Chapter 115 - Incidents

August and Graeme are excited to announce a CHRISTMAS MASS RELEASE! On December 25th (U.S. time), all my dear readers get a special gift in the form of 8 chapters that day. Yay!

If you haven't seen the event on WN yet, you can view the books that have been invited to the mass release under "Merry Xmas and Happy New Year!" For every 30 minutes you read of one of the books listed, you receive a Christmas cracker to play.

Happy reading and happy holidays to all! <3

***

Driving from Maine to Wisconsin was beautiful but boring as hell. Graeme just wanted to get there, do what he intended, and get back so that he could speak with Penelope and return to his mate. But unfortunately he wasn't gifted with flight or teleportation or anything else that could make the time pass more quickly. Even speeding was not helping as much as he would like.

Thankfully the little red dot on his phone that tracked August's mom kept moving in a predictable path. Otherwise he may have to backtrack to check on her. He prayed that wouldn't happen. He needed all the time he could get. August's mom had stopped the first night in Buffalo, New York, but she started back on the path home the following morning, albeit slowly.

While Graeme was determined to drive straight through without any stops, the final four hours had his eyelids turning heavy. He wasn't used to driving long distances. When he tracked strays, he typically did it in wolf form, because that's how strays traveled. But eventually coffee after coffee, loud music, and the brisk autumn wind whipping through the car revived him enough to complete the drive without pulling off to the side of the road for a nap.

The timing worked out perfectly, because just as he passed the "Welcome to Wisconsin" sign, he received the text he had been waiting for.

'Located the second one,' it said.

'Great, send it through,' Graeme texted back.

'You owe me, man,' the final text bubble read before it was followed by an address.

Thankfully, this one was also in Wisconsin. He feared one of them would have moved across the country, but apparently neither was ashamed enough of their pasts to run. They had both stayed close to home. Graeme's hands clenched the steering wheel until his knuckles went white.

There were things he was good at, and this was one of them. He had honed his skills tracking strays and dispatching them for various offenses, and he had seen a lot of horrible things during that time—lycan strays who had mutilated humans, who had murdered entire families sometimes, but he had never seen the aftermath of r*pe. It didn't seem to be something even strays did when they freed themselves from the confines of pack life.

Or maybe he just hadn't seen it. R*pe was one of those things that, despite its violence and the horrific toll it took on its victims, somehow bled into the earth and disappeared from view. The offenders were free to continue on, perhaps even believing that what they did was acceptable, while the victims were made to carry the weight of those memories silently. Alone. But the earth they walked held the truth soaked into its soil.

Graeme exhaled, breathing out the heavy knowledge of what had happened to August when she was so young and unable to stop it. His mate. Those men had violated her—had touched her, had fucking claimed her against her will. There was no way they should still be breathing. He growled as even the ghost of an idea of what she had been through swept his thoughts.

His phone pinged again with an incoming text.

'I know you didn't ask, but that wasn't the last incident for either of them. The charges were dropped each time…' Another three photos came through with police report after police report that named new victims each time, and Graeme slammed his hand against the steering wheel.

"Fucking bastards."

———

August was helping Alexander's group start the spiral of their portal design that looked like it would end up rising over seven feet high when Bear ran to her in a panic.

"What is it? What happened?" she asked, seeing that he was panting and his eyes were wide.

"Isaac fell through the floor," he said.

"Through the floor? You mean in the house?" she asked, her voice rising. He nodded and ran across the stone bridge toward the entryway to the cottage. He stopped and waited for her by the door, and she turned back to the pups she was helping.

"Keep working on it," she said quickly before darting off behind him.

"Miss August!" Fern called after her.

"Stay there! It's not safe!" August called back. Fern turned to the two others in her group with her eyebrows pinched in concern.

"Isaac?" August called out once she reached the threshold of the cottage where the old wooden door was black and hanging crooked on its hinge. There was no answer.

"How do you know he fell through the floor?" she turned to Bear who was standing nearby, appearing too frightened to go inside.

"I heard him calling out, and he said he fell," he answered, his chest still heaving softly.

"Okay, it's going to be alright," August replied and put a hand on his shoulder for comfort. "I'm going inside, but I want you to stay here in case it's dangerous. Okay?" Bear nodded. "Make sure no one else comes in."

August stepped through the doorway. The interior of the cottage was damp and smelled of mildew, but there was something comforting about it. One would imagine the burned ruins of a horrific event like what happened here would leave a terrifying echo, but instead there seemed to be a quiet sadness—like the house was grieving.

"I see. You feel forgotten," August whispered as she stepped carefully over the stone floor.

The Veiled came gently to her eyes, and in the darkness with only slivers of sunlight breaking through holes in the roof, it resembled the quiet radiance of the forest—only the green mist world contained within these walls was stagnant and unmoving. There wasn't the busy vibrance like that which hummed around her out under the trees where life was in constant motion—always persistently thrumming. Here, that life climbed the walls and embraced the past lovingly while keeping it hidden and preserved.

A loud groan sounded from somewhere below her.

"Isaac?"