CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT: Rachel~ I opened my eyes to a field surrounded by redwood trees. The sun was setting and a lovely scent, honeysuckle, wafted through the air. A flock of birds flew overhead and I continued to look around. I was in a sitting position, my legs crossed, like I had been meditating. “Rachel, good. You’re awake,” I heard a light melodic voice say from somewhere behind me. I turned to see a lovely middle-aged woman with long auburn hair and intense violet eyes. She was beckoning me to stand. “I’m sorry - do I know you?” I asked her as I pushed up off from the grass. She shook her head, “No, not really. But I know you.” That made me raise my brow. What did that mean? “I don’t mean to startle you..” she said, brushing imaginary dirt off the skirt of her dress. “I’ll introduce myself. I am the Archangel, Aurora.” Huge white wings unfurled behind her as if in emphasis. I gasped. My jaw hung there, open. And then it hit me, one thing at a time. Vance.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE: Ally~I froze in my tracks. “I- Nick,” I searched for words that didn’t seem to come. I just looked at him, the car, the guys and Rachel - and - the head. I turned to the side, seeing it again and feeling sick. “Hold on,” he said calmly. I kept my eyes fixated on a tree and heard his footsteps retreat. After a few moments he started walking back. I looked up at him again. The sight of him walking toward me made my breath hitch. He smiled. That made me all warm again. I could feel my cheeks flaming. I breathed in deeply. It was him. “It’s you - you smell like…” I started then hit the brakes. I might just die here of embarrassment. “What? Tell me?” his eyes brightened and he stepped even closer. How does one breathe again? I’ve forgotten. “I can tell you what you smell like to me?” his eyebrows went up a bit. “Like freshly baked cinnamon rolls.” “How?” I squeaked. He turned his head to the side and scratched the back of his head as he thought. A breeze
CHAPTER NINETY: Kyle~ This morning, I had thought that the hardest thing about today would be how Rachel would take the news about magic and all things supernatural. Fae Goddess above, was I wrong. “Can you check again?” Ally asked from the bench next to me where she held Rachel up. It had been about ten minutes since ‘the big bad wolves’ left us. Ally’s mom was now with us, waiting for any progress. I couldn’t quite describe the state she was in, but I could feel in my bones how dangerous it would be to try to pull her out of wherever she was. “Sure,” I said, lifting my hand to reach for hers. I let some of my magic flow to her, testing the connection, and then I tried pulling it (and more) back into me. This time was different. “I think it’s time,” I said aloud, focusing on slowly taking away these layers of unconsciousness. One by one they came undone and I felt her starting to wake. Before going all the way I stopped, giving her time to get out of the last one on her own.
CHAPTER NINETY-ONE: Nick~ We have the smartest, most amazing mate, Asher said in my mind after I finally hung up my call with Ally. We really do, I said back. And I meant it. Her abilities were out of this world. Her emotional intelligence when she was coaxing Jake into letting Rachel go - just all of her. Absolutely amazing.I couldn’t just sit there gushing about her forever and driving myself nuts by not running over to her house this instant - I need to get everyone up to speed.I linked my dad, Jake, Evan, and his dad to meet me in the Alpha’s office.About an hour later I had caught everyone up on everything from earlier today and all the things Ally was able to tell me. And as much as I wanted to proudly scream from the mountaintop that my beautiful, amazing mate is the Witchling we were getting all this intel from, one look at my dad and Evan’s dad set me straight. Our parents would lose it if we started telling them about mates across species.I set aside Asher’s sadness
CHAPTER 92 Jake~ In horrible situations, even if you tell yourself that you’re prepared for the worst possible outcome - you're just not. At least I wasn’t. The hollow feeling that kept taking over my body just to get through the things that needed to be done - my duties as an Alpha - was a reprieve. Most of the time I struggled to manage it all. I was supposed to have so much more time to train under my father, and more time on top of that to assume the role I now found myself in. Losing our warriors when my parents had been taken was one thing, I had something to focus on - to focus on looking for them. But now I found myself suddenly orphaned and with too much on my plate. I had always pitched in as much as I could, but this - this was something else entirely. Part of me was forever broken. I wasn’t anyone’s son anymore. I wasn’t going to have any more time to just ‘be a kid’ like Mitchell’s mom had always pushed me to be. It was too late for that now. My parents had been rippe
CHAPTER NINETY-THREE Rachel~ “So what would you like to do for your birthday?” Sean asked me. We were seated by the school’s community garden, looking down over the edge of the hill, down towards the ocean. It was definitely cold today as January was in full swing, but staying in the sun’s rays was keeping me warm. “Umm… I’m not really sure. I usually need to do something indoors. February usually means rain. Growing up I had indoor pool parties, bowling parties, movie theater visits in a group - that sort of thing,” I said thinking aloud. “How would you feel about a big drive-in? We can do the same setup as before but invite whoever you’d like to come too?” Sean suggested, swinging his legs that were dangling from the ledge we currently sat on. “Sure, that could be fun,” I said. Then after a moment I added, “Although I don’t think it would be anyone other than like Ally and Kyle, Lana, maybe Marsha if she’s feeling up to it, Maxine - if she ever comes back from France. Hmmm… I
CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR Kyle~ Ally and I had a long few days of ‘playing defense’ as we were calling it. We couldn’t rip Rachel away from her current reality yet, and we couldn’t do anything to Sean lest he do something worse to Rachel. But we sure as hell could limit their time together. It was hard not just punching Sean in the face when I pulled him to the side for our little chats. He was threatening my friends’ safety. And for all I know, he could have been behind my own kidnapping, or worked with Vance on it to keep me from Rachel. Threats laced his every word to me. I had tried on our first day doing this to bring up my kidnapping suddenly to see if he would give anything away. But this guy was a total snake in the grass. He hadn’t reacted at all. Not really. He held a deadness in his eyes. On the surface he put out this whole easy-going, cool guy routine, but there was something calculating beneath the surface. We wouldn’t be able to keep this new information from Jake much
CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE Evan~ While Jake worked on some things with my dad, Nick and I went out to Ally’s. I drove since Nick’s leg was bouncing with anxiety or anticipation. He didn’t say much on the drive over but I knew he was excited to see Ally while also worried about what we were about to get ourselves into. We pulled up to the curb by Ally’s house and Nick basically jumped out and ran up the stairs to Ally’s door. She must have seen us coming since she immediately opened the door and let him in. I took my time coming up to give them a minute. By the time I got up the stairs the two of them were down in the stairwell going downstairs, whispering to each other and getting real cozy. I spotted Kyle in the kitchen and decided he had the right idea. “So what is it exactly we’re going to be doing?” I asked him as he held out a box of cookies, a silent offering. I grabbed two and started munching. “All Nick said is we’re playing backup?” “Yeah, I don’t want to get into things too mu