A tear slipped down Sally’s cheek. She closed her eyes and let herself soak up her mate’s comfort. They stood like that for several, silent minutes before pulling away. Sally reached for the door, and as she pulled it open, Costin spoke through their bond.

  “Don’t think we won’t discuss the whole shutting-me-out business after we take care of those cuts.”

  “Ooooorrr we could talk about baby names and nursery themes.” She knew she might actually escape his chastising because Costin loved talking about the baby.

  “Sally-mine,” he growled. “You realize how much I hate when you close the bond. We need not have a discussion about it. I can find other ways to show you my displeasure.”

  She swallowed as she felt, and then saw, the visual images in her mind her mate shared with her. Then she got choked up as the thoughts in his mind continued to barrage hers. Mostly, there were handcuffs and chains … and whips … so, so many whips. “I’m going to forbid you from hanging out with Jen. Those things you’re showing me look like something she would dream up. Perhaps I’ll just sleep down here to keep an eye on Jacque.”

  “That could get awkward real fast, brown eyes. Considering our bond and the wonderful ability we have to give physical sensation without even touching.” Laughter filled his voice as she stomped into the room.

  “Freaking perverts and their pervert torture,” she muttered, but not softly enough.

  “Okay, now this is a conversation that sounds good,” said Jen, catching the tail end of Sally’s statement. “We need to talk about something else besides Peri’s demise and Jacque’s heart. Her situation reminds me way too much of a certain Disney movie about a chick with a frozen heart as a result of her butthead sister zapping her. Oh”—she perked up and lifted a finger—“maybe we should take Jacque to some trolls and see if they could do some wicked mojo.”

  Sally rolled her eyes. She’d seen the movie because Titus liked it. “The mojo doesn’t work on the heart, only on the head, remember?”

  “Bummer.” Jen deflated. “I thought I was onto something.” Then her eyes brightened again. “Okay.” Jen patted the chair next to her. “Let’s get back to the perverted torture.”

  The whole room filled with a unified groan at the same time Costin said, “Fane, you might want to take notes. I imagine Decebel is already quite proficient at this, considering the freak he’s married to.”

  Fane leaned back in his chair beside Jacque’s bed, spreading his legs in front of him and lifting his arms. He twined his fingers together and then rested the back of his head in his joined hands. “I don’t think I need any notes. Considering my mate likes to be tied up, I think I’ve got plenty of know-how.”

  Jacque covered her face with her hands and cursed a blue streak, while Jen cackled, sounding like a deranged witch. Meanwhile, Costin was grinning like a damn fool, and Decebel reached over and bumped his knuckles against Fane’s.”

  Sally shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. “And these are the people who are supposed to save the freaking world.”

  Lucian stood in the house that belonged to his mate. He couldn’t think of it as their home, not anymore. Their last encounter had broken something between them, and he didn’t know if they could ever get it back.

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting Peri’s scent saturate him until he was sure it was in his very pores. The ache inside of him was a festering wound that would never heal. Excruciating was putting it lightly. Even when he had been trapped in the Dark Forest, he’d not experienced this level of wretchedness. Lucian remembered the first time he saw her. He’d thought he was hallucinating. He had been in the Dark Forest for so long that he was sure his mind was broken and the woman was just an illusion. But she was real, and she was his. From that moment forward, the darkness, the lack of hope that had been suffocating him, had begun to abate. Lucian never felt such joy as he did at the sight of Perizada. He knew he would never feel such euphoria again.

  The darkness, that she’d chased away with her light, grew inside of him like a sentient being. It was determined to snuff out any place she’d illuminated. Lucian hadn’t been able to linger on the mountain around Fane because his nephew would begin to feel it through the bond that he shared with the pack. He didn’t want Fane to bear the responsibility of having to put Lucian down once he became feral. And Lucian knew that’s where he was headed. Every day that their bond remained absent, Lucian fell deeper into the abyss of the gloom that plagued the males of his race when they were without their true mates. He’d thought the Dark Forest would be the end of him. Instead, his demise would be a broken heart, a torn soul, and the loss of a true mate. He’d take the Dark Forest over this any day.

  “I thought I might find you here.” Adam’s voice came from behind him.

  Lucain turned and looked at the male fae. Standing next to him was his mate, Crina. Her bottom lip trembled, and she looked as if she might break down into tears. He wanted to feel something toward them. They were his pack, his family, and his friends. But where there should have been emotion, only hollowness remained.

  “Damn, Lu.” Adam shook his head. “She’s done a number on you.”

  Lucian continued to simply stare at them. What could he say? That his soul felt as if something had grabbed hold of it and ripped it from his body? That every second that his heart beat, he hoped it was the last? That there was a part of him that wished he’d never met his mate and he’d died in the Dark Forest? And even still, none of those things fully explained how deep his misery ran. So, instead of saying any of those things, he asked, “What can I do for you two?” Even he could hear the defeat in his voice.

  Adam sighed and ran his hand through his hair. Lines etched across his face, and Lucian noticed it looked as if the fae had aged since they’d first met. Apparently, supernatural beings weren’t impervious to stress. “I’ve been sent by a certain healer.”

  Lucian grunted. “Sally.” The young healer had looked at him with such compassion as they stood on the mountain. I’d been so close to seeing my mate. She’d been there only moments before. Why it mattered, he didn’t know. He’d chosen Peri, but she had not chosen him.

  Adam nodded. “That’s the one.”

  “Sally has a feeling that Peri is going to do something dangerous,” Crina said. She wrapped her arms around her stomach as if she’d fall apart if she didn’t. “She wants to see if you can try and find her. Use your bond, try—”

  “The bond is gone,” he stopped her. His voice was sharp, and Crina jumped at the tone.

  Adam placed his hand on his mate’s shoulder and gently pushed her slightly behind him. He might not be a wolf, but he had the protective instincts of one.

  “It’s not gone, Lucian,” she continued, despite the obvious unease in her eyes. “She’s blocking it somehow, but it can’t be gone.”

  Lucian shook his head even as she was still talking.

  “You have to want to find it,” Crina continued. “Push through her fae magic. If anyone can do it, you can.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean ‘want to’?”

  She attempted to step around Adam, but he wouldn’t let her. Crina scowled at him, but then looked back at Lucian. “The mate bond between wolves is not the same as it is between a wolf and a fae. Their power connects to us in a different way, at least as far as I can tell after speaking to Alina about it when Adam and I had first mated.” She glanced at Adam. “Obviously, I’ve never been mated to a wolf, so I don’t know what that’s like, but Alina described what her bond to Vasile felt like. The emotions, the passion, the completeness is the same, but with a fae, their magic binds to a wolf separately from the true mate bond.

  “Even if you can’t feel your true mate bond, her fae magic is woven into your own magic. I wasn’t really aware of it until, well…” She blushed and looked at the ground. “It just feels different.”

  “Her magic was different from my own. I know that. She had abilities that I do not, but I never felt that there was a separate bond from the true mate bond.”

  “You wouldn’t have felt it if she didn’t want you to,” Adam said. The fae pressed his lips together, and his brow drew low. He took a deep breath and then met Lucian’s eyes. “In order for you to have known that her magic had attached to you, had woven itself into your own magic, she would have had to allow that part of herself to be open. We are able to shut that fae magic bond down, just as Crina can shut down the mate bond.” Adam paused, and Lucian saw the hesitancy on his face.

  “Tell me,” his wolf said in a deceptively calm voice.

  “Peri is old, Lucian. I know I don’t need to tell you that, but it bears reminding. Being vulnerable is not something I think she can ever do. And revealing that bond would have basically given you free reign into her mind, her soul, and her heart. You would have seen every ounce of her power, every dark part of her soul, every insecurity, every pain she’d felt in three thousand years, all of it laid before you.”

  “And yet you’ve done that for your mate?” Lucian asked. “You’ve given Crina this gift?”

  “It’s different for me,” Adam began.

  Lucian slashed his hand through the air. “NO. A true mate is a true mate. It doesn’t matter if they are wolf, fae, sprite, or anything else.”

  “I’m not as old as Perizada,” the fae continued. “I have been her comrade—her warrior—but I have never been a high fae, nor bore the responsibility of such a position. She carries so much on her shoulders.”

  “And she didn’t have to any longer,” Lucian growled. “She had me.” He slammed his hand against his chest. The emotions he’d managed to keep locked away suddenly broke free. Discovering that Peri had kept something so precious from him was like a knife had been removed and then replunged into his heart. “I would have taken all of it!” His wolf rose further to the surface as his beast’s hurt and rage grew. “If she had only let me, I would have stood by her for the next three thousand years and faced all of it with her. Over and over again, I offered her my support and my patience. I was willing to swallow my pride and give her the independence I knew she needed. And I sat here.” He motioned to the house, glaring at the offending space. “I waited on her, time and time again.” He turned and pressed his head to the wall behind him and repeatedly slammed his hand against it. The wall shuddered under his strength with every blow. Over and over he did it, because the sting on his palm felt better than the betrayal burning through his heart.

  “She left,” he said. Indignation began to fill the dark part of his soul that had previously been an empty void. “She walked away as if I’d meant nothing at all.”

  “No,” Crina cried, the distress in her voice so painful that Lucian turned to face her. She shook her head at him, and her eyes widened. She looked as if his words were a personal affront to her. “A true mate can’t walk away. Not without going mad. There’s no way.”

  Lucian thought back to the fight they’d had when he’d left, unable to bear anymore of her harsh words. “Then perhaps that’s what happened. Maybe it began the moment we met. If what you say is true, then she’s been walking away from our bond since our eyes connected and she became my world. She never even gave us a chance.”

  Adam’s mate looked as though Lucian had kicked her in the gut, and her lungs no longer worked. Join the club. Lucian didn’t know if he’d ever catch his breath again. He walked toward the door, turning his back on the couple. They’d sought him out in vain. There was nothing Lucian could do to change what his mate had decided. Only Peri could choose him. He wouldn’t beg her, and he wouldn’t attempt to force her to be with him.

  “You can’t just give up,” Crina whispered at the same time her mate said, “Don’t do this, man.”

  “I didn’t do this.” Lucian did not look back; he would not allow them to see the moisture that filled his eyes or the single tear he shed for the only woman he would ever love. He pulled the door open and stepped out into the cold night air. The click behind him as it closed felt as if he was sealing not only his own fate but that of his mate’s as well.

  Lucian had no idea where he would go. He knew he could not return to his pack. He didn’t want to see the pity on their faces or watch the devotion in the eyes of the other mated pairs. His feet continued to move without his own instruction, leading him farther into the fae realm, to the forest that lay beyond Peri’s home. Memories of their time by the river there attempted to surface in his mind, but he quickly shoved them away. Despite all of the time they’d spent apart, he’d treasured the moments they had together. He lived for them. His wolf didn’t understand. It fought against the human controlling it. But Lucian knew his mate’s needs. His beast had wanted to follow her around like a disturbed stalker. Maybe if he’d listened to his wolf earlier, he wouldn’t be walking alone right now, being chased by the past that allowed them no peace or solace.

  His feet led him directly to the spot where he’d shared the Blood Rites with her. He stared at the ground, but it wasn’t the memory of their time there that filled his mind. It was a conversation he’d had with Costin before Peri had given into their bond.

  “It’s hard to believe that for sixty years I was capable of getting through the day without her, but now”—Costin exhaled—“now, every minute away from her is torture.”

  Lucian nodded. “Like you are seeing the world in black and white until she walks into the room and suddenly everything is in color, vibrant colors that reflect her light.”

  The words had never rang more true. Lucian’s world, once filled with color because of Peri’s mere presence, now returned to the bleakness of his black-and-white existence. There’d been a time when he had believed he’d never have to exist like that again. Lucian had no idea how long he stood there. Time seemed to have no meaning. What was the point? He had no one waiting on him, wondering if he was okay, eager to have his arms around her. Alone. Once again, he was in a dark forest. Only this wasn’t a physical bleakness. It lived inside of him.

  He turned to leave the place, vowing to never return. Suddenly, his chest felt as if fire burned him from the inside out. His knees hit the ground, and he threw out his hands to catch himself from collapsing face-first into the ground. Lucian gritted his teeth as the burning intensified. He lifted his head and forced himself to glance around, wondering if he’d been attacked. The blaze inside of him seeped through his flesh. He looked down at his arms and saw blue fire engulfing them. “Mate,” his wolf growled, baring his teeth against the agony. What the hell was happening? He couldn’t feel her through the true mate bond, yet he knew that the fire burning him was her. The flames traveled up his arms, over his shoulders, and down his back and torso until his entire body was tortured by the inferno.

  “I’m sorry.” Her voice burst into his mind, her emotions chasing away the shadows as the blaze lit his skin. It had been too long since he’d felt her, but what came through the bond now threatened to crush him. A fervor of regret, sorrow, and shame. Lucian reached for her through the bond. He lifted his hand as if he could somehow snatch her from wherever she was, but as quickly as the fire of her presence had appeared, she was gone.

  Arms lifted him from the ground, but Lucian didn’t fight them. What did he have left to fight for?

  “Is he okay?” Crina’s voice broke the silence.

  “I have no idea,” Adam answered. “The man was just lit up like a blue torch. But I have an idea of what it might be. Let’s get him to the sprite realm with everyone else.”

  “Was it Peri?” Crina asked, seeming closer now.

  “I really hope not.” Adam’s voice sounded as broken as Lucian felt.

  He didn’t bother to answer Crina’s question himself, even though he knew the answer. His mate was gone.

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  “Every armor has a weak spot, a vulnerability. It takes patience to find it, but once it’s visible, exploiting it means the difference between winning or losing.” ~Alston

  “Told you she’d be alone,” the pixie said smugly to Alston, Ludcarab, and Cain, who stood hidden in the woods, with Alston’s magic offering them camouflage.

  “Yes, you’ve been most helpful,” the high fae said absently. He watched the female jog along the perimeter of the fence that she foolishly thought would protect her. To be fair, she also believed that the fae and djinn magic they had surrounding their compound would protect her as well. Perhaps for weaker supernaturals it would have worked. But Alston and Ludcarab were not weak supernaturals. “Once we’re gone, you stay here and keep an eye on things. When they realize she’s gone, all hell will break loose.”

  “She’s young,” Cain said.

  “Old enough that her bond is recognized by her wolf mate,” Alston pointed out. “According to the pixie.”

  “I have a name,” the pixie grumbled.

  Alston ignored the little pest. “They haven’t completed the bond.”

  “How does he know that?” Ludcarab asked. He glanced at the pixie in question and then turned his eyes back on their prey.

  “They argue about it all the time,” the pixie huffed. “She’s constantly griping at him for not completing it, and he tells her she’s young and doesn’t need to rush something so permanent. Whoo-wee,” the pixie cackled. “She doesn't like it when he tells her that. When their arguments get to that point, she comes out here and runs. At first, he would come out with her and try to follow her, but that only made her more angry. She’s quite a feisty thing. Eventually, she convinced him to let her have this time to herself to cool off. Of course, the dumb wolf doesn’t realize that she never really calms down. She’s simply getting herself ready for their next argument.” The small supernatural shook his head. “She mutters the whole time she runs, as if he’s there and she’s griping at him. Humans are so silly.”

  “You could have simply said they argue about their bond,” Cain said dryly. “We didn’t need the whole soap opera about their relationship woes.”