My Cheating Mate (Emma and Jeremy) novel Chapter 251

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Chapter 251

My Cheating Mate

Grace pov

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Seven days.

Seven days since Uncle Cas had left to hunt Marcus Dane and Elena Frost. Seven days of silence. No calls. No texts. No updates

informed, through the vampire network that usually kept us

Just-nothing.

I stared at my phone for the hundredth time that hour, willing it to ring. Willing Uncle Cas to check in, to tell us he was okay, to give us something besides this terrible silence.

“Grace.” Connor’s voice from the doorway of my studio. “It’s three in the morning. You need to sleep.”

“I can’t.” I set down the phone. Picked up a paintbrush. Set it down again. “Connor, it’s been seven days. Uncle Cas has never gone this long without contact. Something’s wrong.”

“Or he’s deep undercover. Tracking extremists who’d notice if he kept calling home.” Connor moved into the room, wrapping his arms around me from behind. “Grace, Lord Castellan is eleven hundred years old. He’s survived worse than Marcus Dane

and Elena Frost.

“You don’t know that. You don’t know what they’re capable of.” I leaned back against him despite my anxiety. “Connor, the Preservation Front killed someone and left their body at our border just to make a point. Marcus and Elena are supposedly worse than my father was. What if they-what if they got to Uncle Cas somehow?”

“Then we’d know. The vampire network would have heard something. Victoria would have told us.” His voice was calm. Rational. Everything I wasn’t being. “Grace, no news is probably good news in this case.”

“Or it means he’s hurt. Or captured. Or dead and the vampires just haven’t found his body yet.” The words tumbled out-every fear I’d been containing for seven days spilling over. “Connor/I can’t–I can’t lose him. Uncle Cas has been part of my life since I was born. He’s family. Real family. Not just political ally or vampire lord but actual family and if something happened to him-”

“Nothing’s happened to him.” Connor turned me to face him. “Grace, look at me. Lord Castellan is the most dangerous vampire, I’ve ever met. He eliminated the last terrorist group that threatened you. He’s been hunting threats for eleven centuries. Marcus and Elena are good, but they’re not that good.”

“Then why hasn’t he called?” My voice broke. “Why seven days of silence? Uncle Cas knows we worry. Knows I need—”I stopped. “I need to know he’s okay. I can’t sleep right without knowing.”

Connor pulled me close. “How long has it been since you actually slept? Really slept, not just lying in bed staring at the ceiling?”

“Three days. Maybe four.” I buried my face in his shoulder. “Connor, every time I close my eyes I imagine Uncle Cas hurt somewhere. Captured by extremists who want revenge for what happened to Thomas Vex. Dying alone because he was hunting threats to protect me.”

“Grace, you’re spiraling. Your anxiety is creating worst-case scenarios that probably aren’t real.” He guided me toward the studio couch. “Come on. You need to rest even if you can’t sleep.”

“I tried resting. I can’t stop my brain.” But I let him pull me down anyway, curling against him. “Connor, what if he doesn’t come back? What if Marcus and Elena are smarter than we thought? What if-

“What if you’re borrowing trouble that hasn’t happened yet?” He kissed the top of my head. “Grace, I know you’re scared. I know Uncle Cas not checking in is unusual. But defaulting to ‘he must be dead’ isn’t helping anyone.”

mike not knowing is–it’s worse than bad news. At least bad news is information. This is just “I gestured

blo possibilities.”

Chapter 361

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We sat quietly for a while. Connor’s steady heartbeat itoder my ear. His hand running through my hair in soothing strokes. The familiar comfort of my mate trying to ground me when anxiety was pulling ine apart.

“Tell me about the first memory you have of Uncle Cas,” Connor said quietly.

“What?”

“Your first memory. Of Lord Castellan being Uncle Cas instead of just a vampire lord.” His voice was gentle. “Grace, you’re catastrophizing about losing him. Tell me about having him instead.

¡

Chapter 256

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