Mending the Beast (Awakening Pride #10) - Lacey Thorn Page 0,10

wouldn’t call it closure. She didn’t believe there was closure for what she’d been through. There was no forgiving or forgetting. But maybe, she could learn to stop blaming herself for what had happened. Maybe, she could find a way to believe she hadn’t deserved what had happened.

She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to have a normal life or relationship that wasn’t overshadowed by that day. She might never move past it. That would be something she’d have to accept. But if she kept going through the motions without trying for more, she’d never know. She wouldn’t give Daniel false hope any more than she’d give it to herself. Some things were never meant to be, no matter what others hoped for.

She moved quickly through the interior of the building, winding her way to the bedrooms attached at the back. Her room hadn’t been left alone, either. The few things she’d left littering the top of the dresser and bedside table were gone, or worse, ground into the floor at her feet. She ignored it as she pushed the bed out of the way until she could reach the loose board in the wall. It would be easy to miss, but she knew where it was. She pulled it out, tossing it to join the rubble before pulling out her treasures. A journal she’d kept the year she’d been on her own, one she’d last written in the day before… Well, before. A picture of the mother she’d never known but always longed for. The scarf her grandmother had knitted for her the last Christmas they’d had together. And the necklace Thomas had found lying in the dirt. Her father had supposedly given it to her, though she’d never met him, either.

She didn’t bother opening the locket. There was nothing in it. There never had been. It was as empty as she was.

She made herself walk through the rest of the building, as well, grabbing a picture from Griffin’s room that he must have left behind by mistake. It was of him and his brother when they were boys. Gideon had a few things in his room that she tossed in her pack, as well. There wasn’t really anything left in the lab area, but she took the time to sift through and salvage anything she thought might be useful. She knew Gideon and Vic had stopped by the trading post when they’d left Colorado and headed toward Oklahoma. It had been one of several stops they’d made.

Finally, she headed to Thomas’ part of the house. She doubted there’d be anything left, but she knew of one place where he’d hidden things. She wasn’t sure if Gideon had been aware of it. Dillon might have, but if so, he would have thrown it in their faces that he had stuff that was important to Thomas.

The male shifter had been another one of Thomas’ saves. Just the thought of Dillon made her sick…and angry. She’d felt no remorse for ripping his throat out. He’d tried to kill two members of the pride and had drugged and fed paranoia into Lydia Blane, a woman Clara’s dad had sent to Thomas for safety. Amia Blane’s mom. Clara Walker’s surrogate mom. The woman had died cruelly, never fully able to make amends to either of the women she’d thought of as her daughters. Hell, Ariel had been so wrapped up in her own problems that she’d never noticed the other woman was being drugged. None of them had. It made her wonder what other havoc Dillon might have created right under their noses.

Ariel crept carefully into Thomas’ closet. It was empty. Completely picked clean. She felt along the back wall, finding the latch with her fingertips and pushing it in the precise spot that would allow it to spring open.

Inside, she hit the motherlode. Journals and papers and pictures and a stuffed teddy bear. She forced herself to push it all in her bag without taking the time to look through it. She needed to be quick. There would be plenty of time to look at it all later. But not her. Clara. Maybe Kenzie. Possibly Gideon. Thomas’ things belonged to his family, and he’d made sure she never felt as if he were family. The one time she’d turned to him after he’d brought her back to the post with him, he’d told her exactly what he thought of her.

We all get what we deserve in the end. The things that happen