Chapter Twenty-Seven

The book I took from the ancient library came with far more information than I had ever imagined. It not only held a history of the world we traveled, but it held information about the different plants and animals that we came across in our travels.

Strange rabbit-like creatures that I had never even heard of before, darted across our path to snack on strange looking plants with blue bulbs in place of flowers. The book was called the creatures Lapindras, and the flowers were their primary source of food. An herbal plant known as Azureglox.

I was intrigued by the creatures, my inherited power reaching out to the threads that connected each one to see if I could call on them as I could with the rabbits in my realm. Interestingly, I could, though not as strongly as back home. The creatures still held a wariness about them even as I pulled at their threads. I could feel a resistance that no creature had ever given me before.

Reading more into their food source, I came up with a small theory as to why they held that resistance.

The Azureglox seemed to have been a ceremonial plant, according to the book. It was used to make a tea for rising royalty to drink, to grow a resistance to mind controlling spells. I gathered a few of the flowers after reading about them. Just in case we needed them when we found the witch.

The others were aware that I possessed the book and appeared to comprehend its insights about the local plants and wildlife; I didn't go into much more detail than I had to. Especially not with Sasha.

I looked over at her as she and Aurora chatted together quietly, our strides almost leisurely, as if we weren't on a mission to find a dangerous dark witch and possibly battle a great evil in the process.

Sasha looked serene, though tired as well. There was no sign of the fear she had just this morning when she told me about her dream. About her suspicions that someone had taken her away from her body and pulled her into the darkness where we hunted for the witch.

Given the information inside the book and her dream, I didn't find it in her best interest to let her know about the dark fate the book spoke about. There wasn't enough evidence to say that it was he who spoke to her. There wasn't even any evidence to say he came out of the punishment the gods had given him for his interference with the mortal world. But Sasha wouldn't care about the lack of evidence.

She'd take one look at the book and its story and she would believe it was him. I couldn't have her anymore distracted by this dark presence than she already was. It had already nearly claimed both our lives now. The best course was to watch her and assure her that she wasn't filled with darkness, nor did she have a direct line to the evil being from which the darkness was born.

Another group of creatures scurried in front of us, completely unaware of any potential danger we might pose to them. A sign that they had no interaction with humankind in generations. They almost reminded me of the birds killed off in less than a hundred years ago, when humans first came to their native island. They even shared similar features with those long-gone birds, though I couldn't quite call them bird brained, as they watched us curiously from where they stood.

"What are these birds called?" Baer asked as I opened my book.

I looked at him and nodded to the page where I found their likeness. "Cognizings. Says here they are incredibly resilient and smart birds. It says here that there had been some who claimed to have taught the birds how to speak like parrots, but they lack the bright colors of the showy birds and weren't popular as pets because of their looks."

"What's it say about eating them?" Baer asked as he stared at the birds watching us.

I scowled at his question. "Didn't we get plenty of food at the city?"

Baer laughed and nodded. "Yeah, but that doesn't mean it will last us forever. We don't know how far we are from finding Minerva, and it's good to know what is worth hunting or not."

I gave a sigh and flipped the page to read more about the bird. "Says here they have no real predators due to the lack of sustenance they provide. Not even the wolves bothered with hunting the birds. A feature that the dodo birds back in our realm could have used to survive."

Baer chuckled and turned his attention away from the birds with lost interest. "Either way these birds are extinct to our world just as much as the dodo bird. Seems like our ancestors forgot them because they lacked any use to us. Can't be food and can't be a pet, may as well not even exist."

I scrunched my nose at that. "All creatures have their place and uses. Just because they weren't useful to people doesn't mean they didn't do something to help their environment thrive."

Sasha and Aurora looked back at us as my voice rose higher. They both raised a brow at the two of us as we nodded their way and smiled.

"Is she doing okay?" Baer asked when they turned away from us with a hushed voice. "I've been trying to find the right moment to ask, but it doesn't seem to be coming around anytime soon."

I watched Sasha as she tried to stifle a yawn behind her hand.

"That depends on what you mean by okay," I said.

"I mean that we could hear you both this morning. Your panic, asking her to wake up. Then her gasps of air like she just came up from the bottom of a lake. Just because you both came out of the tent looking like all was normal doesn't mean that we didn't notice or hear that something was wrong."

I looked away from Sasha and her cousin to meet Baer's gaze then. "Of course you did," I scrubbed my hand over my face. "If I'm being completely honest, I have no idea. Even when she talks to me, I can't help but feel she is still holding something back. I'm not even sure she's aware that she's not telling me everything."

"You know you sound a little crazy saying that right?" Baer said.

I shook my head. "Yeah, maybe. But it doesn't take away the fear." I looked at the girls again, their eyes forward as they whispered in their own conversation. "Last night she stopped breathing in her sleep. I couldn't reach her through the bond. I could barely feel her at all. It was like a giant wall had gone up around her and blocked me out. No matter how hard I tried to break through to her, I couldn't reach her. I could barely reach her wolf and even that connection felt like a bad wireless connection."

Baer frowned. "You both marked one another didn't you?" He looked at my shoulder, where Sasha's mark sat just beneath my clothes.

"Yeah," I nodded. "We did. The bond is complete. It has been since before the griffin attacked."

"Then there is nothing in the world that could stop you from reaching your mate. That connection is formed by The Fates themselves. It's impossible to break that bond once it's formed."

I gave a humorless laugh. "That's exactly why it worries me. When she finally woke up and took a breath, she told me that she didn't feel like she had been in her body during that time. She said she was in the darkness."

"What darkness?" Baer asked skeptically.

"The darkness where dark witches draw their power from," I answered and lowered my voice more. "There is more, but I'm not sure what she has told Aurora and, given that your mate doesn't keep things from you."

Baer shook his head. "I know she has that fear of being evil, but that's about it."

I nodded. "Yeah there is that. There is also a voice she keeps hearing in her head. It told her what the creatures were as we encountered them and how to kill them. It told her how to use the dark magic. And she said that the voice was in the darkness when she was there in her sleep. This voice just adds more to her fears, and I'm getting more and more worried about her."

Baer looked over at the two cousins ahead of us and frowned at the same time as me.

"What can we do to help?"

I smiled at the immediate reaction, a testament to the family bond he had developed with Sasha through his mate's bond to her cousin.

"Just have Rory check on her for me. I think having her cousin close to her helps her more than she realizes. She is so dependent on me and our bond to block out the voice, but clearly it's not working. I get this feeling that she needs more than just her mate to be strong."

Baer nodded. "Two wolves a pack they do not make."

"What?" I asked.

"She needs a pack, and the two of you alone aren't that," he stretched his arms up and groaned loudly with the motion.

I could hear Aurora giggle as she looked back at her mate, smiling at the sound he made.

"I'll talk to Rory. I'll see if she knows anything about the stuff you told me and if she doesn't, I'll push her to talk to Sasha."

I nodded and felt the appreciation growing in my chest.

"Thank you, Baer," I said.

"You don't have to thank me, Ayden," he said firmly. "We're family. Pack. It's what we do for one another."

I watched him trot off ahead and wrap his arms around Rory's waist, my feet refusing to pick up my own pace and catch up with them.

He was right. I hadn't even noticed it happen, but we had become a pack. I had been foolish to think that I was simply marking my mate, but it was more than that.

These past few months of travel have brought us all closer than we had been before. Even for four people who had grown up together. Who had competed with one another all our lives until graduation. Somehow, we had grown beyond that.

I didn't see Baer as the fellow alpha king anymore. He was my brother. And Aurora, though still Sasha's cousin, had also become a sister to me in my eyes. The two of them had stuck up for me from the very beginning of this combined quest. They had vouched for me to join them and encouraged both Sasha and me to explore our bond more than either of us had been willing to do before.

I thought then about my family and pack back in Montana. It wasn't exactly that I was closer to these three than I was to my own flesh and blood, but the bond seemed to be stronger than that of blood ties.

While I had been born into my family, the bond I formed with Sasha and the others was one crafted out of metal. Much like the city we had found here, with its buildings of the reddish metal that withstood time and space.

I didn't only trust them all to have my back if I needed it, but I also trusted them to trust me with any choice that I made.

Memories of my mother's voicemail resurfaced as I thought about the faith I had in my newfound pack. The faith I knew they held for me.

Had it been them as they are to me now, and I told about my desire to hunt down the witch who stole my uncle's magic, they would have joined me without a second thought. There would have been no plea for me to give up on wild goose chases. No threats of coming after me if I didn't return home. They would have leaped to ask what they could do to help me.

One more distinction between this new pack and the one I was raised in is that there was no requirement for me to assert dominance. We were all equals in our pack. Each of us bringing with us a strength that the others lacked.

Granted, we all had our moments of our alpha instincts reacting to the instincts of the others, but there was more cooperation than push back. It was genuine teamwork above all the other bullshit.

‘We are a family,'my wolf said then. ‘Just as Baer said.'

I nodded. "A perfectly blended family. The Fates themselves couldn't have weaved a better fate themselves."