“I would like to meet with Lucian briefly,” Fane announced. “Then we will start the search for Nick’s mate, Kara.” He looked at Angus, the Ireland alpha. “I’m requesting that Kale refrain from joining the hunt.”

  “Agreed.” Angus looked over at his beta. Kale didn’t make a sound. He simply lowered his eyes and turned his head, leaving his neck vulnerable.

  “Dillon,” Fane called out.

  He must have already known what Fane was going to say. “Dalton will stay behind,” the Colorado alpha said.

  Then Fane turned and looked at Costin, who held Sally tightly against him, his cheek pressed to her hair. His eyes were focused on the floor where Lucian had been moments ago. “Costin, you need to be with your mate. You will stay here. Titus will be brought to you. Thia will be brought to Jennifer, and they will remain as well. You are to stay away from Lucian. Am I clear?”

  After several heartbeats, Costin looked up at Fane. “I am no threat to Lucian. If you remember, I have lost my mate before. But because I have been where he is, death would be a gift to him, and I would grant him that.”

  Fane growled. “That is not your place.”

  His third lowered his eyes. “It is not. And I will do as you have requested.”

  “Elle.” Fane looked for the fae. She stepped from behind her mate and wiped hastily at her face. Fane didn’t want to ask her to be a taxi service. He would love nothing more than to allow her to mourn the death of her friend. But that wasn’t how life worked. It didn’t cater to us even in their most dire of times. He started to speak but was interrupted.

  “I can return the others.” Nissa stepped from the shadows of the room. Her eyes were not red from tears, but she seemed defeated. The fae normally stood ramrod straight, holding her posture proud and her chin high. Now, she seemed to droop with sadness.

  “Thank you.” Fane hoped his voice conveyed how much he meant those words.

  “We will meet back here in twenty minutes,” he announced. “Alphas, you decide who you want to bring. Any allies that are willing to join, be it fae, elf, or sprite, are welcome.”

  “Where is the warlock queen?” Thalion, prince of the elves, asked.

  Fane didn’t look at his mate, even though he could feel her worry for her mom. “She is otherwise engaged, and it is important that she not be suspected of working with us.”

  Thalion caught on and nodded.

  Movement began in the room as Nissa gathered up those she would flash. Fane headed for his mate. Andora already stood beside Jacquelyn, speaking too softly for Fane to hear with all the noise in the hall.

  “We will do what we can to slow the spread,” the queen said as Fane knelt down on the other side of Jacquelyn. “We’re searching for anything that might help, considering…” She paused.

  “Considering that the sprites we needed might have been blown to hell?” Jen appeared behind the chair where Jacque sat.

  “Jen,” Jacquelyn growled.

  She sighed a weary sound. “I’m sorry,” she said, surprising Fane, and the others as well based on their wide-eyed expressions. “That was insensitive of me. I am sorry that you might have lost your friends, Andora. I’m just…” Jen cleared her throat. “I can’t.”

  Jacquelyn reached up and laid her hand on top of the one Jen rested on the chair. Jen wrapped her hand around it as if it was the only thing keeping her from falling apart.

  Fane focused on his mate and cupped her cheek as he looked into her eyes. “I love you,” he said, uncaring that others were near and could hear their exchange. “I’m so sorry.” Regardless of how things had been left with Peri, his mate loved the high fae. All of them loved her. And it hurt like hell.

  “I won’t believe it until I see it with my own eyes, Fane.” she said firmly. “I can’t.”

  “Okay.” He nodded, allowing her to hold onto that hope, at least for now. Hope, faith, and trust in the Great Luna were all they had, but those things were strong.

  He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her lips. He tasted the salt from her tears and swallowed down his own. Then he looked at his sleeping son. Fane ran a finger across his soft cheek. “Give your mamma hell so she has a reason to fight. She wouldn’t dare let us leave this world thinking you might grow up to be a hooligan.”

  “Y’all aren’t going to die, Fane,” Jen said. “I won’t allow it.”

  “Good to know you’ve become all powerful,” Jacquelyn said dryly. “That’s just what we need in this messed up world. A beheading nympho with anger issues who can’t seem to keep her clothes on.”

  Fane raised a brow at his mate. “There’s actually worse options.”

  “Don’t encourage her,” Jacquelyn said, a sad smile on her lips.

  He gave her one last kiss and forced himself to stand. Andora explained where he would find Lucian, and Fane headed that way without looking back at his mate and child. Looking back made him feel like it might be the last time he saw them, and that wasn’t acceptable. His thoughts returned to what had transpired less than half an hour ago. He needed to deal with Lucian and figure out why he believed his mate was dead. He hoped with everything in him that his uncle was wrong.

  “Should I join you?” Decebel asked as he came along beside him.

  “Don’t you want to tell Jen goodbye?” Fane asked.

  “I did. She told me to find Kara, figure out if the high fae butthead was really dead, and not to come home until I did.” Decebel shrugged.

  “And what was your response?”

  “I told her to keep her freaking clothes on and not stab or behead anyone while I’m gone.”

  Fane chuckled. “Beta, you have no idea how thankful I am for you and Jen.” They turned down the hall, as the sprite queen had instructed.

  “Because we make the rest of you feel like you have normal, healthy relationships?” Decebel smirked.

  “Pretty much.”

  Chapter

  Seventeen

  “Nothing in life is certain, except death, of course. Well, in the supernatural world, even that is questionable. I should know. I’ve been dead before. And now I’m not. I’m here being annoyed because someone I love might be dead, but I don’t know if she is. As I said, nothing in life is certain. Life sucks.” ~Jen

  Jacque laid Slate in the bed that Cindy, Sally’s mom, had brought into the suite where they were staying. Cindy had tried to speak to her daughter, but Sally refused to speak to anyone other than Costin and Titus.

  Jen stepped out of the room she and Thia had claimed and shut it quietly behind her. She looked at Jacque with dull eyes full of exhaustion and confusion. The strange bond that had linked the three of them together allowed Jacque to get glimpses of how her best friends felt, but she tried to give them their privacy. Like the mate bond, when the emotions were strong, Jacque couldn’t block them.

  “What the hell was that?” Jen breathed out as she walked over to a large couch and dropped gracelessly onto it. She pointed to the door that Costin, Sally, and Titus had disappeared behind a few minutes earlier. “It was like she was possessed, Jacque. I’ve never seen her like that.” She frowned and shook her head. “Even when she lost her crap after the whole Oceanside mess and wanted to tap out of life, she didn’t look crazy. But that”—she nodded again toward the door—“that was crazy.”

  Jacque sat down and ran her hand across her face. She understood Jen’s worry. “I’ve been thinking back over the past few years about all the things we’ve been through since being introduced to this world.”

  “Wishing we had taken the blue pill?”

  Jacque snorted. “Life would certainly be easier.”

  “What did you come up with after all this thinking?”

  “We’ve been through more in a few years than most people will endure in their lives. And obviously most of it hasn’t been the … normal … challenges that life throws at you. Nothing about it has been easy. Even having a soul mate has been difficult. Or true mate or whatever it is you want to call two people who’ve been created especially for each other.”

  “Totally overrated,” Jen muttered.

  “The moments of joy we’ve had,” Jacque continued, “have been snapshots in time. Only long enough for us to appreciate that we weren’t dead. But that’s not true. Some of us have died.”

  Jen looked up from where her hand had been playing with the frayed end of her shirt. “Yes, we have.”

  “And some of those deaths were chosen sacrifices because of love, a choice willingly made to save another.” Tears formed in Jacque’s eyes, and she let them fall. There was no point in wiping them away when there would be more to follow. “Cynthia, Alina,” Jacque whispered, and then Jen continued.

  “Sally.” Though Jen had not been there, she’d heard all about it from the mouth of the high fae who’d been enraged at Sally for her choice.

  Jacque nodded. “She gave up her life for Peri, and she did it selflessly. No anger in the situation. She was just resolved to the fact that it was her place to do so, like she knew it was her purpose, her time.”

  “You’d think that after being my friend for all these years, she’d have absorbed some of my selfishness and self-preservation.” Jen sagged deeper into the couch.

  “She’s a healer, Jen. Though not perfect, she carries more compassion inside of her than the rest of us.” Jacque looked at the closed door and remembered a time when she and Jen had stood outside of Sally’s door after she’d returned from Oceanside. They’d heard her ask Costin to tell her over and over what she meant to him. She had needed to hear that after all that had happened, he still loved her. “The last words she and Peri spoke were less than pleasant, correct?” Jacque asked Jen.

  Jen pursed her lips and nodded. “Yes. Peri was cruel, and Sally being Sally, was still trying to see something good inside of her. And I wanted to see it, too.” She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I wanted to hear one of her stupid speeches about how she expected us to stay safe because she was sick of saving our asses. Before, her words weren’t harsh but said in concern. Sternly, yes, but out of the deep love she had for us. Regardless of Vasile and Alina’s deaths, I don’t understand why those feelings toward us would have changed.”

  Jacque’s mind kept jumping back to the day in the Dark Forest when they’d fought Reyaz. He’d forced Sally’s hand, leaving her with an impossible choice: her life or someone else’s. Peri’s had been the one on the line. Something about that day was tapping Jacque’s shoulder, telling her there was something important she needed to remember, that it might help them understand how things had come to this. Then it hit her. “Bloody hell,” Jacque said, and the air whooshed out of her.

  “What?” Jen sat up suddenly and glanced around the room as if she expected an attack.

  “Sally told Lucian that Peri wouldn’t leave us,” Jacque said.

  “Yes, Red, I was there as she attacked the unstable wolf.”

  “Her words conveyed one message.” Jacque eased forward to the edge of the couch, her arms resting on her knees. “She was adamant that Perizada wouldn’t die while things were such a mess between all of us. But her tone of voice, that said something different than her words. It didn’t match what she was saying.”

  Jen’s eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open. “She sounded—”

  “Betrayed.” Sally’s voice came from across the room. She came in and gently closed the door behind her. “She left us on that mountain … after all we’ve been through,” their friend said as pain etched its way across her face. “She walked away.”

  “You think Sally is wrong?” Jen asked Jacque. She turned and watched Sally, weighing her reaction.

  “I know she’s wrong,” Jacque answered. She remembered the words the high fae had spoken after Sally had died for her.

  “How?” Sally challenged. She sat on the coffee table in front of them, stuck out her jaw, and crossed her arms over her chest.

  Jacque took a deep breath. “You remember the day you died?”

  “Most people shouldn’t remember that, but yes. It’s quite clear in my head.” Sally bit her lip as she simply stared at Jacque.

  “Peri was so angry with you, which you later found out because she never let it go.”

  A small smile turned up on Sally’s face. “She’s good at holding a grudge.”

  “What you don’t remember,” Jacque continued, “because you didn’t hear it, was that she said you shouldn’t have died for her. Peri said she should have been able to stop Reyaz herself.”

  “Of course she did,” Jen muttered.

  Sally frowned. “How could she have stopped him?”

  Jacque didn’t have an answer for that question, so she just shrugged and moved forward, recounting the memory. “I remember exactly what I said to her. ‘Peri, you are not all powerful. You can’t prevent the death of every person you love, no matter how badly you want to.’”

  Jen leaned forward. “How did she respond?”

  Jacque took a deep breath and looked back at Sally. “She said, 'Perhaps not, but I can sure as hell die trying.’”

  Sally’s brow formed a deep V as the words seemed to penetrate through the deception she’d felt from Peri’s perceived abandonment. “What?” Her arms dropped, and her hands clenched into fists in her lap as she took several shallow breaths. “What are you saying?”

  Jen dropped her head into her hands and shook it back and forth. “She didn’t betray us. She didn’t hate us. None of her damn words were true.”

  Jacque swallowed hard as her lip trembled. “Exactly. She did just as she said she would.”

  Sally’s face fell, and she wrapped her arms around herself, her body rocking back and forth as if the motion would somehow take some of the sting out of the revelation. “She died trying to save us.”

  Jacque closed her eyes. The hope she’d been holding onto that Peri was somehow still alive slipped through her fingers like water. “Peri was nothing if not faithful to do what she said she would.”

  “She’s not dead, dammit,” Crina snapped at Lucian through the bars of the cell where he sat slumped on the floor. Adam had tried to calm his mate, but she was having none of it. Fane and Decebel stood on the right side of the room, both males staring at Lucian as if they could will him to speak. Fane probably could, but Adam knew he wouldn’t abuse his power that way.

  “She could be right.” Elle’s voice filled the space behind them. They all turned as one. Sorin was at her side, his hand resting on her back as he looked around the room and seemed to take in every person’s position.

  “See.” Crina snapped her fingers at Adam’s comrade. “Elle knows. She’s a fae and mated to a wolf. She gets it.”

  “But just because you could be right doesn’t mean you are,” Elle added.

  Crina crossed her arms in front of her and glared at the female fae. “So much for female solidarity.”

  “Adam.” Fane spoke, his deep voice calm considering all the hell that had broken loose recently. “You said Lucian mentioned he couldn’t feel the bond between him and Peri.”

  “That’s what he told me when I asked him to reach out to her, per Sally’s request,” he explained.

  “A true mate bond—” Crina began but Decebel interrupted her.

  “Can be broken, regardless of what we’d believed before. We’ve seen it happen, and if anyone would be able to do it, Perizada would.” The beta didn’t seem to have any love lost for Lucian’s mate.

  “Why is it that when you males get something stuck in your head, your ears are impervious to any other piece of information?” Crina began to pace in front of the cell. Adam could feel her frustration and agitation. “Elle, explain to these ignorant wolves how fae and wolf true mates differ from wolf true mates. I’ve tried and apparently they’re deaf to my voice.”

  “Babe,” Adam said.

  She shook her head at him. “You haven’t been any help.”

  He hadn’t. Mostly because he didn’t want to give her or Lucian false hope.

  Elle looked at Adam, and questions filled her eyes. “Your mate understands this better than you do?”

  Adam took a deep breath. “Our matings are the first of this kind, Elle. Fae don’t generally bond.”

  “They didn’t,” Elle corrected. “That’s changed. And our magic is different, which means our bond is different.”

  “Different how?” Decebel asked.

  Crina threw her hands up in the air. “Are you freaking kidding me? I just told you.”

  “You’re not fae,” the beta said.

  Crina took a step toward Decebel. “Whoa, feisty she-wolf.” Adam snatched her around the waist and pulled her far from the beta.

  Elle narrowed her eyes on Adam. “Explain exactly what happened when you spoke with Lucian. Because that”—she pointed at the broken wolf—“is a wolf who should be dead, considering his mate is dead.”

  “Supposedly,” Crina corrected.

  “Could be.” Elle pointed her finger at her.

  Adam took a deep breath and blew it out as he released his mate. “After we talked to him, he refused to attempt to find her. He simply said he couldn’t. Crina told him it wasn’t that he couldn’t, but that he wouldn’t. She then explained about how our fae magic binds to the wolf in a separate way from the true mate bond.”

  Fane’s head tilted as Adam saw his alpha’s eyes begin to glow; his wolf’s interest must have been piqued.

  “Our magic doesn’t just connect us with that single chord that we can see through our mind's eye,” he continued. “It wraps itself around, through, and deep into every part of them. It’s completely set apart from the wolf magic that binds true mates, and it can’t be turned off. But, if it’s never revealed, it can be hidden. The fae has to want for their mate to feel it.”

  Decebel frowned. “Why would a mate hide it?” His voice was filled with indignation at Adam’s words.

  Elle spoke before Adam could answer. “Because it’s not like the wolf bond where you can shut down parts of it. Once we allow that magic to reveal itself, there is no closing it.” Sorin stepped closer to her, and she leaned into him. “The wolf mate can block it, but we”—she motioned to herself and Adam—“we will forever remain laid bare before our mate. Past, present, future. Shame, joy, pain, love, passion, hate, all of it for our mates to see.”