“At some point in the mess of the supernatural world you really think that you have learned all that there is to know. I’m here to tell you, that’s the dumbest thing you could ever possibly think when it pertains to this world. You should be prepared for anything, poised to take in even the most outlandish information, and smile even if you’re thinking this is some crazy, messed up shizzel. So that said, get ready people because the boat is about to be rocked and if you don’t hold on, your butt is going over and I’m not coming in after you.” ~Jen
“Bloody hell, thank you for turning the lights on,” Jacque said when suddenly she could see everyone and everything around her. Though seeing it didn’t really give her much relief.
“Um, does anyone else feel like we’ve just been dropped into the fire swamp from The Princess Bride?” Sally asked as she looked around at the dark, mangled forest around them. The air smelt of sulfurous fumes that burned her lungs and she fought the urge to gag.
“Probably should be on the lookout for ROUS’s,” Jen added.
“I’m just going to pretend I know what you’re talking about,” Crina said as she stood up and brushed off her backside. “But if whatever you’re talking about is creepy, then I agree.”
“So seriously, where did that crazy fae leave us?” Jacque asked.
Alina walked around the clearing where they found themselves. As soon as she reached out her hand to touch one of the gnarled trees, she felt a jolt of electricity run through her body knocking her back several feet.
“Guess that answers the question of whether or not we can wander in this desolate place,” Jen muttered.
Alina looked over to Elle as she attempted to shake off the effects of the jolt. She saw exactly what she expected: utter shock and fear in the fae’s eyes. “Elle,” Alina spoke her name softly, “please share with us what you know.”
Elle continued to stare off into the black woods that seemed to be filled with dancing shadows and eerie eyes that watched their every move. She shook her head as her mouth dropped open and a very un-Elle like squeak emerged. She snapped her mouth closed and took several deep breaths as she attempted to gather herself. Finally she met the gaze of the Alpha. “I’m sorry but I’m trying to figure out how it is possible that we are here. How it is possible that Lorelle was able to bring us here?”
“And where is here?” Cynthia asked.
Elle’s eyes never left Alina’s as she answered, “The dark forest in the realm of the fae.”
Alina stumbled back and nearly touched one of the trees again, but caught herself and pulled back. Her eyes grew wider and she shook her head, attempting to deny the words that penetrated her ears. “That can’t be,” she whispered, “It’s not possible.”
“I know,” Elle agreed, “but our presence here suggests otherwise.”
“I hate to break into this obviously shocking moment, but could you please share with us what you know so that we can properly freak out?” Jen asked matter-of-fact like.
“It’s not something that is talked about, ever,” Elle told her.
“Well circumstances have changed, so I think it’s time to start talking about the fae’s dirty little secret.”
“I think we better all sit down for this,” Alina told the group.
“Crap,” Jacque murmured, “it’s never a good sign when they tell us we need to sit down.”
“Have to agree with you there wolf-princess. It usually means they’re about to drop a new supernatural creature in our laps and I swear if it’s a sparkling vampire then I’m going to push someone off the ledge of ridiculousness we are all perched on like morons,” Jen huffed as she sat on the ground, attempting at gracefulness, but failing miserably because of her swollen belly.
“Is it a giant centipede that releases slimy secretions as it crushes everything around it?” Sally asked.
The group collectively turned and looked at the healer with furrowed foreheads and raised eyebrows.
“What?” she mumbled. “It could happen.”
“Okay, I take it back. Sparkling vampires are a step up from Sally’s random slime infested centipede. Where did you come up with that, gypsy? I mean is that your one great fear like people who are terrified of spiders? What would fear of giant centipedes be called anyways? Pede-acrophobia?” All the eyes had now swung around to Jen who didn’t seem to notice the incredulous looks.
“If you girls are quite done, I can enlighten you as to why Elle and I are so shocked at our appearance here,” Alina waited.
“Ignore me,” Jen told her. “It’s the hormones. Being pregnant has somehow caused me to ramble about completely unimportant things and expect others to care. I’ll be crying in a minute.”
Lilly patted Jen's leg sympathetically before turning back to Alina.
“A very long time ago, before even I was born, and before the great purge of the witches, there was an evil that was unleashed in the realm of the fae,” Alina paused and looked at Elle. “Maybe you should tell it since you lived through it.”
Elle nodded, but didn’t look pleased with the idea. She pulled her knees up to her chest and glanced down at the ground. Her face glazed over as she allowed herself to be pulled back into the past, a past better left forgotten. “The fae have always been the most powerful of the supernatural beings. I have often questioned the Fates’ wisdom of giving one race such supremacy. Power can be very heady. It beguiles the wielder and seduces with the promise of greatness, all the while hiding the truth behind the shiny exterior. Sacrifice is the most important part of being the strongest. Those who refuse to make sacrifices, but instead use the power for selfish gain, begin to rot on the inside. With every act of self-indulgence or with every choice of turning a blind eye to those in need, a piece of that person dies. They become blind to their own egocentricities and so drunk on the authority that all they desire is more and they will do anything to acquire it. We have seen that first hand with Desdemona, but she was not the first."
“One of our own, the most powerful of our people, abused his power, and he sacrificed many using their blood and spirits to fuel his need for more. There was so much malice in him and so much desire to conquer and rule that his very presence began to kill our land. Not only was his evil killing everything around him, but he also was creating offspring from human children, and they were given the title of witch or wizard.”
“Shut! Up!” Jacque’s words were echoed by others. “The fae were the creators of the witches?”
Elle frowned. “No, only one fae was responsible. Volcan. I will only say his name once because names are powerful. He is the one who created the witches and wizards. He used his own blood to fill them with his magic, and then he released them back into the human world. Blinded by his need to defeat and control, it never dawned on him that his creation might turn from him and seek out their own desires. Once we realized what he was creating and letting loose, we knew he had to be stopped. He couldn’t be allowed to destroy the human world. So we destroyed him. It was a long and bloody fight with many lives lost. But in the end we killed him.”
“If he’s dead, why is this forest still on lockdown…and so creepy?” Sally asked.
“Sometimes the infiltration of evil is so profound, so abundant, that it cannot be uncontaminated. There was nothing we could do to purge the evil inside so we had to contain it. That way it could not seek out those who might be easily swayed by its lure.”
The group was quiet as they digested the information, once more blindsided by the happenings in the supernatural world. It was Jacque who finally broke the silence.
“Why is it a big deal that we not know about this? I mean I can understand that you might be worried another fae would seek out the power, but what do the wolves have to do with it?” Jacque could tell she had asked the one question they had been hoping no one would.
Alina glanced at Elle before she spoke, “I think that is enough speaking about such dark things, for now, especially since we are sitting in the home of those dark things.”
Jacque decided to let it be for now, but only because of the haunted look that peered out at her from behind Alina’s stoic demeanor.
“So what’s the plan?” Lilly asked.
“Stay alive,” Crina muttered.
“That’s always a good one to start with,” Jen agreed.
“Okay, let’s think a little broader than stay alive,” Lilly amended.
“Are any of you able to use your bonds?” Alina asked as she glanced at each of the mated females.
“I lost contact with Costin at some point when we were surrounded in darkness,” Sally answered.
“I got nothing, but then that’s not news,” Jen said.
“Nothing here,” Jacque added.
Crina shook her head at Alina and Elle shrugged.
“This feels different than just the bond being closed,” Sally stood and began to pace as she talked. “It’s like the bond is nonexistent, like it never was.”
Alina nodded. “I agree. We’ve all been experiencing the usual pain of being separated from the males, but it is important that you pay attention to the intensity of the pain. If it begins to get worse, then that might mean that it is more than just the bonds being closed.”
“What do you mean more?” Lilly asked as she looked at Jacque nervously.
“It could mean that the bonds are being severed.”
“I’ve decided that I don’t want this news. Let’s rewind and go back to sparkling vampires,” Jen said sarcastically but her words lacked their usual humor.
“For now, we just wait,” Alina told them.
“Waiting sucks,” Jacque complained.
“Not just waiting, Jac, but waiting in a creepy forest where a sadistic, power hungry fae used to turn children into his little minions.” Jen smiled sweetly at her friend when Jacque growled at her.
“You’re not helping.”
“I’m pregnant. I’m not supposed to be helpful.”
“How long are you going to play that pregnant card?” Sally asked her.
“Uh, probably until I am no longer pregnant,” Jen answered with a smirk plastered on her face.
“You being pregnant sucks,” Crina jumped in and it brought a soft hum of laughter from the exhausted, weary group.
“Where could she have taken them?” Decebel asked for the tenth time. “It must be someplace that suppresses the mate bond.”
“What about the In-between?” Costin asked.
Rumbles of growls rippled through the room at the idea of the females in that horrid place.
“Good guess, but no cookie,” Peri said as she flashed into the library where everyone was gathered. “I’ve already checked; they aren’t there.”
“How did you check?” Fane asked.
“I have my connections,” Peri told him but offered no other explanation.
“Perhaps another realm?” Sorin said.
“I don’t know of any realms that would keep the bonds between mates from staying open,” Vasile answered. “And if there were, they would have to be saturated in dark magic.”
“Maybe they are here in the human realm but Lorelle or Reyaz have closed the bond somehow,” Adam offered. “It is well within a fae’s power to block the bond, for at least a little while if they know what they’re doing.”
“It would take a lot of power to do that with this many wolves,” Peri told him, “and to sustain it would take even more.”
“So what do we do?” Fane snarled in frustration. “We have nothing to go on, no leads or ideas, and we have no idea if our females are alright.”
“I know you are frustrated Fane. We all are,” Vasile’s voice was calm but his glowing eyes showed the truth of his emotions. He was every bit as concerned and angered as the rest of them, but he had to keep a level head for his mate and for the males who were desperate to find their own mates. “Wadim, I want you to do what you do best. Find information on all the realms, even ones that might have been forgotten. Peri, join him if you don’t mind.” Vasile turned and looked at Costin, Fane, and Adam. “You three head North, go on foot, and move quickly. Night is taking over and there are lots of things that come out to play at night, things that might have heard rumblings of Lorelle and Reyaz. Gather whatever information you can, and then come back here. Gavril, Sorin, Skender, and Drake, you will head South.
Cypher, I imagine if he shows himself it will be to you. So myself, Decebel, Thalion, and Alston will join you. We will head toward your mountain to see if his presence is still discernible. And if Cyn, Dain, and Nissa could stay here and add a little more protection, I would be grateful.”
Alston bowed his head to Vasile as a show of respect. “We are here to help, and they will guard it well.”
With a renewed sense of purpose, the males made their way out of the mansion and into the coming night.
Reyaz watched from the cover of trees as the males filed out of the mansion. The tension in their shoulders and purpose in their strides told him all he needed to know. They were searching for him. A smile spread across his face as he thought about the wild goose chase he had planned for them. Part of him wanted to tell them not to bother, they wouldn’t find him. And they needn’t worry about not knowing where their females were; he planned to tell them. They would never be able to rescue them, and he felt it a much more fitting form of torture that they know exactly where their mates were being held captive, yet unable to do a thing about it. He hadn’t originally planned on bothering with the wolves, but they were meddlesome, and he figured it was better to deal with them now. That way, in the future when he was ready to remove the species that had his mate’s blood on their hands, the wolves would not be there to stand in his way. Now all he needed to do was decide what to do with the females: what order to kill them in, where to kill them, and what method. There were lots of options and tons of possibilities.
As soon as the males had disappeared into the forest, he made his way to the front door of the mansion. He took out a folded piece of paper and slipped it in between the double doors. He mumbled a few words then smiled at the knowledge that they would only find the paper when it was time, when the game was in motion. And then he was gone as if he had never been there.
Peri paced the room restlessly as Wadim rustled through papers and books. The musty smell permeated the air and only served to remind her of the daunting task before them.
“You could stop pacing any time now,” Wadim said without looking away from the book on his lap.
Peri’s head snapped around to look at the historian. For lack of anything witty to say she snapped, “Why do you wear those stupid shirts?”
Wadim looked up, attempting to look offended but missing it by a mile. “Hey don’t hate on the shirts just because you feel like the girls being taken is your fault.”
Peri ignored him and read the shirt out loud. “‘When in doubt, pee on it.’ What does that even mean and I swear if you hike your leg anywhere is this room I’ll nail your paws to the floor.”
“Has anyone told you that you need help? Like serious therapy, years of it with lots of medication thrown in,” he chuckled at his own words as he went back to searching through the book.
“What are you looking for?” Peri asked as she resumed her pacing.
“Anything,” he paused as he flipped the page, “something, heck I don’t know. But there has to be something that might point us in the right direction. There has to be some place that would cause the bonds to break, and that someplace would be saturated in power, dark power. Think Peri,” he implored her. “You out of all of us know this world and the other realms better than anyone. Where could he stash them that would guarantee that they wouldn’t be able to reach out to their mates?”
Peri rubbed her forehead in frustration as she sifted through her many lifetimes, searching for what Wadim described. The closer she came to figuring it out, the faster her mind seemed to push away whatever it was that might be a possibility.
“I got nothing dammit!” She slammed her hand down on a stack of papers and a cloud of dust rose into the air.
“Okay, well, pull up a chair and start turning pages. Pacing a hole in the ground isn’t going to help us find them.” His voice wasn’t unkind as he motioned towards a chair across the room. “Start with those books,” he pointed to the shelves behind her, “and I honestly don’t know what to tell you to look for. I guess just any instance in history when a place might have been used to house evil.”
Peri pulled out a stack of books and began flipping through, her eyes moving quickly over the page pulling out words and then discarding them just as quickly. “This is going to take forever,” she huffed.
“Well for once in our long lives, forever isn’t a luxury we have.”
Time ticked by and it seemed the hours past quicker and quicker. Still they were no closer to finding an answer than when they both sat down.
“Wait! Wait!” Wadim suddenly yelled.
Peri jumped up so fast that the stack of books in her lap tumbled to the floor and she tripped over them trying to get to him to see what he was shouting about.
“Did you find something? What is it? What does it say?” her words flew out of her mouth in rapid fire.
“Oh, my bad, never mind.”
Peri saw the small smile on the wolf’s lips.
“You just jerked my chain didn’t you?”
He started laughing and had to wrap his arms around the books in his lap to keep them from falling. “I’m sorry but the tension was just too much; we needed a quick break.”
Peri smacked him across the back of the head before heading back over to her chair. “I swear, one of these days I’m going to have wolf pelts adorning my whole house, and I’ll make sure yours is the one at the front door so everyone will step on you on their way in.”
It was midmorning the next day when, group by group, the males returned back to the Romanian mansion. Vasile told them all to get some sleep and when they argued, he reminded them that if they were delirious with exhaustion they would be no help to their mates. They saw the truth in his words, though that didn’t stop them from grumbling as they went.
Decebel called his pack and spoke with his fourth to see how everyone was doing. He felt like he was neglecting them, but he didn’t know how to change that at the moment. His mate would always come first, and he hoped that they would understand and that he would be an example to the other males who had yet to find their mates. He pushed the worry for his pack from his mind and felt the despair of the emptiness inside of him. He fought the overwhelming desire to kill anything and everything. The feeling of helplessness was beginning to suffocate him and he didn’t know how he was going to sleep with such agony raging inside of him.
He laid down on their bed and her scent enveloped him. He rolled to his side and pressed his face into her pillow and memories of her flooded his mind. The first time he saw her he had been captivated by her and his wolf had surged forward with the need to claim her. She brought indescribable joy to him, and though she drove him crazy, there wasn’t a thing about her that he would change. She filled the empty places inside of him, and she loved him when he knew he was so undeserving of that love. His heart ached in his chest and his muscles burned from the pain that seemed to be constantly radiating throughout him. His body called out for his mate. The bond was nearly gone and yet man and wolf still felt the intense need to be close to her. If she died, mate bond or not, he would follow her. There was nothing in this life for him without her here to share it. As he continued to breathe her scent deep into his lungs, he felt the exhaustion take over and pull him against his will into a deep sleep. Instinctively, he reached out for her, needing to hear her voice before the unconsciousness took him, and still there was nothing but a black void where she belonged.
Two weeks past and every day the men grew more and more restless. More than once Vasile had insisted they go spar with each other to work off the agitation and adrenaline that coursed through them at incredible levels.
Peri and Wadim rarely left the archives. When they did, it was only so Peri could throw massive fits, cursing everyone within her sight for not doing more and for resting when they should be out there killing things for information. Everyone made sure to stand a safe distance from her, but still some of them wound up in her line of fire and found themselves ducking as things within her grasp were flung across the room. If it wasn’t for Adam and Alston using their magic to keep things from breaking, Vasile would have found himself having to replace most of the decorations in his home.
One month to the day after the females had been taken, Fane found himself standing on one of the highest peaks of the mountain. His wolf had tried to force his phase, but Fane refused it. He had to take off at a dead sprint in his human form to keep it at bay, pushing himself as he climbed the mountain. It was all he could give the wolf in an attempt to satisfy the pulsing need to hunt. But Fane didn’t know where to begin, none of them did. They had been all over the mountains and still found nothing. They had sought out other supernaturals, hoping for some scrap of information, but no one knew anything. It was as if Reyaz and their mates had dropped off the face of the earth. Alston and Dain had been going into other realms and searching, but they had come back just as empty-handed. It was maddening. But worse was the utter feeling of loss that ripped through him, pushing him to his knees. He knew what it was, but he didn’t want to admit it. None of the males did. It was like the elephant in the room that they all tiptoed around, but refused to acknowledge. The mate bonds were breaking. They weren’t just closed off. They were dying, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. Slowly their mates slipped further and further from their grasps. Soon they wouldn’t know if their mates were alive or not because their fates would no longer be tied to each other.
Fane suddenly threw back his head and howled, pushing all of his anguish, all of his desolation, all of his heart stopping fear, into the sound. Seconds later he heard his pack mates answer his call as their howls joined in, every bit as sorrowful as his own. He didn’t know how much longer they could control their wolves. The need for blood was a lust that was demanding to be sated. Fane guessed the only thing stopping them from going feral was the knowledge that once they did, without the mate bond, there would be no coming back.