Oh, he knew she spoke the truth. This would all be over soon, but it wouldn’t be because she had gone anywhere.
“Ashlee, if you leave the Institute I will burn it to the ground and kill every person here until you return. Believe me because I say that with every fiber in my body, no one here will be safe if you leave.” He threw himself against the door that blocked him from Ashlee. A scream of rage tore from his throat when it didn’t budge.
“Excuse me, Ashlee.”
Whose voice was that? Tristan sniffed the air. Parker, one of the elite dominant guards. What was Parker doing here? The man had no business being near Ashlee. He rushed the door again.
“The Aunts have requested your presence on the observation deck.” Ashlee coughed. Was she getting sick? Why did he care?
He heard Ashlee through the door. “The observation deck?”
The roof. Why hadn’t he ever taken the girl on a tour of the building? Oh well, no time for that now that she was soon to be dead. Too bad, really.
She needs to be eliminated.
I know, my Alpha, I’m working on it.
“I will stay and guard Prince Tristan until one of the other Royals can get here.”
Parker still called him Prince Tristan. He would work that to his favor as soon as Ashlee left. Then he’d find her, finish this, stop the pain and get back to things he enjoyed, whatever they might be.
Ashlee stepped through the doors of the observation deck and sucked in her breath. It was an arboretum. Plants of all shapes lined the walls and the ceilings. Exotic flowers with colors she had never seen before, except in dreams, grew to heights above her head. She whirled around in a momentary bliss. The whole room felt peaceful, serene and left a smile on her face.
“Out here, darling girl.”
Ashlee walked towards the sound of Clarinda’s voice. She walked the entire length of the room until she came out the door on the other side. She stepped through it and onto the roof of the Institute. Clarinda and Adeline stood in the center of a stone circle. Ashlee opened her mouth to ask what they wanted but changed her mind. They would tell her when they were ready. Tristan’s soul had given her new insight into the best way to communicate with members of their pack.
Ashlee glanced around at the view that lay out before her. She could see the whole island, the woods followed by the abandoned cottages. The leaves on the trees ranged from purple to orange, and the cold chill told Ashlee the trees would soon lose their colors and become bare in preparation for the winter. Off in the distance, she saw two islands; both appeared uninhabited with no houses or buildings visible on them. Each island couldn’t be more than a mile off the western coast of Westervelt.
“Who owns those two islands?” Ashlee pointed to the landmasses, but the Aunts didn’t even turn around to look at where she indicated.
“We do, of course. Couldn’t have anyone living or working so close to us. It would be dangerous to be discovered.”
Adeline beckoned her and Ashlee joined them inside the stone circle. Anxiety soured her stomach. Ashlee didn’t know if it was from the upcoming trip to Mexico, or because she stood in a stone circle with two women so mystically powerful, they’d managed to resist the primal urge to follow their mates to death for three decades.
“Sister and I have been discussing this problem of the witch. Truthfully, we thought we had eliminated this spell long ago when we put the wards on the island. We didn’t take into account the spell was actually here on the island and not sent into the island from abroad. Your mother could mate with your father with no problems because they did not reside here or ever set foot here together. Tristan and you performed the mating ritual here, so Tristan succumbed.” Adeline’s eyes bore into Ashlee’s hard. The older woman cocked her head to the right as if she thought of something she needed to consider.
Ashlee nodded. “So, if I fail at this, then you will need to clear the island. No one can take their mates here.”
Clarinda shook her head. “Not an option, darling girl. Don’t you understand? No, of course you don’t, how could you? We were wrong. Terribly wrong. We assumed Kendrick had the island cursed. We cleansed the land. There is no curse here anymore. There wasn’t last night when you mated. No, no, we mistook the spell. It was never on the place. It was on the pack. The people themselves. So when Tristan mated with you, he awakened the curse that was already on him, lying dormant all these thirty years.
“But to leave the island? No, dear. This is our home. We have been here for one hundred years. Before that, the stories say our people ran into trouble at an almost constant pace. This is the first peace we have had for a century, and we will not lose it. To remove the spell’s presence from the island was not complicated. We checked on it this morning. The others will be safe here with their mates as soon as the spell is removed from Tristan.”
Ashlee shook her head. “Why? Why will they all not suffer as Tristan did?”
Clarinda raised an eyebrow at her. “Because he’s very important, Ashlee. Or haven’t you figured that out yet either? Tristan’s fate is hinged to the pack. Where he goes, so does everyone else. We had hoped he would realize it by now. But the boy seems to have invested in self-denial and won’t let it go. Perhaps when this is over he will finally see.” Ashlee’s head whirled. What they had just told her, it all suddenly made sense. Michael had never fully assumed the role of Alpha. Why hadn’t he? Tristan thought he would. But he was wrong. Tristan was Alpha. Oh dear god, Tristan was their Alpha and he was caught in a spell that would not only end his life or hers but everyone’s. He was their Alpha and she was his mate.
Only he still had no idea. She’d been resolved to save him from the moment he’d been afflicted, but now she knew she’d walk through the fires of hell to bring him back if that was what he needed. She might not have known her wolf for very long but she could feel her in every pore of her body.
Tristan was their Alpha and they would be strong again.
As long as they both didn’t perish in tragedy.
Ashlee swallowed hard. “You removed the spell from the island. Can you remove it from Tristan now?” Any chance that this could just end and she wouldn’t need to go to Mexico was one she would take.
“No. We’re sorry, dear.” Adeline’s voice was so much more serious than Clarinda.
“You are not stupid, so I suspect you already know what needs to be done to save Tristan. The witch will have to die; that much you have felt. Then a ritual cleansing spell, a very complicated, powerful undertaking will need to be done on Tristan. Even then it will take magic, strong pack-magic with the whole pack working together to fix him. Clarinda and I never had the chance to save anyone who had succumbed to the spell. Clearing an island is one thing, saving a person already inflicted, that is another matter altogether.”
“Can you do a spell that powerful?” Ashlee’s question had both the Aunts making twittering noises that must have been laughter.
“Yes, we can. But the spell will have to be done by you. You are his mate.” Clarinda explained. “And the bad news is, you are nowhere near powerful enough to even attempt the ritual. It would kill you, and then this would all be for naught.”
“Even if we had trained you since you were ten, you’d still not be strong enough,” Adeline finished.
A sense of dread filled Ashlee. She swallowed it away.
“I will have to be strong enough.” There was no other choice. Tristan’s face as he’d writhed on the floor in the hall, the look in his eyes when he’d told her to run, all of the images from before his change filled Ashlee’s mind. He was hers to honor and protect; she could not fail him. “I have to be.”
Adeline smiled. Ashlee took a step backwards from the hardness she saw in a gesture usually saved for happiness or reassurance. “If only it were that simple.”
“We can help you,” Clarinda, always more gentle than her sister, stated. “And we admit that it suits us too. We are tired. But it will be a great burden for you. We are of
two minds as to whether you can handle it.”
“Handle it?” Ashlee suddenly wanted to be somewhere else immediately. She needed to escape. “Look, my plane leaves in six hours.”
“We know that, so we will hurry.”
Ashlee heard thunder crackle in the sky. She looked up. It had been clear and beautiful only moments earlier. Lightning struck the ground in front of her and Ashlee leapt back in terror. She turned to run for the door to the arboretum. Instead she hit the ground, hard. Her hands stung beneath her and she turned on all fours to stare at the Aunts. They were both bathed in white light.
Adeline lifted her arms and the light from her body flew from her and into Ashlee. The power hit Ashlee hard and she screamed in agony. The food in her stomach turned over and she retched on the ground.
“Stop!” She begged, pleaded, anything to make the pain stop.
“We’re sorry, Ashlee, there is no other way. Be a good girl and take care of Tristan.” Ashlee must have passed out then, because she heard nothing else.
9
When Ashlee came to, a fifteen-member band played in her head.
She opened her eyes, but the bright light hurt too much and her hand flew to shield them. Where was she? A little less dazed, she sensed the soft sheets and mattress under her body. She was not on the roof anymore.
“They gave you their power. They’re gone now, but they sacrificed themselves so you would be strong enough.” Theo was with her.
Ashlee squinted at Theo who stood to the left side of her bed. She swallowed. Why did Theo have to be with her when she woke up? She knew, out of everyone, he liked her least. He probably blamed her for Tristan’s condition. Truth was, she held herself accountable for it too. If they had just taken the time to even consider the possibility of the spell still being active, they wouldn’t be in this predicament now. Her heart panged in her chest. If she lived another hundred years, she would always blame herself for this. Ashlee pulled herself up into a sitting position. Her head reeled. She didn’t want Theo looming over her.
The Aunts were dead?
So that was why they’d behaved so strangely. They’d given her their power, which had ended their lives. A pang of regret pierced through her. Ashlee hadn’t even had the chance to tell them goodbye.
Theo cleared his throat. “I don’t know if they’d call it a sacrifice. They’ve wanted to be with their loved ones for a very long time.”
She touched her head and groaned. “I think they could have found a better method to give me what I needed, or at least a less painful one.”
“I’m sorry, perhaps ‘sacrifice’ wasn’t the right word. It was a bit of a shock when the ground started to move and we all heard you scream like you were being murdered. By the time Michael got up to the roof it was too late; they had all but vanished. There was nothing left to hold on to. They just faded away into nothingness. But it’s not your fault and I certainly don’t blame you.”
He didn’t? He could have turned himself into the Easter Bunny and she would have been less surprised. Ashlee stared hard at Theo. The usual gruffness and attitude was absent from his face and his posture. He seemed pretty relaxed.
Ashlee’s throat felt dry, her voice sounded tight. “I’m sorry they’re gone. I only knew them two days, but I liked them very much.”
Theo rose and crossed the room to the dresser that held a stainless steel water pitcher. “You know everything they knew. Their powers are yours. I haven’t heard of anyone doing that for three hundred years.” He handed her the glass he’d filled. “I’ve been a little hard on you. I was afraid when Tristan met you…afraid of what that meant for the pack. The spell killed everyone thirty years ago, but it feels like yesterday to me, and I was afraid that it would all start again. I’m sorry if I turned out to be the Cassandra of the pack. I assure you, it was not my intention. I would rather have been wrong.” Theo paused for a second, his brownish-blond eyebrows pointed downwards. Ashlee was struck by how much Theo’s insecurity reminded her of Tristan, then she remembered Theo and Tristan had been born only a year apart, so they must have been raised almost as twins.
“You were worried about your brother. I understand.” Ashlee smiled. She looked around the room for a clock. What time was it? Had she missed her flight to Cancun?
“You leave in about an hour for the airport.” Theo must have read her signals. His eyes lit with admiration before he lowered them in a submissive gesture. “You didn’t run. I told you to run when Tristan attacked, but you stayed and talked him down, spoke to him and reasoned with him when it should have been impossible. Now you’re running off to face our father and his witch. I think you’re the bravest woman I’ve ever met and I’m proud to call you sister.”
Ashlee’s eyes filled with unexpected tears. She didn’t need Tristan’s soul to tell her Theo was not a man who expressed emotion easily or trusted others with his feelings. She wasn’t going to let any of them down. She would bring Tristan back.
Theo laughed. “Gabriel and Cullen have been arguing all day about who is going with you and your dad to Mexico. They can’t agree, so they’re both going. Michael wants to go too but we won’t let him. He’s our interim Alpha.”
“He needs to do the ceremony.” Ashlee knew what the Alpha ceremony entailed; with the Aunts’ knowledge, she felt like she’d witnessed Tristan’s father’s personally.
Theo nodded. “He will. I believe in him.”
“Can you do something for me, Theo?”
Theo nodded, no hesitation, no hedging. He didn’t even ask her what she wanted. That was how he treated his family. She felt honored. “Send Rex up to the arboretum; I need herbs. I’m going to disguise my smell so your father doesn’t know I’m a wolf. I know how to do that now. I’ll try to do Gabriel and Cullen too, but he knows them; he doesn’t know me.
“Then take the ferry to the shore, get in my car, and drive to New Jersey. Go to my mother and demand that she and my sister come here to the island. The spell that I will need to do on Tristan requires one leader and two other mystics. Two other female shifters. The Aunts knew this. They must have known I would need my family. My mother will object—she doesn’t want Summer here yet—but there is no choice. If my mother refuses, go and get Summer yourself, or at least threaten to. She goes to Columbia
University in New York City.”
“I’ll be back with both of them before you return.” Theo’s eyes held resolve. “Good, then its time I go witch hunting, don’t you think?”
The flight from Portland to Cancun was a blur. Every time Ashlee closed her eyes, she saw Tristan as she’d last seen him, on the floor writhing in pain. Or she heard his voice, so cold and unfeeling, when he’d yelled and threatened her through the door of his cell.
The flight she’d booked stopped in Newark, New Jersey, where she picked up her father at their house; he fortunately remembered her passport. Theo, traveling by car, hadn’t yet arrived to pick up her mother, and Ashlee decided not to illuminate that fact for her father. He’d be pissed. He didn’t like people ordering Victoria around. Ashlee smiled. Scott wasn’t a wolf, but she could see now why her mother’s wolf had fallen for him.
Daddy. Family. Love. Her wolf stretched out inside of her, content to be with her father even as she worried endlessly about Tristan.
Ashlee stood beside her father outside of the Cancun airport. The heat was not the only thing making her sweat. Cullen and Gabriel had waited inside of the airport, and the plan was for them to follow a few minutes behind, and break through IPAG’s security after Ashlee and her father got inside. This would mean they needed to somehow get through the front gate; both Gabriel and Cullen had assured her they were more than capable of handling this, although both had been vague about the details of their plan.
The driver IPAG sent had run to retrieve his car after he informed them that it would take them an hour to get to where they were going.
“You were so quiet on the plane, Ash.” It was the first time she and her fa
ther had spoken in an hour.
“I’m sorry, Dad. We really appreciate your help with this. You’re placing yourself in danger.”
“You’re my baby, what did you think I would do?” Scott sighed. “When your mother told me she would not outlive me, that she would die when I did, it all seemed very romantic. The first time I saw her wolf, I was awestruck. I never could have become all the things I’ve become without your mother. She pushed me, in the best possible way.
She never let me settle for mediocrity. She has always been my strength, my life.”
Ashlee smiled. Her mother knew how to push, even if Ashlee didn’t always find it to be ‘in the best possible way.’ Her father had always been the heart of the family, the gentle one. “Even before I knew you were mates, I found the love you have for each other to be inspirational.”
“This boy, Tristan,” her father began.
“He’s about fifty years older than you are, Dad.” Ashlee laughed.
“Regardless, he wants to marry my daughter.” His voice sounded rough. “That boy Tristan, if he dies, you die too, right?”
“Now that we are mated, yes. Either that or I’m doomed to live a half-life, never complete, always alone. Never happy.” The Aunts had felt that way. She could feel their pain now inside of her. She pushed it down; she didn’t need the faces of the men they’d loved haunting her on this trip. She had enough burdens with just Tristan on her mind.
“It doesn’t seem so romantic now,” her father grumbled. “And you’re sure there’s nothing medical science can do to help him? I could load him up on Valium, drive him down to Bergen Pines Institute, and let Dr. Lewis have a look at him. He’ll come up with a good cocktail of psycho-pharmaceuticals and maybe it’ll take care of the problem.”
Ashlee laughed, one large blunt hiccup followed. “No, Daddy, but thank you for offering. And he doesn’t want to marry me. For all intents and purposes, we are married already.”
Scott shook his head and pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe his sweat drenched forehead. “I’m just human, Ash. This man hasn’t come to me, hasn’t asked my permission, and I haven’t walked you down the aisle so, no, you are not married yet.”