“Yes,” Peri told him. “Lilly, your mate.”

Lilly, he thought, that’s her name. That’s my mate’s name. He shook his head as he squeezed his eyes closed. He felt a haze trying to wrap around his mind and push the thoughts of her from him but he latched onto them like a rabid dog latches on to its prey. He had a mate, but now he was going after the trolls. That wasn’t right, was it? Did he want to go to war with the trolls? He knew the answer was no, but something inside of him was driving him to attack, to kill.

“Fight it, Cypher,” Vasile said as he phased back to his human form. “Fight the spell your brother has put on you.”

Peri, Alston, and Adam all lowered their hands as they watched Cypher lower his sword.

One by one, the wolves all phased back and watched as the king’s eyes flashed from red to yellow over and over as he struggled to regain control of his own mind.

“You have to fight it, Cypher. Your brother has our mates,” Decebel snarled as he stood up from where he had just been standing in his wolf form. His eyes still glowed bright and his canines were still too long to belong in a human mouth, evidence of how close his wolf still was to the surface.

“What?” Cypher snapped, and this time his eyes stayed yellow a little longer and when they flashed back to red, it was much duller.

“Sally told me as well,” Costin spoke up.

Vasile nodded as his lips tightened into a straight line. “Alina said the same thing. Lorelle came.”

“Lorelle?” Peri’s voice carried from her where she stood, still in her fae glory. The light around her brightened and her eyes began to pulse with power. “My sister has taken the girls?” The warlocks that had been standing close to her slowly began to back away, as well as a few of the elves. Peri’s eyes snapped over to Cypher. “Okay you have to pull your crap together because your bastard of a brother has my girls and that is not cool. So you can either get a clue and fight the rest of that spell off or I will zap your ass with so much power that you’ll walk around asking everyone if they’re your mamma.”

“I’m with Peri on this,” Adam said from behind Cypher. “We don’t have time to be goofing off with a bunch of cursed warlocks, not if my mate is in the hands of a deranged psycho.”

Sorin stepped from around Vasile and met Peri’s eyes. “Why didn’t Elle come and tell us? Why didn’t she flash?”

Peri felt a small pang of guilt in her gut as she thought about Elle. “I bound her power so that she couldn’t flash.”

Sorin let out a low growl. “You kept her from me.”

Peri took a step towards him, headless of his nude form. “I did not keep her from you. You kept her from you when you stuck her on a plane bound for the Americas. I kept her from getting her butt into trouble. I wanted to know that thefemales were staying all together when I wasn’t around and I didn’t want any of those girls talking Elle into doing something stupid, as we all know they are prone to do. I wasn’t trying to put her in danger. I was trying to keep her safe. You remember this, Sorin. She was mine before she was yours and I will always consider her mine.”

Sorin’s glowing eyes held Peri’s, neither of them willing to back down.

“ENOUGH!” Vasile barked. “Sorin, your mate is going to be fine, just like all of our mates. Peri, don’t challenge my wolves when we are in a crisis. Cypher, have you gotten yourself together?”

Cypher had been listening to the exchange and fighting the curse as he reminded himself over and over of Lilly, her smile, her laughter, her southern accent, and sharp wit—his mate. He felt the effects of the curse flow off of him like water on a slick roof and suddenly he could think clearly again.

“I’m good,” he told the Alpha.

Vasile nodded. “What about your people?” He motioned to the other warlocks.

Cypher drew on the magic that flowed in his blood, his birthright, and pushed it out into the spirit of his people. He helped them fight off the black magic and regain their own power over their minds. Slowly the warlocks began to look around as if being woken from a deep sleep. Their eyes were wide and mouths drooping open at seeing where they were and the state of the forest around them.

Fane stepped up to his father and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I can’t feel Jacquelyn,” he told him.

“I know. I can’t feel your mother either. Somehow the mate bonds have been closed off.” Vasile glanced around to meet the eyes of each of his wolves and then Decebel’s. “We need to get back to the mansion.” He turned to Peri and looked at her as if to say, your call.

“I believe a reunion is in order with my dear bat mess crazy sister,” she told him with a sickly sweet tone that dripped with disgust at the mention of her sister.

“Tell her, 'hi', for me,” Adam said, “and by 'tell her hi', I mean slap the crap out of her.”

“Consider it done,” Peri told him and then flashed.

“Vasile,” Cypher’s voice broke through the murmuring of the warlocks, “I will meet you at your mansion, if that is alright?”

“He has your mate too, Cypher,” Vasile said in answer.

In a matter of minutes the wolves had all phased back and were once again on the run headed back to the Romanian mansion. Cypher ran with them after having told Gerick to take the rest of their people home and have the healers tend to them. The fae agreed to help and told Vasile that they would be there as soon as they had heard from Peri. Thalion had also agreed to help in rescuing the females and offered any aide his people could give.