SWNOVELS Chapter 270
Chapter 270
I’m glad to climb back into the safety of the SUV with James after leaving the meeting with Ryker.
There wasn’t much left to say after Ryker made his ultimatum. He’s not going to help me get the Al tech back, not if it means
moving against his mate.
I know I should heed his warning.
No one in their right mind pits themselves against the Old
Country Wolves and expects to survive.
But the tech–and whatever damage it might do is my
responsibility.
My family built it, and my family lost it.
No matter the cost, I have to get it back. Then decide whether to hand it over to the military like it was supposed to be, or destroy
it and tell the military that the project failed.
“This isn’t good, Leah,” James says once we start driving.
“Tell me about it,” I mutter despondently. “But it doesn’t change things.”
“It doesn’t?” James says incredulously. “Leah, you heard Ryker. If you go after Karolina, he will come for you. Even Aaron was
smart enough not to cross the Old Country Wolves.”
“In the past, maybe,” I reply, ignoring the tightness in my chest and the tears that prick my eyes. “But if he was here now, I know
he’d be thinking about doing exactly that.”
God, I wish Aaron was here right now.
My entire body aches with wanting my mate.
My heart and soul are in agony, wounded in a way I know I’m never going to recover from. Not until I meet Aaron again in the
next life.
“Things are different now,” I keep going, shoving all those
feelings down to be dealt with later when I can be alone. “The
stakes are too high. We can’t just wash our hands of this Al tech and be done with it. We have to get it back. Could you
honestly live with yourself if the tech got used and hundreds
of thousands–maybe even millions–of people died? Or
worse, what if whoever has it started turning it against other
wolves to eliminate rival packs? Would you still be able to look
at yourself in the mirror and not feel the weight of all those
deaths?”
James looks grim. “No, you’re right. I couldn’t live with that. So
what are we going to do?”
“Look deeper into Karolina for a start,” I reply. “We’ll just have to do it in a way that hopefully Ryker won’t find out about.”
James doesn’t reply to that, and I spend a few minutes mulling over my thoughts.
“James,” I say as a few ideas start coming to me. “Is there a way to track Karolina’s car? Or better yet, her cell phone? Maybe
even both.”
James doesn’t look happy about my idea, but then again, he hasn’t looked happy about any of this conversation.
“Yeah. It’s not that hard.”
Good.
I finally feel like I’m getting somewhere.
If Karolina knows where the missing tech is, then maybe she’ll
there to either check on it–or, god forbid–get ready to use go it. Tracking her movements for a few days or weeks should give us
a good idea of all the places she goes to, and then we can
start checking out those places ourselves and see if that gets
us anywhere.
It’s late by the time we get back to Rathborn mansion.
James wishes me goodnight, and we go our separate ways.
I check on Ethan, but he’s sleeping soundly in his crib across the hall in the nursery.
I go into Aaron’s room, then into the luxuriously appointed bathroom.
I take a shower but don’t linger. I just want to wash the day away before I go to bed.
I climb onto Aaron’s large mattress and collapse in the middle, dragging the blankets over myself and burrowing into the
pillows.
I can still catch the faintest hint of Aaron’s scent and I savor it,
knowing one day soon it’ll be gone, just like he’s gone.
And one day in the distant future, I won’t even remember what he smells like any longer.
The tears come then. And like every night since Aaron was taken from me, I cry myself to sleep.
Almost as soon as I do fall asleep, I begin to dream.
But it’s so lucid, it’s as if I’ve been somehow drawn into
another reality while I’m not conscious.
It’s a beautiful sunlit field, dotted with yellow and white flowers, along with butterflies flitting around and bees
buzzing by.
I don’t think I’ve ever been here before, but somehow it feels
familiar, and comforting, as if I’ve truly come home for the first time in my life.
“Leah!”
My heart jumps at the sound of Aaron’s voice, and I spin
toward the source.
Aaron comes jogging toward me across the soft green grass. He’s wearing light colored linen pants and a white shirt, gaping
open halfway down his chiseled chest.
His eyes are glowing with happiness and the gentle breeze teasingly tousles his dark hair.
“Aaron!” I cry in disbelief, overjoyed to see him.
I run the last few steps to meet him, and he catches me up against him, swinging me in a couple of dizzy circles, before gently
setting me back on my feet.
But the thing is, I can feel him.
It feels real.
Something is telling me this isn’t a dream.
“Aaron,” I say in wonder, drinking in his handsome features, looking up at the face I never thought I’d see again. “Where are we?
What is this?”