Free Piercing Silence by Quinn Loftis Page A

moment.”
    And just as quickly as her presence had
come, she was gone. Fane knew it was futile, but he did it anyway.
Desperation making him willing to try anything, he reached through
their bond but found that it was still locked up tight.
    “ Please let me in,
Jacquelyn.” He was at a complete loss as
to what to do. His wolf needed action and so once again he headed
deeper into the mountain unwilling to give up looking for her until
she was with him, where she belonged.
     
     
     

Chapter 9

     
    J acque’s gut clenched as she and the Great Luna appeared
before the doors of the Romanian pack mansion. Part of her wanted
to fling the door open and run inside because she was so desperate
for the sight of her mate. The other part of her was too scared to
move. What if, in that alternate reality, he’d found someone
else?
    “What if I can’t handle what I see?” Jacque
asked the goddess.
    “You do not have a choice,” she answered.
“There are times in life when it is necessary to see the whole
truth to fully understand the weight of a decision before it is
made. Such a time is this.” The Great Luna waved toward the doors
and they opened.
    Jacque hesitated briefly
before finally following the goddess inside. Everything looked the
same, yet she knew immediately that it was different somehow. The
air felt heavy, weighted down with despair and darkness. They
continued walking further into the mansion and Jacque recognized
the door to the study. The Great Luna motioned for her to enter the
room. What was she going to say? ‘No thank
you, I think I’ll pass? Not likely, Jacque
thought as she walked into Vasile’s study, a room she’d been in
many, many times, and yet it had never been filled with such
darkness.
    Decebel stood to her far right. His large
arms crossed in front of his chest with his brooding frown firmly
in place. He looked like a stranger to her. Shadows seemed to wrap
around him and the very light in the room seem to avoid him.
    Vasile was sitting on one of the loveseats;
his eyes were tired and his mouth pulled into a tight line. He
looked older, though he still didn’t have grey hair or any
wrinkles. She heard footsteps behind her and watched as Sorin and
then Fane walked into the room.
    Jacque took a step toward her mate but
stopped when she remembered that he couldn’t see her. She ached
with the need to feel his arms around her and to have him tell her
that everything would be fine, that he would never let her go, and
that he loved her. None of those things had ever been in doubt, but
that did not mean she needed to hear them any less.
    She watched as he took a seat next to his
father. His blue eyes held no tenderness in them. They were as hard
as the marble tile upon which she now stood.
    “You’ve been graduated for a year now,
Fane,” Vasile spoke, breaking the silence.
    Jacque looked over at the Great Luna. The
goddess nodded. “Yes, this is two years after you should have met
him.”
    Jacque turned back to the men and watched as
Fane clenched and unclenched his jaw. “I’m not ready.”
    “What kind of answer is that?” Vasile
snapped. “You told me two years ago that you felt like you needed
to go to the U.S. but that you weren’t sure you were ready. I
understood then because you were young. You are a pup no longer. If
you feel a pull to go, then you know what it could mean.”
    “But we know there are no packs in that
area. That’s the whole reason I backed out the first time. Why on
earth would my mate be in Cold Spring, Texas where there are no
Canis lupus?” Fane argued. “Besides, don’t you think we have bigger
things to worry about?”
    That had Jacque perking up even more.
    Vasile shrugged. “Desdemona makes her
threats; we’ve been holding her off. She will still be here when we
return. Now back to your first question. It doesn’t matter if you
can’t explain it. We are werewolves and for all intents and
purposes should not exist, yet we do. You need a