“I felt arms surround me and wetness on my face. I looked up into brown eyes brimming with tears. Her lips were moving, but I couldn’t hear anything. My wolf stirred, begging for release. He could save us from the anguish. But, the beautiful brown eyes stared into mine and the urgency in them had me holding off the phase. I narrowed my eyes trying to hear what she was saying, trying to understand why this Sally was so different from the other, the one I couldn’t save. I knew I couldn’t endure one more moment of seeing my mate suffer, so I closed my eyes to the crying Sally and called on my wolf.” ~ Costin
“The stairs,” said Alina shaking her head. “How is that possible, we were running, I felt my legs moving, the wind on my face,” her speech grew more urgent with every word. “I know I was moving.”
“We started walking when we got down here and you pointed in that direction Peri,” Cynthia pointed out.
Peri nodded. “We thought we did. Our minds were telling us we were moving because our fear is to not make it in time. I couldn’t figure it out at first, but I knew I needed to hurry. I didn’t bother to examine why I all of the sudden knew we just had to go, without thinking about a plan or anything. It was this place, using my fear against me.” She let out a deep breath and shook her head.
“The mind is a very powerful tool,” she said, solemnly. “And, in this place it is your enemy.”
“So if we can’t trust our minds,” Elle prompted.
“Trust your instincts,” finished Peri.
“My mind is screaming at me to run,” Sally said as she stared down the hallway she thought she had been running down, “in that direction,” she pointed.
“Crina, use your nose,” Peri told her. “What does that direction smell like?”
Crina closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She let her wolf out enough to use her senses, to break down the mixture of smells into individual scents.
“I smell,” she paused, “nothing.”
“Good, now what about that way?” Peri nodded.
This time all of the wolves took in deep breaths. Jen spoke first.
“Decebel.” She started to move, but Rachel grabbed her arm.
“Wait,” Rachel said calmly. Jen looked at the healer and then at the others. She could see the realization on each of their faces. Their mates were close. Very close.
“Now,” Peri said as she looked at them, her voice that of a teacher instructing her class, “follow what you know is a fact.”
“Our mate’s scents are that way,” Jen announced. “Does everyone else agree? Because, I really don’t want to run standing in place again thinking I’m getting somewhere like a dumb ass only to find out I’m in the exact same place I started.”
Jacque nodded. “I hear you, and yes, our mates are that way.”
Alina took the lead and they began walking briskly. Every so often Alina would stop and take a deep breath. The other wolves would follow suit while Elle and Sally tried hard to ignore the irritation building, because they needed to hurry, they weren’t moving fast enough.
“Sally, stop.” Jen’s words wrapped around Sally like a steel band and held her in place. She hadn’t even realized that she had turned and was walking away from the group. Her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened.
“I didn’t realize,” Sally began.
“You can’t smell Costin. You don’t have anything to go on, but what your mind is telling you,” Peri explained. “You are going to have to trust your friends, your pack mates.”
Sally nodded, but didn’t say anything else.
“Peri, something is not right,” Alina looked back at the Fae.
“What do you mean?” Peri asked.
Alina pointed and they all turned to see that, once again, the stairs were mere feet from them.
Jen threw her hands up in the air. “You have got to be kidding me!” She growled in frustration.
Peri’s eyes narrowed as she stared at the stairs. Why weren’t they getting anywhere? She had pointed out their fear. They were aware of it and not allowing it to dictate their actions, so why weren’t they making any progress. Her head snapped over to Jacque.
“When you came down those stairs, what were your biggest worries?”
Jacque answered, without hesitation. “That we wouldn’t find them in time.”
Peri pointed at Rachel waiting for her to answer the same question.
“I’m afraid that two hours wouldn’t be enough time to find them and get them out.” Rachel told her.
Peri smacked herself on the forehead, as she realized her mistake.
“Finding them,” she said, “not only are we afraid that we won’t make it in time, we’re afraid that we won’t be able to find them.”
“Bloody hell,” Sally murmured.
“Our own fears have been keeping us right here?” Cynthia asked, with raised eyebrows.
“Picture your mates, ladies,” Peri instructed as she walked over and stood on the bottom step so she was a tad taller than the rest. “Cynthia, make yourself useful, since you have no mate to picture, and sing.”
Cynthia’s eyes narrowed. “You want me to sing?”
“Did I stutter?” Peri snapped.
“Can I ask how singing will help?”
“It will keep them grounded on what’s real. Give them an anchor so to speak.”
Cynthia didn’t say anything more, but thought for a brief moment and then started to sing.
I have seen what man can do,
When the evil lives inside of you.
Many are the weak,
And the strong are few.
Her voice carried as she sang, filling the room with a deep, rich music that reached into each of them.
Peri spoke over Cynthia’s singing, but made a motion to Cynthia to keep singing. So she did.
“Picture your mates, think of how they smell, look, and sound. Focus on details no matter how small. What color are his eyes? What does his hair look like when the sun hits it and light touches the individual strands? What does his skin feel like under your fingers? What does your mate’s scent smell like to you and how does it make you feel? Put all your energy into remembering them, every detail.”
Sally let Peri’s voice draw her in and she pictured Costin. His hazel eyes sparkling with mischief and his lips turned up in a playful smile. She pictured his dimple that always made her heart beat faster and heard the laughter that usually accompanied it. She pictured him standing before her with his hands on her hips, as they had been when he had been teaching her how to bartend. She pictured his lips moving towards hers and she remembered how he had smelled, how his scent had called to her. It called to her now. Her eyes had drifted closed as she thought about her mate, but when the scent of him hit her nose, they immediately snapped open.
Sally’s eyes widened as she look around the room where she stood. She hadn’t moved from where she was standing, but the room she was in now was dark and made of earth. All the other females were with her, but there were more than just them. Kneeling on the dirt floor mere feet from each other were their mates. All oblivious to one another, each locked in their own misery.
Her head turned to the right slowly and the breath was wrenched from her lungs when she saw Costin. He was leaning over and looked like he was stroking something, but there was nothing in front of him. Sally ran to him and knelt down next to him.
“Costin,” she whispered his name, as she brushed the hair from his face. “Costin, sweetie, it’s Sally.” His head turned slowly and his eyes locked on hers. His eyes were wild and desperate. He looked back down to the spot where he had been staring and then back at her. He was trying to decide something. She placed her hand on his face and reached out to see what he was seeing. She bit her lip to keep from crying out as she saw her body lying before him; naked, broken, bloody. She jerked away from the image and met his eyes.
“I’m real Costin. I’m real.” She took his hand and placed it on her chest so he could feel her heart beat. “Feel,” she told him. “I’m your Sally, the real Sally. I’m whole, unharmed.”
Costin was staring at the hand she had placed against her chest. His eyes narrowed in concentration, his jaw clenched, and his breathing became shallow. After several minutes, he leaned forward and laid his head where his hand had been. He listened to her heart and felt it’s beating against his face. He turned his face so that his nose was against her and then he slid his face higher until his face was against the bare skin of her collar bone. He took a deep breath and let out a low growl. His wolf stirred and though the man didn’t want to believe that this was his Sally, the wolf refused to let him turn away. Mine, his wolf snarled. Costin’s arms wrapped around Sally and pulled her tightly to him. She gasped at the sudden movement, but then wrapped her arms around him and returned his embrace.
“Sally,” he whispered, his voice was rough and she felt his words rumble in his chest.
“It’s really me, Costin. I’m real. I know you don’t know what to believe, but I’m real.”
Costin pulled back and looked at her. He reached up, brushed away a tear from her cheek, and felt the wetness against his skin. Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. There was no hesitation from Sally. She returned his kiss wholeheartedly. She kissed him as though her life depended on it. Costin felt Sally’s lips mold to his, and then part when his tongue pressed against them. Her taste hit him hard and he ended the kiss abruptly pulling back to look in her eyes.
“It’s you?” he asked, almost afraid to hope.
“Yes.” She smiled and it lit up the darkness that had been surrounding him for so long.
“Can you stand?” She asked him. “We need to get out of here. We only have a limited amount of time.”
“How are we going to find the others,” he asked her as he let her help him to his feet.
“They’re right here,” she pointed to the other males around them, now being attended to by their mates.
Costin’s eyes widened as he saw how close he had been to Decebel, Adam, Fane, Vasile, Gavril, Sorin, and Drake. It had only been mere feet between them.
“They’d been right here all along?” He looked on as the other males began to stand to their feet and the same realization hit them.
Decebel’s wolf was so close to taking over. He was fighting it, but he didn’t think he could watch his mate scream for another second. He was on the verge of phasing when he felt a warm hand caress his neck.
“Dec,” the voice was small, hesitant, not anything, like he was used to hearing from her. He looked up and his eyes met his mate’s. She wasn’t screaming or writhing in pain. She wasn’t swollen with their baby, and she wasn’t bleeding in childbirth. She was whole, healthy, and beautiful, standing before him. She knelt down in front of him and tilted her head to the side. A low growl rumbled up from his chest as he saw his bite mark on her neck. He reached for her and she willingly went into his arms. He closed his eyes and ran his nose along her jaw line and down behind her ear.
“Mine,” he told her as he pulled her closer.
“Yes, I’m yours,” she agreed.
Decebel waited, dreading the moment when she would be ripped from his arms and he would have to watch all over again as their baby died, or his mate was raped, or tortured by an unnamed foe. He held her tighter, praying that it would be over, that he wouldn’t have to live through any of it any longer.
“Baby,” Jen groaned, “kind of squeezing too tight.”
Decebel loosened his hold a little and when she started to squirm, he let out a growl.
“Not yet,” he snarled. “I’m not ready to lose you again. Please just one more minute, let me hold you, please Jennifer.”
Jen stilled her movements as she heard the pain in his voice. She realized that he didn’t know she was really here. He thought she was still just his imagination and that he was going to have to watch those horrible things she had seen in his mind.
“Decebel, it’s really me.” She put both her hands on his face and held him away so he had to look her in the eyes. “I’m real. I’m not going to be tortured or raped. I’m here to get you out of this hellhole.”
He continued to stare at her and Jen could see that he was trying to decide what to believe. She could see that he wanted to have hope, to believe that it was her. But, he was so scared that it was an illusion, a cruel trick by Desdemona.
She leaned forward slowly so as not to startle him and pressed her lips to his. Jen meant for it to be a small kiss, just to reassure him, but it had been so long and he smelled so, so good. She ran her tongue along the seam of his lips and when he groaned she smiled victoriously as his lips parted and he deepened the kiss. Jen wrapped her arms around his neck and let him pull her against him. She didn’t want to stop, didn’t want to put even an inch of space between them, but they needed to hurry. She pulled back and looked at him. She patted his face and smiled. “You with me?”
“It’s really you? You’re really here?” Decebel asked, as he gripped her hair in one hand and pulled her closer to him with the other.
“Look around babe,” Jen told him.
Decebel slowly turned his head and his eyes widened as he saw the others. He stood abruptly, still holding Jen in his arms. She was really here with him.
“Decebel, put me down,” Jen told him as she patted his shoulder.
Decebel shook his head. “No. If I put you, down it might not be real and I’m not ready to face that. I can’t lose you. I can’t watch you hurt any longer.”
“I’m real baby,” she pulled his face to look at her. “I’m real and I’m not going anywhere.”
He nodded. “Okay, if you’re not going anywhere then there’s no reason I can’t hold you.”
Jen rolled her eyes. “Fine, hold me. Wear yourself out lugging my fat pregnant butt around, see if I care.”
“Glad we’re on the same page,” Decebel told her and pulled her tighter to him.
“You’re really not going to put me down are you?” She asked him after several moments.
Decebel shook his head as he continued to watch the others pull themselves together, gradually realizing one by one that their mates had come. They had said they would, and now they were here, to take them back from the grips of hell.
“Fane, please look at me.” Jacque pleaded with her mate. He was kneeling on the ground while low growls emitted from him. His body shook under her hands as she gently rubbed his back. His sweat soaked shirt stuck to him and Jacque tried to give him some relief by pulling the shirt away from his skin.
“Fane, dammit, I said look at me,” Jacque snarled.
Fane’s head rose slightly at the command in her voice and his lip showed sharp white fangs. His eyes glowed blue and Jacque saw that Fane’s wolf was very close to the surface. Seizing the opportunity, she grabbed his face while it was upturned and held his stare.
“Fane, it’s me, Jacquelyn.”
Fane’s eyes narrowed and he took a deep breath, leaning closer to her to catch her scent. Cotton candy and snow hit his senses and nearly knocked him over. He howled loudly and the others joined in with him.
“Mate,” his voice was guttural as he spoke. He reached up and caressed her face longingly. When he ran a finger along her lips Jacque opened her mouth and nipped his finger playfully with her teeth. As he started to reach for her, a voice behind him had him jumping to his feet, shoving Jacque behind him as he snarled.
Peri stood with her hands in the air as she looked at Fane.
“Peace, Fane, I mean no harm,” she told him, calmly.
Fane looked at her, and then for the first time noticed all the commotion going on around him. He backed up further, pushing Jacque back until her back hit the wall. His wolf was urging him to protect her, to keep anyone from coming near her and hurting her. His eyes shifted wildly from person to person, all of them a possible threat to what was his.
“His wolf is in control,” a deep voice came from the left.
Fane’s head whipped around to meet the eyes of his Alpha and father. He knew him, but that didn’t matter. Down here, nothing could be trusted, his wolf reminded him. He lifted a lip in a snarl at Vasile.
“Fane,” Vasile’s voice rumbled and Fane felt the push in it. “We aren’t going to hurt her. You need to get control of your wolf.”
Fane felt a small hand on his back and then and arm slipped around his waist from behind.
“Fane, come back to me love.” He heard Jacquelyn’s voice in his mind and something in him broke.
He turned around crushed her to him.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he told her. “I thought I’d never hold you again.”
“I’m here,” she told him, out loud. “I’m here and we have to go.”
Fane pulled back and looked down at her. He caressed her cheek and leaned down, kissing her gently.
“Don’t leave my side.”
His glowing eyes told her what his soft voice didn’t. Fane was still not fully in control.
He turned back to face everyone and held Jacque’s hand tightly in his own. He met his father’s gaze and exposed his throat to his Alpha quickly, before watching everyone with weary eyes.
Peri gave them all a few more minutes as the couples continued to stand and look at her. Cynthia had taken over getting Drake to his feet since he did not have a mate. Peri found it odd that they didn’t embrace each other, or ask each other if they were all right. But, as she watched each of the males eyeing one another, she realized that they didn’t trust each other. They didn’t trust that this was real, that the women that they each held close were genuine. Their minds were trying to come to terms with the notion that the mates, solid and whole in their arms, were not going to be ripped from them and tortured
Though she knew that they needed more time to come to terms with reality, she couldn’t give them time. They needed to get the hell out of dodge and they needed to do it yesterday.
“Okay all you lovely, people,” Peri’s voice rose so that everyone could hear her. “As much as I would like to give you all time to process this, you are going to have to put on your big girl panties and just trust that your mates are here to save your assess and go with it. We don’t have time to do a twelve step program, so pull yourselves together long enough to get out of here.”
“Man I missed you,” Adam said from across the room with a sly smile, one arm wrapped around Crina as he smiled at Peri. The smile was real and the words as sarcastic as ever, but there was still something off in his eyes.
“Yes, yes, I know. You want to pledge your undying love for me, yada, yada,” she said, dryly, “Let’s get moving people. Cynthia, start singing again, please, and maybe make it a happier tune so that we don’t all want to shoot ourselves.” Peri headed towards the stairs. She motioned for Vasile and Alina to come over.
“Alpha,” she bowed her head slightly to him. “It’s good to see you. Now, if you would be so kind as to lead your people out of here. Keep your wits about you. Listen to Cynthia’s voice and don’t think about your worries. If you have to, take a note from Jen’s book and think about sex.”
“I heard that,” Jen hollered. Peri ignored her.
Vasile took Alina’s hand and began to lead her up the stairs. He cleared his mind of any worries or fears. He only thought of the rich sound coming from Cynthia and the feel of his mate's, hand in his.
Peri directed each of them up the stairs, telling them each over and over to think only of Cynthia’s voice. Peri was the last to begin the climb up the stairs and she herself focused on the doctor’s voice pushing away the fears that were attempting to flood her mind. She refused to give them even a fraction of her attention.
When she reached the top of the stairs she stopped when she saw that everyone was standing there staring at where the opening should be.
“What the hell, Peri,” Jen snarled.
“Has it been over two hours already?” Elle asked.
Peri reached out her hand and placed it on the wall. She closed her eyes as she concentrated.
“That sniveling little weasel,” she spat at the wall. “It hasn’t been over two hours. Our friendly, neighborhood troll thinks to trap me, Perizada of the Fae.”
Adam laughed as he shook his head. “They never learn.” He said to no one in particular.
Peri’s eyes narrowed as she stared at the place her hand had just been. She spoke in a low voice, a beautiful language that rolled off her tongue. Her eyes gleamed and she began to glow as magic pulsed from her body. Suddenly the wall burst open and Thurlok stumbled back on the other side. Vasile and Alina were the first to pass through, and then the others followed. Once they were all out, Peri stepped through the veil, and let it close behind her. She stood looking down at Thurlok.
“You thought to trick me?”
Thurlok pushed himself to his feet clumsily. “I knew you could get out, Peri,” he told her nervously. “I had to close it in case someone came by. It would look awfully suspicious should someone come by and see the veil just sitting open.”
Peri watched him as a hawk would watch a mouse. He fidgeted under her stare as he waited for her response.
“I will let you live only because the blood oath was not broken.” Peri turned to look at Vasile and Alina. “We need to go, now.”
She took off at a brisk jog and trusted the others to follow.
“What about the stone?” Thurlok yelled.
“Check your pocket you dimwit,” Peri yelled back, but didn’t turn to see if he listened to her.
Peri and Elle got a fire started as the others grabbed logs to sit on. The camp was quiet and somber. They had run late into the night and were all exhausted.
Cynthia walked over to Peri and pulled her to the side.
“Why does that seem like it was a little too easy?” Cynthia said, squinting her eyes.
Peri let out a breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Rescuing them from the In-Between was never my real worry,” she admitted.
Cynthia waited for her to go on. Peri looked over her shoulder at the group as she spoke.
“That was the easy part; the hard part will be keeping the males from killing anyone.”
Cynthia’s eyes narrowed. Peri motioned for Cynthia to look and so she did.
Decebel sat with Jen in his lap, her head on his shoulder. She was talking to him softly while his eyes shifted from person to person, narrowing and glowing amber. His shoulders were tense and he looked poised to attack, even though his mate was in his arms.
Costin sat with his back against a tree and Sally in between his legs, with her back to his chest. He held her tight and Cynthia watched as every so often he would kiss her hair or gently brush his finger along her cheek. But his eyes never left those around him. He never looked down at her, but instead watched each person carefully. She looked at each male and saw as they held their mates the distrust in their eyes as they steadily watched one another.
Cynthia looked back at Peri who was watching her expectantly.
“Now you see?” She asked her.
Cynthia nodded. “We would never be able to stop a fight if it were to break out among them.”
Peri shook her head. “Not with these dominants.”
“What do we do?” Cynthia asked.
“We’re going to have to first make them aware of their behavior. So, that they might think before they act on instinct.”
“And second?” Cynthia prompted.
“Second,” Peri breathed, “hope against hope that no one does anything stupid.”
“Then we’re done for,” Cynthia told her.
“Pretty much,” Peri agreed.