Free Destiny: A Hunter's Novel, Book 3 by Felicite Lilly Page B

was drained. And, well, I couldn’t get a read on Anie.
    “What’s going on with you Anie? What’s wrong?”
    “You and your damn powers. Fitz is gone. Haven’t seen him in a few days.”
    “What happened?”
    “We got in a…disagreement about if you were going to come out of your little magical coma. He left to go to his father’s pack to confront him. I couldn’t stop him –”
    Her voice broke and I knew if he died a piece of her would too. A bigger piece than I realized.
    If he wanted to challenge someone, it should’ve been me. I was the pack leader. What was he doing? I opened the door the protection spell had made between me and Fitz. I could feel his emotions were high. Pain was at the forefront. I tried to pull him to me but I was weak, so when he pushed me away from him, I went.
    “I can’t get to him. He won’t let me,” I said.
    “You’re not the only one.” Anie’s voice was defeated. Apparently, a lot had happened while I’d been out.
    I got up from the couch on steady but weak legs.
    “I’ll go for him. But I can’t right now. Besides, he’s challenging the wrong person for leader of the pack.”
    If he was going to pull that kind of crap, he needed to challenge me. I wished I had the time to deal with Fitz and the pack right now, but the most I could do was hope the pack didn’t kill him or try to use him against me. At least in that scenario, I had enough time to go and deal with them all.
    “I am starving. I’ll be right back.” I left Anie and Az sitting in the living room. I went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. There was a loaf of bread, milk, and a couple containers that had unidentifiable substances in them. I grabbed the bread and searched the cabinets. I wanted a peanut butter sandwich badly. I had spat in the face of death, or I’d felt like I had, I thought I deserved it.
    Air suddenly encompassed the room, pressurizing it as though I was on a plane. I heard a pop and Angel magic sluiced over me.
    “You’re alive.”
    I turned and Serafine was wringing her hands together, in a maternal agitation. Maybe it wasn’t a maternal agitation, maybe I just thought of her that way because of her connection to my Mother.
    “I am alive. And starving. I want peanut butter.”
    I smelled the sandwich before I saw it. It lay on a white plate on the kitchen table, toasted and melty. My mouth watered and I had it opened before my hands even picked up the sandwich. I had half of it down before Serafine said anything.
    “Are you prepared?”
    “For what?”
    “For Mastema?”
    “You mean Tema?”
    “He hasn’t been Tema in a long time.”
    “That may be true. But…” I studied her for a moment. Appreciating the sacrifices she made for me. I was willing to return the favor as much as I could. “what if he could be Tema again?”
    “How?”
    The disbelief on her face was a well worn look, one I was used to seeing. There had been enough disbelieving looks passed out to me over the years.
    “I found a spell. It wouldn’t heal what you know, or Mastema, but I could give you back to each other and it would heal his soul enough where he could become the man you fell in love with again, your Mate – Tema.”
    “Is this why you made the deal with Traugott?”
    “Heard about that already?”
    “I put my petition in to leave, and he immediately accepted. He told me what you’d done.”
    “So will you help me?”
    “As much as I can.”
    “I can explain some of it, but some of it I don’t even know what’s going to happen. We’re going to have to wing it at the end.”
    She nodded. I knew she would.

~XI~
    “Misplaced trust in old friends, Never counting regrets, By the grace of God I do not rest at all.”
    - Ron Pope , A Drop in the Ocean
    After I’d explained, loosely, what my plan concerning Mastema was, Serafine left. She seemed to think my plan might work, since she’d agreed to it.
    I sat at the kitchen table, quietly letting the world around me