“Sally mine, I know you are in there. I know that you are protecting yourself, and I’m glad for that. I miss you. I miss your skin, your hair, the way you smell when I touch you. Did you know that you smell different when I touch you? I don’t know if Jacque or Jen ever explained that to you, but as your mate, you respond differently to me. There’s a desire that isn’t there with anyone else and that causes you to give off a different scent. It’s the most alluring scent in the entire world. But, because I can’t touch you, it’s gone. I miss the way you blush when I flirt with you and how soft your lips are when I kiss you. You know what’s crazy? Not too long ago, I didn’t have any of those things and I was still able to live. Sure, it wasn’t a great existence, but I was alive. Now, that I have you, I can’t live without those things, Sally. Not just because of the Blood Rites, but because I couldn’t go on without you being in this world. So you see, when this is all over, you have to come back to me. Whatever it takes, my sweet love, I will do it. I will take away every nightmare, every soul haunting memory, and replace it with my love. Do you hear me Sally?”

Costin’s voice filled with the unshed tears that he had been fighting and he unconsciously reached out to touch his mate only to withdraw his hand quickly. “You have to be okay,” he whispered. “You have to, because I am not okay without you.” He let his mind drift back to the quiet moments that he had been given with her, his brown eyed girl, so many soft laughs, and sweet smiles. He thought about the night that he had held her in his arms as she slept. It was the first time she had ever slept in a bed with a male, and it was the best night of his life. He had been awake for hours after she fell asleep. He had listened to her heartbeat and the rhythm of her breathing. It had all been music to his ears.

He smiled when he remembered the night he had taught her how to bartend. She was so easy to be around and he knew that he constantly had a ridiculous grin plastered on his face because of her, but he didn’t care. As long as his Sally was happy, healthy, and safe, he didn’t care about anything else. Yet, here she lay next to him, and she was none of those things. How many times could a man fail the woman he loved, before it became too much? He didn’t know the answer to that question, but he did know that if there was anything that he couldn’t handle in this world, it was watching his mate suffer, and not being able to do a damn thing about it.

“I will make it right, Sally mine,” he whispered, into the room, his quiet voice mixing with the sound of her occasional whimpers. “I will make it right, and kill the one who made it wrong.”

Q

Decebel paced the room like a caged animal. His breathing was rapid and he was holding back his wolf by a thin thread. His eyes continually darted back to the woman on their bed and with every glance his heart broke all over again. He knew that the other males were feeling exactly the same, only he had one thing they didn’t, a child. A child made in love with the woman who completed his soul. There was nothing more that he wanted inthis world than to hold his baby girl in one arm and his female in the other and he swore by everything he could think of that he would do that very thing.

“Think, Decebel, think,” he muttered to himself, for the thousandth time. His brain was a fog of rage and worry. His heart felt as if hundreds of needles were puncturing it, stabbing over and over with every desperate sound from his mate. Every thought was out of his grasp, every breath was a struggle and he was beginning to wonder if he and Jennifer would ever have a happy ending. They had been through so much since they had met and he just felt it was a matter of time before they didn’t make it out as they had so many times already. He turned abruptly when he heard his name.

“Dec,” Jen whispered. He was at her side in the blink of an eye.

“I’m here baby,” he told her, gently. He looked at her gold locks and longed to sink his fingers deep into the strands, like he had so many times before. He needed to see the spark in her blue eyes and hear the sharp slash of her tongue when she snapped her sarcastic remarks at him. Some might be hurt or annoyed by it, but he knew that was how his Jennifer showed her love. If she ignored you, then that was when you should be hurt. He watched as her lips tensed and her eyes squeezed shut. He knew when her body shuddered that she was in pain, or at least she thought she was. Decebel knew first hand just how powerful the mind was and how it could make the body feel.

“Jennifer,” he murmured as close to her as he dared. “Come back to me baby. Hear my voice. Know that what you feel isn’t real. We are real, and I am real. Remember us, remember our love, and remember my touch and no one else’s. I know it’s hard. I know what you see and feel seems so real, but it isn’t.” Decebel fought to keep the growl out of his voice, but it was so hard because he was beyond frustrated at being so helpless. “This must have been how you felt when I lost my memory,” he told her, “to know that the one person you would do absolutely anything for, is the one person that you can’t do anything for. Sometimes life truly sucks,” he chuckled, “that sounds like something you would say.”

Decebel knelt on the floor beside the bed and laid his head down. He breathed in her scent and tried to keep from losing his control, which was about as likely as Mona becoming a nun.

Q

Jacque was still, too still for Fane’s peace of mind, but he supposed that it was better than the uncontrollable shaking and screaming. He knew that she was experiencing the things he had seen while in the in-between. He didn’t think it was ever possible to be as scared for her as he was when she had been taken by Lucas, but at that moment in time, he had passed scared a few hours back. He thought briefly about going to check on his mother, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave his mate. He knew what Jacquelyn would want him to do, but she wasn’t able to boss him around. He was going to do exactly what he needed to do, and that was be as close to her as the stupid binding words would let him.