Chapter 154 - Saving Greta

Greta was puking. Again.

Sam was pacing the stone floor in his room. It was entirely enclosed apart from the small, barred window near the top of the door. He kept running his hands through his hair helplessly. His mate was nauseous and miserable.

How had this happened? He groaned. He should have kept her safe from this somehow. Now he couldn't get to her. He couldn't help her. All he could do was listen helplessly as his mate got sick on the floor of her room. He growled to himself.

"Stop, Sam. Please," she rasped. "I am fine. It's just the baby. Or babies."

"It is not. This is too much," the panic was starting to gain an edge in his voice. "This is not right." He groaned again. What could he do?

Greta slumped on the floor of her cell and squinted her eyes closed, trying to will herself to be well. Perhaps she could keep herself from getting sick if she concentrated hard enough. But ever since she drank that water that was offered to her, she couldn't stop puking.

She didn't want Sam to know, but she was starting to feel panicky as well. He could feel it. She knew he could, but she was trying to control the feeling so that he wouldn't be overwhelmed by her own physical symptoms.

They were going to get out of this somehow, and then she would be able to curl around the toilet in her own bathroom and sleep there if she needed to. She would stay there for the remainder of the pregnancy if she could just get off this horrible stone floor and away from the stench of her own vomit.

As she crouched over herself, her head started to feel heavy. And very hot.

"Greta? What's happening?" Sam called out to her. But she couldn't respond. Her eyelids were starting to close, and the fire that had begun heating her head suddenly raged throughout the rest of her.

"Greta?" Sam called, his voice sounding far away now. "Greta?! Answer me! Please—are you okay?" She heard his frustrated growl and him pounding on the door of his cell, and then it all drifted away.

-------------------

Now both fully dressed, Graeme and August entered an old wooden doorway hidden on the side of the pack house's stone facade. It faced the woods, away from the front of the house where everyone entered. It was peculiar in the fact that no one would even realize it was there if they weren't looking for it.

The prison itself was exactly how August imagined it: a dungeon. They followed a dark, narrow hallway lined with massive stones before descending a set of stairs. Graeme led cautiously, keeping August tucked behind him in case there were guards stationed somewhere at the end of the stairway.

But no guards were anywhere in sight.

The labyrinthine hallways below were dimly lit with torches and lined with empty cells. Graeme seemed to know exactly where he was going, though, because once he was confident no resistance awaited them, he hurried forward through the halls with August trailing him.

"Graeme!" Sam called as soon as he scented him.

Graeme tried the door to Sam's cell, but it didn't budge. He looked around for a key hanging on one of the walls, but there was nothing.

"Look for a key," Graeme told August, and she walked further into the hall, scanning the walls that had the occasional nail sticking out.

One nail had chains hanging. Another had a whip. Another still had some kind of metallic tool she couldn't identify. August swallowed back the fear that shot through her at what kind of nightmarish things happened down here in the dark.

"Thank the Goddess you're here," Sam sounded panicked and desperate behind his door. "Greta hasn't answered me for the last twenty minutes. Please get her out of here."

Several doors down, Graeme found Greta's cell by scenting her. But that familiar smell of his sister was overpowered by vomit. There must be a lot of it.

"Greta?" he called, but there was no answer and no movement on the other side.

Graeme used his shoulder to try push all his weight against the door, but it wouldn't budge. He bent down to look through the small area where food could be pushed through and saw part of his sister's body lying immobile on the floor.

"Greta!" he roared desperately, and then he was back on his feet trying to force his way through the door again—slamming his shoulder against it over and over again.

August ran back to where he was, the spike of Graeme's fear threatening to swallow her. He was panicking, which meant Greta was in serious trouble.

'No, not Greta,' August thought desperately.

Graeme erupted into a furious roar at the door still refusing to budge before he slammed his shoulder against it again.

"I can't find a key," August said.

"I'm going to get one right now. Stay here," he snarled and turned to leave to go pay the fucking elders a visit.

He didn't care if it screwed up his chance at taking back Alpha. The time for reason and control had passed. Whether it made the pack members afraid of him and his mate or not, he was going to kill all three of the elders and anyone else who was involved in putting Greta here.

"Wait," August called. Graeme stopped and turned, the rage and helplessness now evident in his eyes. "Wait… I. I have a feeling I can do something. Just…" August glanced back at the door and let the Veiled take over her vision.

How had she disappeared under that tree? She still had no answer for it. She hadn't even had time to tell Graeme about that yet after she confided in Greta about it, but she wondered if there was something.. something about that event that held a clue as to what more she could do.

In the Veiled, there was always movement—everything seemed to consist of this movement at its most fundamental energetic level. When she reached through Greta and Graeme's chests to try to help them, it had been like her physical existence reached through that movement, finding the spaces where their energy danced apart, and she slipped through.

Maybe she could do that now.