My phone wouldn’t stop buzzing in my pocket as I walked through the caverns that, somewhere up above, linked my father’s lands to Avery’s. Finally, I decided just to answer it, only to hear Mikael’s angry voice on the other end.
“Have you lost your mind, Jess? We’re out here on the trail of the rogue hunter and Clarissa to stop them from helping the others to find you. Now, you’re going to just walk your ass to them?”
“Technically, yes.” I was definitely going to be in trouble with Mikael if I made it back alive.
“Seriously, you’re going to be a smartass, right now? What about Willow, Jess?”
“She’s taken care of until you get back.” As much as it pained me, I had to keep my emotions on lock down. If I had taken too much time to think about possibly leaving Willow and Mikael behind, I would have chickened out, and Sierra’s baby would suffer for my cowardice. “Who told you?”
“Does it really matter? You should have told me.”
“I didn’t want you worried while you were out on a retrieval mission. As for Willow, she’s safe, and she’s taken care of. It’s not like I was bringing her along for the ride. They have baby Jack, Mikael. What else was I supposed to do? They thought he was Willow when they took him. If it had been Willow, would you be on the phone with me right now, convincing me not to go?”
“No, I’d be running towards you to help if it were our daughter, and you know that. This is different. I know you care for Sierra and baby Jack, but you’re running off to make yourself a martyr, and you’re leaving our daughter behind to be motherless. How does one more tragedy added to the list help at all?”
“Damn it, Mikael, and where are you right now? Oh, that’s right, you’re tracking down dangerous people. I never asked if you were trying to leave our daughter fatherless, because I knew it was something you had to do. So, stop trying to put that guilt off on me.” I sighed heavily into the phone as I collected myself. “Besides, I do not plan on dying today, but if I did, I know you would take care of our daughter and remind her that I did what had to be done. I am not the type of person to leave innocent people, especially a baby, to die in my place.”
“Jess,” he whispered into the phone, “please, don’t do this right now. Wait until I can get back.”
“We can’t wait, Mikael. If we wait, the baby dies. You’ve held him in your arms too. Hell, he was the baby we both coddled while we waited for our own to be born. He’s the one thing that saved Sierra after Jack’s death. Could you really wait if our roles were reversed right now?”
“No.” That one word came on the heels of so much misery that it made my chest ache. “I know where you’re coming from Jess, and it makes me love you all the more. We just haven’t had enough time together yet. Maybe that makes me selfish, but I think we deserve at least one human lifetime together if we can’t have the rest of our unnaturally long were-lives.”
“Mikael, some humans don’t get a lifetime together either. I love you, and I will do my best to come back for you and Willow, I promise.” I hesitated when I heard a sob coming from the other end of the line. “Mikael, if I don’t…” I swallowed hard thinking about the possibilities. “I left something for you and Willow with Serena. She will see that you get it. I have to go, I’m at the cave entrance now, if I keep talking they’ll know more than I want them to.”
“Jess…” Mikael’s voice cracked in anguish. I don’t know what he would have said in that moment, because I hung my phone up and turned it off. If I had to hear the despair in his voice, or another sob come from the man I’d always known to be so strong, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to go through with this plan myself. Actually, I didn’t have an option any longer. The dark ones that were interspersed throughout the tunnel system were now at my back, pushing me forward into the unknown abyss on the other side.
“Ah, so good of you to finally show your face. I had been worried that you would sacrifice your child, rather than come to me on your own.” He looked at the baby who was sitting quietly beside him. “I had heard rumors that the white wolf had given birth, that she was still with child, that she never was. It’s a daunting thing to try to see a strange world from the outside in, especially one as closed off and secretive as the wolves.”
“Do you have a point?” I rolled my eyes. It was just my luck to be stuck with the chatty leader of the dark ones.
“My apologies, it appears as though I bore you with my seemingly futile attempt to find the one who could open this portal.”
As he stepped out of the way I got my first glimpse of the dais I had seen so many times in my dreams. I took a moment to look around me. This was most assuredly the same cave I always met with the White Wolf Souls in. There, just in front of the dais was the willow tree that I had seen growing in my dreams as well.
The man, the monster, before me glanced at the tree too, before turning back to baby Jack who was still wearing Willow’s t-shirt. It was a baby blue color, which accounted for why Sierra would have chosen that one, but up in the left hand corner, just above the baby’s heart was the embroidered name, Willow. “The tree makes sense now.” He turned his attention back on me then. “Since you’re bored, I don’t see the point in wasting any more time with getting to know each other, you won’t be around long enough for it to matter. I do thank you for your sacrifice though.”
I couldn’t help myself; I started to laugh. Once the delightfully nervous sound of it bubbled up from my body and spilled out to be echoed through the cavern, I couldn’t stop myself. It just kept coming, and it seemed to stop Louis in his tracks. He stared at me, stunned, as if he looked upon a mad woman. Perhaps, he did. “This is not the typical reaction one expects when they tell the victim that they are about to be sacrificed.” His voice gave nothing away, but his eyes; they expressed a multitude of things. Shock at my odd behavior, to be sure, but just under there I saw the seed of doubt start to take hold and grow.
“This is not my first rodeo,” I blurted out in between bouts of hysterical laughter. “You aren’t even my scariest captor yet, but you do have one thing in common with all of them.”
“Do tell…”
“They were just as clueless as you are.” The laughter in my belly dried up then, and as I stood taller, more confident in what I was about to do, the rest of my plan began to unravel. “You’ve been draining the girls you thought were me, and judging from the stains on the dais, that’s where you’ve been hopefully waiting for the right results.”
“All of this is very obvious, get to the point, before I put the point in you…” His fangs flashed out as his smile widened. I was a werewolf. Fangs were never a worry for me, and they didn’t put an ounce of extra fear in me now.
“Had I actually been one of those girls you so thoughtlessly slaughtered, you would have killed all of your chances of ever getting that damned portal opened.”
“Really?” Sarcasm dripped form that word. It was clear he didn’t believe me, yet.
“Truly. I know the spell that binds me to this place. Well, more accurately, what binds this place to me It’s not what you imagined it to be.”
“I imagine nothing. I have a knowledgeable source on the matter. I know exactly how a blood bond works.”
“Do you? This isn’t a typical blood bond. It’s a bloodline spell. Did you know that?” I could tell by the look on his face that he did not. And of course, that would be because it wasn’t. “The witch who sealed this place…” I started.
“Layla,” he interrupted.
“Layla, apparently wanted to make sure it stayed sealed. She bound the white wolf bloodline to this place. The only way to gain entry is for me to willingly give up mine and my baby’s life.” I had been inching closer to baby Jack all the while as I spoke, and now, I reached down and picked him up. “I have to step on the dais, with my baby, and willing drop blood from both of us on there. It actually doesn’t take a lot, just a lot of determination to make it happen on my part.”
“So, you’re telli
ng me that you can open the portal and still live. I assume you want me to free you and your baby once you’ve done so for me?” He was the one nearly laughing now.
“No. I’m not stupid. You’re going to kill us one way or the other. You are the monster, after all.”
“Then what do you gain by telling me how to break the barrier?”
“I gain this… I take the baby to the other side with me, peacefully, and hope that you will keep your word to leave my pack out of this. I don’t care about anyone else’s people, pack, or whatever you intend to harm. My pack stays safe, or you can kill me now, and give up on this portal ever opening. Remember, I will be opening a gateway to the dead that won’t be able to close again. I can come back through to make sure you kept your end of the bargain.”
“I see.” Louis paced back and forth for a few minutes, while thinking. Meanwhile, I prepared by tucking baby Jack in close to me. I had fastened a sling around me before I left the house earlier, in anticipation of having to carry the baby back, or take him with me to the other side. According to Layla I would need four parts of the baby’s skin to be touching my own when I crossed over, otherwise he might be lost anyway. I made sure that Willows shirt was pulled up off the baby’s stomach and then I pulled mine out of the way too. One of his arms, and his belly were flush against my own skin then. Now, I just had to hope that this worked, for his sake.
“You offer yourself and your baby so that your pack may live?” Louis asked.
“I will drop a little blood, and pull the baby with me into the portal. That is what opens the damn thing, since we are all that there is of our bloodline. In exchange for opening the gateway to the dead, my pack lives.”
“Just like that, a mother would sacrifice herself and her baby for the rest of her pack?”
“Just like that?” I questioned him indignantly. Obviously, he was trying to figure out what sort of treachery I was offering. “No, not just like that. You already have the baby here. I knew when I came to get Willow that there wouldn’t be any hope for saving…” my voice trailed off as I conjured the exact way I would feel were it Willow in my arms that I was risking right now. “I came to be with her. I knew we wouldn’t make it home this time.” Tears actually spilled over and ran their course down my cheeks then. Still, I could see that he didn’t fully believe. “You lead your dark ones, and they follow. They do so out of fear, but fear brought on by respect for who and what you are. My people are no different. They fear the fact that I am something other than they are. Now, the women of my pack, and others, fear that if they look like me, they will also die in my place. I’ve been the captive before. My mate has been held captive as well; we’ve been tortured, used, and abused while held in tiny little cages. The last time for me, while I was pregnant with Willow.” I hesitated as I blew a shaky breath from my body. “Call me selfish, but I would rather be here to take my baby peacefully from this world than see her undergo any of that torment. I’d rather go peacefully than go through another ounce of the madness again.”
A slow smile spread across Louis’s face. “Ah, now, you’ve finally said something that I can believe in. Selfishness and cowardice are things that I understand in the weak. They are heavy motivators, are they not?” He actually chuckled then. “How does this work then?”
I didn’t bother explaining. Instead, I figured show and tell was the better option. Raising my fingertip to my sharp canine, I ripped a spot open, and amped up both my nerves and adrenaline as all the dark ones at the edge of the room suddenly became very aware of the baby and I. I could smell the fresh coppery essence of my blood above that of the rotted old stench from the gunk that covered the dais. Apparently, the dark ones could too, and it was enticing. “Just a few drops,” I called out shakily, then flung the drops onto the dais as I moved the baby and myself to its center. “Then I ask that the portal be opened and accept the offering of bonded blood.” I did everything as I said it out loud, only my askance was given silently in my head. There, I was able to request the portal to open long enough to allow baby Jack and I through, and to seal again behind me. As I reached out with my mind a thin veil appeared just beyond the center of the dais. Everything grayed out on the other side of that veil, as it always appeared in my dreams, and I could smell the scent of lavender through the portal now as well.
“Now what?” Louis asked.
“Now, we step through the gateway into the beyond. Our sacrifice will open the portal.”
“Fair warning, girly. If you step through that portal, and things don’t go as I planned, I will rip through your entire pack with my own teeth. My little minions won’t even get a taste, but I promise you that no one will escape my savagery.”
Every muscle in my body tensed, and shook. There was no doubt in my mind that Louis was completely serious in that moment. I didn’t have much of a choice though. I knew he wouldn’t keep his promise to protect my pack. He was a monster, and I knew from personal experience that there was no bargaining with them. They took, they killed, and did everything in their power to take some more. What they never did was give back. I just hoped that while I was there, stepping through the veil, I could send out one last message to warn the others of his coming.
I took one last unwavering look at the determination and anticipation painted on Louis’s face, and then I stepped backward through the gateway to the dead. Just like that, ice ran through my veins, baby Jack cried out too, so I knew I wasn’t alone in feeling the cold finality of the death plane. When I opened my eyes again the white wolves were there. They lined the backside of the dais, waiting patiently. This time they didn't appear as one being sharing a body, instead they stood as many separate entities. Some appeared in their human forms, others were in their wolf form. It was an incredible site to behold as I took in all the lovely pure white wolves. The only difference in them was the eye colors they each wore. There were so many different shades of greens and blues. They all acknowledged, with that one shared glance that I had just made the ultimate sacrifice to try to give my people a little time.
“I need to contact Serena. Please, can you help me?” A nod came from one of the women towards the back, as she approached, I realized it was Aislynn, the first of us.
“I am sorry that you were lost, and with this little one too, Jessica.”
“Whom are you talking to?” A voice boomed from behind me.
I jumped, startled by the sound of Louis in this place. I turned to look, and noticed he watched me with a great deal of anticipation. I had been about to tell the white wolves that I needed to warn her, but thankfully I think they anticipated that. Had I said it aloud, it would have been all over.
“You still stand upon the dais, Jessica. He can still see you, although he can’t see beyond that, to us.”
A smile spread across my face as a plan formed. I whispered to her, “warn Serena, he’s coming, and he’s pissed.” Then I turned to look back out into the land of the living. Louis stood there waiting. “The portal is open.” I reached my hand forward and touched his cheek quickly to show that it was. He knew better than to get on the dais himself, so he didn’t bother to move closer. I jerked my hand back to the other side as it began to burn. I didn’t want him to see that I couldn’t actually come and go freely. “Who would you like for me to send over?”
“I don’t want you to send anyone. I want the portal to be free flowing. Open it all the way; get off the dais, Jessica St Marks De’Lune. Step back, and away to allow for the spirits to enter this realm.”
The Willow tree that stood just a few inches from him swayed in a breeze that was not evident in the rest of the cave on his side, but it was on mine. Tiny hairs that got caught up in the breath of the undead, tipped up to tickle my nose. I swatted them back down defiantly as I looked out at Louis, and his minions who had moved in ever closer to the portal. No doubt, they all anticipated seeing some of the people they had lost over the centuries.
“There’s no one over here waiting.”
“Then whom were you talking to, girl?”
“I was talking to my ancestors. They are all that awaits the other side of this portal. Would you like me to send them through to you?” It was a bluff, but I saw the fear spike in his eyes then. He didn’t feel he had a lot to fear from one White Wolf, but from an entire familial line of them… We could wreak havoc on the world if we could actually move freely between the living and the dead.
“You are the only one stopping that from happening, Jessica.” Aislynn called out from behind me. “Your will alone controls that portal. What would you have it do? Who would you grant access to that kind of power?”
“I could go back?”
“Yes, but you would come out in the same place you went in. He would still be there.”
“I can see the others now,” I tipped my head back over my shoulder indicating curious souls who were moving our way, probably sensing that the portal was opened.
“Send them through to me, wolf girl.” Louis was becoming very anxious on the other side. There was a mixture of anticipation and a little anxiety that I was pretty sure didn’t have anything to do with whether or not I was going to uphold my end of the bargain. That got me thinking.
“Some of these souls don’t look too happy to see you.” He blanched a bit as the words left my mouth. ‘Gotcha!’ I thought. “Are you certain you really want me to open this portal? The souls that are gathering look hungry, and I don’t mean in a, ‘let’s go get a combo meal together,’ kind of way. I’m getting all kinds of vengeance vibes here.”
“You’re bluffing!” Louis bellowed it, and the cavern around him picked up the sound, and reverberating it in a scary echoing effect that I would feel in my bones for years to come, living or dead.
“I wish I were, because these things are creeping me out a bit. I’ll be honest with you, I’m not sure if they can hurt me or not, but if they do to try to get to you… well…”
The Ancients Series Page 76
