Sacrifice of Love (26 page)

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.

Chapter 17

“For the first time in a long time, I just want to sleep. As in, I only want to sleep. Because in my sleep, you are there. During the waking hours, I can’t feel you, I can’t see you, and I can’t smell you. And as time passes, I almost feel as though at any second I’m going to forget you ever existed in my life. But you come to me in my dreams. You hold me; you whisper words that knit my broken heart back together. But when I wake, it breaks all over again.”  ~Sally

“I motion that we play Sex I Spy,” Jen said from the spot where she laid on her back. “We can call it Spex, for short” she said with a snort.

“Okay, can I just clarify one thing? Are you saying we are supposed to spy something having sex?” Sally asked. Lilly and Alina both shook their heads as they listened to the girls’ outrageous discussions that had become an hourly event.

“Jen, I’m bored out of my mind, but I’m still not
that
bored,” Jacque told her.

Jen laughed. “And you guys call me a pervert. What I meant was that if you can’t find what the person spies, then you have to give up a detail of your love life.”

“Uh,” Crina’s eyes darted from Jacque to Sally, waiting to see what their reactions would be.

“Why would we do this?” Sally asked.

“Because we never got to before our lives turned into The Young and Furry.” She pulled her body up into a sitting position and faced the group. “Teenage girls are supposed to go on dates, kiss, make out, and then report back to the girlfriends. It’s in the freaking handbook.”

“There’s a handbook?” Elle asked.

“Of course, I wrote it,” Jen’s face broke into one of those faces that said
duh what did you expect?

“Of course you did,” Crina laughed under her breath.

“I have to admit that Jen is right on what teenage girls discuss behind their bedroom doors. However, there are usually not parents present,” Lilly pointed out.

“Desperate times, Ms. P, desperate times.” Jen looked from person to person, noting their blank faces. Finally she huffed. “Fine, we’ll play something else.”

“Got anything that does not include sex, sexual innuendos, stripping, and the like?” Cynthia asked.

Jacque and Sally laughed as they looked at Cynthia with smirks.

Jen held up a finger. “Hold on, let me think about it.” She bunched her lips up as she tilted her head one way and then the next. Then she scratched her head and tapped her lips with her finger. She sat up straight suddenly. “Oh wait, got it,” she paused as she held out her hands as if to make the others stop what they were doing. Just as quickly her shoulders slumped back. “False alarm. I got nothing.”

Cynthia shook her head at Jen with a small smile while the others let out quiet chuckles that didn’t quite meet their eyes. None of their laughter did, not anymore.