Part of me applauded them for seeking out happiness, while another part of me wanted to slap them for being so stupid. They would be discovered—everything had consequences. The curse was teaching me that. However, I’d always encouraged Nathan to follow his heart, and now I was planning on taking his soul mate away from him as soon as I figured out how.
It was the middle of the night, and I felt a little hungry. I stumbled downstairs and picked at leftovers in the fridge.
“Amelia?”
I jumped at the sound of Opa’s voice.
“Yeah, sorry. I was hungry.”
“Good. You need to eat, little one.”
Tears came to my eyes at the gentleness of my grandfather’s tone, and I felt as though I hadn’t heard his voice in a year. I turned to gaze at him in wonder, and he shrugged.
“You were right. All along, you were right. I let my own pain break up the family. But it will get better. I promise you.”
I shook my head and took a deep breath to control the shaking in my voice. “Don’t make promises. Right now, they don’t mean much. Show us it’ll be better. Show us everything can go back to normal.”
When he bowed his head, I knew he couldn’t take things back to the way they were. “We’ll never have the same lives again,” he said. “I can’t change what’s happened; I can’t change how I feel. I need Vin to suffer after what he did to your grandmother. I need to feel as though I’ve done something for her and that I haven’t forgotten her. I don’t want to live in a world in which she doesn’t exist, but I won’t leave it until I’ve repaid a debt of pain. The wolf will never rest as long as he lives. Please understand how it has to be.”
“If you wanted to prove your love, then you’d honour her memory, Opa. She would hate this, and you know it. She would hate to see us like this, gunning for blood, unable to find peace until we grabbed ourselves a dose of revenge. This isn’t the way we’re supposed to be.”
“It’s the way I have to be,” he said, his eyes sad. “I need to do what I should have done all those years ago. I would have saved us a lifetime of pain.”
He left the room soundlessly, and I slammed the fridge door, my stomach turning. It was one thing to defend ourselves, but looking for blood was quite another. I needed to get through to him before he led the entire family straight into a violent war.
I went back to bed, but this time I dreaded what visions sleep would bring me.