“Do you know anything else?” Jacque hoped her mom hadseensomething.
After several seconds, she finally answered. “I haven’t seen the death of anyone here.”
Jacque swallowed hard. “But you saw someone else’s death? Someone not here?”
Lilly shook her head as a tear rolled down her face. “I didn’t know, Jacque. And even if I had known, I wouldn’t have told you. It wouldn’t have done any good. And it wouldn’t have changed the outcome.”
Jacque wanted to rage at her mother. She wanted to tell Lilly that she couldn’t know if her action would have made a difference. But that wouldn’t be true. It would only be her pain, causing her to lash out in anger.
“Move back.” Thadrick’s voice boomed as he motioned to their group.
Jacque backpedaled, her eyes staying on the mountain. It was shaking so hard that vampires were falling off the highest peaks.
“Myron.” Thadrick spoke to the other djinn. “Focus on any vampires that manage to escape the collapse.”
Jacque stumbled as the quaking ground shook even more violently. Andora, the sprite queen, shot balls of light, one after another, at the scurrying vampires. Each time one was hit, the vampire burst into flames. Boain and Lorna fought fiercely, their combined movements so smooth they looked choreographed.
Huge crevices formed in the ground all around the alpha. To the left and right of her, vampires fell screaming into the earth. Jacque watched, and it looked as if several of those fallen bloodsuckers had been pushed into the chasms. She turned her head and saw Nissa with her hands extended, focusing on the vamps. The fae was using her magic to send the vampires into the fissures.
Jacque’s head snapped back to the mountain. She stood transfixed, watching in horror as it imploded on itself. Jacque heard screaming and then realized the sound was coming from her own throat. Her heart beat so hard in her chest it felt like it might explode. Then her feet were moving of their own accord. For some damn reason, she ran toward the falling land mass as if she could somehow stop its collapse. Jacque pumped her arms hard and called on her wolf to move them faster than she’d ever run before. She couldn’t let this happen. She didn’t care about the freaking vampires. There had to be another way. Her mate was inside there somewhere. Her pack members and friends were going to be crushed. At any moment, the falling rock would crush Fane, and her life would end as well.
“What are you doing, you crazy ass alpha?” Crina appeared beside Jacque as she ran.
Jacque shook her head. She felt tears running down her face. “I don’t know. But standing there and watching our family be buried beneath thousands of pounds of rock and dirt wasn’t working for me.
Suddenly, she slammed into an invisible barrier. She and Crina were thrown backward, and they landed on their butts. Jacque, momentarily stunned, looked around, trying to figure out what had just happened.
Her head turned frantically to find the source of the barrier. Then she saw them. Fae stones. But they were no longer the small rocks she’d known. Now the stones were as big as boulders, at least ten times their normal size. She saw three of the boulders circling the mountain, floating in the air. She assumed the other two must have been on the other side of the mountain, forming a complete circle.
Light burst forth from the stones. Each ray reflected the color of the stone projecting it. Red for fire, blue for water, green for earth, iridescent shimmering white that almost looked like clouds for air, and a gold that represented the moon stone. Beams moved up and down her and the others like some kind of infrared scanner. She heard screams and looked down to see that when the light from the stones hit a vampire, the monsters went up in flames, just like they had with Andora’s power. But the stones were killing dozens at one time, instead of just one. The powerful magic of the stones reached all the way to the top of the mountain, which was now only half as tall as it had been. More and more vampires burned to ash.
“Myron,” Andora yelled, “open the mountain. The stones need to get to the vampires inside.”
“You know what that could do,” he said. “Miles and miles of forest, Andora.”
“I don’t give a damn. Thadrick is inside. He and Clarion will protect our people. That’s all that matters right now.”
Yes! Jacque wanted to shout. That was what she needed to hear. “Do it!” she yelled at the djinn. She didn’t know how or when Thadrick had gotten inside the mountain, but she imagined Gwen must have had something to do with that.
Myron knelt to the ground and placed his hands on it, his fingers sinking into the soil, and then his chanting began again. If Jacque thought the earth had been trembling before, it was nothing compared to the way it was quaking now. Had she been standing, the alpha would have fallen like a sack of hammers, which is what everyone around her did, friend and foe alike.
Jacque looked back at the mountain, and her mouth dropped open when she saw it erupt like a geyser. Bodies flew into the air, and she assumed they must have been vampires because when the beams of light hit them, the creatures burst into ash in midair. Rocks, trees, and dirt exploded around her. Then a shock wave blew outward from the mountain, sending Jacque and Crina tumbling backward like a couple of rag dolls. She fought to flip onto her stomach and lay flat. She crawled on her belly like a worm toward the destruction, the roiling ground bucking beneath her. Jacque prayed she would see Fane once the mountain was open. “Mother of pearl,” she whispered as she watched trees flattened to the ground as far as her eyes could see. They weren’t just toppled. They looked as if a giant hand had pressed them flat, like a leaf placed between the pages of a book.
“Let’s hope there wasn’t anyone out in the wilderness camping or backpacking or doing any of the other crazy stuff you humans do.” Crina shrugged. “Because if so, they just got more than they bargained for.”
Slowly, the rumbling ground came to a halt.
“WADIM!” Zara’s voice broke their shocked attention, and Jacque saw the she-wolf running toward the demolished mountain. No invisible boundary blocked her way.
Jacque jumped to her feet and saw Crina do the same. They took off, following Wadim’s mate. As Jacque looked at the flattened earth, she saw a group of people standing in the middle of it, unharmed.
“FANE.”she yelled through their bond because she didn’t know if any words would make it out of her mouth.
It felt like forever, but she finally reached her mate, slamming into him at a dead sprint. He pulled her into his arms without even taking a step back. Fane squeezed so tightly it hurt. And Jacque didn’t care. He was alive—theywere alive.
“Luna,” he said against her ear, burying his face in her neck and taking deep breaths.
“What the hell happened?”She rubbed her face into his chest, pressing closer, but it wasn’t close enough. It would never be close enough.
