Page 26 of Midnight Hunt
I stiffened and threw Reid an apologetic look.
He just laughed good-naturedly and told her, “Well, that’s up to your sister.”
Mellie turned that curiosity to me next. “If you marry Reid, will you have to leave us for good?”
At that, everything in me went cold. I tried to respond, but my throat sealed shut. Unable to breathe, I murmured a lame excuse about needing to grab something and hurried up the stairs.
The second I closed my bedroom door, I sank to the floor and hugged my knees to my chest, willing myself not to fall apart. But Melanie’s words continued to ring in my ears, filling me with more and more panic.
Leave us for good. Leave us for good.
Leave my pack. Myfamily.
If I did end up marrying Reid, he would expect me to live with him. To join his pack. To become his alpha female one day.
Being with Reid meant that I would have to face my worst fear, a fear that I’d lived with every day for the past seven years. I hadn’t fully realized until this very moment what dating Reid would lead to, but that reality had finally caught up to me, and—
“Vi? It’s just me and Brielle. Open up, please.”
At the sound of Nora’s voice, I forced myself to stand and open the door. The moment I did, she and Brielle sandwiched me in a hug.
“You okay?” my sister-in-law asked, reaching back to close the door.
“Yeah, I just . . . I just panicked. My emotions have been kind of everywhere lately.” I gratefully clung to them both, drawing comfort from their scents and closeness.
“For good reason,” Brielle spoke up, then said in a soft whisper, “Did something happen between you and Griff? I heard him in your room last night and saw him coming out this morning.”
I groaned, feeling guiltier than ever. “Yes. I did something terrible.”
She pulled back to look at me, her green eyes wide like saucers. “How terrible?”
“I fell asleep with him in my bed last night.”
One of her dimples flashed as she pursed her lips in thought. “Well, that’s not so bad.”
“I woke up ontopof him.”
Her mouth formed a large O. “Okay, yeah. That’s kind of bad.”
“Brie,” Nora lightly chastised her best friend, who gave her an apologetic look.
“No, she’s right,” I said. “It never should have happened, and I feel awful. What should I do? Do I tell Reid?”
Nora stared at me but in a non-judgmental way. It felt more like she wassearchingfor something. After a long moment, she quietly said, “I think you should be honest with him.”
I closed my eyes with a groan that sounded more like a whine. “This sucks.”
They both gave me sympathy squeezes but didn’t offer further advice. Now wasn’t the time for one of our soul chats, not that I usually unburdened my feelings to them even then. Brielle was the feelsy one in our girl’s group.
We headed down a few minutes later to find Kolton, Reid, and Jagger in the front office, deep in conversation as they studied the silver trap that had almost taken my foot off. Feeling queasy the second I laid eyes on it, I immediately turned around and headed for the kitchen instead.
But the moment I entered and saw Griff in a frilly pink apron, sharing a laugh with my mother, I quickly backtracked again.
“Vi! Come and join us,” my mom said before I could escape. As Griff looked my way with a big grin still on his face, I froze like a deer in headlights, recalling how he’d pressed me against his dick less than an hour ago. Something heated flashed in his eyes, as if he was thinking of the memory too, and I quickly looked away.
“Um, I’m really not that great at cooking,” I replied to my mom, slowly stepping backward. “I should probably check my emails.”
“Nonsense,” she said, forcing me to halt once more. “You’ve just never had thepatiencefor cooking. The boys were always better at following directions than you.”
