Selene wrapped her fingers around his forearm and squeezed. “Nickelova didn’t die when Alex removed her heart; she became mortal. We could have killed her… but we thought we needed her to get back through the portal. By the time we realized what she was doing, it was too late.”
Silas rubbed his temples and sighed deeply. “So she’s mortal but she survived?”
“During the fight,” Jason explained, “I dislodged a scale from her dragon form. She used it to form some kind of cocoon around herself.”
Silas growled. “So not only is Alex still at large, but Nickelova is a ticking time bomb in a mountain somewhere.”
“How much do you want to bet that Alex returns her heart to her at some point and wakes her up? I imagine a girl will do a lot for a heart,” Laina said.
“I’m sorry to have to share this, but…” Jason glanced at Selene. “It makes her his slave. If he does rescue her and she comes out of that… thing she’s in, she’ll be forced to obey him.”
Silas cursed.
Selene squeezed his hand in support, narrowing a hard stare on his brother and sister. The look she gave Silas alone could solder iron. “I don’t have any family. But if I did, I think I’d be a lot happier to have them home safely.” Selene shifted her gaze, pointing a finger at Laina’s nose. “Your brother almost died last night.”
Silas sighed. “We’re happy to have you back. Both of you. But this changes everything. As alpha, I’m just a little nervous about what this means for the pack. We may need to go into hiding again.”
“No,” Laina said. “Not again.” Tears pooled in her eyes. “Kyle and I have just started to make a life for ourselves. He finally has new clients for his treehouse business. I can’t ask him to trash everything he’s worked for, and I certainly can’t close Four Paws again.”
“I’ll talk to Grateful and see if there’s anything we can do to strengthen the wards around Rivergate,” Silas said. “I’m disappointed Nickelova could see and hear these two from beyond the boundary. We’ve got to protect ourselves.”
“I’ll talk to Gerty,” Laina said. “If Nickelova leveraged the curse she had on Jason to find him, maybe Gerty knows how to make sure Alex can’t use that in the future now that he has her heart.”
There was a long silence. Jason stared into his coffee, tapping out a song on the side of his cup. Part of him agreed with Silas that he’d put the pack in danger when he pursued Nickelova on his own. But as he glanced at Selene, the steam from her coffee curling along the fine bones of her jaw, all he could think was he’d do it again.
Silas cleared his throat and stared pointedly at Jason and Selene’s coupled hands. “Not to be the chaperone at the dance who taste tests the punch, but it seems like there’s another topic of conversation that needs to be broached. What’s going on with you two?”
* * *
“I’ll be forevergrateful for what you did for me, Artemis,” Selene said as she packed up her room into the same brown plaid bag she’d used since childhood. “I’m sorry if I was a disappointment.”
“A disappointment? You?” Artemis raised her eyebrows. “Never.Icould never be disappointed in you. But do you know who you have disappointed?”
“Who?”
“All the Fireborn families with girls Jason’s age. They’ve had to say goodbye to the dream that their daughters might one day snare a spot as the next princess. He’s taken. Permanently.”
Selene sighed. “I didn’t set out with a goal of loving Jason. It just happened. It crept up on me like some wonderful dream as if one moment I was drifting to sleep and the next I was in his arms.”
“What causes people to fall in love? Is it chemistry? Opportunity? The hand of the goddess herself?” Artemis wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “All we know for sure is that love is precious and should not be denied. You found your mate. Your true, fated mate. That’s a gift from the goddess herself.”
“It’s frightening though. I’m leaving the only life I’ve ever really known and loved behind to go shack up with a guy who just recently recovered from a major vice. It sounds crazy when I say it out loud.”
The older woman smiled. “One must be brave to truly love. What you set out to do is not easy work. It’s not magic. Loving someone is seeing them for who they truly are, the light and the dark, and inviting all of it, the whole person, into your life unconditionally. You can leave or protect yourself if things go wrong, Selene, but true love will stay with you. It will be a beacon that leads you back to him again and again. You’ll always demand the best of him, always pick him up when he falls, always ask the goddess to protect him, and he’ll do the same for you if he truly loves you.”
Selene nodded, a memory blowing into her thoughts like a cool breeze. “Speaking of the goddess, I had a strange experience I need to ask you about.”
Artemis folded into a chair at the small table in her dormitory. Selene sat across from her and rested her coupled hands on the table. “What is it?”
“When Jason and I were escaping from Nickelova’s lair, I was in wolf form, but I swear I remember seeing the goddess lead us to safety.”
“What did she look like?”
“Tall, curvy, with long waves of wild black hair and a dress that clung like a black fog around her, as if it was cut from the night itself. The wind had no effect on her—it didn’t even rustle her hair. And although Jason and I had almost frozen to death before the shift, she didn’t seem cold at all. She called me her dear one.”
“That certainly sounds like the goddess.”
“She led us to the portal, but before I could pass through, I noticed a man standing across from her.”
