“For the pack.” Wadim answered.

Chapter 6

“I dreamed I was running. I was trying to find you. Searching. Every time I got near you, you were gone. I was growing so tired and my breathing was labored, but still I ran. I called out your name but you didn’t look back. I started to fall, but you weren’t there to catch me.” ~ Jacque

“You must wake up.” Jacque knew that voice. It was so familiar to her and yet foreign at the same time.

“Jacquelyn, you must wake up.”

The voice was growing more insistent, pushing into her mind, trying to force its will on her. She wasn’t ready to wake up. The world was in chaos, her mate was gone, and her friends were broken by their loss, why on earth would she want to wake up?

“Because they need you love, I need you.”

“You need me?” She asked the voice.

It was a male voice and it sounded strange, like he was straining under a great weight.

“Who are you?” She finally asked.

“I am yours,” he answered, through gritted teeth.

She tried to think. She’d heard those words before. Her mind was a whirl wind of images and words all jumbled up like a bowl of alphabet soup. Nothing made sense.

“Luna,” the growl in his voice, brought the barrage of thoughts to a halt. “I am Fane, your mate. I have been captured. You are under a spell and you must fight it! I can feel you slipping away. I think that is the only reason that I am able to block this horrid place. My wolf and I can feel us losing you. You must not succumb. Fight Jacquelyn. Fight!”

“Mate? Fane?” Her voice sounded small in her mind. The words brought forth images now of only one. A tall, dark haired, powerful male with the bluest eyes she had ever seen. In her mind’s eye, she could see adoration, when he looked at her, and felt the love when he kissed her. This was her mate, her Fane.

She reached for him again with her mind, but all she found was emptiness. A profound sense of loss slammed into her and she tried to cry out, but nothing would emerge from her useless vocal chords. Fight, he had said, fight the spell. Jacque didn’t know how to fight the spell, didn’t understand, so she started to think of anything real and tangible, things that she knew were true. She thought of her mother and how it had been so long since she had seen or even spoken to her. She thought of her two best friends and all the things they had endured together. She thought of her pack, her new family, and the acceptance she felt with them. Then she thought of Fane, her other half. He was her home. Without him, nothing else had meaning. She let the thoughts bring the emotions and she let the emotions flow throughout her body. She didn’t know if it would work, but she wouldn’t give up. She would fight, for herself, her friends, and for Fane.

Q

It was dark when the storm finally stopped. Peri stepped out from under the overhang of rock and looked up into the now, clear sky. Mona had been in that storm. There was no doubt about it. Peri had lost control of the storm. No, the storm had been wrestled from her control. They were only alive for one reason. Mona wanted them alive for now. She looked back, as the other ladies began to climb out from their protected spot and saw that they all seemed all right. They were a little soggy, but alive and well. All but Jacque, who continued to lie still and quiet.

“Are you going to tell us why you’ve been leading us in circles for days?” Alina asked Peri, as she wrung out her hair, splattering water on her already soaked feet.

“So you noticed?” Peri’s brow rose as she watched the Alpha female.

“I have a nose Peri. It wasn’t hard to catch our scent as we kept coming back to the same places.” Alina looked around at the others. “I’m just surprised no one else noticed.”

“My mind has been a little preoccupied,” Jen spoke up. The others grumbled Jen’s sentiment as they staggered wearily to lean against the forest trees.

“Well it’s about to get un-preoccupied,” Peri motioned for them to follow. “Let’s get a fire going and get dry and warm. I have crap to tell you and you aren’t going to want to be all soggy for it.”

“Does anyone ever want to be soggy while getting information?” Crina asked.

A collective groan rippled through them as Jen spoke.

“I can think of several scenarios where being soggy while obtaining vital information can be a very fun activity.”

“You walked into that one,” Cynthia told Crina.

Crina snorted out a sharp laugh. “I’m too tired to think about Jen and having to filter all of my statements right now.”

They gathered around the fire that Peri had conjured up with her Fae mojo, as Jen referred to it, and slowly began to thaw and dry out. They ate Fae bread and sat quietly staring into the dancing flames of the fire. Sometime later, Peri began to speak.

“If my plan goes like I hope it will, then this time tomorrow we should have your males back in our care,” she announced to the group. Heads flew up, eyes widened impossibly so, mouths hung open, and there was stunned silence before the bombardment of questions started at a quick-fire pace.

Peri held up her hands to silence them.

“I’m going to explain, good grief, keep your panties on.” Peri waited until they had all stopped blurting out questions. Alina gave her a pointed look that said get on with it or I’ll eat you for breakfast, so she got on with it.

“I’m taking us to the troll who guards the bridge to the In-Between. I have a bargaining chip for him.”

“A troll?” Rachel asked, softly. “Last I remember trolls where not the most friendly of beings even on their best day.”

Peri nodded. “That is true, but you forget healer, trolls are greedy. Shiny things easily sway them. The trick is in the wording. I can’t just say we want to go in to the In-Between because then he will not let us out. I can’t just say that we want to go in and out, because then he would not let us bring anyone back with us.”

“Jen is practically Johnny Cochrane when it pertains to loop holes. Just run it by her and she can tell you if it’s fool proof.” Sally eyed Jen across the fire. Jen gave a slight smile to her friend, but that’s all she could muster.

“So what happens if the troll goes for it?” Cynthia asked.

“The simple part is he opens the veil and we go through.”

“What’s the hard part,” Elle asked, dryly.