Chapter 15 Viol #4
I didn’t deserve the name that sounded so sweet on Poppy’s lips.
I was something different now. Something worse.
“Stop fucking calling me that,” I snarled. “Leave me the hell alone!”
My room was right around the corner. There, I’d be safe. There, I could suffocate in my agony in peace.
Cobalt grasped my arm. “Violet, stop this,” he implored. “Speak to us.”
I freaked out. I bit him, not caring how hard.
With a silent look of astonishment, he dropped me, more out of shock than pain. I veered into my room and slammed the door hard enough that it echoed down the hall like a thunderclap.
After that night, I was never the same.
“Viol,” Poppy said sternly.
The cold embrace of the past disappeared as Poppy’s voice forced me back to reality. The present.
It was evening. We were outside the castle together. Jade stood nearby but distant enough to give us space. His arms were crossed, his expression grave and concerned.
I shut my eyes tight. I pinched myself for a good jolt. But the dark memory still had its claws in me, like it was trying to drag me back. To relive it.
“Viol, look at me,” he demanded. When I couldn’t respond, he curled his lip and released a wolf’s growl from his human throat.
That snapped me out of it.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, running a rough hand through my hair. “Sorry.”
“I need you to listen to me carefully.” Poppy gripped my hands. Then his gaze pinned mine. He didn’t let me look away. “This is not the past. We do not live in the past.”
I nodded vaguely, hearing his words but not truly understanding them, and he knew it.
He growled again, louder. It was jarring to hear such a foreboding sound coming from Poppy.
It startled me, grounding me back to earth.
I focused on the sensation of his soft fingers digging into my skin; of his worried but warm eyes peering into mine.
“Don’t get swallowed up by your memories. Stay with me,” Poppy urged. “I need you. Here, now.”
“I know.” It came out as a hiss between my teeth. “I’ll go now. I can get there before—”
“What did you say?” Poppy interrupted. His brows knitted. “You said I’ll go, didn’t you? You’re trying to go without me.”
My shock turned into understanding, then disappointment. I didn’t want to have this argument with him.
“Whatever happens, I am not taking you back there, Poppy,” I stated. “I won’t do it.”
Poppy’s stare was resolute. “I’m going.”
“You can’t!”
“I can, and I will.” Poppy’s voice took the sharpest edge I’d ever heard. “Sorrel is my brother. He’s my responsibility. And I left him behind.”
My voice cracked from guilt. “No, I did.”
“In the last decade and a half, I never went back for him. Not to check if he was alive. Not to rescue him. Not once.” Tears glistened in Poppy’s eyes, but he remained strong while I turned brittle. “You’re not the only one who wanted to forget the past.”
I stared at him with an aching heart. Shame I’d barely locked away gnawed at me from the inside. The overwhelming memory that Jade’s warning conjured was so intense that it threatened to bring me to my knees.
Yet Poppy, who shared that memory, remained standing.
He was stronger than me. He always had been.
But it was my duty to protect my fated mate, and the idea of deliberately returning him to that evil place warred with my instincts. I’d already failed him as an alpha once. I wouldn’t be able to handle it again.
“Konrad is dead,” Poppy said quietly. “Without him, the clan is probably a shell of its former self. Rorik knows the state of it. We can talk to him.”
I shook my head. “I can’t bring him into this. Not when he has toddlers.”
“We’re not asking him to fight,” Poppy pointed out.
I winced when he said we. A pang of fear pierced my chest. I spoke louder than I meant to. “You can’t come.”
Poppy’s eyes flashed with emotion, then sharpened. He stepped closer to me, challenging, chest to chest. Then he proudly raised his face and stared at me with wolf’s eyes.
“You promised.”
The statement shook me to the core. I remembered the exact conversation that inspired Poppy’s words now, years later.
But the next time there’s a big adventure, you’re not leaving me behind.
Okay, okay. I promise.
My jaw dropped at his audacity before I slowly let out a resigned chuckle.
“That’s a low blow,” I said.
He pouted. “You deserved it.”
My mouth curved into a grin. “Fair enough.”
It wasn’t just the promise that finally made me relent.
Poppy was soft-spoken and gentle, but he was anything but weak.
Hell, he’d proven it over and over, not just in the last ten minutes, but across our lifetimes.
While I retreated behind a spiky shell to push people away, Poppy opened his heart to let them in.
That was his strength. His willpower and grace could conquer anything.
Jade cleared his throat. He’d stepped away to give us privacy, but of course, my older brother wanted to know what we’d decided. When I nodded him over, he returned.
“Well?” Jade asked.
Poppy and I exchanged a firm glance.
“We’re going to the tundra clan,” I told him. “Together.”
Jade didn’t look surprised that Poppy was coming along. Though that made sense, given his intimate experience with a pushy omega who never took ‘no’ for an answer. Or maybe he simply knew Poppy better than I thought he did.
“All right,” Jade replied, primly pushing up his glasses. “So, when should the rest of us arrive? Shortly after you?”
I frowned as a tendril of fear snaked down my back. “Now you’re pissing me off. I’d better not fucking see you there, Jade. Or anyone else. I’m serious. Don’t drag our family into my mess.”
“Viol, he wants to help,” Poppy said.
“It’s not safe,” I snapped at Jade. “What part of that don’t you understand?”
Jade didn’t flinch. “What exactly is your plan when you arrive? I assume you’re not going through with the exchange.”
“Of fucking course not!”
“Then you’ll abduct Sorrel and leave the remnants of the clan the way you find it?”
I gritted my teeth. Grudgingly, I saw his point. We couldn’t just rescue Sorrel and abandon the other omegas crushed beneath the heel of the tundra clan alphas.
Guilt and regret chewed at me. The last time I tried to save Sorrel, it didn’t end well. But I was a different person back then. I wouldn’t hesitate this time.
But Jade sighed like I was a difficult student who didn’t understand his lesson. “Viol, let me be clear. I trust you and Poppy to take whatever action you feel is best. My only concern is for what will happen after.”
“Huh?” I was confused. Jade actually trusted me?
Jade paused, then gave a thoughtful hum. “Actually, never mind. I’ll figure it out.”
That sounded more like the Jade I knew.
“Okay.” I jabbed a finger at him. “Don’t tell the others. Seriously. This is our fight.”
Poppy glanced at Jade, then at me, but said nothing.
Jade smiled at me, slipping a hand behind his back while the other pushed up his glasses.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” His expression turned serious.
“But Viol... do be careful. You deeply worried us the last time you returned from that place. Please don’t make us suffer a repeat of that terrible day. ”
I grimaced as his words weighed on my shoulders.
The idea that I’d hurt my older brothers never crossed my mind then, but as an adult, it felt stupid not to think of that.
Back then, I was so tangled up in my own stormy feelings that I didn’t consider theirs.
Seeing their brother so devastated—without an explanation why—couldn’t have been easy.
I owed them the truth. Not now, but someday.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, flushing in shame as I stared at the ground. “I’ll come back normal this time, I swear.”
He smirked. “You don’t have to be normal. Just be you.” He winked at Poppy. “Take care of him, all right?”
Poppy beamed at Jade, affection shining from his face. “I will.”
Even my brother knew that between the two of us, Poppy was stronger.