“Why does he have that look in his eye? What did Lucille tell him?”

Dean sighed as he looked at Katarina in exasperation. She sounded as amused as Dante had looked. She had approached the three of them as they stepped out of the main house. His mind had still been going over everything he had learned from Lucille, and it must have shown on his face.

“She told him about finding the tube,” Mikael offered freely, now frowning at Dean.

“Uh huh, and what crazy place are you planning on dragging us off to this time?” she asked, not sounding bothered by the idea in the slightest.

“Really guys? I’m not plotting our next big adventure here.”

“Uh huh,” Dante said skeptically. “You’ve got that look you get.”

“I don’t have a look!”

Dante snorted. “Yeah, you do. It’s the look you got when we were getting ready to leave for the mountain. And the one you had on your face when you went and got yourself caught by Damian. It’s your 'I’m totally about to do something fucking insane’ face.”

“Even if that were true, which it’s not!” Dean insisted, “I wouldn’t know where to even start. We don’t know where that other tube could have even gone. Lucille said she didn’t grab any of his notes and I’m sure Damian’s stuff has been pilfered by now. Hell, I don’t even know where the damn things came from in the first place. I have no place to start, so there’s not some ‘adventure’ I’m planning.”

“I believe I can help with that.”

Dean turned towards the oddly familiar voice, brow raising at the sight of Eveline, the dark eyed woman from the mountain. Samuel stood behind her with a few of the pack’s werewolves beside him. With the exception of Eveline, none of them looked happy to be standing there. Remembering Matalina’s reaction to the message Eveline had Dean deliver, he wondered if it was such a good idea for her to be here in the Grove.

“Eveline? What are you doing here?” Dean finally asked.

“I’m here to visit an old friend, and to assure him that I have no intention of carrying on Damian’s foolish little war with him,” she replied with a knowing glance back toward Samuel. She was met with a hard stare, not that it seemed to bother her in the slightest. From the looks of it, she had been brought here alone and Dean wondered if she had traveled by herself or if she had an escort that had been left at the borders.

“And she insisted that what she had with her was for you,” Samuel continued for her.

Dean looked at her suspiciously. “What could you have that I would want?”

She held up what appeared to be pages out of a book, rolled up and bound together with a rubber band. “Something from Damian’s possessions.”

Mikael stepped forward, reaching his hand out to take the rolled-up papers from her. For a moment, it looked as if she wouldn’t let them go. Her gaze moved from Mikael, to Dean, and held there. Her eyes lingered on him, and her fingers eventually uncurled their grip from the papers so that Mikael could take them.

Mikael pulled the rubber band free, unrolling the pages. “And this is the only thing you got?”

She shrugged. “I was lucky to get that much and it’s useless to me. But I believe it might just hold the answers you’re looking for.”

“What is this, a journal?” Mikael asked as he flipped through the papers.

From what Dean could see, it looked almost like a scrapbook. There was certainly plenty of writing covering each page, all seemingly written by the same hand. In places, however, there were scraps of paper taken from somewhere else, torn or cut from their original source and stuck on the pages Mikael held in his hand. The writing on some of those scraps differed from the others, and Dean spotted a few sketches stuck in there as well.

“Do you recognize it?” Dean asked, noticing that Mikael was frowning at the pages.

“I’m pretty sure this is Damian’s handwriting,” Mikael told him, his fingers tracing the parts of the pages that weren’t torn out from somewhere else.

“I’m pretty sure the scraps are from Nox,” Eveline told them.

“And how do you know that?” Dante asked from somewhere over Dean’s shoulder.

“I did read over it enough to get that much. That man was obsessed with Nox. Everything from where he had been, to what he could do. Obsessed enough that I’m pretty sure they were screwing.”

Dean wrinkled his nose, having suspected the same thing when he was back in the mines. Somehow it wasn’t comforting that someone else had thought the same thing. If that was true, neither of them had been all that bothered by the idea of sharing. Dean wasn’t sure whether Nox harbored any ideas about using Dean’s body for pleasure, but he knew that Damian certainly had. He didn’t know what disgusted him more, the idea of sleeping with Damian, or sleeping with someone who had willingly slept with Nox.

“Okay, so why would you bring this to me? What makes you think this will help me with anything at all?”

“Please. Damian spoke about you enough that all of us knew you were one of the big prizes for whatever his endgame was. We all knew what you were, and he mentioned more than once that his precious Nox had wanted to get his hands on you. It’s not hard to figure out that the three of you were tied to one another somehow.”

Mikael crossed his arms across his chest. “That’s not an explanation. Why don’t you just come right out and say that there was nothing in these pages you could use for yourself and you just wanted an excuse to come here personally instead of sending someone to deliver your message for you?”

“You look like your father, but sound like your mother,” Eveline said, continuing to look amused.

Dean reached up to take the pages from Mikael. “Is that true?”

Eveline shrugged. “Partly, but that’s my personal business. These pages mean nothing to me, and as you know, we all knew Damian was up to something. He wrote about it a little, but it didn’t make much sense to me. We also know you went down there, and probably figured out what he was doing, not that you’re going to tell us, are you?”

Dean snorted. “No, I’m not.”

She didn’t look surprised by his answer. “So yes, the papers are in your hands now because I can’t do a damn thing with them. And you know, from what I overheard, you might just find something in there that you can use. If you enjoy him talking about himself and going on about crystals and power.”

Dean’s pulse jumped at the mention of crystals. He looked down at the pages clenched in his hand and he wondered if this was exactly what he needed. If he were lucky, there might just be some answers in these pages. He hoped that the thick pile of papers in his hand held answers to some of the questions he had. All he needed was to know where he had to start looking, somewhere to start his hunt to find the other crystal, or answers to where they came from in the first place.

Mikael grabbed hold of him and pulled him away from the rest of the group. Dean didn’t protest; he only looked at his mate in surprise. Outside of the bedroom, Mikael didn’t manhandle him. If he was going to break that rule to drag Dean away from the group, Dean figured it had to be something important. It didn’t hurt that Mikael’s strained expression never wavered as he pulled Dean far enough away to be out of earshot of the rest.

“Mikael?” Dean asked, looking up at his face with worry.

“Are you actually going to do this?”

He hadn’t been expecting that. “Do what?”

Mikael jabbed his hand down at the pages he was still holding. “Go reading through that bastard’s journal. Start digging through his ramblings to maybe find some answers so you can go off on another crazy adventure.”

Dean stepped back from the heat in Mikael’s voice. “I don’t understand why you’re so angry.”

“You don’t? Really? Dean, babe, please. I love you and I love how you are, but your crusades are going to be the death of me. Or worse, the death of you. You almost got yourself seriously hurt going up against my dad, then you almost got killed during the ambush. Then you got yourself kidnapped.”

“Got myself kidnapped?” Dean interrupted in annoyance. “I didn’t go out there trying to find trouble, Mikael. it’s not my fault that maniac decided I was his personal toy!”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all, damn it. You just charge off when you get an idea in your head, or you start fighting something, and it always ends up with you almost dying or getting seriously hurt. For fuck’s sake Dean, you could have died in that mountain!”

“But I didn’t, did I?” Dean fought the urge to step back, hurt at this sudden bout of frustration coming from Mikael.

“That’s not the point! You haven’t even gotten over everything that’s happened in the past year yet and now you want to go charging off after something else?”

“Then what is the point? Because last I checked, you were proud of me because I was willing to fight.”

“Dean,” Mikael breathed, reaching out to try to take hold of him, but Dean pulled away from his hand, glaring up at him. Not only did he have people asking after him like he was fragile or something, but now he was going to have to deal with Mikael actually treating him like he was?

“Well? Was that a lie, or what?”

Mikael gave up trying to take Dean’s hand. “No, it wasn’t a lie. I am proud of you. I couldn’t have chosen a braver mate. It’s something else to see you willing to fight for what you believe in, despite what everyone else might say. But damn it Dean, I’m so terrified of losing you over one of these crusades. You went into that mountain as you, but you came out…different.”

Dean’s jaw tightened. “I really wish everyone would stop treating me like I’m going to break at any time.”

“I didn’t say you were going to break. But don’t act like you’re not already under a lot of stress. You aren’t sleeping much, and when you do, you’re having nightmares that wake you up. Sometimes you just check out of a conversation, with a look on your face that breaks my heart. It’s not about you being weak, but you’re a person Dean, not a superhero.”

Dean followed Mikael’s frown down to the pages, as he tucked them close to his body in response. “Fine, but I can handle it. I saw what those crystals could do, and I’m not willing to let one of them just float around somewhere in the world. Hell, there could be more and I might be able to do something about that. They’re dangerous Mikael, in case you forgot.”

“You’re not even listening to me, are you? I’m telling you that I’m worried about you, and you just tell me you’re going to go charging into yet another situation.”

Dean took another step back. “Well, stop being worried. I’m fine Mikael, and the sooner you believe me, the sooner you can get over this.”

“Get over this? Are you even listening to yourself? Don’t dismiss me Dean. That’s not right.”

“And neither is treating me like a china doll. So I guess we both get to be wrong, don’t we?”

Whirling away on his heels, Dean stomped off before Mikael could say anything else. The others were still standing huddled together in the distance, now watching Dean. Apollo had joined them at some point, and he was frowning in Dean’s direction. Everyone else, save for Eveline and her smirk, was watching in silence as he approached.

“Thank you Eveline, I’ll get started on reading through these,” Dean told the Alpha Bitch as he joined them.

“It will please me if you find something you can use.”

Dean snorted. “No it won’t. You just want to see what I’ll get up to next is all. You’ve got the same look on your face that you had when I interrupted your meeting with the other alphas and Damian.”

“Do you plan on hitting someone with a lantern?”

Katarina made a choking noise. “Is that what you did to get caught?”

Dean sighed. “No, I stood up and announced my presence. I simply hurried along his long winded monologue by smacking him in the face with the lantern someone had brought in with them.”

“Scratching up his pretty face into the bargain,” Eveline laughed softly, the sound coming from somewhere deep down inside her.

Samuel cleared his throat from behind her. “Dean, get to work. When you figure something out, come to me and we’ll talk. Eveline, you’ve worn out your welcome. It’s time for you to leave.”

If she was bothered by his curtness, Eveline didn’t show it. If anything, she somehow appeared even more amused as she was swiftly led away. Dean watched her go, wondering if she would be a problem at some point. It was possible he was just being paranoid, but experience had recently taught him not to take his suspicions of other’s motives at face value. She might not look as if she was up to something, but he wasn’t going to discount it either.

“That’s a woman who just wants to stir the shit,” Dante huffed beside him.

Dean shrugged, looking down at the pages he was holding, “Maybe. At least she was helpful when doing it. If you’ll excuse me, I have some reading to do.”

And before Mikael could return to the group, Dean marched off without looking back.