Sally laughed. “He’s shameless.”
“Here.” He held out a wad of cash. “These are your tips for tonight. You did good, kid. Now get on out of here and get some rest. We’ll see you tomorrow.” Cross looked behind her and spoke a little louder to be heard over the music that was still coming out of the jukebox. “Mikey, walk Sally home.”
“I don’t—” Sally began but Cross stopped her, holding up his hand.
“You work for me. I take care of what is mine. End of story.” With that he turned back and headed to his office.
I take care of what is mine.Those words latched onto her like a wolf on a deer. They felt familiar somehow.What is mine,danced in her head over and over. A hand touched her elbow causing Sally to jump.
“Sorry, Miss Sally,” Mikey’s deep voice rumbled from beside her. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Just wanted to see if you were ready to go?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry.” She took off her apron and folded it, placing it beneath the counter and then followed Mikey out the door. She called a quick goodbye to Jericho who was busy tallying his cash drawer.
Once they’d stepped outside, the fresh air filled her lungs and helped clear her head. They walked in companionable silence and, once they arrived at the door to her apartment building, she smiled up at her escort. “Thanks, Mikey, I appreciate it.”
“Any time, doll, sleep tight. See you tomorrow.” He waved and then headed back in the direction of the bar.
By the time Sally had taken a quick shower and brushed her teeth, she was ready to crash. Her eyes drooped heavily as she climbed into bed and, though her body was unbelievably tired, her mind was still spinning like a top. The words Cross had spoken to her—I take care of what is mine—rotated over and over in her mind.Sally fell asleep with them gnawing at her gut. She’d heard them before, somewhere, she knew it. But where, and from whom, she couldn’t remember.
Chapter 5
“I want to live. I know that I need to live, not for myself, but for someone else—someone I haven’t met. But I’m lost. I feel so very lost.” ~Jacque
Jacque felt nothing but peace. There was no pain, no anger, and no fear—just peace. But even as she experienced this wonderful feeling of peace, a doubt lingered. Something nagged at her. She knew that she couldn’t stay where she was. She wanted to live. She wanted life in all its messy glory. And she couldn’t live if she stayed in this blissful peace. Jacque wanted to feel pain, because then she’d also feel the joy of healing. She wanted to feel anger, because after she felt the anger, then she would feel forgiveness and mercy. She wanted to feel fear, so that she could appreciate the wonderful feeling of safety. She wasn’t ready to die. Jacque wasn’t afraid of dying, but she was afraid of missing out on all the life she had yet to live.
Jacque could hear chanting—a soft beautiful voice, someone powerful. Jacque could feel herself being pulled along by the magic in the words. She wanted desperately to cling to those words, to let them drag her out of this darkness. She wanted to scream, Here I am. I’m still here and I want to live!But her mouth wouldn’t work. Nothing worked. The only thing she knew to do was to focus all of her consciousness on her life— to remember all that she’d had and all that she was going to have. She wouldn’t give up, not as long as there was still hope that she could return from wherever it was that she was now stranded.
Fane didn’t understand what was happening. He wasn’t dead, but he sure as hell wasn’t alive either. He was angry and scared. His last memories were of his mate covered in blood. Her heart had stopped and his had stopped right along with it. They were one and his wolf couldn’t live without its mate. He remembered there was a baby,theirbaby, but he hadn’t seen it. And he was sure that Jacque hadn’t seen it either. They’d been ripped away far too soon and he was so very angry.
Fane could still feel his wolf and he decided that this must be a good sign. Perhaps, their lives weren’t over after all. But he didn’t know where he was or how he could escape. Other than the wolf he felt pacing inside of him, he couldn’t see or feel anything else. He reached for the bond in his mind but there was nothing there; he was alone. His wolf wanted to howl, a desperate cry for their mate, but nothing worked. He was just there, wherevertherewas. Fane thought his fate was worse than death, floating in nothingness with no way to feel his mate or hold his child. He didn’t want to give up hope, but he also didn’t want to stay in some weird stasis state either. Fane would either figure out a way to let go of what little life was tying him to the world or get himself back to the land of the living. Somehow, something was going to change.
Peri felt something change. Jacque’s spark of life, what miniscule amount there was left, had grown a little bit stronger. It felt as though the girl was beginning to fight to get her life back. “That ‘a girl, Red. Don’t go quietly into the night. Not yet,” Peri said quietly as she stared down at the redhead who had become one of her dearest friends. The young girl was thin and her skin was so pale it was nearly white. The usually strong and determined female wolf had been reduced to a living corpse. Surely the Fates didn’t mean to rip the young parents away from their brand-new child. Surely they weren’t that cruel. Peri snorted to herself. “Yes, yes they are that cruel,” she growled.
In her long life, she’d dealt with the Fates countless times, and she knew that their decisions were not based on emotion, but on the need to maintain a cosmic balance. How much good was still needed in the world to counteract the darkness? How much evil was too much? And who needed to be culled? The Fates were strategists that kept the realms, all of them, in order. That didn’t mean Peri had to accept or agree with their decisions. And as she’d proven before, she wasn’t above breaking the rules and telling the Fates to jump off a cliff—not that the Fates could jump off a cliff. And even if they could, it’s not like it would hurt them.
“Great, now my mind has been reduced to endless, pointless chatter,” she huffed.
Peri felt him standing behind her before she heard his voice. Her mate, being the hardheaded werewolf that he is, had come to her even though she’d told him not to.
“You are using your very life force to keep two people alive and you expect me stay away?” Lucian asked her, his voice gruff with the emotions she could feel swelling inside of him. He was worried about her.
“I expect you to be taking care of those dominant males at my house.”
Lucian chuckled. “I know that you are used to having everyone obey your commands without question, my love, but I’m no ordinary wolf. Your health is my primary…no myonly…concern. Someone else can babysit the wolves. I have my mate to think about.”
“But then who’s going to keep them from killing each other or, worse, getting blood all over my furniture? Or even worse, peeing all over my furniture?” Peri was standing in two inches of warm water with one hand on Jacque’s chest and the other on Fane’s. She’d been standing there for three days, attempting to, somehow, keep the pair from slipping into oblivion. But a fear that her efforts were futile was growing in the back of her mind. She felt as if she were trying to hold seawater cupped in her hand. The harder she tried to hold on, the more Peri felt them slipping away. She couldn’t let them die. They’d just had a baby, for crying out loud. They could not die.
“Is that really your decision to make?” the voice of reason that was her mate asked. “You aren’t the Fates to determine the outcome of a person’s life, beloved,” Lucian continued. “As much as it hurts, sometimes you just have to let go.”
Peri could have kept it together if he’d stopped at the question. But no, he just had to keep pushing. Her power was swelling as her anger rose and she knew light would be pulsating around her. Lucian had stepped around her and her patients so that he stood directly in front of her—bad move on his part.
Peri knew that her power would have driven most men to their knees, but her mate was a dominant male. He was powerful in his own right. So instead of falling to his knees, he gritted his teeth and continued to meet her stare.
“Mate,” he breathed. “Perhaps, you should let—”
“I WILL NOT LET THEM GO,” she bellowed and the force of her power behind her voice shook the windows and sent a shudder through the foliage surrounding them in the garden room. “Ask me to give up my immortality, ask me to give up the chance to bear children, ask me to give up my own life. Ask me anything else, but do not ask me to give up on them!”
“Who are you to decide such a fate?” Lucian repeated, growling at her now. “Who are you to decide life and death, yours or anyone else’s?” He took a step closer.
