Elle’s eyes widened and took a step in her mate’s direction, but Alina stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm.

“That is between Alpha and pack member. Do not interfere; you will only make it worse.”

Elle’s lips pursed and it was obvious that she didn’t want to listen to Alina. But after one last glance, she turned away.

The girls all agreed to meet at the front doors of the mansion in two hours whether their males were calmed down or not. Jen pointed out that maybe there should be some sort of signal if they were detained, “by ropes or something equally as fun,” she told them. They all shook their heads at her. With audible groans, they headed towards their rooms.

Jen turned to look at Decebel who hadn’t appeared to have moved from the spot where he had announced his decision. She narrowed her eyes at him and a snarl worthy of an alpha female ground out through her lips.

“Our room. Now.”

Decebel flinched under his mate's stare and the words that she pushed through their bond, the one he was trying to close off, tore at his heart. That pain would be nothing compared to the anguish he was about to endure because he was doing something that went against everything in his nature. His wolf was in an absolute rage and Decebel knew that if he let his wolf have any amount of control, he would grab Jennifer and never let her out of his sight. The idea of their mate and their child so far away was like a knife ripping through his organs, twisting this way and that, destroying any function they might have had. And this was only the beginning.

Chapter 6

“Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, there is no right choice in a situation. You can go over it and over it in your mind, looking at every angle, and there is simply nothing you can change. I would rather have her by my side, but then she would be in perilous danger. So I will send her home, but then she is out of my reach if something does go wrong. I must choose the lesser of two evils, but I’m beginning to wonder if even that will be too much a price to pay.” ~Cypher

“Enter,” Cypher called over his shoulder at the sound of the knock. He was attempting to sound civil but there was nothing in him at the moment that felt civil. Lilly was gone. He had sent her away. And so now here he stood on the brink of some sort of war with his brother and no mate to tell him all would be well. Whether a man knew it or not, he needed a woman at his back: someone to remind him that all is not lost, someone to show him the sliver of light that is creeping its way through the dark, someone to hold him, even when he didn’t realized he needed to be held.

“She is gone,” Gerick, the general of his army, spoke softly behind him.

Cypher bit back the snide comment that was on the tip of his tongue. It wasn’t Gerick’s fault that Lilly was gone. It was nobody’s fault but his own.

“I know, but thank you for telling me.”

He knew that Gerick wanted to say more, but was not sure if it was his place to do so.

“What is it, Gerick?” Cypher finally asked as a loud sigh gusted from his lungs.

“Was it really necessary to send her away?” Gerick was attempting to keep the accusation out of his voice, but he wanted his king to be fully aware of the disapproval. “It isn’t just you who feels her absence.”

Cypher closed his eyes as he thought about the past couple of months that Lilly had been with him and his people. They had grown to love her nearly as much as he did. She was kind and understanding, willing to just listen when someone needed to talk. She had definitely brought something back to their kind that had been missing, compassion and hope. Cypher never thought that he would find a mate, and his people were convinced that they would eventually fade away as the magic continued to fade from the human realm. Cypher wasn’t sure if that was what would happen, but he understood what they meant. They felt insignificant, without purpose and unsure of what to do while they watched their king flounder his way through his existence, trying to make sense of what he needed to do next.

Humans simply did not understand the importance of a mate in the supernatural community. A mate was more than a spouse, more than someone you just spent your life with, or procreated with. A mate in the supernatural world was the completion of something that was not whole. A mate filled a space that no one else could.

Lilly was that person for Cypher. She was his, and through him, she was his people’s as well.

“Gerick,” his voice was soft as his head fell forward and a rush of air left his lungs, “I would not have sent her away if I had thought there was another option.”

“I know that. But by sending her away you have brought fear into the hearts of our people.”

“They should be afraid!” Cypher snarled as he whipped around and his eyes bore into Gerick’s. “My brother has nothing good left in him. Anything worthy in him died with his woman, and all that is left is an empty shell, yearning to be filled with the blood, sorrow, and grief of others. They should be afraid,” his last words come out in a near whisper.

Cypher knew that his words were cruel and that his anger was misplaced, but that did not help him keep it under control.

“I will be leaving in a little while to go to the Romanian pack. I’m going alone. You will need to keep an eye on the perimeter. The blackness in the air hasn’t grown any thicker, but it has not abated at all either,” Cypher’s voice had lost some of the edge and he was beginning to lock up the emotions that were threatening to consume him. He didn’t have time to pine over his mate. He had an enemy to defeat and he could not defeat him by standing in this throne room whining about things he could not change.