

He walked ahead of me and roiled up the map I had opened. I watched as he put all the documents back in place and led over to the bed. I already knew that sleep wouldn’t find me quickly but I allowed myself to rest in his embrace. There was no harm in choosing to relax after a long day especially when I knew that the next was going to be longer. If we didn’t find Violet and she somehow got a wind of what we were doing, we may never find her again.

The mole was still an issue. We didn’t know if he was working with Violet. If he knew Noxian then there was a possibility that he knew Viglet as well and was helping her. I hoped not because Violet’s tenacity and anger combined with the mole’s knowledge could prove dangerous to all of us.

“Are you still awake?” I heard Jaxon whisper and I hummed. “What are you thinking about?”

“Everything,” I admitted not knowing where to start.

He flipped me around so I was staring straight at him and he searched my eyes. I don’t know what he found because he sighed deeply. “We will find her.”

“I know we will sooner or later. My worry is whether she finds us first.”

r

The next morning, we left Kiara at home with Nadia and dropped Kieran off at school before making our way back to the

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palace. Jaxon spoke to the guards and I didn’t listen in to know what excuse he gave them but within half an hour, they were out of the palace conducting their search. Even though I had a lot of work already on my plate, I decided to put it aside in favor of going through the blueprints of the pack.

I still felt like there was something I was missing, like there was an important puzzle piece that would suddenly put everything in perspective but it was like the more I searched for it, the further away from me it got. By noon, I had a slight headache forming and I was nowhere closer to finding out what it was

My door opened sometime after noon and Jaxon walked in holding a plastic bag that I knew had food inside of it. He set it carefully on my desk and when I didn’t make an effort to pick it up immediately, he took it upon himself to clear my desk of all the work that I was doing. If it were any other person, I would have murdered them but it was Jaxon and I knew he was doing it out of concern and love.

I knew I couldn’t win against him so I allowed him place the dishes in front of me and to appease him, I took a bite. He hummed in satisfaction but he made no move to leave. In fact, he sat opposite me and decided that he was going to eat with me. I smiled when I realized what was happening because it had been a while since we had lunch together. We ate in complete silence and I didn’t mind it because it wasn’t an awkward silence, it was one where we knew we had each other’s company and we could appreciate it

“Have you heard anything back from the soldiers yet?” I asked and he shook his head.

“You would-be surprised how many abandoned properties there are in this pack. The soldiers are searching as fast as they can but because it wasn’t tagged as an official urgent business, I couldn’t send all of them. If I had done that, it would have raised suspicion

I nodded in understanding. I was annoyed that not all hands could be in deck but I understood that it was the price I had to pay for secrecy. It didn’t mean I had to like it though.

“We will find her,” he assured me. “The men are out looking and I know that they will not return until she is found.”

I allowed those words fill me. I marinated in them and thought ever them repeatedly until I was sure that I could repeat them verbatim. I needed something to believe in and to remind myself that everything would be fine.

Jaxon and I spent the rest of our meal in silence. We were just finishing up when someone knocked on the door. Jaxon was the one who responded and the door opened to reveal Aiden. He smiled at me which I quickly returned before turning to Jaxon

“I knew I would find you here,” he said to his friend. “I have some information on the town that Violet stayed in when she was sent away by Noxian. Apparently, it is her mother’s old pack so she had some allies there. Violet kept mostly to herself and didn’t speak to anyone. One day, she just randomly got up and left and no one has seen her since.”

“Did she leave her things?” I asked and he nodded.

“Most of them, yes.”

It didn’t make any sense. Violet was very materialistic so it made no sense that she would get up and leave everything. beland. There was more to the story that was not adding up and I needed to find out what I was missing. I was lost in thought when my phone started to buzz. At first, I was going to ignore it but something urged me to pick it up. It was lying face down on my desk and when I picked it up. I realized that I didn’t recognize the number.

I answered it and placed it on speaker. “Hello”

“I got your message.” Violet’s voice filtered through the speakers My head snapped up and I saw Jaxon whisper something to Aiden who turn grabbed my laptop and began typing away “Dramatics have never been your thing but I appreciate the

effort

“I didn’t expect you to call”

“I never pegged you as a liar, Freya You put your number there because you knew I would call. You have three minutes

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before I hang up so make them count. I’m timing you.”

87%1 “What are you doing here?” I asked her and she stayed quiet. “Why did you burn down that farm? If your beef is with me then come to me. Don’t hurt the people because of some misplaced anger that you have.”

“Misplaced anger?” she asked incredulously with a scoff. “You killed my family and I wasn’t allowed to do anything about it because my mate cared more about you than he did my feelings Your mate killed my own and you sit there and say that I have misplaced anger. How self-righteous can you get Freya? Are you so used to having life go your way that you cannot see when you are hurting others?”

“Your family tried to kill my child and your mate tried to kill mine. They brought it upon themselves.

All I have asked for is to be left alone and it is not my fault that they could not do that Violet, this doesn’t have to go on. You can end this right now. I can give you a place to stay in the pack. You can live in peace but you have to stop his madness.”

“You think I would trust you, when you have your men scouring the abandoned buildings looking for me,” shock filled my features because how did she know? No one knew anything about it except Jaxon and I “The time for peace is over, Freya. I will make sure that you rue the day you were born.

You have a boy now, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about”

“He’s not yours of course, you always had a thing for taking in strays. He’s in some fancy private school. It would be a shame if something were to happen to him.”

She hung up right after that and I turned to Jaxon. “We need to get to Kieran, now.”

“I’ll get the car ready

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