You Wouldn't Dare (Khaos Trilogy Book 1), стр. 80
I felt a tug on my hand and looked down to see Erin on the floor, clutching a bottle of water to her chest.
“Jasmine...” She whispered weakly.
“Goddess! What’s happened?” I cried, unable to stand the sights and sounds all around me.
“Something hit us. Something bad. I was one of the last people infected.”
“I was only asleep for a day! How can this possibly happen in a day?”
“Jasmine… you were out for three days.”
“I can’t have been!”
“I should know! I was the one to tend to you, wiping water around your lips to keep them from cracking, taking your temperature, changing, and bathing you. I did it all, honey. At least until I got too ill…”
“I don’t understand. Have any other packs suffered with this? Has the council sad anything about a plague?”
“Not that I’ve heard – you know the council won’t speak on the phone and none of us have a strong enough wolf to try to link them… I’ve tried for days to flush this illness out with water, I must have drunk at least fifteen of these bottles a day, but it’s made it worse if anything!” Her grip on my arm went slack as a bout of nausea gripped her, her body convulsing with dry heaves.
“We need to get word to Khaos! Who here is fit to travel? We need him back! Our wolves will heal with the Alpha here, I know it!”
“He’s not coming back, Jasmine, you know this. Not until he’s won Violet over.”
“Erin…” A sudden thought had come to my mind, one that had me out of my mind with fear. “What if Khaos and Violet didn’t leave in time? They could be in that cabin succumbing to the same thing! We need to find them!”
“You always think of everyone else,” Erin whispered, a smile on her face as her eyes closed and the bottle fell from her hands.
I felt the moment her wolf left her, my heart shattering at the broken pack bond. I screamed for the doctor; my vision blurry, tears streaming down my cheeks.
The doctor came running over, but I knew at that point it was too late.
The Dragonheart pack had suffered its first casualty.
Chapter 24
The Last Two Weeks
Violet
My plan to seduce Khaos failed spectacularly. He simply gave me a kiss on my forehead and went to his own room.
To sleep.
Alone.
It was hard not to take offence. Was it me? There was a time when he could barely take his hands off me, when he would playfully threaten to ruin me, destroy me for all other men, and now he can’t leave the room quick enough.
I spent the next few days in a funk. In fact, I may as well be honest and say I did a complete one-eighty back into my “bratty” temperament that I had shown during our first two days together. Khaos had no tolerance for this, choosing to be out of the cabin and away from me.
No longer did we take our trips into the local town, no longer did we pretend to be man and wife, and gone was the easy familiarity we had found with each other. We weren’t even back to square one, which for us two was usually anger and resentment. No, instead, Khaos treated me with a very formal courtesy, often inquiring about my welfare and trying to take care of me, but it was all done in such a cold, robotic way.
I'll admit that I goaded him, deliberately going out of my way to be fussy and difficult in order to provoke a reaction. Even anger was better than this awkward relationship we had. Finally losing my temper with him, I ambushed him in the kitchen as he was making my current craving - mac and cheese on pepperoni pizza. It wasn’t the healthiest option, but I had thought of nothing else all morning.
I had tried to talk to him as we normally would, but he was only interested in finding out whether or not I was happy, if the baby were okay, and so I snapped. I accused him of fast becoming a weird, fucked up version of a werewolf Stepford Wife and perhaps he and my mother had more in common than I thought, since he was literally living her dream life right now.
He had simply dished up my meal and walked away calmly, pausing only for a moment to say, "maybe you should think about growing up, Violet. You're going to be a mother. I'm sorry I won't scream and shout with you and knock down walls because you're being difficult, but I'm thinking about creating a harmonious environment to bring our child into, not one that is going to cause them to resent us because we go from one extreme to the other. Especially over something so silly as not getting your own way." He left me to eat the meal that suddenly tasted like cardboard in my mouth.
He had a point.
Goddess, I hated it when he was right.
He was making a sincere effort to try to find level footing with me and here I was ruining everything because I wanted it my way or nothing.
Still, I wanted more than he was offering.
When he had offered us this retreat, I thought it was a chance to work on our relationship. Together. As a couple.
I didn’t think it would be this boring, monotonous routine that we had fallen into. That Khaos had created.
This was not the way to solve things. We couldn’t work like this. Eventually, emotions and resentment would