Sacrifice of Love (31 page)

Then, as quietly as he had appeared, he got up and left.

Alina stared in the direction he had gone and tears filled her eyes. She had never known Vasile’s brother, and yet she felt a strong sense of loss because she knew how it had hurt her mate to lose him. And now he was back, but he didn’t remember Vasile.

“Is anyone else just a little freaked out that the wolf just told us he can still phase?” Jacque asked.

“A tad,” Sally agreed.

“Maybe a little,” Cynthia added.

“Frankly I’m just glad he doesn’t want to snack on us,” Jen said.

They didn’t know how much time passed before they saw the white wolf again, or Lucian as Alina called him. They were guessing that it had been three or four days, maybe more. They were trying to judge time off their sleeping patterns, but they had determined that the pain from the bonds breaking was making them sleep more. Cynthia said it was a way for the body to deal with the pain, to run away from it. Food kept showing up, but they hadn’t seen Reyaz since the first time he had come.

“Maybe he forgot about us,” Crina said.

“As much as I don’t want to be in the clutches of Reyaz the crazy, if he forgot about us we’d be even more screwed than we are now. Jen don’t even think about it,” Jacque cut Jen off before she could get a word out. “We would be stuck here with no food, and no way to escape.” she finished.

Sally looked over at Jen who was rocking back and forth with her lips pressed together. “It’s killing you isn’t it?” Jen nodded.

Jacque groaned. “Fine, spit it out you nympho.”

“Ugh, thank you! You said
screwed
.” Jen pointed at Jacque and giggled.

Jacque’s eyes widened as she looked at Jen, then she turned to Sally. “Things are much worse than we realized if that is her only sex remark.”

Sally nodded. “I think it’s a lack of you know what. She’s losing her touch because she doesn’t have anything to draw her ideas from.”

“Oh, good call, that’s a great psychoanalyst of her.” Jacque agreed.

Jen frowned. “Okay, so what I’m hearing you two say is that I need to get some.”

“Pretty much,” Sally nodded.

“This is what you guys are subjected to all the time isn’t it?” Lilly asked Alina, Elle, and Crina.

Alina laughed. “It’s never boring when they are around.”

“When did females begin talking so openly of bedding?” A deep voice shattered the calm moment. The words were choppy as if the owner hadn’t spoken in a very long time and he had just had to relearn how to use his lips.

“Lucian,” Alina’s voice held so many emotions it was hard to tell which one was dominant. She walked towards him, but Elle grabbed her arm, keeping her back when she would have gone closer.

“How do you know me?” he asked. His head cocked to the side in a very wolf like gesture but the furrow of his brow held all the intelligence of a man trying to remember.

Elle stared at the man before them and tried to remember if this is what he had looked like so many years ago. His hair was blonde, which was rare for someone of his descent, although not totally unheard of. He was every bit as tall as Vasile but he was leaner. She imagined that could be attributed to the fact that he had been living in a land that was essentially was dead. His facial structure was very similar to his brothers, but instead of blue eyes, Lucian had silver eyes with a rim of black around the iris. It looked as if someone had taken eye liner and drawn a circle around the silver, capturing it and causing it to jump out at the one who bore the weight of their gaze.

She didn’t know what she had been expecting him to wear, nothing at all if she had actually thought about it. He did, however, have on a pair of loose fitting cotton pants. Her head tilted as her mind processed this. If he was wearing a pair of pants that were obviously from this time, someone else was aware of his presence here as well. Elle was still trying to figure out how Lorelle and Reyaz knew about the dark forest. It was not something that anyone was supposed to have been able to remember, and the fact that two supernaturals had, did not bode well for everyone else. Alina’s voice drew her attention back to the scene before her.

“I am your brother’s mate,” she answered.

He stared at her blankly. No emotion crossed his features at the mention of a brother. He seemed to be trying to figure them out, as if they were an complex equation with which he was struggling.

“What does the dark wizard want with you?” he asked her.

Alina blinked several times, confused by his question. “Dark wizard?”

“Yes, the one who brought the fae with him.”

“Oh, you mean Reyaz. He isn’t a wizard, he’s a warlock,” she told him, “he wants to kill us.”

“Why?”

“Revenge. He wants to kill Cypher’s mate because his own mate died and he blames his brother,” Cynthia answered.

“Okay, so is anyone else wondering why we’re just spilling our guts to this Neanderthal?” Jacque whispered.

“Dude, shut it. This is the most interesting thing to happen since Sally had her dirty dream.” Jen said.

“It wasn’t a dirty dream,” Sally muttered defensively.             

“Just keep telling yourself that Sally, whatever makes you feel pure and innocent, but we know the truth.”

“Is there anyone searching for you? Do they know you are missing?” Lucien asked.

“Our mates know,” Alina answered. “They are probably frantic by now.”

“Why did they let you out of their sights?”

“And there it is, the butthead gene that they all share,” Jen said without trying to keep her voice down.

“At least they’re consistent,” Sally commented.

Jen started to reply but once again felt her stomach cramp and nearly fell to the ground. Cynthia caught her and eased her down and the other girls gathered around her protectively. Cynthia pressed on her abdomen to feel which direction the baby was turned and kept the frown to herself when she felt that she was dropping into the birth canal, preparing for delivery.

“What is wrong with her?” Lucian's urgent voice broke through the murmurs and Lilly turned to answer him.

“She is pregnant and getting very close to her due date, and the bond between her and her mate is nearly broken, so she is in a lot of pain. In fact, every mated female here is losing the bond with their mates and are in a lot of pain, though they hide it well.”

Lucian continued to look at Jen and the women hovering around her, but he still spoke to Lilly. “Why are you telling me this? Why are you not worried that I will somehow use it against you?”

Lilly looked at him thoughtfully. She took in his bedraggled appearance, and the obvious neglect of his health. His body was so lean, unlike the werewolves she knew. She watched as he looked on at Jen. Worry was written on his brow and the need to do something showed in the way he bounced lightly on the balls of his feet. “You are not a bad man,” she finally told him, “you may have been in a bad situation for a very long time, but if you were evil, it would have overtaken you long, long ago.”

“I may not be evil, but there is darkness inside of me and where there is no darkness, it is empty, just waiting for the darkness to fill it up.”

Lilly was caught off guard by his candidness and a swell of compassion rose in her heart for this man who had been alone for so long in such a desolate place.

When Jen was finally able to sit up and breathe without crying out in pain, they all gathered in a semicircle facing Lucian who sat ten feet away from them. He was still very leery of them, but at the same time it was apparent that he was starved for companionship.

“What happened to you, Lucian,” Lilly asked, getting right down to it.

“I volunteered to fight the witches and Volcan, along with some other warrior wolves.”

“Why did you survive and no one else?”

“I don’t know.” He ran his hand through his shaggy hair. The motion looked so unpracticed and new. Many of his movements were that way, like he was relearning how to use his body in his human form.

“Okay,” Lilly said calmly, “How have you survived? What have you been eating?”

This time his eyes widened in shock as he looked at the females. “I don’t know that either.”

“Have you been alone the whole time,” Elle asked.

He nodded. “Yes, until Reyaz and the fae showed up, it was only me.”

Elle sensed there was something he wasn’t telling them. She didn’t feel as though he had ill intent towards them, more like he didn’t quite trust them yet to bare his soul.

Alina was about to ask him another question but he jumped to his feet, moving so fast they barely saw him. “He’s coming,” he told them with wide eyes, “he must not know about me.” He turned and, just as he had done before, he became one with the darkness of the forest.

“Hello ladies,” Reyaz smiled at them, but it was not a happy smile. It was a smile that a child gave to the piece of cake sitting before him covered in thick, rich icing. Needless to say, it was creepy.

“Hello Clarice,” Jen whispered in her best Hannibal Lector voice. Sally elbowed her but then whispered. “Silence of the Lambs.”

“The hunt will begin soon so I need to get you all in your places. I have set up a nice little game for your males and they are trying to figure out where you are as we speak so that they can begin the hunt. So, Lorelle will do the honors of taking you each to your resting place, no pun intended.” He chuckled at himself and it made Sally want to stab him with something very sharp over and over again. The violent thought should have bothered her,
should have
, she thought,
but didn’t.

“Don’t worry, you won’t be alone. You will go in pairs. That way you will have someone to talk to while you wait.”

Lorelle appeared out of nowhere and grabbed Elle and Lilly and then was gone so quickly that it took the others a second to realize what had just happened.

“Mom!” Jacque screamed just as all the others joined her in calling out after Elle and Lilly. She turned to scream at Reyaz, but he too was gone. More quickly than they could have imagined, Lorelle was back and grabbed two more, this time Cynthia and Jen. Next, it was Sally and Crina and last Jacque and Alina. No matter how they tried to hang on to each other, Lorelle pulled them apart and flashed with them before the others could retaliate.

When the clearing where the females had once been was empty, the white wolf stepped out from the forest and stared at the spot. He let out a low growl, then threw his head back and howled like he had done so many times, only this time there was someone to hear.

Chapter 20

“I know that the saying goes that life isn’t fair. It’s a complete and total given that life isn’t fair. I’m just hoping that death is fair; that
my
death will be fair. Because for anyone else to die in this place, for this reason, would be less than fair, it would be tragic, and these people have had enough tragedy for one lifetime.” ~Unknown

“Read it again,” Cypher said for what seemed like the fiftieth time. As if hearing it
one
more time would suddenly cause an epiphany.

“We all agree that it’s a battlefield, right?” Adam spoke up.

“We agreed that sixteen hours ago; quit beating a dead horse,” Peri barked. Her fuse was growing shorter and shorter with every hour. “We only have eight hours until this
hunt
starts.”

After everyone had returned from their separate fact-finding missions, they had reconvened only to discover that they had all come to the same conclusion about the type of place of which the riddle spoke. They had yet to figure out where exactly that place was located or how they would get there.

Fane, Skender, and Sorin had returned with the troll king, though it was not by their choice. He had demanded to see Perizada and insisted that he help in any way he could. Peri had been surprised and touched by the troll's out-of-character offer. The pixie king had also joined them, though that was because he couldn’t get away from Peri fast enough. He did seem to be a little calmer when she explained that there were no pirates involved. Why pirates were what scared the pixie, she had no idea, and she didn’t care to ask because she had way more important things to wonder about.

Sorin ignored the two fae and did as Cypher requested and read the riddle again. They all listened as if it were the first time they had heard it and then went to murmuring and guessing all over again.

“What does the reference to 'two faces yet one soul' mean?” Alston asked out loud, though he spoke to no one in particular.

“A werewolf,” Vasile said as he growled, “how did I not see that. It’s a wolf, two faces - the man’s and the wolf’s - but one soul.”

Murmurs of agreement and growls of irritation of not seeing it sooner cascaded across the group.

“Okay, so we have a battlefield that has only seen a werewolf for many years. We are really breaking it down people,” Fane said dryly. “I think we just might have this thing figured out by next year.” Fane slammed his hand down on one of the tables and bit back a snarl.