I was so startled when I heard Vanessa’s voice in my ear that I nearly dropped the LAW, a small and compact rocket launcher, I’d been inspecting.

“Peter,” she said, “I know the secret now. I know what to do.”

“Vanessa?” I asked the empty room as I spun around. How had she gotten back here? Had she escaped?

Outside, the afternoon sun had begun to warm the streets and sidewalks of the Rock. Before too much longer, it would be behind the mountains to our west, and we’d have to get a move on if we wanted to reach the castle where they were keeping both women.

Vanessa laughed a little, a disconcerting sound considering the gravity of the situation we were all in. “No, silly. I’m not there.” I felt my hand rise of its own accord and press my palm over my heart. “I’m here.” Below my palm, though, I felt my heart skip a beat.

“Oh no,” I whispered, panic seizing me for the first time since before I could remember. “They killed you, didn’t they?” Was I going crazy? Was she speaking to me from the beyond?

I heard another laugh inside my head. “No, believe me, I’m fine. A little roughed up, but fine. I see you are, too. Got whatever that was out of your back?”

“Yeah,” I said, still shocked and unsure of my mental state, “feeling much better. It was silver. You felt that?”

“Of course I felt it. We’re entwined now.”

“Entwined?”

“Ivana says it’s because we’re both alphas. That, for whatever reason, our bond is stronger than the others, because of our blood. Whatever that means.”

“Ivana? I thought she was dead.”

“Believe me,” Vanessa replied in my head, “came as a surprise to me, too.”

“So she’s not?”

“Oh, she’s dead alright. But she’s here somehow.”

“How?”

“Think I understand how any of this works?” she asked, laughing a little. “I’m asleep right now, I think, but somehow I’m talking to you like you’re right next to me. For all I know, you’re just a dream.”

“Well, for all I know, I’m just going crazy.”

Footsteps sounded in the hallway outside Jessica’s office where I’d been inspecting some of the weaponry. “Cap?” Jake asked as he poked his head in the door. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to appear calm. The last thing I wanted to do was tell the pack that I was hearing my mate’s voice inside my head. Even if they didn’t think I’d lost it and gone off the deep end, they’d probably want to know why it was happening. And that was definitely not something I had an answer for. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Thought I heard you talking to someone, that’s all.”

I shrugged. “Nope. Wasn’t me.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, giving me a slow nod. “Alright, then.” He turned and left, going back out to our staging area in the gallery where we had assembled all the cleaned, locked, and loaded weapons.

“Use your inside voice when you speak to me.”

“What?” I whispered.

“Trying thinking, I mean. Like inside your head.”

“Like this?” I thought, sub-vocalizing the words like I was thinking to myself. “Can you still hear me?”

“Perfect,” she replied. “Now close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“I want to check if something works. Ivana says it will.”

“Hold on,” I thought, putting the stubby canister that would extend into a tube capable of delivering an explosive projectile on the desk. I closed my eyes and turned to face the room.

And there she was. A luminescent version of herself, like an outline of her body and face drawn in forest green florescent light. “Can you see me?” she asked, her phantom shape brushing a lock of hair behind her ear.

I nodded in amazement. “Yeah,” I thought back. “I can see you.”

“Good,” she said, taking a step toward me, slipping her arms around my waist.

She felt real. Like really real. Like she was there in the room, and those were her real arms slipping around my body.

I sighed, slipping my arms around her. I didn’t know if I was going crazy or not, but there was no denying the feel of her in arms. It felt just as perfect as the night before, back in the living room of my cabin. So perfect, so wonderful. I put a finger beneath her chin and tilted her phosphorescent lips to up mine.

She stood up on her tiptoes, her body blending into mine as we seemed to melt together.

I lowered my head, pressing my lips against hers. A feeling like I’d never experienced before, not even in all the years of us together before I’d left my father’s pack and joined the Navy, surged through my body. Warm light, the kind of rush I felt when I was on the hunt with my pack, the kind I felt as we stood atop the boulders on mountain peaks, howling at the moon, seemed to engulf me as our lips pressed together.

She opened her mouth against mine, running her tongue across my lips until I opened them. We danced together, tasting each other for the first time in over a decade, even as we seemed to pry apart the bars holding our souls in our own bodies.

It was completeness. Oneness. Like losing yourself in the moment, allowing your body to dance on the flow of nature’s universal music.

“Hey, Peter?” Richard asked from behind me. “You okay, man?”

Startled, I released Vanessa from my embrace and turned around, eyes wide.

Richard gave me a weird look, his eyebrows so scrunched together he looked like he had just one, his eyes narrowed.

“I-I-I’m fine,” I stammered out, realizing immediately how ridiculous I must have looked when he came in, my back to the door, my arms wrapped around the body of a phantom woman. “Just, you know, thinking.”

“You sure?” he asked, taking a step into the room, his eyes flickering down to my lips. “Is that…”

“Is that what?” I asked, following his gaze. I reached up, brushed the tips of my fingers over my lips, and peered down at the redness smeared there.

“Is that blood?” Richard asked in concern.

“No,” I said, glancing back up at him. “It’s lipstick. It’s Vanessa’s lipstick.”