“I love you, Nick. One more day, then we will be together, and I will never leave your side again. Even if you ask me to wait a decade to complete the bond. I will happily do it, as long as you never let me go.”
“Ka—”
She didn’t let him finish the words before doing the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life. Kara closed the bond between them, cutting off the first contact they’d had in months, knowing it might push her mate over the edge. She had to trust that those who loved him, their pack, would take care of him until he could be with her again. In her gut, she knew this was what she had to do. The Great Luna had told her when she’d arrived that it wasn’t time to fight back, but now Kara knew with complete certainty that it was.
“I am with you, beloved, renowned warrior.”The Great Luna’s voice filled not only her mind but the surrounding room.“I will steady your hand, I will shore up your weaknesses, and I will be your strength when you think you cannot finish the task before you. Now rest, Kara. For tomorrow your arm will deliver my wrath.”
ChapterFourteen
“I never thought I would be thankful for foolish gypsy healers, determined to run headlong into situations that will most likely end in their deaths. But I am. And that’s the first step to repairing a part of my life I’ve completely and utterly destroyed. A reality filled with self-destructive healers is familiar and oddly comforting, as silly as that might sound. I will have to thank Kara for carrying on the longstanding gypsy tradition of ‘watch me get my ass handed to me.’” ~Peri
“Are you just going to let him throw another piece of furniture out the window?”
Nick heard Fane’s voice but not Drayden’s reply, and he didn’t really care what it was. Nick hadfelther. He’dspokento her. For a few brief moments, his beloved was within his reach. Now she was gone. The beta picked up the next closest thing to him: a massive television.
“I could stop him without injuring the wolf,” Adam said.
Nick roared, and the TV went flying, crashing through a window. The shattering sound of the glass satisfied him for… perhaps a second. Would there be consequences for the damage he was causing to their pack home? His wolf didn’t care. The beast raged at their inability to find their mate. The restoration of the mate bond had made things worse, not better. Before, he only knew mentally that his Kara was held captive somewhere, hurting and alone. Now, he felt it with every fiber of his being. And worst of all, after having been reconnected with her for such a short time, she’d shut him out. This time, she’dchosento close the bond.
“WHY?” He reached for a lamp he knew would shatter into a thousand pieces, a fitting symbol for what had happened to his soul when Kara re-closed the bond.
“Not the lamp, Nick,” Drayden growled, forcing a bit of his alpha power into the command.
Nick turned and looked at Drayden.
“You were okay with him throwing out a television worth thousands of dollars, but you’re worried about a lamp?” Adam asked.
“I like that lamp.” Drayden shrugged his large shoulders. He met Nick’s eyes, and they began to glow. “Put it down. And talk to me.” It was a full-fledged alpha command. Surprisingly, Nick was able to fight off the command for nearly a minute as his wolf grappled against the need to submit to their alpha and the need to find their mate. Finally, Nick set the lamp down and rolled his shoulders. His teeth, which had phased into his wolf’s canines without him realizing it, bit into his bottom lip.
“The bond is back,” Nick finally said after he leashed his wolf. “I spoke to her. I felt her.” Just saying the words out loud made the gnawing need inside of him grow tenfold.
“Did she tell you where she is?” Drayden asked and took a step toward him.
“Based on his current behavior,” Dillon, the Colorado pack alpha, said, “I’m going to go out on a limb and say no.”
Nick’s wolf pushed forward, and he couldn’t hold the beast. It was the wolf who responded to their alpha. “My mate refused to tell me. She claims she has something she must do before we can be together. And then she closed down the bond. Tight.” He snarled the last word. Nick wanted to throw something again, and Drayden must have seen it in his eyes.
“Destroy nothing else,” his alpha commanded. “Think of the positive things. You know she’s alive. The bond is back. And you will be with her again. These things should quiet your wolf.”
“Her task is dangerous, Alpha,” Nick said. “I could practically smell her fear. She will not let me come to her.”
“That’s because she’s a gypsy healer,” Crina said. “We’ve learned over the past few years that the healers have some kind of weird hero complex. They’re not actually seeking glory. The girls are trying to be selfless. The healers truly think they are saving those they love and that they’re the only ones who can do it. Unfortunately, it rarely works out how they planned. ”
Nick’s fists clenched at his sides, and he felt claws sink into his palms.
“Judging by the blood dripping onto the beautiful hardwood floor, I don’t think that’s helping, babe,” Adam said to his mate.
“My bad.” Crina took a seat on the arm of the only remaining couch in the living room.
“Are you sure you detected nothing in her thoughts that might give you a clue as to where she is or what she is doing?” Fane stood against the wall directly beside one of the shattered windows. The alpha hadn’t even flinched when an end table had sailed past him through the window, causing glass to rain over his body. He’d simply brushed it away and then resumed his relaxed stance.
Nick tried to think through the haze of fury and grief that clouded his mind. He tried to remember anything that his wolf might have picked up on in her thoughts that the man might have missed while he’d been speaking to her. For a split second, he saw the face of a female. Her ears were pointed, much more than that of a fae. “A female elf,” he said quickly. “She thought briefly of a female elf.”
“Does that mean she’s in the elf realm?” Crina looked at Thalion. He and his mate, Cyn, stood off in a corner of the room, watching. Neither of them ever said much, but they had offered any help they could in rescuing Nick’s mate. Nick looked at them now, hoping they knew the answer to the she-wolf’s question.
“Not necessarily,” Thalion said. “Supernaturals from all races work with the Order. Many different types of supernaturals were at the compound in Arizona,” he reminded them. “Is there anything else? Anything about her location, maybe? The walls, the lighting? Anything that might give us a hint as to the type of structure. It could help us rule out a realm.”
Nick concentrated but found nothing. He shook his head. “Then we search every damn realm!” Nick bellowed as his wolf snapped, grabbing the lamp he’d previously set down. He launched it across the room. Decebel ducked, and the lamp whizzed by, shattering against the wall where the beta’s head had just been.
