“I will,” Gus said.
Declan trudged back up the stairs. He wasn’t looking forward to bothering Gretchen either, but he had to take care of her memories too.
Chapter Thirty
“My family must be soworried about me,” Willow said as she stared out the window to the street below. She sat in the large chair with a comfy pink cushion beside Declan in Cheryl’s craft room. Hugging the knees she’d drawn up against her chest, she rested her chin on top of one of them.
“You’ll see them again,” Declan said from the chair beside her.
“I know. I hate the idea of them worrying about me. I hope Brian doesn’t come looking for us. He shouldn’t be caught up in this. If something ever happened to him, Abby wouldn’t survive it.”
“The double-edged sword of matehood. The bond makes you stronger, but it also makes you more vulnerable.”
In the dark, his eyes were a vivid silver that pierced her heart and left her slightly shaken while they held hers. Was he beginning to suspect the same thing as she was, between them, or was he only making a statement?
She shouldn’t be thinking about what transpired between them in the bathroom earlier, but suddenly, it was all that was on her mind. They’d stood on the precipice of something good, and now she might never know what could have been between them.
She didn’t know if it was matehood or not; it was too soon to tell, but the possibility was taking root. Mates or not, she could never deny her intense reaction to him or that she liked him, alot. He was sometimes annoyingly enigmatic, but he was kind, brave, and willing to lay down his life for others, and she admired him for it.
Returning her attention to the window, she studied the quiet street. For most of the night, Declan moved throughout the different rooms while he watched over the backyard, while she remained focused on the road.
His room options narrowed when the others went to bed, but he continued to prowl through the house. He’d joined her only minutes ago, when the sun started to rise.
“Do you think you’ll ever meet your mate?” she inquired.
“I pity her if I do,” he muttered and then cursed himself for saying it.
Over the years, he had considered the possibility of meeting his mate, and each time he’d hoped the woman would run as fast as she could from him. And now, he was sitting beside the woman he desired more than anything else in his entire life. He didn’t want her to run, but he hoped she would.
If she were his mate, she would learn the worst parts of his history; it was inevitable. And when she did, she might curse the fate handed to her. He didn’t know if he could handle her rejection. It might be the thing that finally pushed him over the edge.
Willow almost snorted with laughter, except nothing about this was funny. She was wondering if he might be her mate, and he was pitying her because of it. “You seem like a decent guy to me.”
His silver eyes were unrelenting when they met hers. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
“Then enlighten me; what makes you such a monster?”
Declan’s hands clenched around the arms of his chair. “There are some things I’d prefer you didn’t know.”
“I’m a member of the Alliance and a purebred vampire. I’ve been through and seen a lot of shit; there’s nothing you could tell me that I haven’t heard or experienced before.”
Declan’s chuckle trailed off as a Savage loped across one of the side yards before disappearing into the woods. The ones who couldn’t take the sun at all were going into hiding for the day, but that didn’t mean they could make it out of this town.
With the roads blocked, the woods were their only option, and that’s where the Savages were hiding. And they wouldn’t make it past the roadblocks. Any of the Savages who could tolerate the day would be on guard there.
“Just for the record, I don’t think you’re a monster,” she said.
She thought he was frustrating and too tough on himself, but she didn’t tell him that.
“How do you think they knew we were in this town?” Willow asked. At least he might answer this question. “Do you think they have someone like Elyse under their control again?”
“No. Elyse requires blood to find whoever she’s searching for, and they don’t have our blood.”
“Maybe someone like Brian.” She wasn’t entirely sure how her brother-in-law’s ability worked, but he could track people too.
“It’s a possibility,” Declan said. “I think it’s more likely we never completely lost them, and one of them followed us through the woods. If they had someone like Brian, they would be here already.”
“True,” Willow said as she turned her attention back to the window. “Why only one of them?”
