Decebel thought about it before finally nodding. "Fair enough, healer. I will consider your words before I talk to her."Jacque stepped forward and placed a hand on his arm. "Remember her words were spoken out of hurt and anger not because she doesn't respect you or love you. I think you should consider it a good sign that she was yelling at you. The time to be worried is when Jen stops yelling because that's when she's decided it's no longer worth her energy. You don’t want to be in that place."
His jaw clenched but he didn't say anything more. He just turned and quietly left.
Jacque turned to her own mate and frowned. "We can talk after Vasile is done."
"Should I be worried because you aren't yelling?" Fane asked her.
Jacque smiled sweetly at him. "Who said I'm not yelling?" She opened their bond on her end and growled, "HOW DARE YOU KEEP SOMETHING SO IMPORTANT FROM ME!"
Fane flinched.
"Vasile, Alina." Jacque gave them both a curt nod and then left. Jacque tried very hard not to imagine what those poor children must have looked like. She tried not to think about blood stained fangs dripping from the evil beings that were responsible for the atrocities. She tried hardest not to think about what those parents must have felt when they found their precious little ones drained of life.
Her stomach felt as though a huge rock had dropped to the bottom of it and her feet suddenly quit moving. Jacque stood stock still in the middle of the hall attempting to get her breathing under control.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I didn't want you to feel like this," Fane said as he walked up beside her and took her face in his hands.
"You can't protect me from everything," she said quietly, blinking back tears.
Fane pressed his forehead to hers and let out a sigh. "But it's my job to at least try to. Just as I will try to protect our child from everything."
Jacque closed her eyes and took comfort in her mate’s strength. She was still upset with him, but she needed him.
"I'm always here for you, Luna."
Sally stared at Vasile and Alina, feeling like she was looking at strangers rather than at the parent figures that she’d come to see them as. "Why didn't you want us to know? Why did you ask our mates to do something that you knew would only upset us?"
Vasile rubbed his hand over his face and leaned back against his desk. "Being a leader isn't all that it's cracked up to be. We make very tough decisions. My daughter-in-law will be having her first child in a month, my first grandchild. How was I supposed to tell her that there are crazed vampires out there eating children?"
"Maybe you just trust that she's stronger than she appears and would have been able to handle it," Sally countered.
"Maybe. But I didn't feel that was the best option."
"And what you feel is the best is always right?"
"Sally," Costin warned.
She ignored him.
Vasile's eyes flashed with irritation. "No, I'm not always right. But that doesn’t change the fact that decisions must be made. This is not a democracy. A wolf pack would not survive if it were. This is a dictatorship. I am Alpha. I am the strongest and those I care about will submit—period. I make decisions that I think are best for everyone. I listen to wise counsel, but ultimately the choice is mine and the consequences are mine as well. I realize that it is still difficult for you girls to understand. In the Canis lupus world, there has to be one leader and many followers. Otherwise, there will be utter chaos. The health of the pack is paramount. You may not like it, but you will accept it."
"Vasile, please," Alina said as she placed a hand on his arm.
Sally waited several heartbeats as she stared at the tired looking Alpha. Finally she nodded. "I get it. But it doesn't make it any easier."
"I never claimed it would be. Vent to your mate. Drink hot chocolate with your females, and think of all the ways you'd like to injure me because of your irritation. Ultimately, though, just like the males in the pack, you must obey."
"What about Decebel?" she asked.
"He can make his own choices for his own pack. But because he respects me and my mate, he listens to our counsel. That is his choice. His pack cannot question his authority. His mate may do so, but she should do it in privacy so as not to confuse the emotions of the others under Decebel's lead. That is something she will need to learn as she continues to grow into her role as Alpha female. I don't blame her for being upset, but her behavior today was unacceptable." He met her eyes and, after a minute, Sally dropped her gaze.
"Fair enough," she answered. She turned to Costin. "Ready?"
He looked at her wearily. "Uh, sure." Then he turned back to the Alphas. "Guess we will talk to you guys tomorrow. Cypher," he said and nodded to the warlock king and then took Sally's hand and led her from the room.
Sally followed quietly, still processing Vasile's words.
"Are you mad at me?" Costin asked quietly.
"Irritated," Sally corrected. "I get that you have to obey, but it sort of makes me feel like you put Vasile's wants before mine, though I know that's not really what you were doing."
"We aren't human," Costin reminded her.
"And I am not Canis lupus, so I suppose we should both cut each other some slack."
Peri flashed back into Vasile's office and looked around. "That party broke up fast. Guess that's what happens when Jen flips her lid." She took a step toward Cypher. "You ready for me to take you home?"
He nodded.
Then Peri looked back at Vasile as she took Cypher’s hand. "They will come to realize you were right to withhold the information," she assured the Alpha.
"Was I though?" He glanced at his mate and then back to Peri.
She shrugged. "Doesn't matter if you were. You're Alpha. You own your decisions and stand by them. You must."
"But I am to protect them and nurture them in all ways."
"You aren't perfect, wolf. You, of all people, know that sometimes the difficult decisions we, as leaders, must make will be the most unpopular decisions. But that doesn't matter. They are still decisions that have to be made by someone. Suck it up and move on."
Vasile chuckled. "Thank you for the advice."
Peri saluted him. "It's what I do."
She left him and Alina and dropped Cypher off before heading back to the veil of her realm. Four pixies awaited her."How is it that you guys weren't in your realm when it went into lockdown?" she asked them before they could begin giving their report.
"Ainsel likes to keep a presence in the human realm so we can let him know what the other supernatural beings are doing," the leader of the group answered.
Peri nodded. "He's a wise king for doing so. So" —she folded her arms across her chest— "what info do you have for me?"
"It isn't good," the smallest one answered.
Peri rolled her eyes. "Good to know I can count on some things to never change. Hit me."
"Word has traveled through some of the trolls that guard the entrances to the In-Between. It seems that there have been more killings of the little humans in the land called Canada. The vampires have grown in numbers while they've been in hiding."
Peri cursed under her breath. "Any idea how many covens in Canada?"
"The trolls like to exaggerate so who knows if they are right, but the rumor is that there are around thirty."
She closed her eyes and shook her head. "That's about thirty too many."
"What are we going to do?"
"Pray that the wolves are eating their Wheaties and that they bring their A game to the rumble."
The pixies frowned. "We do not understand?"
Peri waved them off. "Basically it means we need the wolves to work a miracle."
"What if they cannot defeat the vampires?"
"Then we, my little tiny friends, are—what the humans call—royally screwed."
Chapter 5
"I hurt, so I hurt you. I bleed, so I want you to bleed. I feel betrayed, so I will become the betrayer. Why is it that we treat the ones we love the most, nearly as bad as we treat our enemies?" ~Jen
Decebel stood outside of their bedroom door. It was nothing new for them to fight. It was nothing new for Jennifer to say something in the heat of the moment that she didn't really mean. But he had never before felt that she saw him as weak, as incapable of making the right decisions for their pack and family. He felt as though she'd grabbed him by the balls and successfully neutered him. He was angry, but more than that, he was hurt.
She'd shut the bond down tight. But he could somehow still feel the rage rolling off of his mate through their bedroom door. Decebel usually ran headfirst into an argument with her, but after her harsh words, he found himself hesitant to stand before her criticism again and be found wanting. He listened as she sung to their daughter and knew that it was her way of calming herself. He decided that perhaps, for once, they both needed to cool off before facing off again. At least that was what he told himself was best as he walked away from the door. He didn't examine the fact that he was afraid that if he walked into the room at that moment, he might say some very hurtful things, just because she'd so thoroughly hurt and embarrassed him. Two wrongs didn't make a right. No matter how satisfying it might have been to retaliate, the feeling would have been fleeting.
Jen listened as her mate’s footsteps faded away. Decebel had never walked away from a fight. She deserved it. Her words had been harsh, unkind, and completely out of line, and yet she couldn’t shut herself up. She'd been so angry that he'd chosen not to talk to her about the vampires that she'd just lost it. After so many secrets they'd kept from one another over the past year, so much pain they'd endured because of some delusional need to protect one another from the impossible, still they hadn't learned. They were stronger together.