Sacrifice of Love (43 page)

“So kind of you to grace us with your presence,” Jen said as Peri appeared in the library where Jacque, Sally, and she were drinking hot chocolate and staring at Thia like she was the best thing since sliced bread, which she was, so it was totally appropriate.

“I’ve been busy,” Peri snapped as she walked over to where they sat on the floor, circling the little baby that was lying on a blanket. “Now quit your whining and let me see the crumb catcher.”

Jen reached down and picked Thia up and handed her to Peri. Peri held her with one hand under her neck and one under her bottom, holding her up in front of her face so she could get a good look at her.

“I have to admit, she’s beautiful,” Peri smiled at her. She tucked her into a football hold and then leaned down and kissed her forehead. Then she whispered something the others couldn’t hear. A soft glow emitted off of Peri and enveloped her and Thia for several seconds and then was gone.

The girls stared at the fae with opened mouths.

“Okay, what was that?” Jen motioned to the area around Peri where the glowing had been.

Peri waved her hand at her as if batting the question away. “Mind your own business. That was between me and Thia.”

“Fine, whatevs,” Jen said with a shrug, “let’s talk about what’s really important. Why are you hiding?”

Peri’s eyes narrowed at the Alpha. “I’m not hiding.”

Jen smiled knowingly. “Oh Peri fairy, I’m totally in the know, so you might as well just spill it.”

Jacque frowned. “What are you in the know about? You didn’t tell us you were in the know. Sally, did you know she was in the know?” she rambled quickly as she looked from Jen to Sally then Peri and then back to Jen.

Sally shook her head. “I never know jack around here so welcome to my world.”

“I haven’t really had time to tell you guys because I’ve been investigating. I wanted my facts straight first,” she told them, sounding a tad defensive.

“What investigating?” Peri asked as she narrowed her eyes.

“There’s been a certain wolf hanging around the Romanian, and sometimes Serbian, mansions. And I might have followed him one day to Vasile’s office. And I might have heard him say that he knew who his mate was when Vasile hinted that he would have a good chance of finding a mate now that the fae were compatible. And I might have noticed that said wolf has some new art work running up his neck.”

“No!?”

“Seriously!?”

Jacque and Sally spoke together as they gasped at the same time. They both looked at Peri with wide eyes.

Peri wouldn’t look at either of them, but she just stared down at Thia, smiling when she grasped her finger in her tiny hand.

“Lucian?” Jacque finally spoke after several minutes of shocked silence. “You’re mated to Lucian?”

“No!” Peri growled. “There has been no mating.”

Jen grinned. “There’s a bond though isn’t there? You guys can totally talk to one another. SHUT UP!” Jen exclaimed as she clapped her hands. “Wait, do you have markings? I mean his changed so you must have them now.”

Again, Peri refused to look at them.

“Peri, you can’t run from this forever,” Sally said gently.

“I’m not running,” Peri disagreed. “Okay, so I am hiding; I know better than to run from a predator. But hiding is a fae specialty.”

“So you aren’t interested in him at all?” Jacque asked. “You don’t find him the least bit attractive?”

“I didn’t say that, but you all know that there is no way I can be mated to a wolf. It would be like setting gun powder next to an open flame.”

Jen made an exploding motion with her hands as she said, “Fireworks, baby.” She smiled at her, “You’re telling me you’re scared of a little fireworks?”

“I haven’t told you anything you, brat. You keep putting words in my mouth.”

“Well, I feel it’s my duty as your friend and designated know-it-all to tell you that there are a few females in my pack who are totally not scared of fireworks.” She shrugged. “I’m just sayin. You got this hot wolf walking around clueless about anything and everything in this new world, and these chicks are more than happy to share their knowledge, if you know what I mean.”

Peri’s lips tightened as she listened to Jen tell her things she didn’t want to hear and didn’t want to be upset about, but she was anyway. She stood stiffly and handed Jacque the sleeping child gently and then stepped back from the girls. Her emotions were all over the place and she didn’t want to inadvertently hurt anyone. She looked at Jen and steeled herself for the words that she knew she didn’t mean but had to say because they were true.

“He deserves a wolf mate, someone not jaded by the world or bitter from seeing too much death. He’s been through much and will need someone with patience and a gentle touch and we all know I have neither of those things. He should choose someone else.”

“Peri you know that’s not how it works,” Jacque argued. “The Great Luna has matched you two. You’re missing half of your soul. You have probably always felt something was missing. Now you know, and there is only one man who can give it to you.”

Peri shook her head. “Well the Great Luna got it wrong. I can’t be anyone’s mate. You’re telling me that he has half of my soul, right?” The girls nodded. “That means I have the other half of his, and I can tell you that if that’s the case, then he got screwed because what little bit of soul that was in me has been shattered. So you see, he has to have someone else.”

The three girls jumped when the library door suddenly flew open and crashed into the wall. Jacque tightened her hold on Thia and looked down at her to make sure she was alright. She was still sound asleep.
Good thing she’s gotten used to males who have absolutely no manners and are basically like bulls in a china shop,
she thought as she watched the wolf at the door walk coolly into the room.

He was big, he was angry, and he was looking right at Peri.

Jen grinned to herself. “
Dec you’re totally missing this. Bring me some popcorn. Lucian has that look you get in your eyes when you’re pissed at me, so we might see some action.”

She heard Decebel’s annoyed growl through their bond which only made her smile wider.

Peri stared at Lucian as he walked into the room. He was bigger than she remembered and, as it pained her to admit, was incredibly hot. She didn’t think she was too bad herself. I mean someone her age should be, well, dust, and she didn’t look a day over twenty, okay twenty-five, but Lucian was in a whole other league.

His eyes glowed and his presence filled the room, making it feel incredibly crowded. He took several more steps toward her and then stopped. He was within touching distance. A couple steps closer and he would totally be in licking distance.
Stop it Peri,
she snarled at herself. She kept the bond that had opened between them the moment their eyes had met in the forest, when the Great Luna had restored her life, closed tight. That sort of intimacy freaked her out and, frankly, she was tired of being freaked out.

“There is no other for me,” Lucian told her in his oddly formal way. She reminded herself that he was centuries behind them in social knowledge and that only meant that his dominance and chivalry were going to be off the stinking charts. “You are my mate; you are exactly what I need and exactly what I want. Whatever it is inside you that you feel is broken, it is my duty and my honor to mend you, and where I am broken, you will mend me. That is what it means to be mates, Perizada. You have been alone for a long time, as have I. You do not have to be alone any longer.”

“Bloody hell,” Jen whispered, “how do you say no to that?”

“Right?” Jacque and Sally said at the same time.

Peri just stood there looking up at Lucian, at her mate, and then finally said the only thing she could think of, “I’m so screwed.”

From the author

This is the final story for the three girls and the fur balls we have grown to love. But, it’s not the end of the road for all of our GWS characters. Stay tuned for Book One of my new series, Into the Fae, coming soon.

How do I even begin to express what this series has meant to me? When I wrote Prince of Wolves I never dreamed it would turn into seven books. I never imagined that others would love these characters as much as I do, and yet here we are. I am so proud of this series and I’m sad to see it end. I hope that I have ended it in such a way that you feel the girls are getting their HEAs. This book was a nightmare to write. First, because I cried through most of it - second, because I wanted it to be freaking awesome and third, because I wanted it to be freaking awesome. I don’t know if I’ve succeeded, but I pray that I have met your high expectations.

There are eight books in The Grey Wolves series. However, the final story belongs to Vasile and Alina. The characters will be different, since they met over two centuries ago. I’m excited and terrified about it but then that’s pretty much my norm for every book I write.

So, though this is sort of the end for this series, there are exciting things to come! Thank you so much for joining me in this journey. Thank you for cheering these characters on, for yelling at them, crying with them, telling them to get a freaking clue, and for loving them. You all have blessed me beyond measure with your support and I’m humbled by it.

Sincerely,

Quinn

Please enjoy the following excerpt from Kiss of Fire by Rebecca Ethington

Kiss of Fire

Rebecca Ethington

Prologue

Everything
changed on my fifth birthday. My parents were in the backyard hanging the “Happy Birthday Joclyn” banner that was surrounded by yellow and blue streamers. The colors danced through the trees as the wind blew them around. My parents laughed and joked as they decorated; I danced in the doorway as I waited for my friends to arrive.

I stopped to watch a brilliant blue trail of glitter as something small flew around me. I only caught a glimpse of wings before a sharp stabbing pain shot into the right side of my head. It left me feeling like I had been slammed against a brick wall. The sensation burned like acid that spread quickly through me. I dropped to the ground as the pain spread throughout my body. The hot current flowed under my skin like boiling water in my veins. My vision faded to black as the sensations grew into a torrent that split my bones apart. A buzzing silence filled the world around me until the sounds of my own screaming filled my ears.

I remember my mother panicking alongside me, my father on the phone with 911. I remember the sound of the ambulance siren, my vision a never-ending black, my body filled with the stabbing agony that incapacitated me. Trapped in my prison of unrelenting tortures, I drifted in and out of consciousness. No matter what the doctors did, what medicines they pumped into me, the pain didn’t go away. I couldn't move past it; sometimes I couldn't stop screaming. Eventually, I slipped into a coma.

The first thing I saw when I woke up was my mother's face, filled with worry. My father looked sick with fear. Even at five, I knew something was wrong. I had been in the coma for months, and no one knew what had happened. The only signs of anything having changed were a change in my eye color, from green to a colorless silver, and a small mark that appeared right below my right ear. It was the size of a penny, the skin vivid red and raised like a brand; in the middle, a small unintelligible figure stood out in vivid black. I ran my finger over it for days. It didn't hurt, but it was ugly. The doctors assumed that I had been bitten by some sort of bug and had an allergic reaction, but deep down I knew that wasn't right. Besides, something like that wouldn’t have affected my eye color.

I wasn't the only one to doubt the doctors; my father doubted them, too.

I went home the next day; my mother covered me in blankets and provided enough ice cream and cartoons to last me a month. She got time off work and took care of me like she had never done before. I almost believed the mark didn’t really matter - until the fighting started. It was weird to hear them yell.  I had never known my parents to fight before; they had always loved each other so much. My father had become obsessed with the idea of the mark, convinced that the mark I now had on my neck was something different, that it meant something. He rambled and yelled about it. He spent hours at the library, days on the Internet. The grinding noise of the modem dialing-in wound on our nerves; some nights I couldn't sleep. The fearful face he had the day I woke up never left him. He wasn't the same man. But I still loved him. I would crawl up on his lap, my five-year-old self, and plead for everything to be okay, promise him that I didn't hurt. I thought he believed me - until the day he disappeared.

I heard them screaming, for the last time, from the security of my bed, my blankets pulled high over me. I cried as they screamed at each other, gasped at the crashing that rocked the doors in the house. That night I cried myself to sleep. When I woke up, my father had gone, all because of me.

My mother didn't talk about it for months. Her heart had broken; I think my heart broke, too. Even at five, something inside me had changed; I knew I was different. Part of me knew that my father was right and that the mark did mean something. But it was also the reason he left, the reason my mother and I were alone.

At five, I hid that part of me away.

One

My long board clicked rhythmically down the sidewalk as I moved, the warm wind of early summer tugging against my dark hoodie, pulling at the long strands of black hair that had fallen out of my hood. I didn't like traveling in front of the houses in this part of the neighborhood. I normally took the back alley, but today, some road crews were working on pot-holes and I had to make my trip in front of the giant mansions that littered the hills of the east side of the city.