Isolde and I stare at each other, neither of us backing down. Emeric glares at Isolde, ready to attack her if I give him the signal.
“Then you know what you have to do…”
I do, but it’s not something I want to think about. I still think she can do this. She can shift, she has to. One week—that’s all we have left. Less than that really because she needs practice to be able to do it on command.
“Vampires, Serenity, Rowena…help,”Lumi’s voice floats into my head so softly I’m not sure it was real or if I imagined it.
“Lumi, what’s happened?”I send back, concentrating hard so that she can hear me clearly.
But our connection I’m used to feeling is empty, like I’m shouting my words into a deep void.
“Lumi? Talk to me, Lumi.”
My stomach hollows out, and I know. I know deep down that she’s not going to respond to me. She can’t respond to me.
“Where are you?”
I jump from behind my desk, not bothering to tell Isolde or Emeric what’s happening. I know Emeric can feel the shift in me and that he will be hot on my heels.
I’m careful not to think too hard about what it means that the vampires most likely have her. I take deep, calming breaths as I step out of my office, listening carefully to see if Lumi or anyone else is in my house. The house is empty except for Emeric and Isolde.
Lumi mentioned Rowena.
“Rowena?”
I open the door and start running, unsure of what I’m going to find as I shift into my wolf form.
But I realize immediately that it was a mistake. It’s harder to control my feelings in this form. Harder to remember that my feelings for Lumi have to be dampened. I can’t care about her too much. I can’t dare to cross close to the line from like to love.
Mate, mate, mate. You have to protect her. Save her. She’s your mate.
The feelings begin to flood me in an uncontrollable way. I have to find a way to stop this, or I’m going to kill her even if the vampires don’t.
Blood, I smell blood. But it isn’t Lumi’s blood.
Still, I run toward the scent, my only clue as to where she might have been taken.
Rowena.
Her body is lying on the dirt road. She’s not breathing, and a pool of blood is surrounding her.
A hollow ache hits me hard in the gut as a primal fear takes hold of me. I hold onto that feeling, only letting myself think of Rowena and not Lumi. As long as my feelings stay with Rowena, I can’t think too much about Lumi. My feelings for her won’t have room to grow.
I collapse next to Rowena’s body, not sure if I can save her or not.
“Go,” Emeric says suddenly next to me. “I’ll make sure Rowena is okay. Go!”
Where?
But then I get a whiff of their scent on Rowena, and I know exactly where they’ve taken her—to Draven’s house.
I look back at Rowena one more time, and I see one of her fingers twitch. She’s going to be okay. Emeric will take care of her.
I runup the steps of Draven’s house near the edge of San Fransisco. It should have taken me days to get here, but it only took me hours as I ran faster than I ever have in my wolf form. Halfway here I got word from Emeric that Rowena is awake and they are traveling fast behind me. They will be here soon. But I don’t have time to wait for them.
I don’t take in any of the details of the house. I barely take in the concrete steps I’m climbing in my human form or the solid black door until I’m upon it. The only reason I even knowthis house is Draven’s is because when my father was alpha, he brought me here with him. My father thought he could find a way to break the curse if he talked to all supernatural creatures. He thought that we all had missing pieces of the puzzle and that together, we would be able to break the curse.
Draven thought my father was insane for trying to bring us all together. But deep down, I know he respected him. It was the only reason he allowed us to leave without attacking us.
