In the private conference room, Graeme was scanning over all of the information he had already known about the details leading up to the murder of his parents. The events of that day—what drove them to leave pack land together and expose themselves to a risk of attack. He gulped and tried harder to focus, but it was difficult. Whenever it came to these details, his mind instinctually moved to protect itself by diverting to something less traumatizing. And this room wasn’t helping. It seemed to fog his senses even more.

For some reason, the thought of how August’s hair scattered in the wind assailed him, and he found himself daydreaming about his mate—the one the Moon Goddess had chosen for him. He wanted to run his hands through her hair and pull her into him…

A rap of knocks came against the frosted glass door to his conference room, and suddenly he was back in this room with the past spread out starkly before him. There were photos of his parents’ bodies, ravaged by animals. Animals that were genetically kin to him. He gulped.

“Come in,” Graeme called.

The door opened soundlessly, gliding with the light that flooded behind it, and a face from Graeme’s childhood met him.

“V-violet?” Graeme stuttered, his thoughts still catching up to his surroundings.

“Graeme,” she breathed.

The elegance of Violet braced the door and stood regarding him in disbelief. “I can’t believe you’re here,” she said.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, suspicious now by her sudden appearance. Her grip on the door handle tightened, but she quickly let it go, and her hands flowed into the room along with the rest of her. She was all elegance and grace. That hadn’t changed.

“I—I was visiting Zoe. I just heard from her that you were reading up on…” she stopped abruptly and swallowed, allowing her gaze to tear away from Graeme and alight on the documents on the table.

Graeme followed her gaze. “Yeah,” he grunted, his fists rounding into white knuckles on the table.

“Are you okay?” Violet asked, taking the seat that was available in front of him. The same cloying tone that he had heard from Zoe that morning was present in Violet’s voice as well, and it turned his stomach. Violet had always been like this, though. Superficially sincere—and only when it worked to her advantage. Or at least that was what he had come to learn. He wasn’t so wise in the beginning.

Graeme bowed his head, focusing on the thoughts of his mate that calmed him. “Yes, I’m okay,” he answered with a new coldness to his tone.

Violet shrank a little before settling her hands on the table in front of her. “This must be really difficult,” she started, “but I’m so glad to see you back.”

Graeme’s eyebrows dipped while his eyes focused on his own hands in front of him. “How have you been?” he ground out.

There were a few beats of silence before Violet found her voice to fill the void. “Good. Mom and I opened a shop in the market. Our clothes are being traded around the packs. We’ve been really good,” she replied. “And you?”

Graeme silently nodded without looking at her. The sunlight coming in from the floor-to-ceiling windows suddenly became very loud and abrasive.

“I found my mate, Violet,” he said finally.

Violet didn’t respond, but he was vaguely aware of how her hand on the table curled into a loose fist.

“That’s good, Graeme,” she said softly. “Congratulations. I’m just happy you’re back with us.”

While one hand was clenched on the table, Violet moved her other hand below and against her stomach. She felt it ache like something was ripped out of her.

“Look, I have a lot of work to do,” Graeme said, finally meeting her eyes to see the desperate hope that hadn’t left her. She was seeking something that he couldn’t give, and she knew it.

“Oh, of course,” she quickly replied and arose from her seat. “Hopefully I’ll see you again soon.”

Graeme kept his eyes trained on the table with the photographs of his dead parents while Violet made her way out, and only after he heard the door close with a soft click did he allow himself a glance to the doorway where she had disappeared. He would have to figure out a way to talk with Violet later if she thought there was still a chance with him, but that was certainly not a conversation he looked forward to having again.

Once he was able to focus on the files in front of him, Graeme pushed past the gruesome details of his parents’ murders and read the accounts available. Where they were found. Who found them. The time of day. Who was supposed to be protecting them. The theories revolving around their deaths.

His eyes narrowed when he flipped a page and saw “The Alyko Plot,” in bold letters at the top of the next set of files. He set his teeth and read.

Maggie was suspected of involvement with an unknown group of strays. A group? Graeme frowned. Strays never traveled in groups. He remembered the instinctual reaction he had to this information even as a pup. Strays didn’t congregate. They broke away from packs to run. To be alone. The desire to run like that was something he knew well.

The alkyo in his pack at the time of his parent’s deaths were named in the report as well, and his stomach plummeted. Biographical information was provided for each, and he found their faces coming to life in his mind. He was no good at this. He would never find the truth behind it, because he couldn’t even get past their descriptions and the memories that accompanied them. The innocents who were murdered because he didn’t have the strength to object.

Graeme slammed his hands against the table before bringing them up to cup his own head as he shook it in regret.

When he was able to move on, he turned the page and saw a brief description of how the alkyo were executed. They were burned. Fuck. The screams of Maggie and the others from his memory erupted into the room with him, and he braced himself against it. He was familiar with this. He heard it nearly every time he closed his eyes. That was, until he found August.

When he scanned down the endless black words scrawled on the paper describing, in detail, the action that had been taken to avenge his parents, Graeme spotted something he hadn’t seen before.. His mouth dropped open in shock, and he suddenly found himself clawing for the phone in his pocket.