Sacrifice of Love (The Grey Wolves #7)(11)

“Oh dear.” Sally blew out an exhausted breath.
“I think that’s going to top the understatements of all understatements,” Jacque told them as she pointed them in the direction of her own mate who was standing so still he didn’t even look like he was breathing, but his clawed hand gripping the door frame was the damning evidence that his own control was nearly gone.
“So where are we meeting and what time?” Jen spoke up and drew all the females’ attention away from the ticked-off males.
“Vasile said we can take the pack jet and it will be ready to go in two hours,” Alina told them.
Cynthia rubbed her hands together and was suddenly in all business mode. “Alright then, we have two hours to pack and calm the guys down enough so that they might not tear the mansion apart while we are gone.”
They each again glanced over their shoulders and Jen let out a snort. “Yeah, I don’t think anything we say or do is going to calm this bunch down. Look,” she pointed, “Vasile has Sorin up against the wall by his throat.”
Elle’s eyes widened and took a step in her mate’s direction, but Alina stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm.
“That is between Alpha and pack member. Do not interfere; you will only make it worse.”
Elle’s lips pursed and it was obvious that she didn’t want to listen to Alina. But after one last glance, she turned away.
The girls all agreed to meet at the front doors of the mansion in two hours whether their males were calmed down or not. Jen pointed out that maybe there should be some sort of signal if they were detained, “by ropes or something equally as fun,” she told them. They all shook their heads at her. With audible groans, they headed towards their rooms.
Jen turned to look at Decebel who hadn’t appeared to have moved from the spot where he had announced his decision. She narrowed her eyes at him and a snarl worthy of an alpha female ground out through her lips.
“Our room. Now.”
Decebel flinched under his mate's stare and the words that she pushed through their bond, the one he was trying to close off, tore at his heart. That pain would be nothing compared to the anguish he was about to endure because he was doing something that went against everything in his nature. His wolf was in an absolute rage and Decebel knew that if he let his wolf have any amount of control, he would grab Jennifer and never let her out of his sight. The idea of their mate and their child so far away was like a knife ripping through his organs, twisting this way and that, destroying any function they might have had. And this was only the beginning.
Chapter 6
“Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, there is no right choice in a situation. You can go over it and over it in your mind, looking at every angle, and there is simply nothing you can change. I would rather have her by my side, but then she would be in perilous danger. So I will send her home, but then she is out of my reach if something does go wrong. I must choose the lesser of two evils, but I’m beginning to wonder if even that will be too much a price to pay.” ~Cypher“Enter,” Cypher called over his shoulder at the sound of the knock. He was attempting to sound civil but there was nothing in him at the moment that felt civil. Lilly was gone. He had sent her away. And so now here he stood on the brink of some sort of war with his brother and no mate to tell him all would be well. Whether a man knew it or not, he needed a woman at his back: someone to remind him that all is not lost, someone to show him the sliver of light that is creeping its way through the dark, someone to hold him, even when he didn’t realized he needed to be held.
“She is gone,” Gerick, the general of his army, spoke softly behind him.
Cypher bit back the snide comment that was on the tip of his tongue. It wasn’t Gerick’s fault that Lilly was gone. It was nobody’s fault but his own.
“I know, but thank you for telling me.”
He knew that Gerick wanted to say more, but was not sure if it was his place to do so.
“What is it, Gerick?” Cypher finally asked as a loud sigh gusted from his lungs.
“Was it really necessary to send her away?” Gerick was attempting to keep the accusation out of his voice, but he wanted his king to be fully aware of the disapproval. “It isn’t just you who feels her absence.”
Cypher closed his eyes as he thought about the past couple of months that Lilly had been with him and his people. They had grown to love her nearly as much as he did. She was kind and understanding, willing to just listen when someone needed to talk. She had definitely brought something back to their kind that had been missing, compassion and hope. Cypher never thought that he would find a mate, and his people were convinced that they would eventually fade away as the magic continued to fade from the human realm. Cypher wasn’t sure if that was what would happen, but he understood what they meant. They felt insignificant, without purpose and unsure of what to do while they watched their king flounder his way through his existence, trying to make sense of what he needed to do next.
Humans simply did not understand the importance of a mate in the supernatural community. A mate was more than a spouse, more than someone you just spent your life with, or procreated with. A mate in the supernatural world was the completion of something that was not whole. A mate filled a space that no one else could.
Lilly was that person for Cypher. She was his, and through him, she was his people’s as well.
“Gerick,” his voice was soft as his head fell forward and a rush of air left his lungs, “I would not have sent her away if I had thought there was another option.”
“I know that. But by sending her away you have brought fear into the hearts of our people.”
“They should be afraid!” Cypher snarled as he whipped around and his eyes bore into Gerick’s. “My brother has nothing good left in him. Anything worthy in him died with his woman, and all that is left is an empty shell, yearning to be filled with the blood, sorrow, and grief of others. They should be afraid,” his last words come out in a near whisper. 
Cypher knew that his words were cruel and that his anger was misplaced, but that did not help him keep it under control.
“I will be leaving in a little while to go to the Romanian pack. I’m going alone. You will need to keep an eye on the perimeter. The blackness in the air hasn’t grown any thicker, but it has not abated at all either,” Cypher’s voice had lost some of the edge and he was beginning to lock up the emotions that were threatening to consume him. He didn’t have time to pine over his mate. He had an enemy to defeat and he could not defeat him by standing in this throne room whining about things he could not change.
Lilly was gone, at least for now. Once the threat of his brother had been neutralized he would go and get her back. He only hoped that her heart did not move on while he fought to keep her safe and alive.
Decebel closed the door quietly behind him as he walked into the room Jennifer and he shared at the Romanian pack mansion. He watched quietly as Jennifer went into the closet and began bringing out clothes and laying them on the bed. She didn’t look at him or even acknowledge that he was in the room, so he waited. He didn’t have any idea what he was going to say to her, but he was terrified that as soon as he opened his mouth it was going to be to beg her to stay and plead for her forgiveness. He had hurt her so much in the past month, and he knew that she would only continue to hurt. What choice do I have he growled to himself. He wanted to save the life of their child, and he didn’t want to put Jennifer in a place where she had to choose between him or their baby. This was the only solution he could come up with, and he knew Jennifer would tell him it sucked and to come up with something new, but he was fresh out of new.
“Are you going to tell me why you are okay with letting your pregnant wife fly halfway around the world with a woman who is being hunted by a crazy warlock?” her voice was calm and even.
Decebel took a step towards her but she held up her hand to stop him.
“Answer me, B,” she told him firmly.
“I love you, Jennifer. I love you more than any man has a right to love. That is all you need to know.” He tried to implore her with his eyes to just trust him. But could he really ask that of her when he knew he was planning on ending his life without telling her.
“As romantic and fuzzy as that sounds, it’s a crap answer Dec and you know it.” Jen grabbed her suitcase from the closet and started putting the clothes she had laid on her bed into it. She let out a dry laugh that said she was anything but humored. “I mean seriously, after all we’ve been through together? After all we’ve done together, you honestly believe I will just take what you’re telling me and act like I have my head shoved so far up my butt that I can’t smell the shit you have spewing from your lips?”
His eyes widened at her language. He was use to her being crass, but even for her this was intense.
“Yeah, I said it,” she threw her arms out wide, “what are you going to do about it, Alpha? Tell me another sweet nothing and hope that I choke on it so I can ignore the fact that my mate is shutting me out and shipping me and his unborn child off to another country without so much as a ‘bye babe, hope our baby lives through delivery.’ Come on, Dec. What the hell is that?!”